Please Destroy My Plan to Disrupt Higher Education

http://www.slideshare.net/JudahMeek/just-the-basics

by judahmeek • 11 years ago

2 10 11 years ago

dalke4• 11 years ago

What is the basis for the belief that this system is different?

There's a long history in the US of businesses working with local education systems in order to train people. This is more formalized through technical school and vocational education. Given that this proposal is very similar to systems we've had, why should we expect better success?

McDonald's is one of the companies mentioned as possibly supporting this scheme. Note that McDonald's already has its own Hamburger University, which is a corporate university.

The text says "Unlike traditional accreditation boards, this board is formed of representatives from relevant corporations and professional societies." How is this "unlike traditional accreditation boards"?

Professional societies already influence traditional accreditation. Here's the IEEE page on their role in accreditation - http://www.ieee.org/education_careers/education/accreditatio... . So do corporations, as you can see in on this page for ACBSP - http://www.acbsp.org/?page=corporate_members .

How much time is needed from the 'institutional advisers and industry experts' to provide the 'deep personalization'? Is it an extra 500 hours per year per student? Or 2 minutes? Since they 'interview students at predetermined milestones', it will certainly be at least several hours per student just for that. It's hard to be 'deeper' than the current system with under 10 hours/year, so I'll assume 25 hours/year. Who pays for this time? Assuming $50/hour that's an extra $1,250 per student, or about a 10% increase in tuition.

Do these industry experts get any training in how to evaluate students? What mechanisms are in place should the industry experts, say, discriminate against students who are veterans - is the school responsible, or the company? What if the expert simply doesn't like a given student; can the student request an alternate?

What methods are in place should the local company with the industry experts decide to relocate or otherwise stop assisting with the program?

judahmeek6• 11 years ago

First off, thank you for taking the time to write a critique on what could easily have been a spam post from a throwaway account.

I'll do my best to address each of your points.

--- "What is the basis for the belief that this system is different?"

This system is different from traditional education in that there are no standardized tests, no tenured teachers, and the student determines the pace of their education. This system also differs from traditional education in the amount of information made available to the student concerning career options and to the student's potential employers concerning the student's character qualities and experience upon the student's graduation.

As you mentioned, this system has slightly less differences when compared to vocational education.

--- 'Given that this proposal is very similar to systems we've had, why should we expect better success?'

I actually had someone refer to this model as 'vocational education for white collar jobs' and that's a fairly close summarization. I have no intention of competing with tech schools. Instead, I'm going to apply the vocational education model to traditional education, whose attempt to provide students/society with a "well rounded" and "cultured" students has led to a second system - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/660900/the-three-systems-... - while standardized testing has bled students' creativity and intrinsic motivation.

--- 'Note that McDonald's already has its own Hamburger University, which is a corporate university.'

Noted. I also noted the severely limited scope of Hamburger University's curriculum to "development paths for crew, restaurant managers, mid-managers and Executives". The was no mention of software engineers, marketing staff, logistics coordinators, etc. Seems like McDonalds is still a potential market.

--- 'The text says "Unlike traditional [...] societies."'

No, the text says "Unlike traditional [...] societies, streamlining the process of determining learning objectives for each occupational role."

I'm aware that traditional accreditation boards are influenced by both industry and professional societies. Most of the research I've done on accreditation boards was on ABET and here is their list of partners - http://www.abet.org/network-of-experts/expand-your-network/

However, most accreditation boards allow the educational institution to create the educational objectives: http://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/cri...

I want to see Industry create the minimum viable educational objectives, in order to increase both transparency and standardization. I say "minimum viable educational objectives" because these requirements would the most commonly requirements shared by the majority of the industry for specific entry level roles.

I do see how appending the actual variance between ABI and traditional accreditation boards to the end of the sentence weakens the statement and I will be editing that.

--- "How much time is needed from the 'institutional advisers and industry experts' to provide the 'deep personalization'?"

This is an issue that is going to require some experimentation. I suspect there will be a high level of variability in the amount of time individual students will require and the fee structure is going to have reflect that.

My current model is that my institution will cover advising fees to a certain cap, after which the student will be charged at an hourly rate.

--- "Do these industry experts get any training in how to evaluate students?"

Yes, all advisors receive guidance on advising best practices.

--- "What mechanisms are in place should the industry experts, say, discriminate against students who are veterans - is the school responsible, or the company?

What if the expert simply doesn't like a given student; can the student request an alternate?"

My current model is that industry experts would be treated as independent contractors. Students would choose the industry experts that they wished to be advised by and be able to rate those experts at certain milestones. As opposed to advising experts, interviewing experts would be randomly selected from within the same field of study and can not be rated by interviewed students. There would be an appeal process for interviews however, that would trigger a second interview, but incur additional charges if the second interview is failed.

