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Edge: THE IMPENDING DEMISE OF THE UNIVERSITY By Don Tapscott

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Saved by 58 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-06-03


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Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.

Highlighted by bluefour

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people

Highlighted by bluefour

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people

Highlighted by bluefour

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people

Highlighted by bluefour

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge serving both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.

Highlighted by bluefour

n the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster. A broadcast is by definition the transmission of information from transmitter to receiver in a one-way, linear fashion.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

n the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster.

Highlighted by jerridkruse

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

on 2009-10-08 by michaelkirschner

Can the net really replace Universities? Also, aren't Universities not just a source of information, but also a source of credibility? Isn't it obvious that anyone can get a free College level education provided there is a Library in town? Don't colleges provide an educated person with credibility so that when he or she goes out into the world and says he is educated he or she can prove so?

on 2009-10-08 by sersinghaus

Maybe.

Highlighted by lshuck

on 2009-06-09 by lshuck

Interesting.... is it possible that there is an impending demise of the university?

on 2009-08-08 by vahidm

you'd need to define "impending" against the centuries old traditions linked to the social space of universities. Technology is allowing a great reforming process. But reforms are not necessarilly fast (again, we need to define "fast").

Highlighted by learningcoach

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

on 2009-10-08 by michaelkirschner

not to mention in grade school there is a two way interaction between students and teachers

For those of us like me who have been working on the Internet for years, it was very clear you couldn't encounter free software and you couldn't encounter Wikipedia and you couldn't encounter all of the wealth of cultural materials that people create and exchange, and the valuable actual software that people create, without an understanding that something much more complex is happening than the dominant ideology of the last 40 years or so. But you could if you weren't looking there, because we were used in the industrial system to think in these terms.

Highlighted by nils_peterson

Benkler believes that these "phenomena on the Net are not ephemeral". And he has spent the last 20 years trying to get his head around the process of understanding what is transpiring.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge sweeney both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning", he writes. "There is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there 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."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

there 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

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

Don Tapscott, who is looking at the challenges the digital revolution poses to the fundamental aspects of the University.

"Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning", he writes. "There is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there 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."

Highlighted by nils_peterson

The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses. It's 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, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

on 2009-10-08 by michaelkirschner

Not to mention Grade school also gets students used to a two way interaction between student and teacher

Growing up digital has changed the way their minds work in a manner that will help them handle the challenges of the digital age. They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation. What's more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be active and demanding enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor to tell them what's going on, they find out on their own on everything from Google to Wikipedia.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

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, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.

Highlighted by jdharri5

It's 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, not a broadcast one

Highlighted by nils_peterson

universities are not primarily institutes of higher learning, but institutes for science and research

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

Growing up digital has changed the way their minds work in a manner that will help them handle the challenges of the digital age. They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation. What's more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be active and demanding enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor to tell them what's going on, they find out on their own on everything from Google to Wikipedia.

Highlighted by jdharri5

The End of University as We Know It

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

"Graduate education," he began, "is the Detroit of higher learning

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

In 1998, none other than, Peter Drucker predicted that big universities would be "relics" within 30 years.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

more cross-disciplinary inquiry

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

problem-focused programs

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

The basic model of pedagogy is broken

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

big universities would be "relics" within 30 years.

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

on 2009-10-08 by michaelkirschner

How will the net replace the University and provide the same level of credibility? It is a popular anecdote that one can acquire a free college education simply by having a library in town. However if you want to go out into the world and say that you are educated you must have a degree to prove it. I don't think the net will replace universities, after all the net is a tool that Universities use.

The percentage of young people enrolling in degree granting institutions rose over 115% from 1969-1970 to 2005-2007, while the percentage of 25- to 29-year-old Americans with a college degree doubled.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge sweeney both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.

Highlighted by chilee

Yet there are troubling indicators that the picture is not so rosy

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Mark Taylor, chairman of Columbia University's religion department, whipped up a storm of academic controversy with a provocative OpEd page article called "The End of University as We Know It".

Highlighted by jamiereverb

there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there 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.

