On my essay on Minerva, a commenter writes,
It seems to me that centralization and hierarchies can be useful in contexts where a unitary goal exists and where information is concentrated (e.g. performing surgery, waging war). On the other hand, decentralization and emergent approaches are useful when multiple/unclear goals exist and information is dispersed/local (e.g. politics, consumption choices).
Applying this to education, centralization (e.g. adherence to lessons plans, strong professor guidance) should then be relatively more useful when students are first learning a concept they are unfamiliar with since the goal is clear (learn the concept) and information is concentrated (with the professor). On the other hand, decentralization (e.g. open-ended discussions, student-led activities) is relatively more useful when students are applying concepts they have already learned since the goal becomes less defined (deepening knowledge can occur in many ways) and information is now dispersed (students can bring in their own views once the concept is understood).
Think of two ways of learning to read. The centralized way is for a teacher to systematically explain the letters and how they form words. The decentralized way is to sit in your parent’s lap while they read and to acquire reading skills by gradually learning to associate the symbols on the page with what the parent is saying. The parent responds to your curiosity about the symbols on the page. I think that we tend to over-estimate the efficacy of the centralized approach and to under-appreciate the role of the decentralized approach.
At a college level, think about concepts as tools to answer questions. So if I learn accounting, I have a tool that I can use to analyze a business.
With a centralized approach to education, you teach accounting, and you tell students, “You are going to need this.” With a decentralized approach, you trust that the students who become interested in analyzing businesses will sooner or later become interested and motivated to learn accounting.
When I say that the future belongs to auto-didacts, I am saying that a motivated college student should be capable of coming up with questions that serve to direct that student’s learning. The best role for a professor is to be a guide or mentor.
“When I say that the future belongs to auto-didacts, I am saying that a motivated college student should be capable of coming up with questions that serve to direct that student’s learning. ”
Absolutely.
The antitrust implications of that statement are profound. A university, perhaps, is best understood as a conspiracy in restraint of trade. Professors competing for students fix prices and engage in other anticompetitive activities under the auspices of the university shell. Students are forced to buy the university administration Microsoft explorer browser bundled along with the professorial Windows operating system.
Elimination of education monopolies and instiutional restraints on trade in educational services would go a long way towards to making the ed industry a contributor to the economy rather than a net loss.
All the waste involved in the ed industry with its metastasized administrative bloat and perpetual rent seeking and subsidies represents a social cost that is far greater than that of carbon dioxide. Antitrust may just be the most effective tool to turn that around.
When I say that the future belongs to auto-didacts, I am saying that a motivated college student should be capable of coming up with questions that serve to direct that student’s learning. The best role for a professor is to be a guide or mentor.
As a former high school teacher, I disagree. That skill is (not deliberately) selected against in the formative years of middle and high school. During those years, students are asked to learn way more than is possible. (You think not? Honestly, how much of what you “learned” then do you actually remember today? Could you pass more than two of your high school finals? Could you pass any?) Moreover, much of what they are supposed to learn they have no inherent interest in. Middle school teachers hear, “When am I going to use this?” We are constantly trying to “motivate” students. We are also constantly trying to “manage” the classroom. Which to a significant extent means convincing the students that you are “on their side”, that you want them to succeed.
High school teachers no longer hear the question. Students know they won’t get a very honest answer. But they have learned that you need a high school diploma to succeed. If you want to get into a “good” college, you need good grades.
How do you accomplish that? Well, you could think really hard and ask lots of questions and really, really try to understand the material. Some do, in some classes. Most don’t.
But teachers will explain and repeat. They will emphasize what will be on the test at the end of the unit–usually in about three weeks time. Quizzes will allow the student to see how well she’s committing things to memory. There will probably be a review right before the test. Since the teacher knows what is on the test, that’s what he reviews! Students have picked up on this as they proceed through middle school. If they commit enough into short term memory, they can pass the unit test, maybe even get a pretty good grade. Then, in most courses, they will never see that material again and can safely forget it (in educatese, the knowledge “decays”).
If the teacher follows this template, the students will be reasonably satisfied. They may not like it but at least they know “how the game is played” and what they can do to succeed. If a teacher tries to make them think, or do something on a test that they haven’t done several times already, they will feel betrayed. They will tell you how confusing the test was, obviously not fair.
In 7-12, students have largely learned NOT to ask questions. They have learned that education is telling back to the teacher what the teacher has told them.
Many years ago, I read a law review article saying that “bundling” teaching and testing should be an antitrust violation (it obviously sets up a perverse incentive when the teacher gets to measure how well he’s been teaching). The idea went nowhere.
Because students are supposed to learn so much more than most of them can, teachers are forced into something like the above “rules”. A teacher who marks on the basis of how much 7-12 students have learned (as opposed to remembered for a short time after enough drill and review) will have to fail most of them. If they see little chance of passing, they will revolt, and life in the classroom will be a nightmare. Meanwhile, the department head and principal will find so many failures completely unacceptable. That teacher will never make it out of his probational period.
“When I say that the future belongs to auto-didacts…”
I think this is really just a strategy to avoid spending enormous sums on an outdated educational concept.
We have educational models based on ideas that worked when we were children. Then, a reasonably smart person that was well educated in a wide and shallow manner could take on most career choices before them and could become productive in a few months or less.
We all took those simpler jobs at low salaries and moved up. Over time, we all transitioned along with the economy into increasingly specialized roles. Thirty or forty years later, and many of us can’t even explain what we do to our friends any more without their eyes glazing over.
Now we have extreme labor specialization. Work knowledge is narrow and very deep. Young people can’t afford expensive wide and shallow educations, only to find that they then must undergo another narrow and deep learning process in order to have any useable skills.
We don’t need to figure out better ways to deliver a general college education. For most young people, we have to scrap the idea altogether.
> The best role for a professor is to be a guide or mentor.
Or “coach”. Adult exercise is a great analogy to education. Adults often shop for exercise classes with coaches that are supportive. Ideally, students could shop for coaching in academic subjects in the same way. Of course, the testing, grading, scoring functions should be separate from the coaching.
Coaches that are supportive? How does that explain boot camp classes where they just yell at you?
Roger Sweeney made the right point above- until the testing and the “educating” are separated completely, you won’t get better results.
Universities should have to offer students the right to test through any course at any time, and create a path to the degrees that way. The student wouldn’t have to spend money on room and board, wouldn’t have to spend 4-6 hours a day sitting in a class during the day, and they would have to the control to complete the degree in less, or far less, than 4 years, or, if they chose, more than 4 years. If you aren’t living on campus, aren’t taking up a seat in a lecture hall, and aren’t the overall responsibility of the university as a resident, then you should get a deep discount on the price of the degree.
Just to use myself as an example- I got a bachelor’s in chemistry- I never attended class unless it was mandatory and/or the skills I was learning were hands on in the laboratories. The lab skills classes were the only classes I really needed to attend at all, and I would have happily paid for those separately to test through the rest of it.
Graduate school was a much better model than the undergraduate, though still not perfect. Being a chemist, I didn’t pay anything for the PhD to the school other than the time in the lab which was to my benefit anyway, and the cheap labor in teaching the undergraduate lab sections 1 day a week (which was itself a valuable learning experience to me).
My favorite search engine is a pretty good mentor.
The best classroom technique is the seminar, student prepared by reading first.
The combination is regional on-line teaching. Attend irregular seminars on topics with preparation, otherwise your teacher and you use the same wiki and share links online.
Drop the concept of campus entirely, except for labs and sports.