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Universities will be 'irrelevant' by 2020, Y. professor says
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I attended public schools as a kid, but I agree that they are becoming increasingly irrelevant to a society where information is so openly available.
Kids today don't need to go anywhere to learn. They could very well take online classes from multiple universities all over the world from their own homes. They just need a way to have their courses and work recognized and graduate them that is unbound from the idea that you have to graduate from a particular institution. Mr. Wiley - any sugestions how to do this?
This BYU professor is off his rocker. As a BYU graduate I am appalled at his opinion. I believe he is wrong.
As one commenter made the oft-repeated supposition that because everything they learned was of no use to him, I can only suppose he has a job that has no actual application or use to society. I find that every topic I SHOULD HAVE learned has eventually been something I wished I'd learned better.
I think all these virtual courses are a great supplement to education--I do not think they should supplant them, however.
One needs both human and self-directed learning, in order to succeed.
The simple human factor is important. I once sat in on an interview with a fellow who was very booksmart, and I asked him a question about what one does if the process he learned was broken. He was a PhD and couldn't answer the question--he was insistent if the process didn't work the way he'd been taught it couldn't be done. He wasn't hired.
The real value of this virtual approach is keeping current in emerging knowledge in all sorts of disciplines and contexts, NOT JUST higher education.
Individually this A la carte approach will equip workers to compete, and encourage them to stay engaged with their ongoing education. At a societal level, a flexible, adroit workforce is exactly what we need to be competitive in our rapidly accelerating world.
Open access democratizes knowledge for the masses, not just the privileged few. This is exciting stuff!
Someone will still need to be the 'authority' to set standards of performance (i.e. grades and scores) or the degrees granted will be like those of any diploma mill. Those experts will still need to make a living.
Changes are coming but the University is not doomed.
The truth is, however, that there actually is balance in the classrooms. You have bought into the media-machine's argument that college professors are all liberal. I am a PhD candidate in Ohio and looking around I can assure you that there are plenty of very intelligent, conservative professors and grad students. One or the other political leaning tend to congregate within certain fields, but students are exposed to all those fields through general education requirements. That's the advantage of a university over a trade school--you get exposed to various points of view and from there can decide on your own political leaning. Think about it, if it were really that unbalanced, wouldn't more college graduates be liberal?
Besides improving people's productivity and work quality education has a much larger economic effect in regulating and dividing the supply of labor. Since many professions require a government mandated license which includes a 4 year college degree
Utah State has gone high tech compared to other Universities in that they use their professors in Logan or Vernal and broadcast them to different satelite campuses statewide. For example, my campus is in Tooele, yet I get the same professors as students in Logan. I have had a rich educational experience, with some of my classes being online, (I enjoy the online challenge of school as well.)
For those of you who commented that you can't learn things in 6 weeks time, you can't learn things in 14 weeks time either... it is called cram & purge. You cram it in for the semester, your brain not able to hold info purges it, unless you will need it for another class. :)
We have innovative universities like Western Governors creating a new educational model that is competency based instead of credit based. In other words there are exams and assignments students must pass or complete to prove their knowledge in the topics relevant to their field of study, regardless of how they learn the material: books, ipods, OJT, etc.
Another innovative university is George Wythe U in Cedar City. It's a small liberal arts college still pursuing accreditation. It has some sound philosophies surrounding education and it's purpose. They teach that we must study history and the classics to learn how to think and behave. Learn the fundamentals of society and key concepts and principles that make nations or communities great. Once you learn how to think, then you start your chosen career training.
It's amazing, In the future everyone will have an iphone and there will be an app to learn anything. We are almost there already!
1) Many (too many) college students are only in it for the diploma to open employment doors. These students aren't after an education, often don't get one, and are well served by University of Phoenix or whatever gets them a diploma.
2) A university is an environment that is intended to stimulate learning and the exchange of ideas. This process, under the guidance of good professors, results in receiving an education. It doesn't mean you learn everything, or anything, that you need in any given job. It means that you can more quickly and easily acquire the knowledge and skills you need for any job or endeavor.
3) Many universities today are guilty of letting those in point #1 corrupt point #2 and reduce its effectiveness.
4) The traditional education provided by a traditional university is as valuable and valid today as it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago. If done well and right it will produce an informed, insightful, productive, and enlightened individual that can do better at any given task than a non-university educated person of equivalent native ability.
Inovation is fine, but preserve the core university concept
David is seeing through a glass darkly. The future is actually brighter than he predicts. but for sure it will be different. Perhaps rather than predicting the future from the perspective of the wired world, he might be more accurate if he were to predict it from the perspective of society and organizations -- wait, wait, he will predict that those are going to change also because of wired world. Did Ender's Game do that already?
Tomorrow's youth with become resistant to those in authority and establishment and you will see more conservative students rebelling at liberal education and leadership. Just like the 60's only in reverse. That is why all students won't prescribe to one idealogy they are exposed to.
Actually I said those allowed and given the opportunity to instruct students are disproportionally liberal.
To live amongst the poor in Costa Rica or study the drug lords of Mexico or trace the history of GM's labor challenges forces academics to "live" in the shoes of other people, undertsand their motivations, etc., and you realize the world isn't as "black and white" as Fox News or the Bush Administration would have you believe.
I have some econ professors who are so dismissive of global warming, the benefits of recycling, or the improtance of renewable energy -- all asserting that these ideas are "bad" economics, I question their expertise on what they're teaching me. That is, their political biases seem to promote closed mindedness, which is antithetical to education.
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I also am upset at the costs higher than inflation, often with tax money going to state schools and so little instructor classroom time. We are funding one sided research and their agenda. But why is the student funding all that? Let the alumnae fund that stuff. And let's get rid of tenure.