Cogency without Context

There's a disturbing move afoot: Removing the vital call and reply learning dyad between instructor and student.

We learn by exchanging ideas in real time, not by filling in choices in an online multiple answer exam.

We now have new textbooks being pushed into higher education that support the semiotic without the semantic -- which creates disjointed cogency in what should be a unifying context:

Edward H. Stanford, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education, said in an interview that the new e-textbooks were developed based on an ethnographic investigation of student study habits done by the company. He said the company learned that students often do not study in a linear fashion, but instead jump around in the text, whether in print or electronic textbooks. "One kid in a biology class said, 'I don't read the chapter. I just look at the art. If I understand the art, I go on to the next art. If I don't understand the art, I read,'" said Mr. Stanford. "When he said that, it made perfect sense to me, but until he said it, I had never thought about it that way."

In response, the company added more ways for students to jump around in their e-textbooks. From any homework problem, for instance, students can click to the relevant part of the text, or can jump to a part of their professor's recorded lecture that touched on that concept (if the professor makes use of that feature).

But the selling point to professors will most likely be the software's ability to grade student homework automatically. At a professor's request, the new e-textbooks can present a student with homework problems online, which are graded, with the scored work sent to both the student and the professor.

Jay Chakrapani, vice president for product development for McGraw-Hill Higher Education's digital group, said the system is designed to adapt to each student's progress, skipping to harder questions if the student aces the easy ones. "It's almost like a personal trainer or personal coach, constantly steering you to assessment items that probe you on the areas you're weak."

This McGraw-Hill scheme is the beginning of the end of a necessary and memeingful education.

Passing the class is now the only merit that matters -- crafting comprehension in context by building a delicate cogency between instructor and student has been rendered meaningless in its purposeful destruction by convenience.