Re : Following Article Worthwhile summary of trends effecting higher ed. However, as with most papers about the "future of college education" that I have read so far, something crucial is overlooked. Simple ( simplistic ) trend line forecasts ignore an obvious question : What will colleges DO to try and keep campus based education relevant and valuable ? Methinks this question is studiously avoided in the computer business ; not something anyone wants to think about since, after all., the purpose of any computer firm is to sell computers and / or software. Anything that does not contribute to selling computer products cannot , by definition, reflect the future. It seems unarguably true that the future of education at the college level will feature increasing computer / software use. Anyone who has another view cannot be taken seriously. But as in all things, there are limits to how far any trend can go. Inevitably you get market saturation or resistance, or some new innovation --not necessarily a product invention-- changes everything. It would be a good idea to consider what in-person education can do that no technology is able to do and will never be able to do. After all, once these features are identified you are better able to look at limits objectively and make plans accordingly. The current trend will persist but only as long as alternatives continue to lag as strong non-computer selling points. Again, to conceive college education as essentially only a matter of attending lectures is a major mistake. That was not the case when I started teaching way back when and it certainly is not the case now. Consider an experiment that is due for a revival, short terms in which students take exactly one class. The way it was done at Alice Lloyd College was that there was a short term for the month of January, each year. Two classes of mine were in this format. Indian History of the Southeast United States featured not only lectures so that students had a background of hard information, but included a week long field trip to Native American sites in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina Back as the college one of the highlights of the term was a cooking class in which we prepared a meal for the student body on campus consisting entirely of foods that Indians prepared in early American history. The other class was called "Space Exploration and the Future." The field trip was to Cape Kennedy and to the Huntsville Space Museum. There also was a Space Fair that the class created for the student body. Yes, if computers had been available at the time there would have been even more we could have done. Similarly for video equipment, which was still fairly scarce in those years in higher ed. But the fact remains that the "whole package" which such a course consisted of, simply cannot be replicated with "virtual" classes. There is unique value to this kind of class. Not just mine, but those of most of the faculty at ALC. Now think about other kinds of experiential college education. I one knew a woman who started an at-sea college in which students cruised the globe on a large sailboat, literally learning on site, Greece when studying the classic past, Italy when studying the Renaissance, Israel when studying the Mid East or Biblical archaeology. A woman teacher at ALC wanted to create another class for that January one-month term that was a terrific idea even if, last I remember, funding for it had never been obtained. But her idea was a trip through the Southwest to study geology. As good as some geology books are, as good as some visuals available on the Web are, no way can any such thing compare with actually being there and "studying" geology from "the rocks themselves" and their geological environment. Same kind of considerations apply to environmental science, recreation / hospitality, security management, and dozens of other fields. Seems to me that it won't be much longer before MOST colleges and universities are in the midst of another world as they emphasize the advantages of being AT their school, not just being connected to their school via the Internet. In that case, the task for computer businesses will not be simply manufacturing more and more hardware, no matter now good some of it may be, but in creating products that augment experiential ( you-are-there ) education. So far, to the best of my knowledge, no-one in the computer business has even begun to think along these lines. I wonder if it is even possible for them to do. Sometimes the mindset seems to be that computers are the world and the future, rather than part of the world and part of the future. Only when faced with a reality that, so far, has yet to materialize except in a few scattered locations, can this mindset be challenged successfully. But to expect colleges to roll over and play dead so that computer businesses can prosper as their campuses become shopping malls would be, IMHO, really, really short-sighted. Expect a "counter-reformation" and expect it soon. Billy ================================================== tle.wisc.edu/.../college-2020-according-chronicle-higher-education no date, but recent by : ambrower The College of 2020 according to the Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted the first of three research reports on future trends in higher education. This first one, The College of 2020: Students, reports trends of students--demographic information, interests, use of technology, which sectors of higher education are growing at a faster pace, part-time vs. full-time status, etc. _Click here_ (http://research.chronicle.com/asset/TheCollegeof2020ExecutiveSummary.pdf) for the free executive summary. This is a well done piece, and their primary questions, "What is college, and why should I go?" are exactly right. One premise of this report is that two economic models of colleges will survive: 4-year residential and research institutions with already-recognized and respected brand names (privates like Harvard as well as public flagships like UW-Madison), and the for-profit institutions that rely heavily on on-line and flexible educational degrees. Those that are somewhere in the middle are going to have a very rough time. Here are some of the conclusions from the report: * Fewer and fewer students will seek full-time, four year programs due to their expense, inconvenience, and inflexibility of programs. * Thus, an emphasis will be on providing cheap, convenient, flexible education that students can access anywhere. * Three-year degree programs will proliferate. * To attract more students, colleges may begin to offer one-year remedial programs to high school students who are not yet prepared for college work. At the same time, adult education and college education will increasingly merge. * At some point just after 2020, minority students will outnumber whites on college campuses for the first time. * Even for universities that are largely residential, "hybrid" courses will increasingly become the norm: classroom discussions, office hours, lectures, study groups, and assignments will move on line. * Here's a quote I particularly liked because of things I've already mentioned about web 2.0: "The Internet has made most information available to everyone, and faculty members must take that into consideration when teaching. There is very little that students cannot find on their own if they are inspired to do so. And many of them will be surfing the Net in class. The faculty member, therefore, may become less an oracle and more an organizer and guide, someone who adds perspective and context, finds the best articles and research, and sweeps away misconceptions and bad information." (emphasis added). Some of these trends, I hope, are not a surprise to you: we've had plenty of discussion on this blog, throughout the TLE site, and across campus, about uses of technology and how to make our educational enterprise distinctive. And we are already moving in the direction of how to best use technologies and how to best engage students through our WI Exp/ELO initiatives. Yet, we must continue to make explicit and demonstrate the value of a UW-Madison degree; neither complacency nor our "Madison modesty" are not going to serve us well. As I've challenged us many times, when students can take intro chem or psychology anywhere, or a course in US politics, Shakespeare, or Latin American History, or even advanced methods in structural equation modeling, why would they want to take it with us? We need to show them why--and its because our unique and comprehensive WI Experience adds value, it's because our WI Experience helps our graduates go off and change the world. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
