As the Director of the Southern Oregon Wine Institute, I have found that there are many student who are capable of learning the science of Viticulture and Enology in an interactive, online classroom.

The Southern Oregon Wine Institute is a division of Umpqua Community College (Roseburg, Oregon) that is engaged in developing and delivering an instructional program in Viticulture and Enology to serve students from a seven county area in southern Oregon. We serve Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Coos, Curry, Klamath and southern Lane counties. Students are taught in an Online/Hybrid method with lecture components delivered at a distance in on-demand, web-based formats while the laboratory components are delivered in face-to-face sessions at UCC and local vineyards and wineries.

Our college is not alone in approaching today’s college students through online instruction. Chemeketa Community College (Salem, Oregon) is developing online curriculum to serve the needs of a consortium of colleges in Oregon.

Many students who are place-bound and would find it difficult to commute to a regional institution are accepting of this form of instruction. Some of my student can remain employed in the wine industry while advancing their educational goals.

There are some potential students who will perform better in a traditional face-to-face classroom. To accommodate these students, there should be concurrent classes offered in both teaching modes.

I suggest that there is a place for innovation in higher education. With proper guidance, colleges can offer innovation in their teaching methods to make the science of Viticulture and Enology approachable to all who wish to study these subjects.

The only thing a professor can ever do is give a person access to information and give them some help when they get stuck. I don’t think anyone ever taught me anything. I had to learn it for myself; the result of asking myself a question and finding the answer. I would say by today’s standards my enology professors were all “one way, one size fits all”, but I never had a professor who wouldn’t answer a question, give some direction, and help me probe deeper.

The last thing we need is for 50% of class time spent listening to students who think they have something interesting to contribute.

The old system of education has value to a point. What universities will have to focus on is providing supplemental sources of information that can allow students to explore their roles further in that study. How’s this for a simple change–have digital recordings of all lectures. Allow students to tag certain sections of the lecture with questions and comments along the timeline. At any point a student can stop the lecture and answer a question/continue a comment. The professor can also get involved linking to supplemental materials or expressing their own expertise. All of a sudden the conversation is no longer bounded by the time we have in class and there is an archive which allows us to easily follow the flow of information.

Yet whatever the method, inevitably successful education is decided by the drive of the student to learn.