Will universities stay relevant? Discussion by Don Tapscott

[Or-Tal Kiriati]

Quoting:
"Last week I wrote a substantial essay for the Edge arguing that the universities are entering a period of crisis.

I argued that is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital best learn. "
Read more here: http://bit.ly/28aw8.

It's an old discussion, I know. Not only here, on fireside, but in general, or as my daughter pointed out "Socrates started this discussion".

My question are:
-What would make the difference?
-What should happen that will drive reality to a new place?
-Where will the revolution begin? And how long will it be before we notice it?

My answers to these questions:
What makes the difference is the accessibility of information. No longer do students need professors to transfer their knowledge into the young minds - young minds can access information and process it on their own.

What needs to happen that will drive education as a whole, and not just universities, to a new place, is not one thing but many things. Among them the daring of individuals to change what they can individually change. Be it teachers, students or employers. Generally speaking - learn to appreciate and assess people without grades.

As for the last questions - this puzzles me. I cant really say that the "revolution" will start at an elementary school, high school or college. I can't say which country will lead the change. And how long will it take before we can say there is a change? It can happen really quickly. It should. Slow pace doesn't fit our environment. Hence - the "revolution".

[Daniel Bassill]

I think Universities will reinvent themselves as a resource for people as they go from age 25 to 85 and try to deal with all of the issues they deal with in life. Those who are effective will build huge on-line following with people from around the world using the resources of the university for learning, collaboration, shared understanding, etc.

Those who don't figure a way to do this may have difficulty covering the mortgage.

What do others think about this?

[Or-Tal Kiriati]

That is perhaps the basis of the idea "University of the People" - you can read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/education/26university.html.
But look at what people say about it: “How will they test students? How much will the professors do? How well does the American or British curriculum serve the needs of people in Mali? How do they handle students whose English is not at college level?”

I think that the American or British curriculum should only be a part of the total curriculum. I think that exposure to other countries' contents is what it's all about. It's only seclusion that prevents us from advancing.

[Ian Carmichael]

One thing I continue to wonder about, and it seems to sit on the edge of the larnin' discussions. We happily discuss creativitiy, knowledge, information, constructivism, connection, relationships, change, speed, growth.
It seems to me that the outlier is wisdom. And high input, high bandwidth, high connectivity are not necessarily friends to the formation of wisdom. Wisdom, it seems to me, takes time, the product of holding together a wide range of inputs over a sufficient period such that a new synthesis, a deeper set of connections, a broader range of applications can be made.

The university which understands the formation of wisdom will stay relevant. The ones that are simply information pumps are probably already irrelevant - they just don't know it yet!

[Or-Tal Kiriati]

What does 'understanding the formation of wisdom' look like?

[Ian Carmichael]

A good question, Or-Tal.
Wisdom looks like people who can tell the difference between what can be done and what should be done. It looks like people who can draw beyond their subject expertise in order to communicate, convince and implement preferable actions. It looks like people who can take a long view, which pictures a preferable future for the grandchildren - or the planet!
Understanding the formation of wisdom, I think, is understanding how to encourage interdisciplinary or cross disciplinary exposure and experience so that holistic, rather than fragmentary thinking and reflection occurs.

I'm not being clear, because I'm not clear on it myself - but I'm convinced: we need to find the next level for our survival and thriving - to go beyond the production of expert technicians who can service and run a complex machine smoothly and efficiently.

For example in our current global economic crisis - there are key measures which are taken as vital signs of an economy: who has stopped to ask whether these measures are the best measures? Who has stopped to ask what other measures are possible, and what shape economy counting with them will produce? (The technicians don't ask those kind of questions. There aren't answers for them in the current 'machine' manuals.)

[Fred Haas]

I am not sure that university has ever been simply a bastion of information, which is part of what I see suggested. Of course there are professors who just pontificate and rule their small fiefdom. They are likely the ones that will become irrelevant. However, I don’t for a minute believe that they are the norm, at least they haven’t been in my experience.

