9 ms·

Making universities obsolete

106 points by ananthrk 15y ago

jiggy2011 15y ago
Interesting piece. A few points. Firstly I entirely agree that having access to a video of a lecture is much better in many ways than attending live. I have a terrible attention span and I remember sitting in classes paying attention then having my mind slowly drift away for just a few seconds, by the time I'd snapped by I'd sometimes completely lose the context of the example the professor was explaining and it was really hard to mentally catch up, sometimes I couldn't and I'd just end up with a set of half comprehensible notes to revise from. Of course your not going to raise your hand and say "sorry I wasn't paying attention could you please repeat", but a video does not judge you like that. Pause it or rewind and get yourself a coffee , look up something you didn't quite understand on wikipedia for an alternative explanation then return to the video. Of course there is no reason for lectures to be an hour long either, simply break it into 2 half house sessions with space for questions in between which could be done via a chatroom which the lecturer answers when they return. I'm sure I would have got much better grades at university had I had access to all of the lectures via video, whenever I want to brush up any CS I just watch youtube videos from MIT , Berkeley etc and I learn so much more per hour than I did from my "traditional" education. Another point. This part raised a question to me: "Presumably the idea is that if you can't get through a course in the 12-to-13 week semester then you deserve to fail, regardless of whatever is going on in your life and whether you could have learned everything over a longer time span, or with more help, or whatever. " How much of your university degree is there to prove what you know and how much is there to prove your capacity for learning? I've often struggled with some concepts that others have found easy and sometimes vice versa, but I can get a bloodymindedness that I will get to grips with something even if it takes me 10x the time. How much should learning speed be represented vs sheer determination? Sometimes in the real world you will run into situations where you need to learn something very quickly because there simply isn't the time. Should someone who takes 5 years to get a degree be considered lesser than someone else who does the same degree in 2? Assuming they get the same marks awarded.
- CJefferson 15y ago
  > Should someone who takes 5 years to get a degree be considered lesser than someone else who does the same degree in 2? Assuming they get the same marks awarded. To be honest, I think they should (unless they are taking the degree part time). If it takes you over twice as long to learn something, that means we can probably expect you to take twice as long to learn new things? In practice, I have never seen a student who took 5 years (and therefore repeated 2 years on a 3 year degree) who ended up getting a good final grade (although I am sure there exist exceptions somewhere).
- thomaslangston 15y ago
  Your asking different questions. 1) Should speed be in the grade? 2) Should speed be considered when measuring a graduate? 3) Is a faster graduate better? My answer would be no, yes, and it depends. I want grades to be on coursework, not character. I think speed can be inferred (from enrollment dates, additional minors/majors/projects/clubs/association/etc.). I don't think speed is everything (determination means a lot), but I don't ignore it either.
brador 15y ago
Universities work because there's an ongoing belief that they lead to a reward. We are now seeing that break down. A replacement is needed. But what could be a better system for providing high level skills with a measure of ability?
bmj 15y ago
Ivan Illich's vision for education may finally come to fruition. Matt could have expanded his risks a bit more, at least to point out that no system will ever be perfect, and, ultimately, every student is different. Completely razing the current system may not be a great idea, because some students need the classroom setting (of course, as Matt points out, many of these students are left behind anyway because the playing field is often tilted toward the strongest students). That said, I suspect many other students would do very well in a more open setting (or, ideally, some combination of the two).
mrlase 15y ago
I disagree with his points. Beginning with his "failure #2"; >The common argument is that we need grades in order to differentiate the "good" from the "bad" students. No, no its not. Its to show that you've learned the material. He goes on to say: > Presumably the idea is that if you can't get through a course in the 12-to-13 week semester then you deserve to fail, regardless of whatever is going on in your life and whether you could have learned everything over a longer time span, or with more help, or whatever. 12-13 weeks is plenty long to learn the material for a course. A student is at a college to learn. It should be their top priority to learn the material during the course. As for "failure #3", lectures have been used for hundreds of years because they work. You gain insight from someone very knowledgeable in a field that you might not get at first without it being pointed out to you. He also seems to miss the fact that for science courses, you need labs. You cannot do chemistry labs online. You won't be able to do field work in biology by watching a video. A somewhat agree with point #1, but more so to the fact about how expensive college is. That needs to be changed. You lose the overall atmosphere of a learning environment through online courses, and that is not something I'd want to give up.
- anatoly 15y ago
  >>The common argument is that we need grades in order to differentiate the "good" from the "bad" students. >No, no its not. Its to show that you've learned the material. I disagree with both of you. It's to motivate the student to learn.
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    I don't really see a pretty much imaginary, arbitrary number on a piece of paper judging my performance in an artificial testing environment as a motivation in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, I think it's highly discouraging. In my opinion, if your not at the university to learn first and foremost, then what the fuck are you doing at the university in the first place?
    - jiggy2011 15y ago
      True, I find the same thing myself. I find a good mark in a test provides only short term satisfaction whereas having a thorough knowledge of something can serve me for years to come. There are however a lot of students who see academics as something of a game and measure their achievement by score, the fact that they may learn a few things along the way is secondary to their desire to be able to say "hey , look at me I'm a high achiever please pay me lots of money". These people would probably be lost without a grading system of some kind and a lot of them are actually very smart people who probably should be at university.
