互联网能否令商学院消亡？

    但在线教育在另外一个重要方面的破坏性，可能超过了许多学术领导者的想象。如果说互联网正在引发一场高等教育革命尤其是商学院的革命，那就应该是迫使人们思考如何使用课堂，而非是否需要课堂。到目前为止，课堂时间都被用于讲座，对教学读物进行阐述说明，但学生本来可以提前完成这项工作。如今，同样的讲座可以提前上传到互联网上供学生课前观看，而如何使用课堂时间的问题将迫使教师们深入研究教学法。未来的发展趋势可能是将课堂变成一个师生协作的空间，而随着教学人员对教学法的研究日益深入，未来将会出现丰富多彩的课堂学习模式。哥伦比亚商学院（Columbia Business School）的指导原则是，将在线技术作为课堂教学的补充，在课堂上进行综合案例讨论，而不是取代课堂教学。

    因此，与许多人的预测不同，高等教育在线革命的影响力或许更大，但也可能更小：作为新教学法诞生的推动力量，它将产生巨大的影响；而将它作为顶级商学院和大学的存在危机，它的破坏力又要小得多。正如在YouTube时代人们依旧在听广播一样，通过顶级商学院的课堂获得MBA仍有极高的价值，尽管人们在象牙塔外获取信息的能力，要远远超过史上任何时候。而在天花乱坠的宣传与焦虑过后，我们会发现，互联网并没有杀死商学院课堂。

    本文作者格伦•哈伯德是哥伦比亚商学院院长。他之前曾任乔治•W•布什总统的经济顾问委员会（Council of Economic Advisers）主席。（财富中文网）

    翻译：刘进龙/汪皓

    But in an important respect, disruptive forces are larger than many academic leaders imagine. If the Internet is causing a revolution in higher education, and in business schools in particular, it’s in prompting a discussion about how we use classrooms, not whether we need classrooms. Until recently, classroom time could be used to provide a lecture meant to elucidate the readings students would have done beforehand. With the ability to upload that same lecture to the Internet for pre-class viewing, the question of how to use classroom time is forcing faculty members to engage in a deep examination of pedagogy. The trend is toward allowing the classroom to be a space for collaboration, but as faculties engage more with the learning sciences, I expect that a rich array of models for classroom learning will emerge. At Columbia, the guiding principle is to use online capabilities to complement in-class teaching with integrated case discussions, not replace it.

    So the online revolution in higher education will be both bigger and smaller than people think: big as a driver of new teaching methodology; small as an existential crisis for the best business schools and universities. Just as people still listen to the radio in a YouTube age, there is much value in obtaining an MBA in the classrooms of the best schools, even as information becomes more accessible outside of the ivory tower than at any time in history. And after all of the hype and anxiety, we will see that the Internet did not kill the B-school classroom.

    Glenn Hubbard is Dean of Columbia Business School. Previously, he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.