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Building Virtual Universities
Anonymous Coward writes "Psychologist and AI guru Roger Schank has an essay at the Edge about The Need for the Virtual University. Surprisingly, he sees nothing special about virtual universities except for the narrow window of opportunity to make schools that don't suck." Spend the time to read the whole article (it's in interview format and quite long) and you might come away with more than that. Schank raises some good questions - and proposes some good answers to them.
I think the problem with the idea of a Virtual University is the capacity to be ripped off. Figure that it wouldn't be all that challenging for someone to create their own virtual "university" and have people sending them thousands of dollars for degrees that mean nothing. There's already been something like this with the mail-order degree deal where you "earn your degree from home." I wonder what security measures would be enacted to prevent fraud.
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I can't think of a better way to prepare for an existence of sitting by oneself in front of a computer screen, safely distanced from the rest of the world.
Since most geeks have a hard time interacting with real people, not having to confront them (or sunlight) while getting a degree can only help get the mind and body ready for an lifetime full of junk food, carbonated beverages, florescent lighting and no girlfriends.
I think people underestimate the difficulties facing tertiary education. The problem is that there is no single "university". Instead that term can cover the gamult of technical education (adult learning), teaching colleges, research universities, plus corporate labs/training campuses, each trying gain the prestigue of being called a university and thus diluting the value of the term. Also given the rising costs and reduced public resources, it will be more expensive for individuals to select the education they desire.
The unspoken question in the interview was how to sort out the "right" choice for each potential student. Given humankind's inability to predict the future, many young people have no real clue as to what they want to do in life, much less the best method to cultivate their talents. In the grand scheme of things (ignoring any taught material), universities act as a filter and sorting mechanism, allowing companies to select the top 5-20% on the basis that if you've got half-a-clue and are willing enough to slog it out for 3-4 years in a competitive environment with your peers, then at least you are marginally employable and can thus be trained
On the role of teaching, there are certain basic foundations which are essential for certain disciplines such as mathematics for many of the physical sciences. How many would willingly take up maths if it wasn't forced down their throats at an early age? While Richard Feynman was correct in saying "If you can't explain it, you don't understand it", there is a serious shortage of people who are both brilliant at research and excellent at teaching especially if the institutional incentive structures are not aligned this way. In short, you are asking for superstars, and in turn these superstars want superstudents (otherwise it would be a waste of their time) and the universities set harder entry barriers which raises the average cost (fewers students per staff). A rather tough cycle to break out of, not to mention the general upmanship and educational arms race (my supercomputer is bigger than your supercomputer etc).
So how can universities change to become more effective? The major problem is that education is not really market driven, more like a semi-regulated oliopoly (state charters, national certifications, etc) with all the expected distortions. The prestige factor alone can influence students in selecting a potential course though they may well not be totally suited or happy. Demonstrating competence is a difficult feat as there are many different skills and requirements for different disciplines. It is not like open source where one can point to as the CV and others can determine the quality (or lack thereof). Given the arrival of the web, I would toss out some possible directions education can head:
So to sum things up
LL
I think there is an important misconception in the article, one that is pretty common in general: that education is about learning information. It is not, at least not in the way normally considered.
In science and engineering courses, the most valuable thing learned is how to solve particular sorts of problems. I am not refering the needed laws and theories directly conveyed; these can generally be looked up as needed. Instead, I refer to the skill one gets (through practice and observation of others) at solving particular sorts of problems generally. I could probably have made it through astronomy grad school knowing only the information I learned in high school. However, very few students (if any at all) just out of high school have anywhere near the problem solving skills necessary to survive graduate education in a hard science.
Can these sorts of skills be taught over a computer network? I doubt it. Where I (and those I TA'd) did most of their learning was in doing problem sets (which you can do anywhere, net or no), lab experience, and tutoring (either from other students, professors, TA's, or professional tutors). This is where the most valuable stuff gets learned in college, not in lectures. Virtual labs are no replacement for real lab experience, and net communications are still too clunky for effective tutoring.
If a student learns the skills properly, any information needed can be learned with minimal effort. (I took a few comp. sci. and EE classes at the undergrad level as a grad student in astro. I went in with less informational knowledge (and probably less talent) than most of the students, and yet did very well relative to the classes as a whole, with less effort. Why? I picked up a lot of programming and math "skills" solving physics problems.)
