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So Peter Sacks, author of the excellent Generation X Goes to College, explains what's really wrong with the likely MOOCification of higher education.
Studies show that learning through MOOCS and related online delivery systems isn't worse than that through the more traditional or personal ways of teaching, at least according to allegedly reliable quantitative measures.
That "assessment" is more than enough to lead state schools and poorer private schools to embrace such efficient and effective enough instructional technology. Students will get the competencies and skills connected with degree completion at an affordable price. There's no particular reason why "for profit" institutions—as long as they're rigorously assessed—shouldn't get involved in this effort to get as many Americans as possible through college. American education so disrupted will have purged itself of educationally irrelevant amenities, beginning with tenured faculty lounging about insulated from the relevant standards of productivity.
Meanwhile, the richer and more "elite" colleges won't go in this techno-direction. They will become progressively more personal, emphasizing student "engagement," more luxurious amenities from gourmet food to health-club gyms and edifying internships and study-abroad options that could easily be mistaken for vacations, and undergraduate research.
The elite schools will get better and better and the state schools will get more standardized and commodified, more reliably mediocre. Actually, that's an optimistic scenario. If we check out secondary education, we can see that the elite high schools are better than ever, while most high schools are pretty much warehouses for teenagers. Those two kinds of high schools will pretty predictably feed those two kinds of colleges. And nobody with eyes to see trusts assessment rubrics to guarantee quality control.
So you still might say there's nothing to worry about here. Our elite colleges have pretty meritocratic admissions policies, and they're all about "diversity." They also have lots of financial aid. But we can also see that our colleges are more stratified than ever when it comes to SAT and IQ. And we can also see that our "cognitive elite" is separating itself more than ever through choice of schools and all that from the rest of society. Those who have actually looked at the stats see that diversity at our best colleges is increasingly smart and rich black and white kids being educated together. Meanwhile, the class divide based on money, education, and brains widens, and there's no real incentive for our best colleges to care.
It's tougher than ever for members of our sinking middle class to be able to do what it takes to get into our best colleges. Meanwhile, we're going to be about stripping our ordinary colleges with open or semi-open admissions policy of personal features, beginning with tenured faculty, to cut costs. That means our struggling ordinary guys aren't going to get the personal attention and possible "transformative experiences" that have historically been available on even our ordinary low-tech campuses. Those most in need of and often deserving of personal encouragement are going to be those least likely to get it.
So Sacks is right that it should offend our meritocratic sensibilities that our elite colleges are now, more than ever, First Class. And our MOOCified colleges might well be on their way to becoming "steerage" or more and more distant from real higher education.
Imagine learning empathy at school. Global Oneness Project does just that.
To create wiser adults, add empathy to the school curriculum.
A still from the film "We Became Fragments" by Luisa Conlon , Lacy Roberts and Hanna Miller, part of the Global Oneness Project library.
- Stories are at the heart of learning, writes Cleary Vaughan-Lee, Executive Director for the Global Oneness Project. They have always challenged us to think beyond ourselves, expanding our experience and revealing deep truths.
- Vaughan-Lee explains 6 ways that storytelling can foster empathy and deliver powerful learning experiences.
- Global Oneness Project is a free library of stories—containing short documentaries, photo essays, and essays—that each contain a companion lesson plan and learning activities for students so they can expand their experience of the world.
What the world will look like in the year 250,002,018
This is what the world will look like, 250 million years from now
To us humans, the shape and location of oceans and continents seems fixed. But that's only because our lives are so short.
Sooner or later we all face death. Will a sense of meaning help us?
As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner.
'Despite all our medical advances,' my friend Jason used to quip, 'the mortality rate has remained constant – one per person.'
3 mind-blowing space facts with Neil deGrasse Tyson
Tyson dives into the search for alien life, dark matter, and the physics of football.
- Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson joins us to talk about one of our favorite subjects: space.
- In the three-chaptered video, Tyson speaks about the search for alien life inside and outside of the Goldilocks Zone, why the term "dark matter" should really be called "dark gravity," and how the rotation of the Earth may have been the deciding factor in a football game.
- These fascinating space facts, as well as others shared in Tyson's books, make it easier for everyone to grasp complex ideas that are literally out of this world.
From zero to hero in 18 years: How SpaceX became a nation-state
SpaceX's momentous Crew Dragon launch is a sign of things to come for the space industry, and humanity's future.
