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What will university education look like in 20 years?
What will higher education look like in 20 years?
As I walk around with all the books to my curriculum on my iPad, it occurs to me that higher education now looks very different than it did 10 years ago. I remember making ALL my powerpoint slides and now many come along with text books. All my reference books are on my phone. I can access my calendar anywhere and there is not a single eraser mark on it.
Some subtle movements in society are changing the outcomes of higher education and how we teach. Some potential changes I see are:
1. The movement of didactic classes to online with campus learning based on highly psychomotor learning (labs, studios, physical education etc).
2. A federal government that is focusing on transferable skills as opposed to classical education.
4. Mandates that students move through the curriculum instead of a focus on retention. Recent decreases in hours funded.
5. The increased cost of higher education far outpacing workforce pay.
What will higher education look like? What role will technology play in the next couple of decades? Will we skype class? Can I really take a course in Norway and apply it to my transcript?
As we move global, how are your counties dealing with the changes?
http://www.ted.com/talks/liz_coleman_s_call_to_reinvent_liberal_arts_education.html?quote=496
Linda Taylor 50+
FEDERAL
Art and literature will become luxury. Grooming the next workforce by subsidizing degrees that fulfill future workforce demands.
Federally driven curricula. Common Core Standards. Politically driven because schools will lose funding if they do not comply. Increased risk of the vanilla curriculum.
COST
Average people will be unable to afford higher education.
Cost may come down as delivery changes to fewer educators because of online delivery.
The increased cost of higher education far outpacing workforce pay.
Free online courses including exams and assignments. Most notably Harvard. Realization that knowledge withheld is counterproductive.
Increased lawsuits of students unable to find a job after completing college. Mostly driven by inability to pay student loans.
STUDENTS
Increased need for students to have the skills of self-learning.
Mostly women will attend college.
EDUCATION
Campus will be one giant coffee shop where students mingle when not attending class at home.
Balance online with “community of learners.” College is more than just coursework. Socialization.
Focus on consumer demand with curriculum structured based on what the student wants instead of broad based liberal arts. Driven by evidence that subject immersion increases accomplishment. Curriculum will become more practical.
Interactive education between colleges/universities. National experts available for instruction. Possibly decrease the number of faculty needed for course delivery.
Movement in innovation in education. Semester system will be scrutinized.
Diploma mills and rigorous education. There will be a split.
University app for smartphones
Sunny Klair
Dan Geurin 10+
Maybe Apple will come out with a University app. and people will be able to get a degree while staring into their phone. It seems it's the only way people learn anything these days.
MUNISH MUNISH
Lucinda Garthwaite
george lockwood 30+
adjunct to the university. There are many examples of this - Steven Speilberg,
Feldencross, Count Korzibisky's wodk late in lifew, Gandhi's Woek, etc. Even C.S. Lewis
wasn"t the normal Oxford/Cambridge Don, George Dodgson, Alice, etc. Could life and
education ber too rigid?
Richard Horowitz
Linda Taylor 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Dave Fullmer
Ida Jones
So, online courses are run the best they can be by people who want to empower learners, or who want to take lectures and put them online without considering the nature of this new learning environment, or by people who are paid little to consider anything other than lecturing or by institutions that want to make money without considering how to promote learning Educators must be at the forefront of promoting the idea that online learning can work if done properly.
Thanks for this conversation!
Linda Taylor 50+
Athena Grieco
Who speaks pure Latin anymore--though it is the root of the romantic languages.
Art and literature are still with us---it's just a shame that they may not be offered as degrees because art curators, museum keepers---Literature critics and teachers may become a very small niche of jobs for the future.
Debra Smith 200+
It seems to me that the trend is to open and free access to higher learning for everyone via the internet. Just look at Michael Sandel's lecture series (I think it is Harvard's site). Some fundamental truth seems to have broken through that demonstrates that knowledge withheld is counterproductive. I fear though, that a profit motive for the few may steal away this understanding.
Linda Taylor 50+
Athena Grieco
The "classical"--literature, the arts--etc will be elective classes--not degrees.
I do not see a problem with the federal government grooming the next generation workforce by only subsidizing degrees that will fulllfil future employment demands. A viable workforce is the key to economic success. We must keep up with the global market.
It's a shame that learning the arts,classes in diversity, literature, history will become a luxury.
Linda Taylor 50+
Ida Jones
The issues you raise are similar ones in a face to face class. There are students who attend face to face classes and who can ask questions, get answers to their questions and learn from that interaction. It sounds like you were a student who was able to do that. There are other students who need to meet with the instructor one on one to get answers. If the instructor is available (and not all face to face instructors are), then some students learned that way and received help. There are students who need to hire tutors to help them-they need more intense, one on one time to complete the work.
