Last week I wrote a substantial essay for the Edge arguing that the universities are entering a period of crisis.
I argued that is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital best learn. The reaction on Twitter, mainly from students has been enormously positive. So far two academics have written critiques of my views at the Edge.
However because the Edge does not enable readers to comment, I'd like to know what you think. Please read a summary below and then check out the Edge article and let the world know what you think here on HuffPost:
The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still common. It's part of a model that is teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all and the student is isolated in the learning process. Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education.
Students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities are to remain relevant, they will have to change.Professors will have to abandon the traditional lecture, and start listening and conversing with the students -- shifting from a broadcast style and adopting an interactive one. They should be encouraging students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's store of information. They need to encourage students to collaborate among themselves and with others outside the university. Finally, they need to tailor the style of education to their students' individual learning styles.
Some leading educators are calling for this kind of massive change; one of these is Richard Sweeney, university librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He says students are smart but impatient. They like to collaborate and they reject one-way lectures. While some educators view this as pandering to a generation, Sweeney is firm: "They want to learn, but they want to learn only from what they have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for them."
This is not fundamentally about technology per se. Rather it represents a change in the relationship between students and teachers in the learning process.
In the old model, teachers taught and students were expected to absorb vast quantities of content. Education was about absorbing content and being able to recall it on exams. You graduated and you were set for life - just "keeping" up in your chosen field. Today when you graduate you're set for say, 15 minutes. If you took a technical course half of what you learned in the first year may be obsolete by the 4th year. What counts is your capacity to learn lifelong, to think, research, find information, analyze, synthesize, contextualize, critically evaluate it; to apply research to solving problems; to collaborate and communicate.
This challenge to the existing order raises a deeper issue -- the purpose of the university"The time has come for some far reaching changes to the university, our model of pedagogy, how we operate, and our relationship to the rest of the world," says Luis M. Proenza, president of the University of Akron.
He asks a provocative question: Why should a university student be restricted to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending. True, students can obviously learn from intellectuals around the world through books, or via the Internet. Yet in a digital world, why shouldn't a student be able to take a course from a professor at another university?
Proenza thinks universities should use the Internet to create a global centre of excellence. In other words, choose the best courses you have and link them with the best at a handful of universities around the world to create an unquestionably best-in-class program for students. Students would get to learn from the world's greatest minds in their area of interest - either in the physical classroom, or online. This global academy would be also be open to anyone online. This is a beautiful example of the collaboration I described in the book I co-authored, Wikinomics.The digital world, which has trained young minds to inquire and collaborate, is challenging not only the lecture-driven teaching traditions of the university, but also the very notion of a walled-in institution that excludes large numbers of people. Why not allow a brilliant grade 9 student to take first-year math, without abandoning the social life of his high school? Why not deploy the interactive power of the internet to transform the university into a place of life-long learning?
Read the full article at The Edge.
Don Tapscott is the author of 13 books on new technology in society, most recently Grown Up Digital. He recently completed a $4 million dollar investigation of the Net Generation. He is Chairman of the think tank nGenera Insight and an Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. On Twitter @dtapscott
I believe what Don is exposing here is a direct reflection of movement away from the traditional human mechanism of learning and teaching that only accounts for 'how we should behave' 'how we should react' 'what physical representation we should be mirroring out in our society, with no emphasis on the way we actually think and 'how do i go about structuring MY thought systems' to the betterment of simplicity.
this is not just about teacher student relationship teaching, this is about a genuine revolution of though process that in turn dictates the speed and manner in which WE want to communicate.
the growth of this new wave of direct communication via social media technology reflects how younger generations are themselves creating an outward interface of mutual freedom of thought, to collaborate mentally with others without restraint, after all a thought or an idea is the only thing in the whole universe that does not half when shared, the exact opposite is true, it increases as it is given away and yet is retained by the one who gave, truly shared and multiplied less the conventional restriction of habitual mindsets, this is the wonder of true technical social communication, its a revolution in thinking without confinment.
When students are asked to participate in a discussion, the room goes silent. There's a mixture of fear of exposure, lack of individual depth in the topic, and lack of engagement at work, it seems to me. Students... no, let's be specific here... NOVICES don't know what to think about or how to structure their thinking in a new discipline. That's the definition of being a novice in a given discipline.
Students may come into a class as novices, intermediate users, or advanced users. The advanced users need a way to test out of the beginning courses. The intermediate users need to be challenged to expand their horizons. Novices need to be led to the habits of mind that are the hallmarks of a given discipline. Let's not treat them all as if they were a homogeneous grouping, equally drawn to collaboration and sophisticated thinking processes. Let's serve the needs of learners and at the same time help them to see new possibilities as, hopefully, they will help us to do, too.