phreeza 15y ago
Let's not forget that universities are among the oldest institutions we know. They have managed to adapt many times before. So while their current methods might be slightly outdated, I doubt they will be becoming obsolete anytime soon, they will merely change their mode of operation to include new technologies.
- twelvechairs 15y ago
  Like libraries? [edit] More seriously though I think 'universities' as we know them are important for particular things. What is likely to take off in the future however is good independent accreditation for private-study. The most important failing of universities at present is that you can hardly ever fail...
jwingy 15y ago
Probably the biggest barrier to the success of online universities is convincing others that the credentials from a online university are worth their weight. If someone could come up with a good, reliable way to prove that, then I think we'd be well on our way to the true meritocratization (is this even a word?) of education. If standardized testing and related work are good enough for college admissions, would something similar be sufficient for more specific course work?
- phreeza 15y ago
  Seems like a similar problem is being faced with academic publishing. The existing silos have high prestige, so it is not obvious how to disrupt them, becasuse newcomers can't compete on price/convenience alone. Coming up with objective measures for quality (standardized tests for universities, something other than impact factor for publications), might be a good route to open these fields up in both cases.
- arctangent 15y ago
  We don't really need new universities in order to deliver online education. The reason these have appeared is because they've spotted a gap in the market. The solution is for existing universities with recognised brands to offer their courses online.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Problem is they have no motivation to change. Universities must like the relative simplicity of taking a big chunk of money for sitting a bunch of glazed over students in front of a blackboard for a few hours a week. Once they go online not only will they have to justify their fees but students may get this crazy idea that the university should be there to help them fulfill their own learning goals.
    - arctangent 15y ago
      I do think you have a fair point. I suppose that some of the more mercenary universities (or those that can't attract a lot of physically present students) may do the math and realise that they can make more money in total by going for the "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap (on the internet" approach.
dagw 15y ago
There are several universities around that have been running continuously for over 700 years. I imagine that a change in popular teaching trends is something they've seen many many times before and successfully adopted to. I see no reason why universities won't adopt to this one as well and then happily keep going.
michael_dorfman 15y ago
Let's remember that there is a lot more to universities than undergraduate education.
- notahacker 15y ago
  This. I'd go so far as to say that actually teaching students things is the least important service performed by universities even for undergraduates. Far more important for students' future careers is signalling their performance over the course of three years of relatively autonomous study within a controlled environment of their choosing, and the commitment that entailed. Not to mention the huge variety of extracurricular opportunities offered that are particularly hard to replicate through the medium of a website.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Do all of these things have to go together? Performance could still be measured by grades even in a purely online university. Extracurricular activities are still possible, people could join study groups within their local area and socialise there, possibly also discounted travel to visit with study groups elsewhere. In addition you could spend the money you saved via cheaper college fees to indulge in some pretty kick ass hobbies.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  Indeed, but trust me: If the undergrads were raptured away overnight, at least fifty percent of the research faculty at the big research universities wouldn't miss 'em. Sad but true. Less time teaching lecture classes means more time for grants and projects. And university sports should just be professionalized. The big-time sports are a cartel designed to avoid paying young athletes while still selling tickets to watch them play, and the small-time sports like the one I played could be moved to public or private sports clubs.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    As a brit this is one part of american culture I don't understand. Why are academic education and sports playing so closely tied together? Most of our football players for example would be a complete waste of a seat in any academic institution.
f4stjack 15y ago
The problem with universities is they are taking the easy way out: grading instead of teaching. Nobody cares what you have actually learned, including yourself. As long as you get that A or B and be qualified for obtaining that diploma, everything is crystal clear. But this approach creates a rift between teacher and students. Nobody cares about actual learning, students see the teacher only as a source for getting exam answers and teachers only see this glamorous profession as a chore to get paid. This approach however, loses the fat and makes the education more leaner IMHO. No money and no diploma is involved and you are there because you really really want to see/learn/do whatever the teacher is trying to convey. As for the teacher this makes his/her work much less tiring, you record it once and can change it after you got exposed to biomass. You can change stuff in your teaching and get instant feedback. If this is not amazing for the both of the elements involved in the teaching (teacher & student) I do not know what is.
impendia 15y ago
> Can someone remind me why we still have grades? I had a calculus student, begging me to pass him. He'd failed my course, he'd failed the same course twice previously, and if he failed a third time he would never be allowed into the engineering school. It gives me no pleasure to crush dreams or to fail students, but do you want this guy, say, designing bridges?