Math is one of those topics where many of us need additional assistance, beyond listening to instructors explain. We learn at different paces and face to face classes are often inadequate because some may get answers to their questions, but others still flounder because they're at a different stage in the learning process. Online courses that mirror that format are similarly likely to be inadequate for many.
That returns me to my original point: excellent teaching is more than being able to lecture and present information well. Excellent teaching means designing a learning environment that creates the most learning opportunities for the most students. Your example sounds like the example of an excellent presenter, but not an excellent teacher. There is difference.
Linda Taylor 50+
Ida Jones
I want to clarify the assumption that I read in your comment and which you explained in your reply. You said you've taken online math classes and your teacher was excellent. The assumptions I read from your comments was that a well designed online math class exists if the teacher is excellent but the online format was wrong for math.
First, I'd have to know what you defined as an excellent teacher. It seems to me if you have a teacher who can explain the concept well, that that's only PART of defining someone as an excellent teacher. Someone can be an excellent lecturer/presenter of material, but that's only part of the design of the course & teaching. Other parts of good course design include (1) identifying areas where learners need more than lectures (2) providing alternative ways of presenting the material for those who learn differently or who need to see things differently (e.g. lecture + physical demonstration + word problems + watching someone solve a problem) and (3) providing options for individual tutoring and other learner support for the learning process. That all goes back to someone being an "excellent teacher" and what that means. Teaching is more than lecturing (as I'm sure you know).
Second, you've assumed that your experience represents the best or worst of online teaching. At the beginning of the journey to online teaching, online courses were more like the correspondence courses of old. You watched a lecture, sent in homework, the teacher graded and returned it. That may work well for some students, but not all. Good online courses do more.
Face to face teaching has its pitfalls as well. One of the biggest had been failure to elicit participation by all students. The extroverts would speak consistently, but the introverts would not. Online education, when structured properly, permits participation by all, even those who want to reflect before participating. It can work, if done right.
Linda Taylor 50+
I also know there are a lot of ways to instruct math and have even gotten online tutoring for my kids. It helped immensely but again, it was because of the one on one they were successful.
george lockwood 30+
I don't know how student costs are in Wisconsin now but in Texas they
apparently have really gone up. Thus, it is really easy to be a specialized fool
now. It probably makes economic sense. Do read Keirsey's You don't Understand me
I or III. To go Meta and to be a rational is really an odd thing. Isn"t that what education
should empower. Think of Myers- Briggs and Strengt5h Finder. Maybe conventional
education is not for everyone.
Linda Taylor 50+
Richard Horowitz
Linda Taylor 50+
Kevin Jacobson
Linda Taylor 50+
I agree the technology will increase, but I doubt it will be completely reliant quite yet. I do think it might eventually.
Sean Schofield
All the variables: lab vs. field, grades vs. passion, interaction vs. solitude, interactive vs. passive, dynamic vs. static etc., etc., will be explored and blended as the objectives range: more creativity, more innovation, more compassion, etc., etc.
There will be many challenges, but for me, the one that comes to mind most clearly will the the transition from "high variance" education systems to "low variance" education systems, and how "legacy" systems interact with "radical" ones.
In general though, I think it will lead to net-positive reform.
Linda Taylor 50+
corey morris
Linda Taylor 50+
Erik Richardson 500+
However, as we move to the upper-division courses, we are also moving upward through Bloomberg's taxonomy, and there students need to be able to engage in complex, interactive discussions, hypothetical modeling, and analysis/synthesis of the ideas, agenda, and methodological assumptions of the discipline. This kind of learning will always be better achieved by bringing bodies together in a conventional campus setting. The amount of time and difficulty of having a meaningful political or philosophical debate via an online chat - even with video - can never provide the efficiency, non-replication, and multi-dimensionality that prepare students to engage in the professional practice of their majors that a good class can.
This is not unlike what happens in some disciplines now when students begin at a community college level for the first two years and then transfer into a 4-year program. Cutting across this two-part division, however, is the physical versus theoretical division touched on below.
Linda Taylor 50+
You can have debates and discussions online like we do here. But I do understand that it takes longer. And as a faculty in discussion, there is a certain amount of saturation you would want your students to achieve.
Ida Jones
First, fundamental skills can be taught online, whether those skills are math, algebra or the basics of writing (e.g. grammar, basic organization, spelling, etc.) Taking a course online is not synonymous with no teacher interaction, though. Your comment, Linda, is based on the assumption that an online course means no guidance from teachers. That is not true-it depends on the course and how it's built. If the course is built in accordance with the needs of the learners, it can include intense direction. Even in a face to face course, faculty may not give intense direction to students.