If an expert can be statistically proven to be discriminating against a subset of students, that expert will likely be dropped from the program.

--- "What methods are in place should the local company with the industry experts decide to relocate or otherwise stop assisting with the program?"

If all goes well, this education model will be based on an online platform so the physical distance between expert and student, within a certain number of time zones anyway, won't be a severe factor. Face-to-Face advisement can certainly be more efficient in some cases, but whether those are offered and at what price will depend on what we learn as we go along.

dalke4• 11 years ago

You appear to regard "traditional education" as a monolith. My comment was to point out that there have been many diverse systems. While your proposal may be different from the most stereotypical modern college system, it is not significantly different from existing or historical alternative systems.

You write 'This system is different from traditional education in that there are no standardized tests, no tenured teachers, and the student determines the pace of their education'

First off, 'standardized tests' doesn't apply to higher education. At least, all of the tests I took in college, at a US state school, were created by the teacher. While there has been an increasing emphasis in standardized tests in the primary and secondary level, the only college level and higher tests I know of are for admittance, like the SAT, ACT, LSAT, an GRE. From what I understand, the first two are decreasingly important, and in any case many schools, especially public junior colleges and community colleges, have open enrollment policies.

Second off, the University of Phoenix is an example of a 4 year college with no tenured teachers. Searching now, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Lindenwood University are two other colleges without tenure positions. (Olin College seems to share other aspects with your proposal.)

As for 'student determines the pace of their education'; what do you mean by that? Many school allows part-time students. But taking 1 class per year, which would mean taking 40 years to graduate, is usually not possible. It certainly isn't manageable by your scheme, since you expect higher continuity between the student and industry experts.

On the other hand, traditional correspondence schools, and schools like the Open University, are structured around the needs of part-time students. Quoting from the Open University's home page: "You don’t need any formal qualifications to study with us, just commitment and a desire to find out what you are capable of." and elsewhere "If (like most OU students) you study part time at a rate of 60 credits a year, you'll take six years to complete an honours degree". (Eyeballing now, they have a time limit of 12 years in their program.)

Actually, the Open University seems rather similar to what you propose. At http://www.open.ac.uk/about/main/strategy/partnerships - "We also offer a choice of 22 foundation degrees, designed in collaboration with employers to provide the intermediate technical and professional skills they demand."

While not 'traditional', my question wasn't "how is your proposal different from (to pick an example of a traditional school) the University of Chicago" but "how is your proposal significantly different than existing examples of higher education?"

"My current model is that industry experts would be treated as independent contractors."

Ah, so treat them like adjunct professors? Yeah, few in industry will want to deal with that hassle. Adjuncts put up with it because they hope for a full-time academic job. What does the independent industry expert get out of it?

judahmeek6• 11 years ago

Thanks again to dalke to the hopefully continuing critique. I'd love to hear your thoughts and concerns as well, dear reader.

That said, I'd like to take a moment to discuss my motivation behind developing this model. Beyond the ordinary entrepreneurial reasons of wanting to make a big splash and getting frustrated by an issue, I believe that the need of the consumer is changing and that the education industry's focus must change with it.

Up until approximately the Industrial Revolution, education was focused almost solely on vocation training or procedural mastery. Education not focused on vocational training was focused on providing "culture". Over time, abstract information grew and gained value in the eye of the general public as applications for it were found. Various societal factors required credible wielders of this abstract knowledge to also have "culture". As a result, the education industry created the monastery, the university, and the liberal arts college - all of which focused on conceptual mastery.

Conceptual mastery education did not and will never replace vocational mastery education. It simply provided another path to success for a select (but still growing) fraction of the population.

However, both conceptual and procedural mastery are becoming obsolete in the face of technological advances. There's no reason to memorize calculus formulas or accounting algorithms where they are already stored in code libraries distributed across the globe and available at the touch of a button. There's no reason to learn how to build air conditioning systems when a robot can do that faster, more efficiently, and more reliably. These days, we're even automating roles involving human interaction and medical diagnosis.

So what kind of occupational roles will last in a world where responsibilities of ever increasing complexity are being automated? What qualities will those roles require?

My answer is that the required qualities will be:

The detection of highly complex and possibly almost abstract problems (Predicting consumer intent, for example),

initiative & drive (Let's face it: dealing with complex issues is exhausting. That's why we create stereotypes & labels. That's why we give directions in landmarks or major roads. That's why America has a two party political system.),

and the ability to conceive of and create solutions, whether those solutions take the form of physical devices, abstract systems, or human organizations.

Just like educational institutions focused on conceptual mastery did not and will not completely replace institutions focused on procedural mastery, my institution will not completely replace current liberal arts colleges. I do think that I will take a significant (and ever growing) fraction of the education market, however.

Please Destroy My Plan to Disrupt Higher Education

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