education for this century.

[JohnRoberts]

The more I think about this the crazier it seems (that we aren't already doing it differently) but we are still trying to educate our children like we did hundreds of years ago.

Technology has revolutionized the information domain to the point where we all have more knowledge available at our fingertips just for asking, than the most powerful people in world had only decades ago.

I won't postulate why we seem married to doing things the (very) old way. It is human nature to resist change, and established power bases work to maintain the status quo.

Free enterprise may be the secret sauce to release a modern revolution in education.

#1) A very popular teacher in Korea is earning $6M a year from his distribution of educational lectures and training. In Korea there is a huge for-profit outside the classroom tutoring industry. He has figured out how to replicate his teaching effort across far more students than he could ever personally interact with.

#2) US colleges have experimented with televising lectures and offering internet learning programs, the conflict in rising old school prices, and limited modern student budgets suggests the current system is not viable to continue on it's current trajectory so a huge opportunity exists for more cost effective solutions.

I expect to see this first at the college level but IMO it makes even more sense at lower grade levels (more students and less variety of curriculums).  We want (I want) standardized testing and complete effective curriculum, what better way to deliver that then canned lectures. Proper use of technology could free up teachers from rote teaching and allow them to help students who are struggling and students bored because they are ahead.  It seems practical that students could even progress at their own speed. I recall being bored to death in HS by several courses.

In a mature system students could have a choice of E-instructors and their performance could be tracked so the cream would rise to the top. Educational super stars could be well compensated for the value they deliver (like the Korean teacher making $6M/year.)

Or not...  This seems like a rich opportunity to apply technology... Maybe we could get disney to make animatronic teachers for students who don't like computers.

JR

PS: We could free up all the teachers no longer needed,  to work for the IRS collecting money for funding healthcare.

 

[joaquins]

I'm with you here... IEEE could make standard library to electrical and estudents, AES for the acoustic and audio related, SPIE for optical, etc.

I think courses could be better in this way, you never know how good was someone education and with some standards that today can be done seems it could improve. It won't make you sure that the person working is the best but at least put a reference point.

About some topics I think I learn more in web searching and smoking components than at a class making numbers about it, both are usefull but classes could be better and if tecnology related courses aren't the first in get this updated who will? In my university still try to make people draw nice and perfects plans with a pencil and a ruler... They practicaly don't use almost cad soft, only for the final work but optional... (I'm in electronical engineering carrer)

Anyway I'm with you, here in Argentina the government implemented a systems to give to a lot of HS students netbooks and teaches too, so many things are done with this, electronic blackboards that load in students netbooks the class, etc. but in the university still not implemented. In a class trying to learn matlab we are 50 people with 5 computers.. not the central subject but still. University is not prepared to use the tecnology at it's full potential.

JS

 

[Ethan]

I've been thinking a lot about this too recently.  Without much to add to what you wrote, it seems more valuable in today's economy to hire the person most adept to seek out and find the right answers using all the resources available to us, than someone who spent the last several semesters memorizing since deprecated editions of text books.

I agree with the idea that the current (business) model of education is bound to fail, especially at the university level, but I disagree with the idea of standardization.  Standardization, to me, feels like the old established norm.  I think access to resources and the ability to customize one's own education may be the future of academia.  Of course there needs to be some 'standardized' way of measuring competence, but I don't feel more standardized delivery or testing is the best future for education--I fear that would hamper creativity and innovation.

No answers...just more thoughts...

 

[iomegaman]

My youngest daughter just restarted her college career and frankly this time round is finding footing the bill a rude awakening...what peeves her most is the system of financial empire in place requiring text books and dis-allowing older versions...the seedy side of higher ed.

A textbook with a 30 page addendum being version 8 and costing well over $200.00 when version 6 is virtually worthless at $60.00 according to the professor who wrote the addendum and requires it for his class.

I told her to buy the cheap version and take the dive on the information, she has a 50/50 chance of finding the $140.00 information by pure guesswork.

The other thing that just offends her is that she discovered higher education is basically paying large sums of money to go home and read chapter after chapter and then sit in a class while a "professor" reviews what you've read and leads a discussion group on it...

