This is a pretty old argument--see Kevin Carey’s The End of College for probably the best argument. But I’m skeptical--see https://shermandorn.com/wordpress/?p=6404 for my thoughts as this discussion was evolving about a decade ago
An issue is that it’s quite hard to create the first example of the alternate model, no?
In a world where the traditional mode still is the norm, how do you attract enough students and good teachers to trial out an alternative?
I think it could quite easily be widely agreed upon that some of the ideas you describe would be a better, more useful, and more streamlined way to do education.
But since the accepted signals currently come only from the traditional model, getting people to organize around an alternative is the first major hurdle, and maybe the biggest.
Was talking about the idea of a 80:20 projects-to-exam grading ratio recently, and Pradyumna pointed out that most people would hate such a "trial by fire" as it were. And exams as the low-variance, "know-what-to-expect" option, should stay the preferred way to measure competence.
I disagreed. Because I've only ever really cared about projects. (Even if they were ungraded ones lol). And so I agree with most of the ideas here. Especially the pick-your-own-adventure and shorter specializations. (Yeah, I'm mad about the way Indian education works rn.)
If stuff is going to change, I really hope it does ASAP, just because it usually takes so long for the world to catch up. HR departments take even longer :P
However, I can't help but be reminded of how much of the education discourse is centered around American colleges. Understandably so, since as citizens of the net, we're all Americans now and that's where the the student debt crisis is. But I believe that the biggest wins can be found in the places that most need improvements. Third world countries have an almost completely different set of systems and issues and I'd like to see some discussion/resarch/proposed solutions there too.
This is a pretty old argument--see Kevin Carey’s The End of College for probably the best argument. But I’m skeptical--see https://shermandorn.com/wordpress/?p=6404 for my thoughts as this discussion was evolving about a decade ago
An issue is that it’s quite hard to create the first example of the alternate model, no?
In a world where the traditional mode still is the norm, how do you attract enough students and good teachers to trial out an alternative?
I think it could quite easily be widely agreed upon that some of the ideas you describe would be a better, more useful, and more streamlined way to do education.
But since the accepted signals currently come only from the traditional model, getting people to organize around an alternative is the first major hurdle, and maybe the biggest.
Was talking about the idea of a 80:20 projects-to-exam grading ratio recently, and Pradyumna pointed out that most people would hate such a "trial by fire" as it were. And exams as the low-variance, "know-what-to-expect" option, should stay the preferred way to measure competence.
I disagreed. Because I've only ever really cared about projects. (Even if they were ungraded ones lol). And so I agree with most of the ideas here. Especially the pick-your-own-adventure and shorter specializations. (Yeah, I'm mad about the way Indian education works rn.)
Although Gwern's write-up is a bit sceptical w.r.t MOOCs et al: https://www.gwern.net/Conscientiousness-and-online-education
If stuff is going to change, I really hope it does ASAP, just because it usually takes so long for the world to catch up. HR departments take even longer :P
However, I can't help but be reminded of how much of the education discourse is centered around American colleges. Understandably so, since as citizens of the net, we're all Americans now and that's where the the student debt crisis is. But I believe that the biggest wins can be found in the places that most need improvements. Third world countries have an almost completely different set of systems and issues and I'd like to see some discussion/resarch/proposed solutions there too.