Then you can connect this with residence halls, so that members of these sets have a large number of things in common, with all of them focusing on some academic experience. That's what we're ultimately aiming for here. Such a system, he says, will help the university to develop new ways of teaching and to improve learning, which will no longer be confined to a classroom for one or two hours several days each week at the same time for four months. We've got new technologies now, and it's time to see how they can be used to improve the quality of teaching. In addition to improving instruction here, the changes eventually could allow U.C.L.A. to become a major player in distance learning, Mr. Copenhaver says.
Many professors say it it is obvious that something in education is broken.
He is one of several professors here who have developed learning tools using information technologies and have used them in the classroom to help such students catch up. This lets students who might be unfamiliar with basic concepts quickly pick them up, with no embarrassment. About 15,000 U.C.L.A. students use those tools each year to study biology, chemistry, and physics, among other subjects. But the real tools of science are very expensive. The computer lets us give students, in a very inexpensive way, the tools that let them learn for themselves, which is the only way they'll ever understand science.