So in USA education needs a MAJOR over-haul being a big debt machine (the higher education financial bubble makes the housing bubble look like a gnats fart) a machine that guarantees nothing but debt.

Between that and the political machine that consist in huge administration cost you've got a recipe for stupid.

We are way behind the curve in all aspects here...but some of this seems to be intentional.

 

[PRR]

By the timing, I thot you saw 60 Minutes repeat tonight, but I guess not.

Innovation will NOT come from the status-quo.

Manual laborers are often NOT!! in favor of efficiency. Luddites opposed shoe machines. John Henry opposed the steam drill.

As you suggest, if a lecture must be given more than a few times, it should be put in a book. Similar delivery efficiencies possible with cyber-space.

But MIT and IEEE will not be the places to develop *good* portable learning. Some of the brick/ivy online learning I have browsed seems awful. (Nevertheless, some of it is popular: a music department I know now makes much of its income from online theory and history lessons.)

Kahn Academy is reasonably innovative and fairly sucessful. Kahn's approach is different from many others; but a key thought is that teachers should focus on specific learning blocks and mentor, not spend time on routine basics.

 

[joaquins]

Ethan, I don't say that every course in the world have to be the same, but some point of reference so a professional formed in some part of the world can work without much effort (other than lenguage) in other place.

I don't complaint about grade/university education in general in my country, which is pretty good and free! but I still think it could be better using the advance of tecnology.

In the other hand, the big difference between one country or other have some issues. Talking to physics department people says than most doctorate studentships are given to other country people because they have better grades but they are not better formated than other with much lower grades from here in the country and many of them end without a successful result (they came here to do some research and the thesis 'pays' the  education and resources.

I really like the idea of 'customize one's own education', maybe is happening at some level, with so much information avaiable one can learn what he wants, buuut it would be nice to have some endorsement of what you have learned this way... I think the university to set a floor and then you can learn anything you want over it.

JS

 

[Gustav]

A textbook with a 30 page addendum being version 8 and costing well over $200.00 when version 6 is virtually worthless at $60.00 according to the professor who wrote the addendum and requires it for his class.

When I was wading through my useless college education, I rarely had books that expensive, but when I did (statistics, macro- and microeconomics etc), I found that the biggest changes were always in page numbering - and maybe the addition of a chapter with some "current" case topics - and often with the exact same problems and numbers, even though the case had changed.

So when the professor puts up a teaching plan, you might have to spend an extra 2 minutes finding out that the relevant material is on page 110-150 instead of 106-144, and that the problems you have to solve are on page 450 instead of page 471.

Smart students might get together in a group and spend a few hours at the start of the semester to add the "old-version" page numbers to the teaching plan, doing a chapter each.

Gustav

 

[Spiritworks]

Two words why it will never happen, at least here in the USA: Teachers' Unions

 

[Engels]

I think teaching and learning is just a question of money, and it's kinda sad thing;
someone who's teaching just think about their salary and don't care if their students succeed or not;
On the other side, who can't afford a good teacher will be left to himself;

This is only a thought about the way we do teach to others... you think a century ago it was worse, but who knows...
... probably the only problem is that 1 teacher isn't enough for 100 students, but 100 teachers for 100 students will be an absurd cost

 

[JohnRoberts]

@ PRR no not 60 minutes I stopped watching that years ago.  I was influenced by the article a few weeks ago about the Korean teacher/millionaire, and another recent article about a major internet push from a university in Austin, TX, while they are not the first or only.

@Ethan:  Standardized coursework makes sense for slow changing knowledge, like math, and physics, and hopefully history isn't changing as much after the fact as the textbooks do. BTW textbooks are a revenue stream for successful college professors who share in the profit from specifying their own text. In technology recent developments get covered in advanced courses and these could actually involve experts still working in the field who make specialized lectures in their area of expertise.

BTW, there are already remarkable teachers like Feyman (Physics) known for their ability to simplify difficult subjects. In an ideal world we could all be lectured by these few world class teachers.

