Editorial: UCLA should add online classes to accommodate higher enrollment
By Editorial Board
March 10, 2016 12:00 a.m.
UCLA is planning to add 750 more students for the upcoming school year, and how it accommodates them is going to become increasingly important.
Vice Chancellor Steve Olsen said to mitigate the addition of incoming students, one of the upcoming priorities of the university is “to improve the quality and the number of seats in the classrooms.”
Multiple lecture halls will be renovated in the summer, including Moore 100 and a couple of the Young Court of Sciences rooms, said Olsen. Moore 100 currently has a seating capacity of 419, and Young CS 50 holds 352. The university will use its own resources, without state funding, to complete these projects.
Improving the quality of these run-down classrooms is valuable, but expanding lecture halls to fit more seats is a step in the wrong direction. Instead, the university should focus on expediting the expansion of online and hybrid courses to accommodate the growing class size.
Having so many students in one room is not conducive to learning. Large lecture halls hinder active discussions and prevent students from fully understanding the lecture content due to poor visual and auditory conditions.
Though online classes have faced some controversy, when properly implemented they actually have numerous advantages that help mediate the issues caused by overcrowded classrooms. For instance, online classes allow students to replay lectures and see what the professor is writing on the board.
Online classes also provide a host of other benefits, such as added flexibility. Online classes help students avoid class conflicts, so they can take more of the classes they desire or participate in extracurricular activities.
The pivotal factor however, is that online classes, when managed correctly, have all the same advantages as non-online equivalents. Making sure that online classes have the right characteristics should be the real focus of administrators.
All online classes should include engaging components in order to make courses more effective. This includes turning almost all online classes into flipped courses that include classroom components. These classroom meetings do not have to be weekly, but they should take place at least few times a quarter to allow for discussion and debate.
Additionally, online classes should include a live chat office hour with professors and teaching assistants. Students can choose to watch the lectures during this time period so that when questions arise, there can be a fruitful discussion.
Finally, there should be an interactive component within each lecture. For example, videos can pause every 15 minutes to answer some questions or to complete an activity in order to engage students.
There are 38 online courses now offered at UCLA. Additionally, there are 28 online cross-campus courses since 2014 that have been taught by other UC schools that allow UCLA students to partake in them.
Increasing these offerings is expected to be a slow process. Only 10 more online classes are expected to be added before next year, said Janice Reiff, chair of the steering committee for online teaching and learning.
But given the ever-increasing student body, UCLA should actively take steps to expedite all plans regarding adding online classes and avoid spending money on expanding already huge lecture halls.