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  Professional engineers have their very own strict certifications, entirely independent of the university, precisely because the university cannot in general be trusted to weed people out. You in particular may be incorruptible, but if you were untenured and the student had a lawyer I'd bet on him "passing" your class. The counterargument: If the student can pay cash and wants to take an engineering class why not indulge him? Shall we deny all those without math skill the opportunity to even see, say, robotics, just because we're sure they'll never be qualified to practice it at a pro level? Why is the purpose of calculus class to sort people into silos rather than simply... Teach calculus? And why can't a student of means be allowed to fail the classes of his choice? One answer is that engineering education is so expensive to deliver, and demand so high, that we can't afford to lavish it on hobbyists. (If you've had the pain of trying to teach a class containing students who are over their heads, you can feel this argument in your bones, because the resource being wasted is your time, for which you are not well compensated.) But... Maybe we can fix that? Productivity-boosting technology has many uses.
- calibraxis 15y ago
  In the startups I've been part of, we simply test them, and look at their portfolios (GitHub). They've been pleased to hire competent dropouts, and generally don't emphasize some BS grade. (And once in the company, people get a deeper idea of their skills.) [Edit: after reading _delirium's correction below, I made a couple small changes. I've got a cold, and I'm afraid I haven't made my point well.] I'm perfectly fine if students aren't graded (or if grades are a strictly private matter between the student and teacher). Many teachers think so too, so-called "radical" teachers, but of course they unfortunately have bosses... a few teachers get away with it, particularly in more democratic schools where students are more in control, but not enough do. Personally, I learn all sorts of subjects, and the notion of someone conventionally grading me... would degrade the whole experience.
keithpeter 15y ago
Social Limits to Growth, Fred Hirsch, higher education is a positional good. It is about scarcity. The original author recognizes this at "The real question is whether broadening access ends up reinforcing the educational caste system: if you're not smart or rich enough to go to a "real university," you become one of those poor, second-class students with a certificate Online U."
akg 15y ago
The current education system was built during the industrial revolution and for the time I think it worked great. The problem is that the world has changed since then, information is more fluid and free-flowing. People are exposed to a wide variety of skill-sets and specializations. The old structure no longer works and needs to be evolved the same way the rest of the world has.
sunahsuh 15y ago
The author has a very limited view of the function of universities. There was recent longitudinal study that confirmed what many of us who attended college already know: a vast number of people who attend college don't actually learn anything (particularly in the fields of business, education, social work and communication). [1] If you get down to it, probably the biggest function of a university is social: if you majored in an engineering discipline, think about your industry connections. How many of them were classmates in undergrad? Elite universities have served as social hubs for the upper class for centuries and the networking function of college and university is invaluable. I'm not using this as an argument for keeping the existing university structure, but if the author really wants to make universities obsolete, he needs to think about how one might facilitate this and other functions. (I haven't even touched the subject of research, which many professors at R1 universities think of as their primary purpose, not teaching. "Teaching" is an unpleasant job you offload on adjuncts and TAs.) We've had institutions that function like the ones that Matt Welsh envisions for thousands of years. They're called libraries. [1] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_la... edit: added citation ;)
- yequalsx 15y ago
  And yet, the number of people who learned engineering, chemistry, math, physics, computer science, etc. from books alone is dwarfed by the number of people who got such knowledge from schools. Few people have have the mental and emotional fortitude to learn subjects from libraries alone. As you say, there is is something about the social aspect of the classroom and college setting that makes it better for learning than from libraries (or the internet).
- scott_s 15y ago
  He touches on those points in his final paragraph.
- wslh 15y ago
  That's the motivation and challenge of future education platforms: how can you connect to unknown people in the learning space? It's an important point. Making connections in LinkedIn/Twitter/FB is just one click (and being accepted) but new education platforms can make connections based on learning experiences together (in teams) and challenge top universities networking. Think about that.
LeafStorm 15y ago
The problem isn't lectures. I am taking two mathematics courses this semester that are taught primarily by lecture - Linear Algebra and Discrete Math. Sitting through the Discrete Math lecture would give anyone the impression that lectures are a horrible way to teach - the professor is largely disengaged and just runs through his lecture notes, most of which are already in the textbooks. Homework is the traditional "go do these hundred problems from the textbook" affair. The Linear Algebra lecture, on the other hand, is what lectures should be. Dr. Hong (who I am naming because he is awesome) is engaged with the class. He answers everyone's questions, and will call you out if you aren't paying attention. And more importantly, he always thoroughly explains the process and makes sure you understand it (and for all the matrix operations we have learned so far, he also makes sure you understand how to generalize it to larger matrices) before you walk out of the classroom. Then, the homework is optional (though he does joke about killing you if you don't do it.) The goal of the homework in this case isn't to help you understand the material...that's what the lectures are for. He gives homework so students can become efficient at the process after they understand it. So I don't think it's the lecture/homework model that's really broken here. A disinterested instructor will kill the course no matter whether you're lecturing in a classroom and doing problems at home, or lecturing on the Internet and doing problems during class. What's broken is that lecturers don't focus enough on the process and the concepts, instead running through multiple examples and hoping the students pick something up along the way. (At least, for mathematics. I'm not sure how well this teaching style would translate to other disciplines such as history, composition, or even biology.)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