Highlighted by jdharri5

Graduate education," he began, "is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses. It's 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, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.

Highlighted by chilee

that young people who have grown up digital best learn

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2009-10-08 by sersinghaus

what does this mean, really?

how universities function in a networked society.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

The model of pedagogy

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Most resources of large universities are directed towards research, not learning

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)."

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

on 2009-10-08 by michaelkirschner

If such a problem exists this would be very disconcerning

In the New York Times last month, Mark Taylor, chairman of Columbia University's religion department, whipped up a storm of academic controversy with a provocative OpEd page article called "The End of University as We Know It".

Highlighted by demolischa

Taylor argued that graduate education must be restructured at a fundamental level to move away from the ultra-narrow scholarship. Among other things, he called for more cross-disciplinary inquiry, the creation of problem-focused programs, with a sunset clause, as well as more collaboration between all educational institutions, and the abolition of tenure.

Highlighted by jdharri5

problem-focused programs

Highlighted by michaelkirschner

They learn differently best through non-sequential, interactive, asynchronous, multi-tasked and collaborative

Highlighted by jamiereverb

"Broadcast learning" as I've called it is no longer appropriate for the digital age and for a new generation of students who represent the future of learning.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

n the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster. A broadcast is by definition the transmission of information from transmitter to receiver in a one-way, linear fashion. The teacher is the transmitter and student is a receptor in the learning process. The formula goes like this: "I'm a professor and I have knowledge. You're a student you're an empty vassal and you don't. Get ready, here it comes. Your goal is to take this data into your short-term memory and through practice and repetition build deeper cognitive structures so you can recall it to me when I test you."

Highlighted by bluefour

The professors who remain relevant 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. Second, they should encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's store of information. Third, 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.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

The definition of a lecture has become the process in which the notes of the teacher go to the notes of the student without going through the brains of either.

Highlighted by demolischa

The New Generation of Students

Highlighted by chilee

The broadcast model might have been perfectly adequate for the baby-boomers, who grew up in broadcast mode, watching 24 hours a week of television

Highlighted by chilee

However, it remains dominant overall.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Taylor argued that graduate education must be restructured at a fundamental level to move away from the ultra-narrow scholarship. Among other things, he called for more cross-disciplinary inquiry, the creation of problem-focused programs, with a sunset clause, as well as more collaboration between all educational institutions, and the abolition of tenure.

Highlighted by ddalsky

called just-in-time teaching

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

Sitting mutely in front of a TV set — or a professor — doesn't appeal to or work for this generation. They learn differently best through non-sequential, interactive, asynchronous, multi-tasked and collaborative

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Young Americans under 30 are the first to have grown up digital. Growing up at a time when cell phones, the Internet, texting and Facebook are as normal as the refrigerator. This interactive media immersion at a formative stage of life has affected their brain development and consequently the way they think and learn.

Highlighted by chilee

The broadcast model might have been perfectly adequate for the baby-boomers,

Highlighted by bluefour

not to mention being broadcast to as children by parents, as students by teachers, as citizens by politicians, and when then entered the workforce as employees by bosses

Highlighted by demolischa

But young people who have grown up digital are abandoning one-way TV for the higher stimulus of interactive communication they find on the Internet. In fact television viewing is dropping and TV has become nothing more than ambient media for youth — akin to Muzak. Sitting mutely in front of a TV set — or a professor — doesn't appeal to or work for this generation

Highlighted by bluefour

Graduate education," he began, "is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)."

Highlighted by myour2

program called "Good Questions," which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload

Highlighted by chilee

One strategy being used in this program is called just-in-time teaching; it is a teaching and learning strategy that combines the benefits of Web-based assignments and an active-learner classroom where courses are customized to the particular needs of the class. Warm-up questions, written by the students, are typically due a few hours before class, giving the teacher an opportunity to adjust the lesson "just in time," so that classroom time can be focused on the parts of the assignments that students struggled with. Harvard professor Eric Mazur, who uses this approach in his physics class, puts it this way: "Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

It's when the students talk about what they think is going on and why, that's where the biggest learning occurs for them

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

oung Americans under 30 are the first to have grown up digital. Growing up at a time when cell phones, the Internet, texting and Facebook are as normal as the refrigerator. This interactive media immersion at a formative stage of life has affected their brain development and consequently the way they think and learn.

