This is the message delivered last year by David Wiley to a room full of professors and university administrators. A professor of psychology and instructional technology at Brigham Young University, Wiley says that colleges and universities continue to act as if they have a monopoly on education. I’m not going into much more detail here. Read the Deseret News story (link).((Jarvik. Elaine. ” Universities will be ‘irrelevant’ by 2020, Y. professor says,” Deseret News 20 Apr 2009. Web.23 Apr 2009. <http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705298649/Universities-will-be-irrelevant-by-2020-Y-professor-says.html>.))
But the quote that really caught my attention and my imagination was:
Higher education doesn’t reflect the life that students are living. In that life, information is available on demand, files are shared, and the world is mobile and connected. Today’s colleges, on the other hand, are typically “tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.”
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Education isn’t just content… sure, some schools have acted like that but if that’s all schools/universities are hanging on to, we are irrelevant. I don’t see schools anywhere, but those that believe we are just a book of facts won’t survive…
I think this is a message for all educators. It’s about the teaching, not the information. Our students have infinite exposure to information. It’s up to us to help them learn and grow.
I could not agree more. Education is rooted in a old system that is no longer relevant. The public education (K-12) system was designed at the turn of the 20th century to produce productive citizens. These citizens would be mostly factory or farmers workers that would obey commands and be able to promote specific tasks. Root memorization and testing of facts rather than skills was the norm.
As our world shifted from production based to service based economy, education failed to change in stride. Instead they piled on more tests and more measures of “accountability”. At least in the US, K-12 teachers are forced to teach to the test in order for their school to get proper funding from the state or federal government. The tests don’t look for higher level thinking or collaborative processes – both skills essential to the 21st century citizen. Instead they test multiple choice questions and simple essays that only serve as a regurgitation of facts and concepts. Free thinking and new ideas fails to reproduce results according to the metrics of state testing.
Higher Education is better in some respects but they are bound to the same short comings of K-12 education. I’d like to see some bold steps in education reform. Facts are irrelevant. Google and the internet have proved that over and over. It is about collaboration and sharing on the global scale, connecting with people that are working out in the field. In my experiences I have seen little of this being done at the Higher Ed level and none of it being done at K-12 level. Students will continue to graduate and earn degrees in things that won’t matter to the 21st century job market.
admit / no admit
yes / no
come / cannot come to class.
anyone been to real college..
1. real lecture… 100 people.
2. digital lecture…. 100-900 million can see lecture.
anyone anytime anywhere on earth.