The Impending Demise of the University
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
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Someone I know teaches "young people who have grown up digital" in a small expensive private liberal arts college. (She has also taught them in community college, just in case you think class is the problem.)
She has taught them for a quarter century. Ergo, she knows whereof she speaks.
If your goal is horrific, mind-boggling, smug, arrogant, fatuous, contemptuous, immoral, ineradicable, immeasurably un-plumbable stupidity that makes you tremble for the fate of the nation, she maintains, then "growing up digital" is just the ticket.
If your goal is that modest passing familiarity with the general run of human knowledge that any educated person would expect any other educated person to have, then, she maintains, try "parents forcing children to study when they don't want to."
Sorry, platitudinous booster-huckster adolescentspoitation science-fiction dreamland Candidas, she apologizes. (If you don't understand, she qualifies, talk amongst yourselves.)
Get real, she councils.
She anticipated you riposting, "So you are the one mis-educating our children."
Try "educating" college students who cannot read sometime, she rejoins.
If you think college ought to be kindergarten, she posits, then, yes, she proudly confesses to mis-educating your darling little angels with a vengeance.
(What does "ought" mean, Professor? [Real-life In-Class Query # 8,327,626])
I think cost and the factors you mention will send universities the way of the expensive private car and the mcmansion emulating detached metrosprawl house. I believe exams to qualify for excellence in a subject could easily replace universities as a means of authenticating capacity. I think tenure is a lovely 19th century idea whose time is past.College education will end as we know is when the Web gets up to speed in creating a test-based alternative with capacity to certify..
University education is not about "authenticating capacity."
This role is fulfilled by fringe institutions like Capella, Phoenix and Western Governors University.
It is producing "capacity" that we're concerned with.
I shudder to think of all you DID NOT bring away from your higher education, since it can so readily be replaced with some tests.
You -cannot- replace university classes with tests.
I've been teaching at the university for the past 8 years, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that students who "test out" of lower-division Composition requirements because they have taken the AP English tests usually -cannot- write better than students who do not pass the AP English test.
The AP English test preps students for a very simplistic method of writing that is only suitable for the test. It does not prepare them to engage in more sophisticated, university-level critical thinking and writing.
I have made it to thesis in my masters program getting A or 100s on most if not all of my papers (philosophy and psychology), only to find once I began writing my thesis that I apparently do not know the basic rules of grammar and sentence structure. I'm afraid to write anything right now, because I am sure not one sentence will pass the writing tutor. No one had ever said I had writing issues through two and into my third degree. Now I feel completely stuck. This seems odd to me, what about you LitDr2B?
Love
Bette
There is learning and there is teaching. Students learn and not necessaily from teachers (depending what constitutes a teacher). Schools, certainly as we know them and Universities (merely an extention of the school) has been irrelevant for a long time now as is demonstrated by ALL new and revolutionary ideas in all subjects, be it academic or otherwise. The argument might be, that for Albert Einstein to have come up with Relativity or Newton with the physics of motion they needed the academic background. I refute this based on the fact that for all the PhD's from these advanced schools of learning very, very, very few produce a genius in their field. Oh yeah, they write a dissertation which then gets put into a box and then filed in some basement never to be read again. A. S. Neil put his finger on it, in the early part of the 20th Century. Meantime, we struggle on with these old style schools of teaching. All the while thwarting learning. Let the students (yes from grade one up) RUN the schools.
Never would I have thought I would have agreed with Jack Waddinton but this time I do 100%.
I would only add necessity is the mother of invention. I only hope our future necessities come from NASA or space related rather than military.
I hope we do not have to wait for objects from space (junk) to start killing us before some bright person comes up with the appropriate vacuum cleaner.
Hey BigHat, I'm flattered. I take it you've read some of my other comments and disagreed with most of them hence 'never thinking .....' Wow, that pleases me and specially since it was 100% Wowee..
These ideas have been around; as a community college faculty member I see faculty try out group projects, pair projects, as I do in my online course, which I try to make very interactive. I think there are a few/some 'holdout' faculty who resist technology,but they are in the minority. Of course much of this depends upon the institution and whether the university itself supports technology use and development adequately -- not all do, and professors are left on their own to develop these skills. And as a returning recent grad student, I have found many of my (shock, over 40, a few over 60) professors very adept at using technology and introducing it into the classroom.
