Friday, September 18, 2009
Are Colleges Obsolete?
Zephyr Teachout, of Dean Campaign fame, has an Op-Ed in last Sunday's Washington Post that builds an intriguing disruption scenario from several trends in college education. Her central claim is that
Basically it is a good story except for one key issue: Learning is not like reading a newspaper. When you read a newspaper, you're information gathering. When you attend college, (in all but the most recalcitrant cases) you're learning.
I'm not talking about college learning like how much beer we can drink or how sexual partnership works . . . well, maybe I am talking about that too . . . mostly I'm talking about the learning of academic subjects, and, ultimately, a profession.
Learning in isolation is fundamentally different from solo information gathering activities. You learn more standing around a water cooler with your colleagues than you do poring over a manual by yourself. The quiet parental faith of a teacher can be critical. Boisterous play with co-learners can give new handles to gathered information. Sometimes we don't even realize we're learning, 'cause it's so much fun.
A couple of decades ago, I set out to learn some oceanography. I read three really good books. My mind was . . . pardon . . . swimming in facts. Then, in an informal conversation with a real oceanographer, I suddenly realized that I'd failed to understand a keystone of physical oceanography, that there's more dissolved gas in colder water. Duh. My embarrassment inspired me to learn what I'd missed much more than a C on some quiz ever could. The oceanographer sensed my confusion and shifted into help mode. The conversation showed me what was important, how the facts I knew fit -- and didn't fit -- together, and gave a very fast remedial lesson.
I'm not saying that Professor Teachout is wrong. If the Internet survives in its current form, there's no doubt that the Academy will be as shaken as other institutions that thrive on information. And, if the Internet remains open to innovation, there's no doubt that its multi-modal, social, interactive uses that underlie real learning will become even more important.
Nevertheless, today human interaction is still more powerful when it's face-to-face, in meat-space, than it is on the Internet. We prove that almost every time we travel. It's not likely anytime soon that the sales person on-line will make the sale as effectively as the sales person in your office. Th Internet still has a ways to go. As long as informal interaction is a key to learning, it'll be key to college. The anticipated disruption may take a lot longer for colleges than for newspapers.
Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges cannot survive.She cites the redundancy of traditional teaching, the advent of low-cost on-line classes, take-it-yourself tests, the rise of for-profit degrees, the fact that half of all graduating seniors have attended more than one college, etc. She sticks close to the, "Colleges, like newspapers," story.
Basically it is a good story except for one key issue: Learning is not like reading a newspaper. When you read a newspaper, you're information gathering. When you attend college, (in all but the most recalcitrant cases) you're learning.
I'm not talking about college learning like how much beer we can drink or how sexual partnership works . . . well, maybe I am talking about that too . . . mostly I'm talking about the learning of academic subjects, and, ultimately, a profession.
Learning in isolation is fundamentally different from solo information gathering activities. You learn more standing around a water cooler with your colleagues than you do poring over a manual by yourself. The quiet parental faith of a teacher can be critical. Boisterous play with co-learners can give new handles to gathered information. Sometimes we don't even realize we're learning, 'cause it's so much fun.
A couple of decades ago, I set out to learn some oceanography. I read three really good books. My mind was . . . pardon . . . swimming in facts. Then, in an informal conversation with a real oceanographer, I suddenly realized that I'd failed to understand a keystone of physical oceanography, that there's more dissolved gas in colder water. Duh. My embarrassment inspired me to learn what I'd missed much more than a C on some quiz ever could. The oceanographer sensed my confusion and shifted into help mode. The conversation showed me what was important, how the facts I knew fit -- and didn't fit -- together, and gave a very fast remedial lesson.
I'm not saying that Professor Teachout is wrong. If the Internet survives in its current form, there's no doubt that the Academy will be as shaken as other institutions that thrive on information. And, if the Internet remains open to innovation, there's no doubt that its multi-modal, social, interactive uses that underlie real learning will become even more important.
Nevertheless, today human interaction is still more powerful when it's face-to-face, in meat-space, than it is on the Internet. We prove that almost every time we travel. It's not likely anytime soon that the sales person on-line will make the sale as effectively as the sales person in your office. Th Internet still has a ways to go. As long as informal interaction is a key to learning, it'll be key to college. The anticipated disruption may take a lot longer for colleges than for newspapers.
Technorati Tags: Press, Learning, University, ZephyrTeachout
Comments:
Excellent points. Your point on face to face interaction is critically important.
I was lucky enough to have quite a bit of mentoring as a teenager through that old packet network - the USPS. (good connectivity even in north central Montana, but a 3 to 4 day latency).
I was immersed in learning in college. Some was in the classroom. much was in the lab (I ended up with a phd in particle physics, but consider that only a marker in learning how to learn).
I learned that I don't have the taste to know what I need to have as a foundation and fear that much self directed learning leaves people with a weak foundation.