106 points by ananthrk 15y ago

jiggy2011 15y ago

Interesting piece. A few points. Firstly I entirely agree that having access to a video of a lecture is much better in many ways than attending live. I have a terrible attention span and I remember sitting in classes paying attention then having my mind slowly drift away for just a few seconds, by the time I'd snapped by I'd sometimes completely lose the context of the example the professor was explaining and it was really hard to mentally catch up, sometimes I couldn't and I'd just end up with a set of half comprehensible notes to revise from. Of course your not going to raise your hand and say "sorry I wasn't paying attention could you please repeat", but a video does not judge you like that. Pause it or rewind and get yourself a coffee , look up something you didn't quite understand on wikipedia for an alternative explanation then return to the video. Of course there is no reason for lectures to be an hour long either, simply break it into 2 half house sessions with space for questions in between which could be done via a chatroom which the lecturer answers when they return. I'm sure I would have got much better grades at university had I had access to all of the lectures via video, whenever I want to brush up any CS I just watch youtube videos from MIT , Berkeley etc and I learn so much more per hour than I did from my "traditional" education. Another point. This part raised a question to me: "Presumably the idea is that if you can't get through a course in the 12-to-13 week semester then you deserve to fail, regardless of whatever is going on in your life and whether you could have learned everything over a longer time span, or with more help, or whatever. " How much of your university degree is there to prove what you know and how much is there to prove your capacity for learning? I've often struggled with some concepts that others have found easy and sometimes vice versa, but I can get a bloodymindedness that I will get to grips with something even if it takes me 10x the time. How much should learning speed be represented vs sheer determination? Sometimes in the real world you will run into situations where you need to learn something very quickly because there simply isn't the time. Should someone who takes 5 years to get a degree be considered lesser than someone else who does the same degree in 2? Assuming they get the same marks awarded.

