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BYU Prof. Says University Classrooms Will Be "Irrelevant" By 2020
dragoncortez writes "According to this Deseret News article, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer. Wiley helped start Flat World Knowledge, which creates peer-reviewed textbooks that can be downloaded for free, or bought as paperbacks for $30."
Because an HR drone will discard your resume because you don't have a degree?
1) Because having a teacher explaining things to you can be a lot easier then trying to absorb it from a book
2) The internet is great, but some of the information is damn inaccurate. You would presume a university to make sure that what it teaches is correct and up-to-date. (Caveat emptor)
3) While a manager can grill applicants to see if they really know everything what they need to know, it's a whole lot more efficient to have "RHCE" or "MSCE" etc. in your resume.
It's quality control, plain and simple. Universities have a big incentive to ensure that their graduates live up to expectations.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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If everyone in the world has access to the information then why bother paying for the degree?
Education != Information.
Just because I have a good portion of the world's information at my fingertips, doesn't mean that I know how to access, correlate, digest, or comprehend it. That's what college is for; it's not just rote memorization of facts.
As long as I can prove my understanding of the knowledge then why should I pay a particular university to vouch for me?
The degree is supposed to be the proof of your understanding. A equally comprehensive test would take just as long, and cost just as much.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
I sort of agree with what the professor is saying. Already, lectures are available online (including the very awesome, Hulu-like site, Academic Earth), and the use of iTunes to distribute lectures is already taking place.
Despite the usefulness of these technologies, I only think these things expand the reach of the classroom, but I definitely don't think that classrooms are going anywhere anytime soon. The use of websites and iTunes to reach people is no real difference than what books have done for a very long time. The people who are going to take time to watch the videos would have read the books.
Additionally, I *highly* disagree with the idea that "today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed." I went to an engineering university, and the amount of technical stuff going on there was absolutely awesome. All you had to do was attend one of the many seminars, working groups, or even a classroom to see amazing work that students were doing. Being around other students also spurred my own ideas towards various projects.
Last of all, I'd argue that the teaching received in the classrooms really is very little about the college experience. Sure, someone may be able to "learn" a lot about physics from a podcast, but he or she is going to have little real-world experience. This, to me, was the most valuable experience I received from my college career.
Basically, I think these technologies will help reach more people, but they aren't going to make the current world obsolete.
Colleges and universities don't just provide information.
They also provide physical proximity to classmates of the opposite sex.
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When will people learn that you go to college to prepare for life, not just a job or career. You go to learn how to be self sufficient, to go to bed so you're not dead for classes, to show up, and generally learn to be an adult. College is an environment where a lot of people fail at that at first, but most, by the time they graduate, are capable of living on their own and holding some sort of job. College isn't just basic engineering or english or math, its basic life. If their parents can afford it, kids need to be out on their own in a forgiving environment like a dorm or college community where they do their own laundry and feed themselves.
On the other side, merely showing up to classes, paying attention, and doing homework is another large part of being an adult. Meetings and work do not happen "whenever you get to it", I'd be sad to see classes go by the wayside if only because what you learn outside and around the class is just as vital in the long run as what you learn in class.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Right after the paperless office is perfected.
Umm, whatever.
Anyway, with the rise in online education, including charter schools (secondary) that are nearly all online, people are pushing their dollars towards institutions that aren't all brick and mortar. There are a few colleges that are all online and many of the brick and mortar schools are moving towards a format where blended courses (part online, part in-classroom) are the norm.
Education is at least partially funded by the students themselves and the state governments that are well known to run their "businesses" poorly. By cutting down on capital costs and increasing the reach of the classrooms to students that are not within driving distance or don't have the time to work full time and take courses on the college's schedule, institutions with online components (or even totally online) will slowly become the norm.
Why is this such a difficult thing for people to understand? While I enjoyed my physical college experience as an undergraduate, I could not possibly see myself going back to a brick and mortar institution for an advanced degree. The time and dollars necessary as well as the loss in income just wouldn't permit that to happen. Working in higher education for nearly a decade has taught me that I am not the only one. In fact, people that think like you do are way in the minority these days.
Unfortunately, at most universities, you'd be right, professors do not interact with students and there is no "real" communication. But there is already an alternative. Small colleges (less than 5000 students) with no TA's encourage communication and collaboration between undergraduate students and professors. I'm thrilled to be working at one. By far the best part of my day is office hours, working with individual students to better understand class or the textbook.
It seems to me that online degrees do not garner anywhere near the same amount of credibility that is given to a traditional degree. As a current engineering undergrad that has taken some online courses in high school, I can imagine using online learning to supplement classroom education, but it certainly cannot replace it. Labs and hands on learning require physical presence.
Also, by learning online, you're missing out on a lot of networking opportunities that you'd otherwise have with professors and other students. You can get to know professors over the internet, but it can't replace face to face conversation.
You ignore the benifit gained by being on campus with the professors and the students. With online classes, you do cut down on costs, but at the cost of human interaction. Your lessons become canned scripts, instead of lessons (hopefully) tailored to each class. You also lose the student culture, which is a huge part of college education. I cannot tell you how much I learned working with students in other fields, and the only reason we interacted is because we were in the same building together. Not only that, but it tempered my social skills, so that when I reached the working world, I understood how to interact with others.
Actually university isn't so much about learning information (although you do learn a lot), it's more about learning how to learn. My room mate is a sophomore, whereas I graduate in a few weeks. I've noticed her coursework is very "Learn this, here's how to do X, now go do Y which is nearly identical to X." My coursework on the other hand is "Do Y, you're expected to learn how to do it." That little piece of paper doesn't say you know everything, it just says you know how to and are willing to learn.
At least that's what I've gathered from my time at university.
A degree isn't everything. All it does is prove you took a certain number of units at some universityâ¦
You're absolutely correct. I couldn't agree with you more. However, it still doesn't change the fact that degrees are used to filter out applicants. If you're able to get the jobs and experience without a degree that look good on a resume then more power to you, but not having the degree will make that a harder task, as well as affect your pay scale.
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