I suspect the situation for teaching many of the humanities over the net is nearly as bad. The most valuable aspects of these sorts of courses I took were learned in discussion with peers and professors, and in writing papers, and in careful analysis of my papers by others. (The article seems to suggest that these classes are, in general, not worth taking anyway. I disagree. They are less vocationally useful, but have helped me enjoy my life more, and I would never have known what I was missing otherwise.)
-Hil
I doubt that the Virtual University will replace traditional college programs. As the author argues so well, they are certification programs and that is what most businesses actually want. As a test of being able to stick in one place for four years and do what you're told, colleges are wonderful.
There are also the socialization aspects that other readers have mentioned, and colleges are a indeed a useful halfway house between living with parents and really being out there on your own.
But for education, traditional colleges tend to be very poor unless the student is very focused on learning, not just graduating. Way too much politics, both internal and external, tend to get in the way. Good training for corporations and academia, but not really about education.
The idea I like about the Virtual U is that it could provide a way for many of us supposedly already socialized types access to learning resources. We all know that learning doesn't stop at the University if you are into technology. It allows individual pacing, so those with only a couple of hours a day to spare can still participate. It doesn't require yet another commute to attend classes.
Don't underestimate the interaction possible via internet -- slashdot is kinda fun for example, no? No replacement for real social contact, for example with the opposite sex, but not bad at all for intellectual discussion, the primary thrust of education.
Another advantage would be distributed resources. You can benefit from *both* MIT and CMU from your home terminal -- choice is no longer a career threatening hazard.
Even if Virtual U can't replace colleges, it can still have a very valuable role in education.
Seems to me I've seen this same rant, on and off, since the 1950s. Colleges suck, professors suck, students don't get a real (tm) education. The solution is the author's particular brand of snake oil.
Here, the solution is "The Virtual University", which Schank never says anything about except that it uses computers. Got news for you -- people have been trying to use computers in education since the 1960s, with "programmed instruction". There are a few minor successes (typing tutor programs come to mind), but by and large, they have failed miserably.
IMHO, Schank has very little understanding of the purposes and goals of a University education. The interview was littered with fallacies. A few of the more glaring ones --
* Tests and exams are "bad". But how do the students rate their own progress?
* Prerequsites are "bad". Ever been in a class with an obnoxious moron without the prerequisites, who nags the professor to explain things he should already know?
* Required survey courses are "bad". Students are expected to be familiar with all aspects of a field when they enter it.
* Tenure is "bad". Professors should be fired for expressing politically unpopular opinions, or for being "dead wood" (whatever that means).
* Like many modern academics, he does not see the difference between a university and a trade school.
These are just the ones that come to mind immediately. There are more.
There are certainly problems with University education. But they're not going to be solved by someone who can't even come up with an answer to the question "Why should I go to Harvard instead of the University of Maryland?" (Hint -- who are your classmates?)
If Schank thinks so highly of his Virtual University, let him get off his butt and build it. I agree fully with the other posters who have said that it will either be a diploma mill or a long, expensive Microsoft commercial.
I've heard all of the complaints that Schank makes about college education before, and perhaps I'm being heretical, but I just don't buy them. Where I go to school, I take interesting classes from important researchers in the field who also want to teach students what they know, and are often quite good at it. In my upper-level classes, I'm quite aware that my professors are giving me their opinions, rather than unquestionable truths- and so does everyone else in the class. Those of us who are qualified to take upper-level college classes are also qualified to think critically.
And while it's true that if you ask most people why they're going to college, they'll say it's so that they can get a good job or something, that's just camouflage- I have honestly yet to meet someone who isn't in college because they're excited about learning beneath all the layers of "I hate school" socialization. I would be surprised if my university is atypical in those respects among upper universities.
-jacob
I have TA'd an undergraduate Lab course off and on for the last 3 years, and I can assure you that students rarely learn as much from lecture or hours with their noses in a book as the do in five minutes with myself or the course professor.. I don't mean to sound boastful, nut students seem to learn the best when I sit down and help them work through their problems. If I don't think they're understanding a particular step in the process, I back up and explain what I'm doing in a little more detail.. That's not something a book, or an on-line lecture can provide.
How about a free virtual university, sort of like the free software movement, but with intellectuals of all subjects (instead of just techno geeks) contributing their knowledge and expertise over the Internet? Maybe with minimal administrative fees for examinations, laboratory work, etc. It would make education accessible to those who cannot afford the exorbitant tuition fees charged by the "real" unis.