Importantly, many students come back a year later claiming they don’t think the same after this class. Really? They have gone through 30 sessions of self-directed problem solving, something most of them have never been encouraged to do. They have internalized the questions instructors have used to guide them through the problem solving process. They now see the world differently. They still need to be trained to use the same process in the classes they will teach. Then we can change the culture of learning to one similar to what this physicts’ family taught him.
On the other hand, in an introductory physics course, the student population is quite diverse. Economics drives class size to a large student numbers. Lecture is the necessary mode of instruction. Physics educators have for a long time been concerned with education issues. Interactive learning in lecture has long been used with success, but class size is still an impediment to learning. Improvements have been made, but I believe most remain disappointed with overall learning.
Education should be about giving the student (1) an experience in a variety of subjects of study and (2) lighting the lamp of learning, so that the student becomes passionate about learning in some subject. The subject may not prove to be one’s life pursuit, but the skills obtained will serve well one’s future livelihood.
The reason university lecturers can get away with non-interactive teaching is economic. People work at University to do research, teaching is a chore. The university tries to make classes as big as possible to maximise profit. Students come for a degree, to boost their income prospects.
Learning has nothing to do with it.
Well, almost nothing. some people are looking for change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
There is still a great need for professors with depth of knowledge and a broad perspective based on knowledge and experience to challenge the protege.
Unfortunately the University today functions more as a salesman, selling credentials (read credits) by the course number and dispensing a quantitative measure of achievement totally unrelated to knowledge transferred.
Universities focus on the athletic program, the endowed chair, architecture and hardware. Usually by the time they offer a program the information is obsolete.
Very little focus on the future.
You provide no research to support that lectures are not effective. No research is presented that shows "The digital world.. has trained young minds to inquire and collaborate." No discussion of socio-economic and gender issues.
Your research methodologies have been clearly shown to be misleading: http://netgennonsense.blogspot.com/
There is strong evidence that an awareness of pedagogy/androgogy is not clearly understood by hundreds of professors based on interviews with students. However, the Internet won't save our schools. Only better training for educators will.
Tapscott,
I really don't have time for this. I'm presenting a paper at Berkeley July 12 that I still need to prepare. I had research leave last semester but of course one never gets as much done as one would hope and I want to maintain momentum and progress on a book-length project on which I am working. I need to pack up the kids (and myself) for camp and travel. I have to write a new syllabus. But your piece touches on all sorts of thoughts I have about universities and teaching. I am a history professor at a large mid-western public university and have been for 15 years so I guess I can speak with some experience.
To start with, the lecture is dead or dying. Sure, lots of people still deliver them, but the technique is now viewed with some suspicion. Faculty who see themselves as more pedagogically oriented tend to prefer interactive methods. For example, they have students in a large class gather into smaller groups and work on problems or documents. I'll confess I am a bit skeptical about this approach too. Contact time for a university class is short (2.5-3 hours per week) and personally I feel the need to be more involved during those hours than group work allows (I'll also confess though that I use a lot of audio-visual which of course students like). (cont.)
Funniest statement of the thread. Considering copious snowdrift that follows... LOL.
In an ideal world students would meet outside of class to discuss the class material. That in fact is the idea behind TA-led discussion sections. Students tend to dislike discussion sections and given the option (as they often are) many avoid them. Now lectures have always been fine things when well delivered to an interested audience. And the question of whether or not they are well delivered is not really the issue here (if you'll accept that the lecture is dying). Instead the issue is, as you suggest, the audience. I am not convinced though that Wikipedia and Twitter have so changed the cognitive processes of young people that they cannot take in a lecture. Most people probably (at 18 or perhaps also later ages) never could; and if there is a problem of this sort I'd suggest tracing it back many more decades to television (echoing Shirky). To put it most cynically, by one measure, most undergraduates shouldn't be in the classroom at all. What measure is that? The one according to which a student attends a University for the creative pursuit of knowledge. Most undergraduates instead are pursuing a degree (and often by the path of least resistance) and possibly a good job afterward. And they are doing it because of their parents' pressure, social norms, and healthy capitalist initiative. (cont.)
COLLEGE IS THE BIGGEST SCAM MOST OF US WILL EVER ENCOUNTER!
Universities need to change.
But grade school thru most of high school needs to contain the basic of reading writing and arithmetic. Large emphasis on history. Preferably not revisionist and certainly not Heather has two mothers and dad and uncle bob.
Children need the creativity to fly but the basics need to be mastered first.
Love
Bette
Is it my imagination, or isn't this "new" teaching style the Socratic method?