I was having a conversation with a colleague, sparked by dropping enrollments in unis. Not surprisingly, we ended up talking about flaws in higher education. He suggested that they don’t get it, and I agreed. He was thinking that they get the tech, but not the learning. I think it’s more complex. There are those that get some parts of the learning right. Just not enough, and not all of it right. Thinking further, post-convo, it occurs to me that there is a layer beneath the surface that matters. So I want to consider what is wrong with higher education.
And, let’s be clear, I’m not talking about the problems with tuition and administration. Yes, tuition’s risen faster than the cost of living. And yes, there’s little commercial pressure to keep universities free from the persistent creep of increasing administration. I saw an interesting article talking about how universities without a solid financial foundation, and ones without a good value proposition, will perish. It’s the latter I’m talking about.
I previously mentioned the three pillars I think create a valid learning offer:
- a killer learning experience,
- being a partner in your success
- and developing you as an individual.
I suggest that all three are doable, but it occurred to me that there’s a bit more to unpack.
The ‘being a partner in your success’ bit is most frequently seen. Here, it’s about looking for signs of trouble and being proactive about reaching out and assisting. It’s not ‘sink or swim’, but recognizing there can be troubles and helping learners cope. The Predictive Analytics work that Ellen Wagner did is the type of opportunity we have here.
The ‘developing you as an individual’ is really building your more general skills: communicating, working with others, a positive attitude, knowing how to search, etc. And, of course, knowing how to continue to learn. Given the rate of change, most of what you learn as the core of a degree may well be out of date in short order! But you can’t address these skills on their own, they’re specifically about how you do domain things. And that’s a layer I’ve yet to see.
And the ‘killer learning experience’ is a second area where I think folks still aren’t doing well. My short (and admittedly cheeky) statement about education is that they’re wrong on two things, the curriculum and pedagogy, other than that they’re fine. Most universities aren’t doing a good job of curriculum, focusing on knowledge instead of skills. And some are moving in a good direction. Startups are addressing this area as well.
The other problem is the pedagogy. There’re two elements here: the learning design, and engagement. Too often, it’s still the ‘information dump and knowledge test’. But even when that’s right, making it truly meaningful for the learners is sadly neglected. Even professors who care often forget to put the ‘why’ into the syllabus.
In short, what is wrong with higher education is the ability to successfully execute on all these points. (It’s true for other education, too, but…) I’ve seen efforts that address one, or two (and plenty that get none right). However, as of yet, I have not seen anyone doing it the way it could be done. It’s doable, but not without some serious attention to not only the elements, but their successful integration. And it’s important enough that we should be doing it. At least, that’s what I think. So, what do you think?
Here’s a thought, might be off-base. Does higher ed create a cycle where these problematic practices are self-perpetuating by mostly limiting full-time teaching positions to people with doctoral degrees, themselves often the product of the same sort of system?
While I’m certain the goal is to ensure highly qualified individuals are guiding the programs (a goal that I agree with), I feel like the spirit of that law is hurt by the way people are hired. There are high-quality adjunct folks who will never get a look for those kind of jobs. Which I guess would be fine if there was more incentive to be an adjunct faculty member than there usually is.
I can think of some excellent profs. I had, but I can also recall ones who clearly had gone to school, didn’t know what to do, so they got another degree, didn’t know what to do and so they got another… and so on. And now they’re teaching college.
Pulling back for a broader view, this kind of change always feels like it’s legacy stuff that gets in the way. Just another case where common wisdom gets thrown out the window once we actually have to apply it to a human situation – in this case, “the most dangerous words in the language are ‘we’ve always done it this way.'”
Thanks for your problematizing relevant university education task features.
I think TPCK should be arranged in each professor’s teaching practice.
What’s your comments?
My warmest regards
JonggyuBae from South Korea
DUDave, my take on your comment is that the problem is top universities value publication and grant funding more than teaching. Even middle unis (really, teaching unis) try to hire and compete on those criteria. They might say they care about teaching, but it’s not obvious in practice. And they can’t force a prof to take a course on teaching. The best profs get money to buy out of teaching to focus on research, so they hire the adjuncts who you rightly point out are mistreated. And yet no one really checks their teaching either! Unless complaints are raised. It’s partly the pressure on unis to become more self-sustaining, and their growing bureaucracy. At least, that’s how I see it.
JonggyuBae, for those who may not know, TPCK is Technical, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. Basically saying academics need to know their domain, how to teach, and how to use tech. I agree it’d be useful for instructors to know. Unfortunately, as in my response to DUDave, it’s also hard to enforce, as most unis care more about research than teaching. Grants provide an overhead to the institution, and they like to cite the quality of their thought. I’ve always thought that the quality of uni teaching should be of concern to the reputation of the institution, but as yet that hasn’t mattered (it’s not like we really have viable alternatives, all that matters is how good a uni you get into; something other countries to better on, like Germany). There’s a lot of opportunity for improvement.
What about the fact that most people move from a structured environment in high school with a very defined curriculum and then, suddenly, are dropped into the University world without any bridging back between those 2 institutions…. and then off to the working world …. no connection between any of these “learning” moments in time…
There’s supposed to be a growing opportunity in high school where you pick electives, getting closer to higher ed. And most unis have some prerequisites and each degree program has required and electives. So it is a transition. I think the bigger wall to cross is the one from structure of uni to working. Yes, there’s a lack of development of self-learning at every stage.