Is the Four-Year, Liberal-Arts Education Model Dead?

.IMPORTANT NOTES FROM DSC:

I went through a liberal arts degree in college (Economics) and I work for a Christian liberal arts college. As such, one can tell that I greatly endorse and believe in the benefits of a liberal arts education; such an education is extremely valuable and helpful, no matter which career path(s) a student may choose to pursue after college.

However, it has become clear that the costs of education are getting out of hand — and out of the reach of a growing number of people. Now with the Internet and alternative methods of delivery in the mix — and the current model continuing to show itself as being vulnerable and unsustainable for a growing number of people —  there is a potent equation for change in the air.

So…if you don’t believe we are in a game-changing environment, how do you explain this (increasingly-prevalent) line of questioning? (Though most of the articles I’ve seen do not use the word “dead”, the flavor/meaning of such articles and postings is much the same.)

 

 

How to survive architecture school

How to survive architecture school — from education-portal.com by Douglas Fehlen

 

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Big ideas from TED 2011: Letting students drive their education

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Salman Khan

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The implications of Khan’s work are nothing short of a total reevaluation of education. In a world in which the only constant is the increase in the pace of change, we simply can’t afford to give our kids anything less than an education system that actually gives them what they need to be successful.

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Alan November --

How do we best educate our students in this type of environment?

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Also see:

  • A Whole New Mind — by Daniel Pink
    To survive in this age, individuals and organizations must examine what they’re doing to earn a living and ask themselves three questions:
    1) Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
    2) Can a computer do it faster?
    3) Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance? (p. 51)

A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education, Part I — from The Chronicle by Thomas H. Benton (Thomas H. Benton is the pen name of William Pannapacker, an associate professor of English at Hope College, in Holland, Mich. He writes about academic culture.)

From DSC:
My take on the perfect storm within higher education:

Also see (emphasis DSC):

  • Dinosaur U. — from Forbes.com by Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief
    The Internet is about to do to America’s universities and colleges what it’s done to media and entertainment–profoundly upend them. And improve them. To get a flavor of what’s coming take a look at Louis Lataif’s Forbes.com piece, “Universities on the Brink” (Feb. 1). Lataif, dean emeritus of Boston University School of Management and a former president of Ford Europe, bluntly calls the rapid rise in tuitions a bubble resembling those that hit housing in the last decade and Silicon Valley in the late 1990s.

    The tuition bubble is about to burst.

 


Encouraging effective note-taking in your classes— from Profhacker by Nels Highberg

From DSC:
Ormrod (2008, p. 361) also mentions note taking as an effective learning and study strategy (along with meaningful learning and elaboration, organization, summarizing, comprehension monitoring, mnemonics, identifying important information):

[Note taking] facilitates encoding of materials: By writing information and looking at it on paper, students are likely to encode it both verbally and visually. As evidence of the encoding function of note taking, students remember more when they take notes even if they have no opportunity to review the notes (Howe, 1970, Weinstein & mayer, 1986). In addition, notes serve as a form of concrete external storage for information presented in class.


Ormrod, J. E. (2008). Human learning (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. ISBN 9780132327497.

9 dynamic digital resumes that stand out from the crowd — from Mashable.com by Sharlyn Lauby

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Michael Anderson’s infographic resume turns his employment
and academic history into a colorful visual journey.

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Francis Homo turns his own silhouette
into a frame for his achievements.

From DSC:
The disruption continues. A sampling of the current online-based marketplaces / exchanges (pictured below) most likely represent  a piece of the future teaching & learning landscape.  Find a course, teach a course.

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Online learning marketplace

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Live Mind -- an online learning marketplace

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Sophia -- a new online-based learning exchange

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Forte Mall -- an online learning marketplace

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cognn.com -- an online learning markeplace

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OpenSesame -- another online-based marketplace for learning appears on the scene

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Nixty.com -- education for everyone

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Bloomfire.com

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OnlineCoursesPlus.com

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Udemy launches Udemy Academic with 600 courses – 12,000 video lectures

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The Power of Online Exchanges

The answer to teacher retention: Find passion (not data) driven schools — from The Innovative Educator

From DSC:
It seems to me that this principle — of finding ways for students to pursue their passions — doesn’t just benefit teachers (in terms of retention). It also greatly benefits the students, and would help develop more of a love of learning.

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The Control Shift: A Grassroots Education Revolution Takes Shape — from Mind/Shift by Tina Barseghian
Kids are taking charge of their own learning as educators grapple with their new roles.

Educause: The Changing Landscape of Higher Education— by David Staley and Dennis Trinkle
The authors identify ten fissures in the landscape that are creating areas of potentially tectonic change.

Using digital media for your e-Portfolio — from JISC

e-Portfolios are an important part of many learners’ academic life. This advice document introduces the concept of an e-Portfolio and explains how digital media can be used effectively.

Also see:

The master and apprentice, the teacher, the teacher as interpreter of the book, and the book itself has each served, during one epoch or another, as a prime organizing entity or model for our culturally-accepted theory about educating novices. Compared to today, knowledge changed slowly during this long period, and therefore these time-honored models for learning served us well. But a printed book is static, seemingly out of step in this dynamic digital age, and so can no longer serve successfully as the most important central organizing entity for learning today. The student electronic portfolio is superseding the book as the most useful organizing element: It is a dynamic organizing space in a dynamic knowledge process.

© 2024 | Daniel Christian