A UMass Boston Online Professor’s Inside Look at Distance Learning
Posted on November 6, 2009 by Jennifer Brady
This guest post was written by Marvin Antonoff, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Boston campus.
In response to the critical need of energy for our industrial society, I’ve designed and taught Physics 134, Energy for the Future, an online course intended to provide students with an appreciation of the current situation regarding energy sources. The current means of supplying energy to industrial societies are not sustainable. The earth’s petroleum reserves are being consumed at rates which will lead to severe resource reductions in the next few decades. Unchecked burning of fossil fuels threatens permanent damage to the environment. Fundamental changes will be required if we are to avert the looming crises in energy supplies, the possibility of resource wars and environmental degradation.
In my course we consider our current dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear fission and examine alternative renewable sources of energy, including: solar, wind, hydro, ocean, geothermal, biomass, synfuels and nuclear fusion. We discuss the scientific and technological issues involved in emerging technologies, such as: the hydrogen economy, electric vehicles, fuel cells, photovoltaic cells, and “green buildings.” Designed for a general audience, the course addresses an urgent challenge facing our industrial society: providing energy for a sustainable future.
My goal for the course is for students to acquire a formative knowledge upon which to evaluate the options for meeting our needs for energy in the future.
I’ve been pleased with the level of student interest in the course. At registration time, when the enrollment maximum has been reached, I’ve always had students requesting special permission to enroll. For most of the recent semesters, the course enrollment has approached 35.
I have found the students in the course to be a rather interesting group of people. Although most come from the Boston area, some have been located in other parts of the U.S. Some of the students have taken the course from abroad; I’ve had students from Germany, France, Italy and India.
I’ve become aware of the extent to which online courses give students who are unable to take face-to-face courses the opportunity to continue their education. One of my students had a neurological disease which kept her almost totally housebound. Her illness interrupted her work toward a degree at one of the colleges in the middle of the State. After several years, while still in recovery, she decided to resume her studies and enrolled in my course. (She was a wonderful student.) Another student was a carpenter with a wife and young child. He and his wife had jobs and shared child care at home. He explained to me that taking an online course, logging in and working at times of his convenience, was the only way he could continue his work toward a degree.
The student ages have ranged from late teens to over sixty. Some of the older students have turned out to be venture capitalists, at least one of whom learned about the course from one of his employees who had taken the course.
For all these positive feelings I’ve had about teaching Physics 135, I’ve found that it is the most demanding teaching I have ever done—spending hours every day on the computer—and in some ways the least gratifying. It’s always more pleasing to me to be able to share enlightening moments with my students. That’s the downside.
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DEAR pROFESSOR ANTONOFF. wHAT A JOY TO READ OF YOUR COURSE STATEMENT OF INTENT. I(WE) HAVE JOYFULLY FOLLOWED YOUR CAREER, STARTING AT cORNELL U, SO MANY YEARS AGO. I AM, TODAY FORWARDING YOUR DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE AND THE NATURE OF YOUR ON-LINE STUDY PROGRAM TO PROFRESSOR EMERITUS JEFF CAMHI OF CORNELL AND LATELY OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM. HE IS WELL ALONG, OR RECENTLY COMPLETED A BOOK ON THE NATURE OF ‘EXTENSION TEACHING’ IN THE 21ST CENTURY.
WILL ALSO SEND IT ON TO EMERITUS PROFESSOR ARTHUR LIEBERMAN ,ALSO A CORNELL EXPAT, AND MORE RECENTLY OF HAIFA UNIVERSITY. HE IS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES HERE IN ISRAEL.
SORRY THAT I WAS UNABLE TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG, EARLIER; I’VE WAITED ANXIOUSLY TO GET A MORE COMPLETE PICTURE OF YOUR ( & UMASS ) ON-LINE TEACHING. WARMLY, REUVEN KAUFMAN