Highlighted by bluefour

the new model of learning is not only appropriate for youth — but increasingly for all of us. In this generation's culture is the new culture of learning.

Highlighted by chilee

those who were asked "deep questions" (that elicit higher-order thinking) with frequent peer discussion scored noticeably higher on their math exams than students who were not asked deep questions or who had little to no chance for peer discussion.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

My research suggests these critics are wrong. Growing up digital has changed the way their minds work in a manner that will help them handle the challenges of the digital age. They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation. What's more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be active and demanding enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor to tell them what's going on, they find out on their own on everything from Google to Wikipedia.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2009-07-15 by sersinghaus

This is oft suggested, but what's the nuance: is broadcast really broadcast as describes; has the last 100 years defied enguiring habits?

they should encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's store of information. Third, 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.

Highlighted by chilee

The professors who remain relevant 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. Second, they should encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's store of information. Third, 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.

Because of technology this is now possible. But this is not fundamentally about technology per se. Rather it represents a change in the relationship between students and teachers in the learning process.

Highlighted by jdharri5

The professors who remain relevant 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.

Highlighted by abo46n2

Interactive education enables students to learn at their own pace

Highlighted by jamiereverb

The professors who remain relevant 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. Second, they should encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's store of information. Third, 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.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2009-07-15 by sersinghaus

I suggest that this is not really a new idea.

These universities are vulnerable, especially at a time when students can watch lectures online for free by some of the world's leading professors on sites like Academic Earth. They can even take the entire course online, for credit. According to the Sloan Consortium, a recent article in Chronicle of Higher Education tells us, "nearly 20 per cent of college students — some 3.9 million people — took an online course in 2007, and their numbers are growing by hundreds of thousands each year. The University of Phoenix enrolls over 200,000 each year."

Highlighted by chilee

the purpose of the university

Highlighted by jamiereverb

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. I

Highlighted by jamiereverb

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.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

It's not only what you know that really counts when you graduate; it's how you navigate in the digital world, and what you do with the information you discover

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

These universities are vulnerable, especially at a time when students can watch lectures online for free by some of the world's leading professors on sites like Academic Earth.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2009-07-15 by sersinghaus

But his is a return to "broadcast."

on 2009-07-24 by demolischa

In essence yes but it is a "pick an choose" style of broadcast that may be more suited to todays learners. The ability to pause a presentation is a major plus!

on 2009-10-08 by sersinghaus

Mischa, but the essential tranfer is still based on a broadcast model. Sure, choice is good, but isn't the issue here "how" content is manipulated and objectified, not just the UI?

Universities should be places to learn, not to teach.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

As Seymour Papert, one of the world's foremost experts on how technology can provide new ways to learn put it: "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

Maria Terrell

Highlighted by sersinghaus

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

One strategy being used in this program is called just-in-time teaching; it is a teaching and learning strategy that combines the benefits of Web-based assignments and an active-learner classroom where courses are customized to the particular needs of the class.

Highlighted by chilee

John Seely Brown is director emeritus of Xerox PARC and a visiting scholar at USC. He noticed that when a child first learns how to speak, she or he is totally immersed in a social context and highly motivated to engage in learning this new, amazingly complex system of language. It got him to thinking that "once you start going to school, in some ways you start to learn much slower because you are being taught, rather than what happens if you're learning in order to do things that you yourself care about…. Very often just going deeply into one or two topics that you really care about lets you appreciate the awe of the world … once you learn to honor the mysteries of the world, you're kind of always willing to probe things … you can actually be joyful about discovering something you didn't know … and you can expect always to need to keep probing. And so that sets the stage for lifelong inquiry."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

One strategy being used in this program is called just-in-time teaching

Highlighted by sersinghaus

just-in-time teaching

Highlighted by jdharri5

He says the education model has to change to suit this generation of students. Smart but impatient, they like to collaborate and they reject one-way lectures, he notes. 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."

