5th
The Impending Demise of the University?
Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge sweeney both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.
Meanwhile on campus, there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there 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.
The old-style lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses. It’s a model that is teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all and the student is isolated in the learning process. Yet the students, who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently. Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation, not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities, and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their peril.
Source: Don Tapscott from edge.org
I recall from my university days that old-style lectures were extremely ineffective for me due to the following reasons:
- zero preparation before lecture
- failure to stay awake
- Instant messaging and unrelated surfing aka Facebook
- lecturer’s failure to engage students
- being late or absent
Subsequently I had to rely on textbooks and increasingly online mediums like wiki and google for learning. I don’t think this was a 100% equivalent replacement. But such learning techniques/skills became very important to me now as a web application developer.
Learning from the web is increasing important so much so that I think “Learning how to use Google” warrants a module by itself.
Actually, what I found interesting about this is that almost every industry is being greatly affected by the internet revolution. Such foundation shaking always presents new exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs. Surf’s up!