CJefferson 15y ago
> Should someone who takes 5 years to get a degree be considered lesser than someone else who does the same degree in 2? Assuming they get the same marks awarded. To be honest, I think they should (unless they are taking the degree part time). If it takes you over twice as long to learn something, that means we can probably expect you to take twice as long to learn new things? In practice, I have never seen a student who took 5 years (and therefore repeated 2 years on a 3 year degree) who ended up getting a good final grade (although I am sure there exist exceptions somewhere).
thomaslangston 15y ago
Your asking different questions. 1) Should speed be in the grade? 2) Should speed be considered when measuring a graduate? 3) Is a faster graduate better? My answer would be no, yes, and it depends. I want grades to be on coursework, not character. I think speed can be inferred (from enrollment dates, additional minors/majors/projects/clubs/association/etc.). I don't think speed is everything (determination means a lot), but I don't ignore it either.

brador 15y ago

Universities work because there's an ongoing belief that they lead to a reward. We are now seeing that break down. A replacement is needed. But what could be a better system for providing high level skills with a measure of ability?

bmj 15y ago

Ivan Illich's vision for education may finally come to fruition. Matt could have expanded his risks a bit more, at least to point out that no system will ever be perfect, and, ultimately, every student is different. Completely razing the current system may not be a great idea, because some students need the classroom setting (of course, as Matt points out, many of these students are left behind anyway because the playing field is often tilted toward the strongest students). That said, I suspect many other students would do very well in a more open setting (or, ideally, some combination of the two).

mrlase 15y ago

I disagree with his points. Beginning with his "failure #2"; >The common argument is that we need grades in order to differentiate the "good" from the "bad" students. No, no its not. Its to show that you've learned the material. He goes on to say: > Presumably the idea is that if you can't get through a course in the 12-to-13 week semester then you deserve to fail, regardless of whatever is going on in your life and whether you could have learned everything over a longer time span, or with more help, or whatever. 12-13 weeks is plenty long to learn the material for a course. A student is at a college to learn. It should be their top priority to learn the material during the course. As for "failure #3", lectures have been used for hundreds of years because they work. You gain insight from someone very knowledgeable in a field that you might not get at first without it being pointed out to you. He also seems to miss the fact that for science courses, you need labs. You cannot do chemistry labs online. You won't be able to do field work in biology by watching a video. A somewhat agree with point #1, but more so to the fact about how expensive college is. That needs to be changed. You lose the overall atmosphere of a learning environment through online courses, and that is not something I'd want to give up.

anatoly 15y ago
>>The common argument is that we need grades in order to differentiate the "good" from the "bad" students. >No, no its not. Its to show that you've learned the material. I disagree with both of you. It's to motivate the student to learn.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  I don't really see a pretty much imaginary, arbitrary number on a piece of paper judging my performance in an artificial testing environment as a motivation in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, I think it's highly discouraging. In my opinion, if your not at the university to learn first and foremost, then what the fuck are you doing at the university in the first place?
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    True, I find the same thing myself. I find a good mark in a test provides only short term satisfaction whereas having a thorough knowledge of something can serve me for years to come. There are however a lot of students who see academics as something of a game and measure their achievement by score, the fact that they may learn a few things along the way is secondary to their desire to be able to say "hey , look at me I'm a high achiever please pay me lots of money". These people would probably be lost without a grading system of some kind and a lot of them are actually very smart people who probably should be at university.

phreeza 15y ago

Let's not forget that universities are among the oldest institutions we know. They have managed to adapt many times before. So while their current methods might be slightly outdated, I doubt they will be becoming obsolete anytime soon, they will merely change their mode of operation to include new technologies.

twelvechairs 15y ago
Like libraries? [edit] More seriously though I think 'universities' as we know them are important for particular things. What is likely to take off in the future however is good independent accreditation for private-study. The most important failing of universities at present is that you can hardly ever fail...

jwingy 15y ago

Probably the biggest barrier to the success of online universities is convincing others that the credentials from a online university are worth their weight. If someone could come up with a good, reliable way to prove that, then I think we'd be well on our way to the true meritocratization (is this even a word?) of education. If standardized testing and related work are good enough for college admissions, would something similar be sufficient for more specific course work?