@Engels  The thrust of my post, is that education should not be limited by number of meat based teachers or money, using computer media the classic constraint of teachers per student doesn't matter and they are even more available to give personalized attention to needy students.  Note: Implicit in this is that classrooms/students will need some kind of a media playback platform, ideally capable of two-way communication for home schooling or whatever. But such hardware is probably cheaper than one of those $200 textbooks.

@iomegaman regarding expensive textbooks, IIRC a new company just floated an IPO to raise capital for their business model which is to rent college textbooks to students. I wouldn't invest your money into this new stock or mine, but this is further evidence that college texts are a huge business... also ripe for plucking... I suspect the easy money pushed into this market by expanded government college lending has inflated textbook costs along with all other college associated costs. I think only college living space rentals are down but that's related to another different bubble (housing) that is slightly out of sync.

I recall buying a used textbook really cheap a few years back to teach myself DSP... apparently they get around copyrights when printing college texts in other countries (like India where english language texts are used) so these outlaw books show up used in the US where technically they are illegal.

Not surprising if variations on this E-teaching are already being applied in other countries, like I said it seems strange to me that this isn't more widely done already.

Good discussion... so far we have mostly avoided the established power base resisting change... I would love to see technology and free enterprise do an end run around them all.  Home schooling would embrace this if they haven't already. The government is not inclined to apply this and piss off their supporters who repeat that all they need is more money.  :  We already pay a great deal per student.

JR

 

[iomegaman]

iTunes U...next up text books in iBooks...already a a stream

 

[JohnRoberts]

iTunes U...next up text books in iBooks...already a a stream

The publication cost to distribute E-books is tiny compared to old dead trees approach. The text book authors need to be compensated for their effort but present system seems like it is being gamed to hang onto profits that logically should go away.

I understand a lot of the staff/cost increases in colleges are in the administration not the teachers/instructors.  A perverse variation on crony capitalism, crony education. Yet more evidence we need to get government spending under control, so they'll stop sharing "our" wealth with "their" friends.

JR

 

[L´Andratté]

Hello everybody!
As always please pardon my language difficulties.

Having suffered through 13 years of german educational system, I too think that it´s more than time for some updating. I also remember pre-web times, when I, as young assuming musician was greatly interested in japanese harmony and scales: no way, short of contacting some university teacher personally    :'(
Then, all I learned about electronics (since 2 years) came from the web (like this place).

But I have 2 main objections to what the OP is saying:

- succesful learning (especially with young children) is vastly dependent on
*personal relation*. Call it *dialogue*. It´s a psychological thing. Like Martin Buber mentions: To teach someone, you have to be ready to learn from him/her.
Maybe this seems too esoteric for some, but I saw the truth of it again and again as I have been working with handicapped children for maybe 12 years.

- a change in schooling paradigms is likely to mirror some of the time´s thinking, when it takes place. And without getting too political, I don´t trust that too much as I think education should aim at the development of the individual personality and not at cost-efficiently producing human material fitting conveniently into whatever system is present.
This doesn´t mean, there should be no change, but I just want to point out that education is much more than the consumption of data.

Cheers L´Andratté 

 

[Andy Peters]

My youngest daughter just restarted her college career and frankly this time round is finding footing the bill a rude awakening...what peeves her most is the system of financial empire in place requiring text books and dis-allowing older versions...the seedy side of higher ed.

A textbook with a 30 page addendum being version 8 and costing well over $200.00 when version 6 is virtually worthless at $60.00 according to the professor who wrote the addendum and requires it for his class.

I told her to buy the cheap version and take the dive on the information, she has a 50/50 chance of finding the $140.00 information by pure guesswork.

The other thing that just offends her is that she discovered higher education is basically paying large sums of money to go home and read chapter after chapter and then sit in a class while a "professor" reviews what you've read and leads a discussion group on it...

So in USA education needs a MAJOR over-haul being a big debt machine (the higher education financial bubble makes the housing bubble look like a gnats fart) a machine that guarantees nothing but debt.

Between that and the political machine that consist in huge administration cost you've got a recipe for stupid.

We are way behind the curve in all aspects here...but some of this seems to be intentional.

I believe that you'll find this very interesting. You're not the only person who's had your thoughts.

