Mar

31

Rethinking Higher Education

Filed Under Education, Ideas, Philosophy, Random Thoughts 

There has been an interesting series on edwired about changing higher education to match the “free” economy. The series is called “The End of Western Civilization (as we know it).”

My question is this: Would the amorphous, free learning environment that the author appears to propose actually contradict the content of the learning? Part of education (a liberal education) is to learn the structure of and connections between spheres of knowledge. I would be concerned that the undirected learning approach might create a contradiction between content and vehicle.

Thoughts?

Comments

2 Responses to “Rethinking Higher Education”

  1. Lincoln Mullen on April 1st, 2008 1:32 pm

    I think that Mills Kelly would disagree that his proposal is an “undirected learning approach.” Rather, I think his proposal leads to learning that is more directed, not less.

    How so? First, Kelley argues that courses taken are not necessarily a measure of knowledge learned.

    What I’m suggesting here is that we have to throw out our assumptions about what “teaching and learning” mean in the context of the general education curriculum. Right now, we assume that what happens is that students enroll in something we call courses where faculty members impart knowledge to them in various ways. And we further assume that if a student successfully completes the 40 hours we require that he or she will know the things (or be able to do the things) our general education curriculum is set up to impart.

    http://edwired.org/?p=291

    Second, Kelly includes provisions for students to meet with teachers and have their progress guided. One on one guidance for students every two weeks is much more directed than attending giant lecture classes three times a week. Kelly’s system is actually a return to an earlier model of higher education prevalent before the commercialized model of the past century.

    Then the student and his or her adviser will establish a schedule of regular meetings, say once every two weeks or so, for that first semester. They would also establish a schedule for preparing for and then taking the various exams. Given recent research on student persistence in higher education that identifies time management as the number one issue confronted by new college students, this sort of regular check up will be pretty necessary for most students.

    http://edwired.org/?p=292

    Kelly also envisions “learning commons” and academic help centers where students get academic direction.

    Instead of classrooms (in short supply on lots of campuses these days), our fictional university would reallocate space as “learning commons” where students could work individually or collaboratively in preparation for specific exams. Students preparing for an exam could establish Facebook groups or use other social networking tools to find peers they need. The physical spaces would include robust wireless, dedicatd work stations, librarians, and some academic specialists. Faculty members from the various departments might take turns holding “learning hours” rather than office hours in the learning commons spaces.

    http://edwired.org/?p=292

    Third, Kelly limits his proposal to the general education part of the curriculum. Students would learn the basic curriculum more freely—though not without student guidance. They would then move on to the more advanced curriculum, where they would be taught more directly by professors.

    Perhaps if you post your question as a comment on Edwired you can get an answer directly from Kelly.

  2. Andrew on April 1st, 2008 6:33 pm

    Yeah, I tend to think that his idea is actually a good one. At least it seems better than the current version of general ed. Contemporary American education has a lot of problems, and not all of them are economic.
    I like his idea of “entrance exams” even better than the de-centralizing of the general ed curriculum. We could seriously use some objective criteria to evaluate student competence.

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