I was taken with Ian’s contention about wisdom, because it was the first response that popped to mind for me as well. In addition to his comments about what it would look like, I would like to add a couple things. For one, wisdom is gained by the hard crucible of experience. That long view, to which Ian refers, comes from those that have been around long enough to see things that others miss, wouldn’t recognize, or never knew existed. We all need a legacy of knowledge and understanding that recalls times that are not like these. Those with experience and wisdom offer wider breadth, coupled with deeper understanding. They ask tough questions and do so with some circumspection. Without it we younger folk run the risk of believing our own hype.

It all reminds me of the fish koan. Without wisdom we are all fish looking for the ocean. Of course most young fish know not they are in the water, never having left it. Yet some of those older fish recognize water as where they live. Perhaps they have flown in the air, and their experience allows them to see what others do not even believe exists.

What’s more, universities are more likely to become irrelevant because there value cannot keep pace with their increased costs. So many offer the most unique mentoring opportunities, but can they remain worth it.

Finally, having read Tapscott’s most recent book Grown Up Digital, he makes a lot of claims that can be reasonably characterized as oversimplifications. That does not mean that everything he says is without merit, because he does make some strong cases too. Yet, as long as people are willing to pay for the university experience there will be new blood challenging the old guard and keeping them honest too. I would submit it is the tension between the new and the old that allows people and institutions to change and grow.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Or-Tal, although I'm certainly not someone who likes the current university system (I find it to be stultifying most of the time), I think a university so-called education will continue to be relevant at least in the United States because of the colossal failure of the high schools. It used to be that a high school diploma represented a basic level of literacy and numeracy that was used by employers as a basic job qualification credential. That is no longer the case; instead, at least in America, the university is what the high school used to be (just as much of graduate school is what the undergraduate curriculum used to be). So, as a result, my university has a steady stream of students (customers) willing to pay for a degree because they know it will better their job prospects. They're not looking for education really, much less the kind of wisdom that Ian is talking about... they are just doing what they need to do to get a good job.

What's absolutely bizarre to me about this is how American businesses have gone along with this. It is not to anybody's advantage to have our high schools fail to provide students with all the basic literacy and numeracy they need to get good jobs... so, what I hope is that we will finally do something about the declining quality of high school education in America, so that a high school diploma can serve that kind of basic gatekeeping function for job-seeking - and that way, students will not have to sacrifice four years or more of their time, and spend tens of thousands of dollars (and often more), to get the basic kind of education that they could, and should, have gotten in high school.

The courses I teach at the college level (courses for college seniors, in fact) could easily be high school courses... and that is true for far more college courses than anyone cares to admit.

What's really bizarre about this is the weird position is puts professors in - they are being asked to do basic skills teaching with students, when they really have not received any training in that at all, so they are really not even doing a very good job of it.

So, it's crazy every way you look at it. But the real change I hope to see is in the high schools, with a corresponding decrease in the inflated college enrollments that we see right now - these levels of enrollment are a pretty recent phenomenon historically speaking (something that's happened over the last fifty years or so), and there's no reason we cannot see that phenomenon reverse itself, if things really improved in our high schools.

[Mike]

Hi all.....hope every one is well! Crowded 4th of July in South Jersey!

Love the idea of Wisdom.....lets consider trying to define it and flesh it out!

Really like this Ian:

Wisdom looks like people who can tell the difference between what can be done and what should be done. It looks like people who can draw beyond their subject expertise in order to communicate, convince and implement preferable actions. It looks like people who can take a long view, which pictures a preferable future for the grandchildren - or the planet!
Understanding the formation of wisdom, I think, is understanding how to encourage interdisciplinary or cross disciplinary exposure and experience so that holistic, rather than fragmentary thinking and reflection occurs. Ian


Here is a visual i like:

Laura... your point is well taken..however as long as we connect credentials with a means to make more money we will continue to send our children to college......

colleges.... instead of dealing with the top 15% ...as in the past....may need to take a look at what average ability is. Can they adjust? Should they?
If not.... we need to create better ways into middle class income work!

I have a close friend that sells wine. Does well. Needed a college degree to get the work.
He could have easily done his work just as well without a degree in "business".

Yet the gateway..... college and credentials.

Wondering.... until this link is looked at.... we will continue to see kids.... go try and get the paper.......its not about school...its about work.

be well... mike