Also these ideas sound just like what teachers were being told about the 'TV generation' and the "MTV generation'. We did not have long attention spans, we needed stimulation, we needed activity -- in 1985. -- if the 'Ngeneration' stuff sounds real familiar to me, it is because it is not really completely new. What Tapscott is preaching sounds pretty canned, but the reality is much more complex than what he presents. And some of it is rehashed ideas which have bounced around since the development of technology as far as teaching methodologies.
University of Phoenix uses, or used in 2007, team learning where 40% of one's grade is the team project. I spent my first and only week attending at UOP simply trying to get the team all up to speed at distance learning techniques. I quickly moved to Walden University where you are 100% responsible for your grade, a much "better" system of responsibility. Walden is also big on using what you are learning right now with a scholar-practitioner model, to to specifically promote social change. The classes are very interactive, until you get to your thesis when the interaction focus goes specific to research topic. Distance education is the future, and it is here. :)
Love
Bette
U of Phoenix, is a very, very poor example of higher education.
And yes, Mr. Tapscott's ideas seems to be very much in tune with its corporate model.
Higher education is too important to be placed in the hands of corporate raiders and Wall Street.
Do not know if its possible to get a long distance team up to speed. But my gosh, if someone has the ability to do that than the hell with the course you are educated and charismatic and would go far.
Mr. Tapscott, you speak like a marketing guy. And marketing guys have gotten more than one industry into trouble by pushing branding over product superiority. Good product means hard work and long term objectives. This is true for education as well. There are no shortcuts and it is a lifetime in the making. Today's young people need to learn this lesson more than any other, as apparently, do you. For instance, two way conversations are what you can intelligently participate in once you have absorbed and assimilated enough factual knowledge and its context to have something worthwhile to say. Until then, students must also learn discipline and patience by listening and studying. Critical thinking skills come with discipline, patience and humility - as do good workplace ethics, creative thinking and productivity. Encouraging short cuts just enourages lazy thinking and bullshit behavior. If there is one thing Corporate American could benefit from now, more than ever and in all age groups, it is some critical thinking, patience, humility and ethics.
Don...You hit the nail on the head. The old model of teacher as authority figure is transiting to teacher as facilitator. The University system...and in fact the entire educational hierarchy...is broken. This is not something for the Obama administration to support with more money. It's something that should be rethought and rebuilt.
Let's starve the system of funds and investment; delegate more teaching to overworked and overqualified permanently adjunct faculty and disenfranchise millions with high tuition.
Then declare it broken and let the private sector fix. hmmmm.... where have we heard it all before? Can't recall, really.
Basically, all of this revolves around how to make college more fun for students. What nonsense.
Look, sometimes things you need to learn just are not very much fun. For example, the best class I probably ever had in high school was a composition course my senior year that taught me how to be a decent writer. It was a lot of work and my teacher wasn't exactly reserved in his criticisms of a particular student's offerings, but I needed it for my upcoming college classes. I certainly didn't enjoy it.
However, when I started in college. one of my english professors told me that he saved my papers for last because it gave him some encouragement after having to trudge through a "huge pile of crap" produced by my classmates. I was shocked, to say the least.
Teachers are there as guides to help you expand your knowledge, not to be entertainers. Rather than being so dependent on the internet, students just need to read more widely and listen more attentively to lectures and wrestle with the knowledge provided rather than seeking test answers like going to the drive in at McDonald's, which is what Wikipedia is, fast food for the mind. If students don't like that then they need to look into fixing cars or construction (though I have to say that the laziest students I have never met at school were business majors).
It's not about learning.
What those college wannabees want is the letters after their name so their resume looks better.
I'd bet most any of 'em would sit through anything to get them.
I just graduated and i had a ton of 2 way conversations in my college. The reason may be that it was a small university and as a chemistry major, the class size was tiny as you moved up to the more advanced classes. The teachers still lectured but whenever you have a question you just interrupt and ask how they went from step 1 to step 2 in the derivation. With the large lecture halls students tend to fall asleep because the power point presentation in a dark room puts people to sleep.
Universities to me are just another form of a corporation designed to and functioning in the modes of spitting out ..."obedient workers"... in the words of George Carlin.
I never will forget the hopless feeling I had sitting in a huge auditorium sized room with several hundred others at Ohio State University for Philosophy 101, circa 1967.
