- eCampus News - https://www.ecampusnews.com -

At Virginia Tech, computers help solve a math class problem

There are no professors in Virginia Tech’s largest classroom, only a sea of computers and red plastic cups, reports the Washington Post. In the Math Emporium [1], the computer is king, and instructors are reduced to roving guides. Lessons are self-paced, and help is delivered “on demand” in a vast, windowless lab that is open 24 hours a day because computers never tire. A student in need of human aid plants a red cup atop a monitor. The Emporium is the Wal-Mart of higher education, a triumph in economy of scale and a glimpse at a possible future of computer-led learning. Eight thousand students a year take introductory math in a space that once housed a discount department store. Four math instructors, none of them professors, lead seven courses with enrollments of 200 to 2,000. It sounds like the antithesis of the collegiate ideal—a journey of learning shared by students and faculty. But Virginia Tech students pass introductory math courses at a higher rate now than 15 years ago, when the Emporium was built. And research has found the teaching model trims per-student expense by more than one-third, vital savings for public institutions with dwindling state support.

Read the full story here [2].