Highlighted by sersinghaus

on 2009-07-15 by sersinghaus

This is reasonable.

one of these is Richard Sweeney, university librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Highlighted by demolischa

Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.

Highlighted by chilee

once you start going to school, in some ways you start to learn much slower because you are being taught, rather than what happens if you're learning in order to do things that you yourself care about

Highlighted by sheryl_barnes

Eric Mazur, who uses this approach in his physics class, puts it this way: "Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.

Highlighted by jdharri5

An evaluation study of 350 Cornell students found that those who were asked "deep questions" (that elicit higher-order thinking) with frequent peer discussion scored noticeably higher on their math exams than students who were not asked deep questions

Highlighted by chilee

There are shining examples of interactive education, though. Dr. Maria Terrell, who teaches calculus at Cornell University, used an interactive method that's part of a program called "Good Questions," which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

One strategy being used in this program is called just-in-time teaching; it is a teaching and learning strategy that combines the benefits of Web-based assignments and an active-learner classroom where courses are customized to the particular needs of the class. Warm-up questions, written by the students, are typically due a few hours before class, giving the teacher an opportunity to adjust the lesson "just in time," so that classroom time can be focused on the parts of the assignments that students struggled with. Harvard professor Eric Mazur, who uses this approach in his physics class, puts it this way: "Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.

This technique produces real results. An evaluation study of 350 Cornell students found that those who were asked "deep questions" (that elicit higher-order thinking) with frequent peer discussion scored noticeably higher on their math exams than students who were not asked deep questions or who had little to no chance for peer discussion. Dr. Terrell explains: "It's when the students talk about what they think is going on and why, that's where the biggest learning occurs for them…. You can hear people sort of saying, 'Oh I see, I get it.' … And then they're explaining to somebody else … and there's an authentic understanding of what's going on. So much better than what would happen if I, as the teacher person, explain it. There's something that happens with this peer instruction."

Highlighted by cburell

Net Geners, who have grown up collaborating, sharing, and creating together online. Progressive educators are recognizing this. Students start internalizing what they've learned in class only once they start talking to each other, says Seely Brown: "The whole notion of passively sitting and receiving information has almost nothing to do with how you internalize information into something that makes sense to you. Learning starts as you leave the classroom, when you start discussing with people around you what was just said. It is in conversation that you start to internalize what some piece of information meant to you."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

"Good Questions," which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Highlighted by demolischa

Dr. Terrell explains: "It's when the students talk about what they think is going on and why, that's where the biggest learning occurs for them…. You can hear people sort of saying, 'Oh I see, I get it.' … And then they're explaining to somebody else … and there's an authentic understanding of what's going on. So much better than what would happen if I, as the teacher person, explain it. There's something that happens with this peer instruction."

Highlighted by jdharri5

Schooling, says Howard Gardner, is a mass-production idea. "You teach the same thing to students in the same way and assess them all in the same way."

Highlighted by jamiereverb

Interactive education enables students to learn at their own pace.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

Interactive education enables students to learn at their own pace.

Highlighted by jdharri5

"Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations.

Highlighted by demolischa

on 2009-07-24 by demolischa

So so true!

Consider one of the smash hits on YouTube last year, a short video called "A Vision of Students Today".

Highlighted by jamiereverb

There were no lectures. Just as well: the statistics lecture is by definition a bust.

Highlighted by sersinghaus

If universities want to survive the arrival of free university-level education online, they need to change the way professors and students interact on campus. Some are taking bold steps to reinvent themselves, with help from the Internet. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, is offering free lecture notes, exams and videotaped lectures by MIT professors to the online world.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

Dr. Steve Hunka, a visionary in computer-mediated education

Highlighted by demolischa

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.

Highlighted by jdharri5

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.

Highlighted by jdharri5

But a credential and even the prestige of a university is rooted in its effectiveness as a learning institution. If these institutions are shown to be inferior learning environments to other alternatives their capacity to credential will surely diminish.