phreeza 15y ago
Seems like a similar problem is being faced with academic publishing. The existing silos have high prestige, so it is not obvious how to disrupt them, becasuse newcomers can't compete on price/convenience alone. Coming up with objective measures for quality (standardized tests for universities, something other than impact factor for publications), might be a good route to open these fields up in both cases.
arctangent 15y ago
We don't really need new universities in order to deliver online education. The reason these have appeared is because they've spotted a gap in the market. The solution is for existing universities with recognised brands to offer their courses online.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Problem is they have no motivation to change. Universities must like the relative simplicity of taking a big chunk of money for sitting a bunch of glazed over students in front of a blackboard for a few hours a week. Once they go online not only will they have to justify their fees but students may get this crazy idea that the university should be there to help them fulfill their own learning goals.
  - arctangent 15y ago
    I do think you have a fair point. I suppose that some of the more mercenary universities (or those that can't attract a lot of physically present students) may do the math and realise that they can make more money in total by going for the "pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap (on the internet" approach.

dagw 15y ago

There are several universities around that have been running continuously for over 700 years. I imagine that a change in popular teaching trends is something they've seen many many times before and successfully adopted to. I see no reason why universities won't adopt to this one as well and then happily keep going.

michael_dorfman 15y ago

Let's remember that there is a lot more to universities than undergraduate education.

notahacker 15y ago
This. I'd go so far as to say that actually teaching students things is the least important service performed by universities even for undergraduates. Far more important for students' future careers is signalling their performance over the course of three years of relatively autonomous study within a controlled environment of their choosing, and the commitment that entailed. Not to mention the huge variety of extracurricular opportunities offered that are particularly hard to replicate through the medium of a website.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Do all of these things have to go together? Performance could still be measured by grades even in a purely online university. Extracurricular activities are still possible, people could join study groups within their local area and socialise there, possibly also discounted travel to visit with study groups elsewhere. In addition you could spend the money you saved via cheaper college fees to indulge in some pretty kick ass hobbies.
mechanical_fish 15y ago
Indeed, but trust me: If the undergrads were raptured away overnight, at least fifty percent of the research faculty at the big research universities wouldn't miss 'em. Sad but true. Less time teaching lecture classes means more time for grants and projects. And university sports should just be professionalized. The big-time sports are a cartel designed to avoid paying young athletes while still selling tickets to watch them play, and the small-time sports like the one I played could be moved to public or private sports clubs.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  As a brit this is one part of american culture I don't understand. Why are academic education and sports playing so closely tied together? Most of our football players for example would be a complete waste of a seat in any academic institution.

f4stjack 15y ago

The problem with universities is they are taking the easy way out: grading instead of teaching. Nobody cares what you have actually learned, including yourself. As long as you get that A or B and be qualified for obtaining that diploma, everything is crystal clear. But this approach creates a rift between teacher and students. Nobody cares about actual learning, students see the teacher only as a source for getting exam answers and teachers only see this glamorous profession as a chore to get paid. This approach however, loses the fat and makes the education more leaner IMHO. No money and no diploma is involved and you are there because you really really want to see/learn/do whatever the teacher is trying to convey. As for the teacher this makes his/her work much less tiring, you record it once and can change it after you got exposed to biomass. You can change stuff in your teaching and get instant feedback. If this is not amazing for the both of the elements involved in the teaching (teacher & student) I do not know what is.

impendia 15y ago

> Can someone remind me why we still have grades? I had a calculus student, begging me to pass him. He'd failed my course, he'd failed the same course twice previously, and if he failed a third time he would never be allowed into the engineering school. It gives me no pleasure to crush dreams or to fail students, but do you want this guy, say, designing bridges?

mechanical_fish 15y ago
Professional engineers have their very own strict certifications, entirely independent of the university, precisely because the university cannot in general be trusted to weed people out. You in particular may be incorruptible, but if you were untenured and the student had a lawyer I'd bet on him "passing" your class. The counterargument: If the student can pay cash and wants to take an engineering class why not indulge him? Shall we deny all those without math skill the opportunity to even see, say, robotics, just because we're sure they'll never be qualified to practice it at a pro level? Why is the purpose of calculus class to sort people into silos rather than simply... Teach calculus? And why can't a student of means be allowed to fail the classes of his choice? One answer is that engineering education is so expensive to deliver, and demand so high, that we can't afford to lavish it on hobbyists. (If you've had the pain of trying to teach a class containing students who are over their heads, you can feel this argument in your bones, because the resource being wasted is your time, for which you are not well compensated.) But... Maybe we can fix that? Productivity-boosting technology has many uses.
calibraxis 15y ago
In the startups I've been part of, we simply test them, and look at their portfolios (GitHub). They've been pleased to hire competent dropouts, and generally don't emphasize some BS grade. (And once in the company, people get a deeper idea of their skills.) [Edit: after reading _delirium's correction below, I made a couple small changes. I've got a cold, and I'm afraid I haven't made my point well.] I'm perfectly fine if students aren't graded (or if grades are a strictly private matter between the student and teacher). Many teachers think so too, so-called "radical" teachers, but of course they unfortunately have bosses... a few teachers get away with it, particularly in more democratic schools where students are more in control, but not enough do. Personally, I learn all sorts of subjects, and the notion of someone conventionally grading me... would degrade the whole experience.

