Pandemic Elicits Different Theories, Outlooks on Education Methods

At 8:40 a.m., a mindfulness coach at a private preschool in Miami used Zoom to greet toddlers lounging on carpets, beds and couches at home. Their faces lit up when she sang and said she loved them.

At 8 a.m. in Nashville, Tennessee, charter school teachers met via Zoom while their principal beamed them onto Facebook Live. He reminded students to fill out the daily online survey about their well-being. "Do you feel safe at home?" is a question teachers monitor closely.

At 8:30 a.m. in a Milwaukee suburb, high...

As the coronavirus pandemic forces schools and college campuses to go online, the delivery model of education — largely unchanged for centuries — has suddenly been disrupted.

This may seem like the acceleration of a permanent shift toward online learning, but I have my doubts. In fact, economics tells us that technology will make in-person education more valuable than ever.

At the moment, teachers from kindergarten through graduate school are struggling to take their classes online, and the initial results are, understandably, spotty. But the longer this mass experiment continues,...