I was lucky enough to have quite a bit of mentoring as a teenager through that old packet network - the USPS. (good connectivity even in north central Montana, but a 3 to 4 day latency).
I was immersed in learning in college. Some was in the classroom. much was in the lab (I ended up with a phd in particle physics, but consider that only a marker in learning how to learn).
I learned that I don't have the taste to know what I need to have as a foundation and fear that much self directed learning leaves people with a weak foundation.
David:
The new Internet-based education environment is hardly "Learning in isolation" any more.
My wife is working on a triple Master's and the experience you're ascribing to "meatspace" education HAS pretty much been virtualized.
Standing around a water cooler with your colleagues is now private emails, SMS, and IMs outside the official channels (complaining about the instructor, inane hoops to be jumped through, help when you just DON'T GET IT, etc.)
"The quiet parental faith of a teacher can be critical" can now be face to face videoconferences with the instructor... or (increasingly common in tutoring situations) with Ph.D.'s from India.
Heck... even the experience of "I read three really good books" pales in comparison to the richness of resources now available via Internet. Open courseware, YouTube videos, forums, blogs, all the books in print via Amazon (and the ability to find OUT about them in the first place and BUY them, used, cheap), books OUT of print via Google Books... heck even archives of previous student work. All of that is now available via any Broadband Internet connection... any WHERE in the world.
In short order, US colleges are going to find themselves competing for students with Internet-based colleges whose faculty and infrastructure is entirely outside the US... but whose degrees will be at least as accepted as a typical second-tier state institution.
Colleges themselves probably aren't "obsolete" per se... but I think Higher Education IS in for a RADICAL restructuring, as...
1) The cash cow of overseas grad student enrollments is on the decline (see Farber's recent postings).
2) DEEP budget cuts to state-sponsored institutions force tuitions for on-campus students much higher at a time when many fewer families can afford to pay or event partially pay for a child's higher education costs.
3) The accelerated value decline of general-purpose liberal arts education in this incredible competitive employment landscape.
4) Employers now placing more value on what you can DO for the company as soon as you're hired, rather than "what you know" or "where you learned it".
5) Potential employees placing more value on acquiring an education / skill set that makes them immediately employable.
One last thought... would you rather have attended a typical college lecture, in a lecture hall with hundreds of other students, in uncomfortable seats, with little chance to interact with the lecturer...
Or would you rather "attend" that same lecture via a big screen HDTV, sitting in a comfortable chair, laptop at the ready, with a realtime, accompanying chat session (which I think you've elevated to near perfection in your conferences), able to browse the on-screen presentation, able to browse a transcript of the lecture, able to browse the comments of all the other "attendees"?
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The new Internet-based education environment is hardly "Learning in isolation" any more.
My wife is working on a triple Master's and the experience you're ascribing to "meatspace" education HAS pretty much been virtualized.
Standing around a water cooler with your colleagues is now private emails, SMS, and IMs outside the official channels (complaining about the instructor, inane hoops to be jumped through, help when you just DON'T GET IT, etc.)
"The quiet parental faith of a teacher can be critical" can now be face to face videoconferences with the instructor... or (increasingly common in tutoring situations) with Ph.D.'s from India.
Heck... even the experience of "I read three really good books" pales in comparison to the richness of resources now available via Internet. Open courseware, YouTube videos, forums, blogs, all the books in print via Amazon (and the ability to find OUT about them in the first place and BUY them, used, cheap), books OUT of print via Google Books... heck even archives of previous student work. All of that is now available via any Broadband Internet connection... any WHERE in the world.
In short order, US colleges are going to find themselves competing for students with Internet-based colleges whose faculty and infrastructure is entirely outside the US... but whose degrees will be at least as accepted as a typical second-tier state institution.
Colleges themselves probably aren't "obsolete" per se... but I think Higher Education IS in for a RADICAL restructuring, as...
1) The cash cow of overseas grad student enrollments is on the decline (see Farber's recent postings).
2) DEEP budget cuts to state-sponsored institutions force tuitions for on-campus students much higher at a time when many fewer families can afford to pay or event partially pay for a child's higher education costs.
3) The accelerated value decline of general-purpose liberal arts education in this incredible competitive employment landscape.
4) Employers now placing more value on what you can DO for the company as soon as you're hired, rather than "what you know" or "where you learned it".
5) Potential employees placing more value on acquiring an education / skill set that makes them immediately employable.
One last thought... would you rather have attended a typical college lecture, in a lecture hall with hundreds of other students, in uncomfortable seats, with little chance to interact with the lecturer...
Or would you rather "attend" that same lecture via a big screen HDTV, sitting in a comfortable chair, laptop at the ready, with a realtime, accompanying chat session (which I think you've elevated to near perfection in your conferences), able to browse the on-screen presentation, able to browse a transcript of the lecture, able to browse the comments of all the other "attendees"?
