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
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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
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.
-- 