-a

 

[Andy Peters]

Two words why it will never happen, at least here in the USA: Teachers' Unions

If only it were that simple.

-a

 

[JohnRoberts]

Hello everybody!
As always please pardon my language difficulties.

Welcome to the discussion

Having suffered through 13 years of german educational system, I too think that it´s more than time for some updating. I also remember pre-web times, when I, as young assuming musician was greatly interested in japanese harmony and scales: no way, short of contacting some university teacher personally    :'(
Then, all I learned about electronics (since 2 years) came from the web (like this place).

While we do not try to teach in any conventional sense here.. When people are thirsty for knowledge they will seek it out, and most people here are generous about sharing their knowledge.

But I have 2 main objections to what the OP is saying:

- succesful learning (especially with young children) is vastly dependent on
*personal relation*. Call it *dialogue*. It´s a psychological thing. Like Martin Buber mentions: To teach someone, you have to be ready to learn from him/her.

Of you are saying we can only learn from another human in person, i disagree... While I had human mentors and learned from them in my earlier development, I have learned a great deal since then from books, articles, and web research (while humans wrote those books).

Maybe this seems too esoteric for some, but I saw the truth of it again and again as I have been working with handicapped children for maybe 12 years.

I do not dispute that we may be wired to learn that way.. I learned a great deal from watching and copying my older brothers while growing up, some good and some bad lessons.  8)

- a change in schooling paradigms is likely to mirror some of the time´s thinking, when it takes place. And without getting too political, I don´t trust that too much as I think education should aim at the development of the individual personality and not at cost-efficiently producing human material fitting conveniently into whatever system is present.

That is one way of looking at it... but unless these cogs are prepared properly with enough useful education to take their place on the wheel of industry, and become productive members of society, creating more wealth that they can be compensated for to provide shelter and security for their family the system does not continue and prosper.

Right now in the US we have high skilled jobs that go unfilled because we don't have enough qualified workers, while the unions argue we should pay entry level fast food workers $15 hour.  All that is going to do is result in more automation and less fast food jobs. Of the unions were really trying to help the middle class (current buzz word) they would be making education more productive not defending the status quo.

This doesn´t mean, there should be no change, but I just want to point out that education is much more than the consumption of data.

Cheers L´Andratté 

Personal development is a little harder to quantify and something we can gladly discuss "after" we successfully loaded the meat socks with data, something that current testing suggests we are not even accomplishing. In the US there seems to be a breakdown in the nuclear (two parent) family with children getting inadequate social and moral training from their family environment (more so in some socio-economic fractions of the population). I do not think schools should replace the parents responsibility, but there should be a modicum of discipline and some degree of cause and effect work ethic taught, not just data transfer.  If education is just about data recall, there's an Iphone app for that. 

JR

 

[pucho812]

From my home state to where I am at these days I see it like this,
I think the biggest problem to education in the u.s.  and else where is the standardized test and how just about everything related to a school is based on test performance.  It has gotten to the point that, it's all about test scores vs really teaching and learning. Anything outside of that you risk lower test scores which has impact to public funding and so forth.

It has gotten to the point where music educators cannot suggest what instruments a student would be good for. For example a kid with braces should not be playing a trumpet but heaven forbid you tell them that because you run the risk of being in trouble because it's his right, not what's right for the music program at the high school or junior high.

Education is complex issue because not everyone learns and comprehends via a single teaching method. Some students who can score great on tests are fairly dim while some of the brightest students do not do well on tests.


then add online education which to me is a joke and so far all I have seen from online education is the ability to have time to look up answers vs really knowing material and being put on the spot. It also looses that student teacher relationship that is needed in order to really achieve comprehension.  I know people who take online classes only to hear them talk about professor so and so who never responds to their e-mails and are asking questions to others about their material.

SO what's the solution I don't think there is one single answer but so far, a  good  short term bet seems to be the charter school.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I believe that you'll find this very interesting. You're not the only person who's had your thoughts.