The fun of teaching is to take the basics, help students develop a core understanding of concepts, then applying them. That can be done online; it can also be done face to face. However, sometimes, some of my deepest conversations with students have been online. So, Erik, although I agree with you about the lower division courses, I disagree about the upper division courses. You can get a depth of conversation, with more participation with a properly designed online course.
Linda Taylor 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
I strongly prefer in-person forms of education, but online versions certainly have evolved over the last decade.
Amy Peach
Amy Peach
Jake Grissom
Linda Taylor 50+
george lockwood 30+
others were in fields outside one's own chosen field. Of course I am not talking just about my experiences
which were US state schools. If you are with other graduate students after hours the contacts can be really
interesting. I understand in the older universities here and the really old schools elsewhere this is done
through student organizations. How do you do that on line?
Linda Taylor 50+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
In a classroom setting, cognitive apprenticeship is followed by scaffolding students in their trying their hands at similar kinds of questions or exercises in inquiry that represent the field authentically.
In short, we can begin with some examples of critical thinking, or instruction in critical thinking, at the highest levels. If we gather these examples by use of internet, we have leveraged technology.
Aja Bogdanoff 20+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Aja Bogdanoff 20+
If someone were to, say, come up with a way for online students to fight over who didn't move their laundry out of the dryer fast enough, that could change. ;)
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Linda Taylor 50+
Ida Jones
We're operating on the assumption that the "real" interactions are only face to face and that other methods of connecting are lesser methods. Although I don't want to lose ace to face contact with others, I've found rich connections with people through the use of technology.
Technology use also permits me to carefully craft responses, control when interactions might occur, and learn more from others who are more forthcoming through technology-based communications than they are in face to face communications.
It seems to me, the goal for communication, in addition to the important physical contact (hugging, shaking hands, kissing) is to make connections in direct and indirect ways. Technology can help accomplish that.
Robert Winner 50+
I think it is funny that the only people NOT in the decision making loop for academia is educators. School boards have been reduced to toothless tigers. All funding and curriculum is developed either at state or federal levels. The No Child Left Behind law made it manditory that states develop and administer a test to evaluate both the school and the students. As of this year 50% the teachers evaluation will be based on the students grades. Administrators protecting their nests and unions have allowed schools to remain dormant. PISA tests have brought our failure in education to light.
Out of space. I was just warming up. All the best. Bob.
Linda Taylor 50+
I agree higher education needs to be driven by higher educators. There are factors preventing this. I would love to see this change driven by tenured seasoned faculty but there are real problems inherent in tenure. Also, it has always confused me that we train people to be scientists and confer a PhD and then expect them to be able to understand curriculum, course work, and academia. If we want scientists to teach, we should give them the tools.
Robert Winner 50+
We need to return to a Constitutional government and many of these problems can be resolved at the state level where they belong.
Scientists are installed to do research for the universities. If they make a discovery then the schools is in the money. By placing them, corporations offer grants for research into XYZ. Because of the expertise available the government funds many research projects. As I stated above follow the money. It is not about education.
Thanks for the response. All the best. Bob.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Linda Taylor 50+
OK that was more than one question - sorry.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Your original question was about universities. My teaching and education have not been at the diploma mill sort of schools, so I don't have insight into the problem at the university level. I am used to universities that seek to engage and challenge students to solve problems and think critically. I have never been asked to memorize much and have never asked for much memorization. I am used to students' being exposed to authentic problems and to experience the flavor of authentic work in the disciplines they are studying.
Linda Taylor 50+
Kudos to succinctly outlining the challenges of teaching at the university. There are other factors that come into play including the requirements to meet tenure and what happens after and am interested in those insights also.
I also wanted to ask for some more insight into the 'vanilla curriculum.' How can we better articulate the minimum educational requirements and the need for students to critically think? Can we leverage developing technologies to do help?
Ravi Krishna Seethepalli
Linda Taylor 50+
Aja Bogdanoff 20+
Linda Taylor 50+
Aja Bogdanoff 20+
Linda Taylor 50+
Aja Bogdanoff 20+
Linda Taylor 50+
I am not sure if schools are helping students but I know I am. I agree with you it is important for people at the beginning of their careers to be able to understand failure and how to leverage it. So I work with students to objectify a failure and come up with a plan to move past it. Luckily it is not a major part of my job. But it is an important skill and I take it seriously.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Linda Taylor 50+