What a crock! I remember to this day having the reverie of a pimento can going down a factory assembly line, each getting our requisite 'squirt' of philosophical revelation.
I don't remember one question being entertained from the floor the entire quarter. What bullshit.
It explains to me how the perps of 9/11 pulled this coup d'etat off on a nation of cow-minded idiots.
Where are the masses of critical thinkers that our universities are charged with producing? They like so many aspects of our contemporary society have failed miserably. Profs and politicians on the take. Sucking our nation's life blood dry, instead of infusing critical thinking and good governance. Turning a great nation into a carcass.
Total bullshit!
you can lead a horse to water....
As a teacher for over 30 years on both secondary and college levels, I agree that the paradigm has shifted. Except in the rare case of brilliant speakers, most lecturers are soporific. however, the interaction of professor-student-student in an environment of exploring, questing and imagining is the priceless asset of a good college or university. A good education does not teach rote facts - it teaches how to learn, how to explore and how to evaluate. These goals are universal and constant but the tools and methods used in reaching for them must always be reevaluated, made fresh and in tune with each new generation's manner of life. The fundamental nature of the university has been the same for a thousand years and will always be the same - a group of students gathered with a scholar of credentials and experience to discuss, explore and learn. This interaction is based on fundamental human nature as each generation learns from its predecessor. How that learning takes place though, is not cast in stone. Experiment with new technologies and new methods, yes, BUT always recall Mark Twain's comment "all that is necessary for learing to take place is that there be a teacher, a student and a log to sit on."
Thanks for the article. Very timely, but it seems to me that it is playing to a tough crowd. ;~) I envision professors passionately gripping their podiums seething, "...from my cold dead hands!"
I did take a minute to read the article in its entirety and I think Tapscott hits it dead-on in his observation that the greatest propensity for change in higher education will come from the students themselves. The guardians of the old methods, I suspect, will choose not to be pro-active and therefore will have to react to the demands of those who pay for the education they are getting. Pity though. Such change could be a synthesis of old and new methods and not looked upon as heresy. Tapscott's warning is just that - not an indictment.
Being privy to a LIberal Arts education, in the Texas University system, I beg to differ with the author on all counts.
The classroom interaction between professor and student is priceless. Being surrounded by one's peers during the process is also priceless.
Also, learning about things which you assume hold no interest for you, is a wonderful way to open up your mind to a brand new world.
The internet is wonderful for research, but terrible in so much as it often isolates us and we are not challenged with professors and other students, up close and personal, helping us see other avenues in our thought process.
I say hire and keep good professors. Incorporate technology into the classroom, sure, but remember nothing is more important than a person to person learning experience.
I agree that face to face learning is effective, especially as it comes to word pronunciation and making sure to know and practice social norms so your words can be heard. Getting out and getting to class on time are also good practices, but not always possible due to location or situation. My first distance education experience physically from California attending Eastern Oregon University using their distance education program several years ago had recorded videos of the lectures. You could not interact with the classroom live. Since distance learning is opening up higher education opportunities for so many now, as it did for me as a single parent of 20 year old twins, one with autism, I have a vision of the future of higher education to include wonderful interactive lectures with quality instructors in any location using current technology. The student should be able to be anywhere, as well as the professor, and all should be able to interact perhaps in a holographic environment. That is a good looking future for education, to me.
Love
Bette
I teach as you describe.
The issue is largely one of an aged professorship coupled with large class sizes. I know zero younger professors in small classes that engage in one-way "teacher-talk".
This is merely a reworking of charles murry's idea's on early childhood education which argues that children should be left alone to explore the internet and specialize in the academic or vocational area's that they find interesting.
What is strange about the analysis of higher education is the notion that universities are not already making the changes mentioned by the author. The universities I have attended and taught at seem to be on the cutting edge as opposed to behind them.
And we all know that Charles Murray is a racist, right? Because that has been pretty clearly established. Given his rightwing think tank affiliations and authorship of deeply offensive and completely discredited "research" on race, the man has little of use to say about early childhood education methods. My god! Where is the laugh track when you need it.
I am sure most university teachers use not only lectures but a host of other methods to broaden their lessons' appeal and effectiveness. The original article makes a charge that can't stick because it starts from an overly generalized premise.
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