-a

Well that's a mouthful. I share a lot of the anger but don't find "academic capitalism" whatever that is, to be the cause of the current disfunction... capitalism is all about market demand shaping a product. If the education system was honestly responding to customer desires, the students would have high employment upon graduation and companies could easily fill their high tech openings. Perhaps something like "academic cronyism" where they mine the governments loose purse strings to extract more revenue from what should be a tighter market. But not very cash tight these days.. while unfortunately the students get left with a hangover of debt. .

Not to repeat myself but the run-away cost of college education is another classic example of politicians misunderstanding cause and effect.

Just like they falsely linked home ownership to living happily ever after and tried to put every body with a pulse into a house. They share a similar flawed perception about causation and a college degree delivering higher earning (and living happily ever after). We are now seeing the unintended consequence of the government putting pedal to the metal for college education (loans), just like they distorted the housing market with easy mortgages, that we are still paying for.  Of course somebody more cynical than me would say the politicians are just buying votes. 

The way we are going maybe the college market bubble needs to crash too... President Obama even made a speech recently about how colleges should reform themselves.. Yup like they're the problem and not the government.. That's the blind leading the blinder. University reform needs to come from them actually listening to industry for what they need.. and listening to their customers for what they actually want (jobs I bet). But as long as the easy loan money is flowing why change? 

JR

 

[L´Andratté]

I do not dispute that we may be wired to learn that way.. I learned a great deal from watching and copying my older brothers while growing up, some good and some bad lessons.  8)

You should have known my little(!) sister when she was at the height of her malice ;D

Of course you can learn by yourself, IF you´re already motivated to do so. But look at
all that 16 year old, who think they´ll be stars or who think life sucks, who think qualified working is lame or who don´t think at all, instead smoke dope. They need motivation by someone, to prove themselves against someone, to shine in the eyes of someone, etc.etc. and be it their classmates. The web won´t do it.

That said, I agree there´s so much to improve, most people seem to still not have grasped, what powers lie  therein.

Concerning the qualified jobs etc, I think it´s exactly the same in germany, but in spite of that, sadly, the bulk of people are not needed, only as consumers, and this, among others, is a reason why the concept of everlasting growth will soon find a not entirely surprising end *I think*. I see a chance there, lingering in the darkness, but maybe I´m getting visionary again, and as a famous always smoking german politician mentioned, "if you have visions, you should go see the doctor" :

Charter schools: Interesting, I didn´t know about that. Wiki ties them to Milton Friedman, rightly so? And what would that mean? He is a person I can much more respect than most of his self acclaimed offspring.

 

[L´Andratté]

I believe that you'll find this very interesting. You're not the only person who's had your thoughts.

-a

Well that's a mouthful. I share a lot of the anger but don't find "academic capitalism" whatever that is, to be the cause of the current disfunction... capitalism is all about market demand shaping a product. If the education system was honestly responding to customer desires, the students would have high employment upon graduation and companies could easily fill their high tech openings. Perhaps something like "academic cronyism" where they mine the governments loose purse strings to extract more revenue from what should be a tighter market. But not very cash tight these days.. while unfortunately the students get left with a hangover of debt. .

Not to repeat myself but the run-away cost of college education is another classic example of politicians misunderstanding cause and effect.

Just like they falsely linked home ownership to living happily ever after and tried to put every body with a pulse into a house. They share a similar flawed perception about causation and a college degree delivering higher earning (and living happily ever after). We are now seeing the unintended consequence of the government putting pedal to the metal for college education (loans), just like they distorted the housing market with easy mortgages, that we are still paying for.  Of course somebody more cynical than me would say the politicians are just buying votes. 

The way we are going maybe the college market bubble needs to crash too... President Obama even made a speech recently about how colleges should reform themselves.. Yup like they're the problem and not the government.. That's the blind leading the blinder. University reform needs to come from them actually listening to industry for what they need.. and listening to their customers for what they actually want (jobs I bet). But as long as the easy loan money is flowing why change? 

JR

Totally makes sense. The problem with capitalism vs. cronyism is, that, after some time, the relation gets like theory vs. practice, until there´s a big breakdown and everything starts anew. Note that I´m not feeling tied to any kind of political corner here, I lived my life so far very well in ´capitalism´, but there ARE some dangerous developments not to be taken too lightly.