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]<p>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, <i>not</i> teaching. "Teaching" is an unpleasant job you offload on adjuncts and TAs.)<p>We've had institutions that function like the ones that Matt Welsh envisions for thousands of years. They're called libraries.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much" rel="nofollow">http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_la...</a><p>edit: added citation ;)
> Can someone remind me why we still have grades?<p>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.<p>It gives me no pleasure to crush dreams or to fail students, but do you want this guy, say, designing bridges?
I disagree with his points.<p>Beginning with his "failure #2";<p>>The common argument is that we need grades in order to differentiate the "good" from the "bad" students.<p>No, no its not. Its to show that you've learned the material. He goes on to say:<p>> 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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>A somewhat agree with point #1, but more so to the fact about how expensive college is. That needs to be changed.<p>You lose the overall <i>atmosphere</i> of a learning environment through online courses, and that is not something I'd want to give up.
Interesting piece.<p>A few points.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Another point.<p>This part raised a question to me:<p>"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. "<p>How much of your university degree is there to prove what you know and how much is there to prove your capacity for learning?<p>I've often struggled with some concepts that others have found easy and sometimes vice versa, but I can get a bloodymindedness that I <i>will</i> get to grips with something even if it takes me 10x the time.<p>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.<p>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.
Let's not forget that universities are among the oldest institutions we know.<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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 <i>anyone</i> 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.<p>The Linear Algebra lecture, on the other hand, is what lectures <i>should</i> 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 <i>sure</i> you understand it (and for all the matrix operations we have learned so far, he also makes sure you understand how to <i>generalize</i> it to larger matrices) before you walk out of the classroom.<p>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 <i>efficient</i> at the process after they understand it.<p>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.<p>(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.)
Ivan Illich's vision for education may finally come to fruition.<p>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 <i>need</i> 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).
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.<p>If standardized testing and related work are good enough for college admissions, would something similar be sufficient for more specific course work?
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.
Universities work because there's an ongoing belief that they lead to a reward. We are now seeing that break down.<p>A replacement is needed. But what could be a better system for providing high level skills with a measure of ability?
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.
<i>Social Limits to Growth</i>, Fred Hirsch, higher education is a positional good. It is about scarcity. The original author recognizes this at<p>"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."