Distance learning a losing tactic for advanced physics

I was very dismayed to learn that some US universities are putting such a low priority on fundamental science that they are pooling students into “distance learning” for upper-level physics coursework. Now is the time to put resources into undergraduate physics programs, not to withdraw them. This country is at an all-time low for US citizens earning PhDs from its own graduate programs in physics and engineering.

Physics is the most difficult academic subject to study, and few students have both the skills and the willingness to work hard enough to succeed in it. Getting through freshman-level physics, although challenging, is a walk in the park compared with passing upper-level physics, let alone doing well in it.

Those students who make it into upper-level coursework have earned the right to a solid program. According to “Small Programs Survive by Pooling Students” ( Physics Today, September 2005, page 31 ), it is at this point when the most basic resources, such as professors to speak with in person and lectures to attend in person, are being cast off. The apparent reason for the pooling of students, from the bean-counters’ perspective, is to save money, since some states will not fund courses whose enrollment drops below a certain threshold.

Distance learning is a prescription for the death of high-level science and technology, for the following reasons: Students need the physical presence of professors; professors need to observe students directly in order to judge their needs and their understanding of the material; and faculty need to keep their teaching skills honed through regular opportunities to teach upper-level physics courses. If upper-level courses are shared among institutions, professors will be teaching their specialties only once every four or more years; without practice, professors will see the deterioration of their skills and their effectiveness as teachers.

Administrators must understand that many fewer students have the ability to learn physics compared with those who do well in the humanities. If we want to retain the few students who can—and choose to—study physics, then we must provide them with at least the minimum resources, including professors in the flesh, real instead of virtual lectures, and all the help they need to succeed.

Since the US has a great need to bolster science, we should be putting everything we can into making programs better, not worse. It is my opinion and that of the colleagues I’ve spoken to that upper-level distance learning courses will end up destroying our programs in physics, not saving them. If our nation wants to improve science academics, universities have to bite the bullet, hire the best faculty, and see the lean times through. Otherwise, the world will see no new science and technology coming from the US during this century.