keithpeter 15y ago

Social Limits to Growth, Fred Hirsch, higher education is a positional good. It is about scarcity. The original author recognizes this at "The real question is whether broadening access ends up reinforcing the educational caste system: if you're not smart or rich enough to go to a "real university," you become one of those poor, second-class students with a certificate Online U."

akg 15y ago

The current education system was built during the industrial revolution and for the time I think it worked great. The problem is that the world has changed since then, information is more fluid and free-flowing. People are exposed to a wide variety of skill-sets and specializations. The old structure no longer works and needs to be evolved the same way the rest of the world has.

sunahsuh 15y ago

The author has a very limited view of the function of universities. There was recent longitudinal study that confirmed what many of us who attended college already know: a vast number of people who attend college don't actually learn anything (particularly in the fields of business, education, social work and communication). [1] If you get down to it, probably the biggest function of a university is social: if you majored in an engineering discipline, think about your industry connections. How many of them were classmates in undergrad? Elite universities have served as social hubs for the upper class for centuries and the networking function of college and university is invaluable. I'm not using this as an argument for keeping the existing university structure, but if the author really wants to make universities obsolete, he needs to think about how one might facilitate this and other functions. (I haven't even touched the subject of research, which many professors at R1 universities think of as their primary purpose, not teaching. "Teaching" is an unpleasant job you offload on adjuncts and TAs.) We've had institutions that function like the ones that Matt Welsh envisions for thousands of years. They're called libraries. [1] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_la... edit: added citation ;)

yequalsx 15y ago
And yet, the number of people who learned engineering, chemistry, math, physics, computer science, etc. from books alone is dwarfed by the number of people who got such knowledge from schools. Few people have have the mental and emotional fortitude to learn subjects from libraries alone. As you say, there is is something about the social aspect of the classroom and college setting that makes it better for learning than from libraries (or the internet).
scott_s 15y ago
He touches on those points in his final paragraph.
wslh 15y ago
That's the motivation and challenge of future education platforms: how can you connect to unknown people in the learning space? It's an important point. Making connections in LinkedIn/Twitter/FB is just one click (and being accepted) but new education platforms can make connections based on learning experiences together (in teams) and challenge top universities networking. Think about that.

LeafStorm 15y ago

The problem isn't lectures. I am taking two mathematics courses this semester that are taught primarily by lecture - Linear Algebra and Discrete Math. Sitting through the Discrete Math lecture would give anyone the impression that lectures are a horrible way to teach - the professor is largely disengaged and just runs through his lecture notes, most of which are already in the textbooks. Homework is the traditional "go do these hundred problems from the textbook" affair. The Linear Algebra lecture, on the other hand, is what lectures should be. Dr. Hong (who I am naming because he is awesome) is engaged with the class. He answers everyone's questions, and will call you out if you aren't paying attention. And more importantly, he always thoroughly explains the process and makes sure you understand it (and for all the matrix operations we have learned so far, he also makes sure you understand how to generalize it to larger matrices) before you walk out of the classroom. Then, the homework is optional (though he does joke about killing you if you don't do it.) The goal of the homework in this case isn't to help you understand the material...that's what the lectures are for. He gives homework so students can become efficient at the process after they understand it. So I don't think it's the lecture/homework model that's really broken here. A disinterested instructor will kill the course no matter whether you're lecturing in a classroom and doing problems at home, or lecturing on the Internet and doing problems during class. What's broken is that lecturers don't focus enough on the process and the concepts, instead running through multiple examples and hoping the students pick something up along the way. (At least, for mathematics. I'm not sure how well this teaching style would translate to other disciplines such as history, composition, or even biology.)

deleted 15y ago

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