Highlighted by jamiereverb

But now that students can obviously find the information they're looking for in an instant online in the crania of others online, this old model doesn't make any sense. It's not only what you know that really counts when you graduate; it's how you navigate in the digital world, and what you do with the information you discover.

Highlighted by jdharri5

according to an article as long ago as 1997 called "Technology in the Classroom: from Theory to Practice," which appeared in Educom Review. "These results hold for a broad range of students stretching elementary to college students, studying across a broad range of disciplines, from mathematics to the social sciences to the humanities."

Highlighted by demolischa

The issue of pedagogy raises a deeper issue — the purpose of the university. 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.

Highlighted by learningcoach

Universities should be places to learn, not to teach.

Highlighted by jdharri5

The issue of pedagogy raises a deeper issue — the purpose of the university. 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.

Highlighted by demolischa

The issue of pedagogy raises a deeper issue — the purpose of the university. In the old model, teachers taught and students were expected to absorb vast quantities of content.

Highlighted by bluefour

"The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."

Highlighted by jdharri5

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.

Highlighted by bluefour

Campuses that embrace the new models become more effective learning environments and more desirable places.

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t's not only what you know that really counts when you graduate; it's how you navigate in the digital world, and what you do with the information you discover. This new style of learning, I believe, will suit them.

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Net Geners, immersed in digital technology, are keen to try new things, often at high speed. They want university to be fun and interesting. So they should enjoy the delight of discovering things for themselves. As Seymour Papert, one of the world's foremost experts on how technology can provide new ways to learn put it: "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."

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on 2009-07-15 by sersinghaus

In general this is reasonable too. Teachers as collaborators if experiences that provoke discovery.

Universities should be places to learn, not to teach.

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Another fixture of old-style learning is the assumption that students should learn on their own.

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As Seymour Papert, one of the world's foremost experts on how technology can provide new ways to learn put it: "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."

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Yet the individual learning model is foreign territory for most Net Geners, who have grown up collaborating, sharing, and creating together online.

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John Seely Brown is director emeritus of Xerox PARC and a visiting scholar at USC. He noticed that when a child first learns how to speak, she or he is totally immersed in a social context and highly motivated to engage in learning this new, amazingly complex system of language. It got him to thinking that "once you start going to school, in some ways you start to learn much slower because you are being taught, rather than what happens if you're learning in order to do things that you yourself care about…. Very often just going deeply into one or two topics that you really care about lets you appreciate the awe of the world … once you learn to honor the mysteries of the world, you're kind of always willing to probe things … you can actually be joyful about discovering something you didn't know … and you can expect always to need to keep probing. And so that sets the stage for lifelong inquiry."

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big universities

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research

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prime role

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teaching

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inconvenient afterthought

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class sizes so large

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lectures

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"There are a lot of sacred cows,"

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Academic Earth

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Students start internalizing what they've learned in class only once they start talking to each other, says Seely Brown: "The whole notion of passively sitting and receiving information has almost nothing to do with how you internalize information into something that makes sense to you. Learning starts as you leave the classroom, when you start discussing with people around you what was just said. It is in conversation that you start to internalize what some piece of information meant to you."

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Learning starts as you leave the classroom, when you start discussing with people around you what was just said. It is in conversation that you start to internalize what some piece of information meant to you."

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Yet the Industrial Age model of education is hard to change. New paradigms cause dislocation, disruption, confusion, uncertainty. They are nearly always received with coolness or hostility. Vested interests fight change. And leaders of old paradigms are often the last to embrace the new.

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Why should a university student be restricted to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending

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The lecture hall is a prime example of mass education. It came along with mass production, mass marketing, and the mass media.

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Schooling, says Howard Gardner, is a mass-production idea.

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The lecture hall is a prime example of mass education. It came along with mass production, mass marketing, and the mass media.

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If all that the big universities have to offer to students are lectures that you can get online for free — from other professors — why pay the tuition fees

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We're challenged by obstructive, non-market-based business models

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Dr. Maria Terrell

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A powerful force to change the university is the students. And sparks are flying today. There is a huge generational clash emerging in these institutions. It turns out that the critique of the university from years ago were ideas in waiting — waiting for the new web and a new generation of digital natives who could effectively challenge the old model.