My school (NJIT) offers most of their classes in a "virtual classroom" as they call it. I have taken one of these classes in the past and I am currently taking one on distributed operating systems right now. The way the classes work is that the teacher usually has a series of I think are slowly being moved over to real video, but without high bandwidth it wouldn't work as well. To keep in contact with your professor there is a message base system. This same system is used to give out the assignments where you send back your answers and the grades are later tabulated. Now, when I took my last course I have to admit that I never once watched any of the videos. You either had to pay some exorbitant amount of money (something like 60 dollars to borrow the videos plus 18 dollars shipping) or find time to go to the schools library and watch the videos there. So basically I read of skimmed over most of the book and did the few assignments and then we had to go and take an actual final exam in person. I don't really think I learned as much as I would have in an in person class. Until broadband connections are more affordable and common I don't really see learning over the internet as effective as the real thing. It allowed me to slack in learning and still end up getting an A. It might have been the subject matter however, it was a lot of information systems speak where they give new terms for topics you could think of normally. Maybe the class I am taking now will be a better learning experience, but I still think you would learn more having real discussions.
In my english class we do all of our discussions in a web based discussion format, and all of my cs homework is turned in through a unix shell account.
But it is more that just internet technology. The two tech tv stations broadcast all kinds of acedemic stuff. From complete classes to tutoring help late at night.
I don't know if long distance learning over the internet is the future, but I really think that utilizing all the technology available to provide a complete education is.
Though he respects the student more, he still believes the solution is in better "teaching". In America, the belief is that students need to be taught. There are constant debates on how to teach students better. As many geeks experience in high-school, this is very oppressive: students aren't free to learn in their own way, they are force to play whatever game the teacher wants them to play.
For example, American education has been run on the concept for the past 20 years that we should ram facts down students throats, we should instead teach them how to think. This is extraordinarily oppressive to smart students who have cognative skills better than teachers. I remember in one college EE class where we had to calculate the Thevinin resistence. I failed the lab because I used a complete different technique than what the teacher taught. It took me a week of haranguing the teacher until he let me prove that not only did I get the correct result, but my method produced more significant figures than the "correct" method. Mine also took fewer steps, and as far as I could tell, was more intuitive. I got a B instead of an F, I should have gotten an A+.
I have looked back in the literature and found that this idea is actually even older. It is like Christmas: we all think it was more pure and less commercial in the old days. The reality is that it has been a marketing circus for 150 years. We look back on the classes in school that required rote memorization that we all forgot after the test anyway, and we say that education should be different. The general slide in American education is to teach fewer and fewer facts, and still be an utter failure at how to teach students to think. And while we all hate rote memorization, it isn't as bad as you think: for example, rote memorization of wordlists teaches foreign languages well. To still need the practical application of using the language to "set" them, but you really do have to start with the memorization process.
The funny thing is that even though tests results of grade-school education show Americans behind other developed countries, American grade-school teachers refuse to even consider foriegn school techniques as being relavent in America. Every 5 years some new education guru pops up showing new methods of teaching, and bunches of teachers flock to these new methods.
In many non-American countries, however, the model of education is must different. Let me contrast German and American university systems. I'm sure many American nerds are familiar with the oppressive American system, but they don't realize that it can be different. To start with, in Germany, you don't sign up for a class. If you want to attend lectures, you simply show up. In fact, for the first month of a term, half the students are still off on vacation. You must sign up for some things, like reserving lab time or signing up for a test.
The key here is that students are responsible for their education in Germany, but the system is responsible in America. If you are a nerd/geek, this is extraordinarily oppressive because the system doesn't take into account your special needs.
This isn't to say that German universitys don't have problems; for example they are every much as political as American ones. Also, the German culture is more oppressive for nerd/geek initiative in the first place, though it does free you to learn in your own manner.
From this perspective, I think the philosophical basis behind universities are two-fold: one, to make you a more rounded person by forcing you to take classes in subjects that aren't relavent to your career, and two, certify you as having the basic knowledge to fulfill your career. Let's say that Dr. Dobbs Journal had a certification course on programming in the C language. Their certification would test not only that the person had a full command of the language (i.e. had no problems with pointers-to-pointers) but also a grasp of basic data structures. If you looked at two candidates for a programming position, which would you rather have? A recent Computer Science graduate, who got an A in "Basic C Programming" or a Dr. Dobbs certified C specialist?
As you can see, I'm a geek who has been oppressed by the American education system who wanted to teach me how to think, so I have some pretty strong reactions to articles like this. I rather be freed to learn my own way.