Flying back from Palo Alto last week, I sat next to a girl who could not have been a month past 6 years of age. She started the flight by playing on an iphone - a cartoon type game. About two hours after we took off, she whipped out a slick 15 inch macbook, and started recording videos of herself for what sounded like her BLOG. Yes, she was recording a video of herself in her seat, announcing to the world where she was, what she was doing, and how much fun she was having....ie....she was being more productive than I was even at that time.
So I sat there, reflecting on her fun, while simultaneously thinking of my experiences learning at Wharton. These reflections, combined with those of a Fast Company article depicting the impact smartphones are likely to have on education has lead me to the following conclusion :
Educational systems, as we know them, are broken.
1) They're too costly - The infrastructure in place for education is massive, and an incredible burden to maintain. I was recently at the Wesleyan board meeting, and what struck me was how massive of a cost maintaining the campus in its current state is! Universities need massive endowments just to exist, their infrastructure burdens are simply overwhelming.
2) They don't teach in an efficient manner. Our marketing class is using a "SABRE" computer based simulation, because studies have demonstrated that "learning by doing" and "teaching others" carry retention rates over 75%, as compared to under 15% for Lectures.....
With the exception of science labs, it seems that universities have no proper justification of existing. Lectures & Reading account for the two worst teaching mechanisms when taking retention rates into consideration.
Fast Company has an interesting article describing the impact the technological evolution in smartphones has had and will likely have on education. Although I agree that app based programs will be provide interesting and innovative ways to engage children in learning, technology alone won't be the solution.
I don’t believe online programs will provide the solution, either. There is something to be said about engaging with your peers, and learning from them. Teaching others is the best method of retaining material, for obvious reasons, and it requires the presence of other people seeking to learn the same material.
Philco’s 1.9 Cents :
I’m currently teaching myself Ruby on Rails, and the going is slow but steady. As I go through the different exercises in the books, I often find myself thinking that I wish I could be reasoning through the different brain teasers with a team of other people looking to learn the same thing. All of my learning is online based, I follow online tutorials, and even purchased the textbooks in PDF form.
What’s missing however, is interaction with equivalent peers looking to learn the same material.
I thus volunteer a hybrid model:
1) Philco University will have an admissions group that pools together individuals by region, learning interests, and general aptitude. Philco University then creates “learning teams” of individuals who have scored similarly in their different aptitude tests, looking to learn the same material.
2) Philco pairs these teams up with available tutors in the area, and provides all of the online material to learn whatever it is that they signaled they wanted to learn.
3) The tutors will be made available according to each learning team’s schedules (emphasizing flexibility), and up to 3 hours a week. The teams will then be responsible for turning in individual and group projects, demonstrating their mastery of the material. This ensures that each individual is learning, and can leverage the interactive benefits of teams and peers at the same time.
The infrastructure for the courses can be borrowed from existing office spaces in the area, or from other universities.
The best of all worlds combined. Something tells me that the 6 year old I sat next to on my plane would love a program like this, where she can tailor her own schedule, learning materials, and be surrounded by like minded and able peers.
Hell, I would.
I leave you with one of my favorite quotes -
Don't let school interfere with your education - Mark Twain