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Changing the model of pedagogy for this generation is crucial for the survival of the university. If students turn away from a traditional university education, this will erode the value of the credentials universities award, their position as centers of learning and research, and as campuses where young people get a change to "grow up."

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just-in-time teaching

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I know many bright students who feel the same way. The big thing these days is to get an "A" without ever having gone to a lecture. When the crème de la crème of an entire generation is boycotting the formal model of pedagogy in our educational institutions, the writing is on the wall.

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Warm-up questions, written by the students, are typically due a few hours before class, giving the teacher an opportunity to adjust the lesson "just in time," so that classroom time can be focused on the parts of the assignments that students struggled with.

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One of the most important roles of the university is to screen human capital for future employers, and more broadly stratifying society.

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But a credential and even the prestige of a university is rooted in its effectiveness as a learning institution. If these institutions are shown to be inferior learning environments to other alternatives their capacity to credential will surely diminish.

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Of course, universities play an important role in the sorting of individuals in society, through the admissions process and the awarding of degrees. One of the most important roles of the university is to screen human capital for future employers, and more broadly stratifying society.

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The university campus has been "a wonderful place for young people to go for four years to get older", as Princeton sociologist Marvin Dressler told me a decade ago. "While they're there they're bound to learn something" he said.

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Campuses that embrace the new models become more effective learning environments and more desirable places. Even something as simple as online lectures do not undermine the value of on-campus education, they have enhanced it. The video lectures allow students to absorb the course content online — whenever it's convenient — and then get together to tinker, invent new things, or discuss the material. The experience has shown MIT that real value of what they offer is not the lecture per se, but rather the whole package — the content tied to the human learning experience on campus, plus the certification. Universities, in other words, cannot survive on lectures alone.

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Proenza thinks universities should use the Internet to create a global centre of excellence.

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The experience has shown MIT that real value of what they offer is not the lecture per se, but rather the whole package — the content tied to the human learning experience on campus, plus the certification. Universities, in other words, cannot survive on lectures alone.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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?

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Today when you graduate you're set for say, 15 minutes.

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learn lifelong

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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.

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So why hasn't it happened yet? "It's the legacy of established human and educational infrastructure," says Proenza. The analogy is not the newspaper business, which has been weakened by the distribution of knowledge on the Internet, he notes. "We're more like health care. We're challenged by obstructive, non-market-based business models. We're also burdened by a sense that doctor knows best, or professor knows best."

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Universities should be places to learn, not to teach.

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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, not just a place to grow up?

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Why not allow a brilliant grade 9 student to take first-year math, without abandoning the social life of his high school?

Highlighted by demolischa

Why not deploy the interactive power of the internet to transform the university into a place of life-long learning, not just a place to grow up?

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once you learn to honor the mysteries of the world, you're kind of always willing to probe things … you can actually be joyful about discovering something you didn't know

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lifelong inquiry

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individual learning model is foreign territory for most Net Geners

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screen human capital

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stratifying society

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good marks

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hard workers

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talents

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credential

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video lectures allow students to absorb the course content online — whenever it's convenient — and then get together to tinker, invent new things, or discuss the material.

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Videotaping lectures

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spend their on-campus time thinking and inquiring and challenging each other, rather than just absorbing information.

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Why should a university student be restricted to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending

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universities should use the Internet to create a global centre of excellence.

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Students would get to learn from the world's greatest minds in their area of interest — either in the physical classroom, or online.

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open to anyone online

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We're challenged by obstructive, non-market-based business models

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professor knows best

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are universities judged by the number of students they exclude

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how well they teach

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very notion of a walled-in institution

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power of the internet to transform the university into a place of life-long learning

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Vested interests

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Our model of learning is pre-Gutenberg! We've got a bunch of professors reading from handwritten notes, writing on blackboards, and the students are writing down what they say. This is a pre-Gutenberg model

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Wait till these students who are 14 and have grown up learning on the Net hit the [college] classrooms — sparks are going to fly

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huge generational clash emerging in these institutions

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