The Age of Virtual Learning?

By Carol Geary Schneider

"My English teacher takes a long time to return papers," explained my son patiently when I asked about the verdict on his latest assignment. "He has 90 kids in his sections, and only 15 of them are any good at writing. The others, even a lot of the kids in the honors program, are pretty bad. So it takes him a long time to do all the comments and give us advice."

These days, most high school graduates—about 72 percent—will go to college within a year or two of leaving school. And many of them, like my son's peers, will still be "pretty bad" at writing when they get there. Their teachers' best efforts aside, most will need a lot more practice, feedback, and mentoring before they can successfully use writing as a tool for analysis and persuasion.

That's what higher education is supposed to accomplish. With practice, over time, students move from apprenticeship to accomplishment. They develop higher-order capacities and the ability to use knowledge in context—or...