Before I continue, I'd like to explain why this model uses direct instruction as a last resort. I'm a firm believer that vocational education should reflect the

Before I continue, I'd like to explain why this model uses direct instruction as a last resort. I'm a firm believer that vocational education should reflect the reality of the workforce. The reality of the workforce is that information & experience always comes with a price tag (except for open source, which doesn't count because that's more like a student group study session) and, if you solving a really complex problem, then while people can provide advice, there's probably no one who can tell you how to solve the problem step by step in the first place. > I agree that your proposal is different than a liberal arts college. But why does that matter? A lot of other school are also different than a liberal arts school. I feel like I addressed this when I answered your question on "why focus on the differences to a liberal arts college, which is the most dissimilar to your proposal, instead of the more similar technical and vocational colleges?" > "It's unusual, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency-based_learning#Scho.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency-based_learning#Scho.... list a handful of colleges which support it." I'm aware that there are other institutions using competency based learning systems. I consider that fact to actually be in my favor because it suggests that my timing isn't radically early, like WebVan or Google Glass. I'm also aware that none of these institutions are taking over the education industry by storm and I have to admit ignorance as to the specific barriers for these institutions, although I suspect a lack of proper marketing and designing for scale. > "But why will schools switch to what appears to be a significantly more expensive system? How do you reassure people that the extra cost is worthwhile?" Would you care to explain why you think it would be so much more expensive? I went to a small state university in Texas and spent approx. $40k for my B.S. in Comp Sci. I can't imagine my model being anywhere near as expensive. My model cuts out every learning objective that is not related to specific occupational roles. So there's no requirement for any physical science mastery (I had to take two courses in a natural science) unless you're going to be a scientist. There's no requirement for history or political science unless you're going to be a historian or a politician. Trigonometry, calculus, and more advanced mathematics can all be condensed into a "Mathematical Reasoning" requirement due to the fact that mathematics is basically a framework with use rules that remain the same no matter how complicated or abstract the math gets. When you add the fact that we will encourage people to learn from freely available resources and try to limit instruction to teaching people how to learn (Side Note: The first brand name I gave this model was MetaU because the curriculum is built on a foundation of metalearning) as much as possible, I like to think that the end result is a ton of savings for the consumers themselves. > "But why will schools switch to what appears to be a significantly more expensive system? If the colleges treat the external advisers like crap, and [...] what's the downside?" First off, I have no intention of selling this model to schools. I've seen just how slowly some of these schools embrace change. Glaciers are known to move faster. I intend to create an institution, disrupt the industry, and cause as many of these schools to have to close their doors as I can. As for your question regarding a hypothetical situation in which advisors are treated like crap, if such a situation ever occurred in my institution, a lot of people would get fired real fast. > "If students already do a poor job in estimating teacher effectiveness (based on subsequent performance and career success), then why should we believe they do any better at judging curriculum details? New College of Florida is one where more of these decisions are placed in the hands of the students, but it is not completely hands-off." ...and we wouldn't be either. The learning objectives for the role the student seeks will provided by industry and the student must meet those requirements to receive official recognition for having completed the program. But, ultimately, students are responsible for their own education. Nothing can change that fact. Therefore, this model reflects that reality by placing the responsibility for nearly all decisions on the student while simultaneously bringing all available resources to the student's attention. > "As for "I suspect that most of the industry experts won't be freelancers, but rather will be employed by one of the corporations with which we have a strategic partnership"; do note that you have changed your position. You previously said 'the current model is that industry experts would be treated as independent contractors.' These are not really compatible." First off, the latter statement is in the context of the student-advisor relationship and the former statement is in the context of institution-advisor relationship. In addition, the "will be employed by one of the corporations with which we have a strategic partnership" clause does not mean that the industry expert will be employed by our strategic partner solely to advise our students. While student advising and working on corporate projects simultaneously may be too much to demand of an expert, I wouldn't want to see industry experts focused on advising for longer than a few months before returning their focus to industry. I've seen too many cases of "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" in my lifetime already and will seek to do everything I can to make sure we don't encourage that idiom's propogation. > "If they are employees of a company, will the goal of the industry expert be to provide a student the best education for the student, or the best education for the corporation?" As I said earlier, advisors would be held to the standard of student satisfaction. > "When there is a conflict between the two goals, how often might the industry expert suffer negative employment consequences for supporting the student instead of the expert's employer? In the current system, the teacher's goals are much more aligned to the students goals, so this is less of an issue." First off, while there may not be the possibility of similar conflicts of interest under the current system, I strongly disagree that teachers' goals are anywhere close to aligned with the goals of students today. Secondly, I'm having a really hard time envisioning a conflict of interest between student and advisor's employer. I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but when you take the fact that our strategic partners (basically any corporation serving on the accreditation board and providing us with industry experts to serve as advisors) get the first chance to offer our graduates positions, the fact that most of our students will be joining our program to be hired by one of our strategic partners, and the fact that any detected manipulation on the part of the advisor's employer will either result in the student choosing a different advisor, the advisor being dropped from the program, or even the advisor's employer being dropped from the program... I'd like to think that none of our strategic partners would see a benefit in meddling. That said, I'm not sure why or how corporations might attempt to meddle or how we would detect it, but we would certainly seek to incentivize all parties involved to align their goals as much as possible. > "Regarding "Here are some links where you can find information on industry best practices" - that's certainly not "deep personalization", which is what you lead with." The "deep personalization" isn't due to advisement. It's due to the fact that students implement project of their own design at their own pace. > "There are of course classes where attendance is important eg, discussion-oriented classes, lab classes, and music ensemble classes; I don't think it's unreasonable to require a nursing student be present on the day the class practices drawing blood. These sorts of classes, which you'll note includes career oriented classes like nursing, cannot easily be handled by your proposed system." First off, like you noted, my system is competency based, so there are no classes. ...and while you're right that activities that depend on bodily interaction (Pretty much any healthcare or human performance procedural mastery requirement) or machine interaction (lab work, machinists, etc) would require additional partnerships with hospitals, labs, machine shops, bands, etc, that's an obstacle that can be overcome in time. Also, the activities you mentioned involving group activities can be done online synchronously and asynchronously with a slight variety in difficulty. In new programs where the number of students is not enough to sustain group activities, either internships or assistants will be provided at my institution's expense. Also, as I said, I have no intention of competing with vocational schools that are providing the instruction and credentials required by industry. My parents always told me that nothing good comes from fighting with family.