Internet+Education

Today education exists in a wide spectrum of quality and effectiveness.

For e.g. My own country India. It produces amongst the highest number of graduates (especially engineers) in the world while simultaneously suffering from the problem of low quality primary education.

India and a lot of other countries still have an ancient university system with outdated curricula and a poor research focus, while at the same time we see the emergence of internet based education models with courses on cutting edge topics via websites like Coursera and Udacity.

The internet has the capability to transform everything it touches, be it the way we shop, the way we communicate or listen to music; education should not and will not be an exception.

As internet based learning emerges, it is important to carry forward the good features of the traditional learning model and re-invent the rest. The above mentioned sites still seem like online classrooms, this is the right time to change the way we go about educating ourselves.

So, what can we do to make learning a truly 21st century experience?

Adaptive learning:Finland already does this for its physical classrooms! Not everyone learns at the same rate nor is everyone equally proficient at every thing. Similarly in a professional context, an employed person looking to expand his skills shouldn’t have to go through the same learning process as an undergrad trying to gain the same knowledge. Hence it important to manually or algorithmically tailor course content to the learner and measure you only against your own capabilities.

Modular learning: Divide and conquer, nobody loves classroom monologues anyway. Coursera is already doing this pretty well by keeping lecture length at around the 10 minute mark and fitting in just one concept per lecture. This also helps when you want to come back and revise just one aspect of a particular subject.

Focus on skills/Kill the degree: One big problem with traditional education is that the final outcome (and consequently the thing we focus on) is that piece of paper called the degree. Now is the perfect time to kill the degree and focus on what education is really about — understanding/skills. Eg: Instead of resulting in an abstract outcome of “Completed course on Computer Science”, you should come out with accomplishments like “Ninja in C++”,”Good with Web programming”,”Barely there with Complexity Theory”. Your grades can also do this but they’re not third-party verifiable. The OpenBadgeseffort is probably a first crack at this problem. Also, producing skilled people was the reason a lot of colleges were created in the first place!

Focus on projects/Kill the exams: Everyone agrees that standard exams are not good at measuring anything except the ability to take exams! How would you test me if I claim to be a good carpenter? Well, you’d throw me some wood and ask me to make a chair. Unfortunately,we make everyone from the astronomer gazing into the cosmos to the microbiologist peering into your cells, come to a classroom and condense all they know onto pieces of paper within a short timeframe. Instead we should develop learning in such a way, that the process is indistinguishable from the outcome; projects are the perfect way to do this.

Theory is your problem/Practicals are ours: This point is an amalgamation of the previous two. However much we improve the content or delivery of educational material, it will still be theory and there’s no fun nor use of it till you get your hands dirty, instead education should be about doing. This approach, now getting popularized as the inverted classroom is perfect for the internet based learning model. Why would you waste time lecturing up someone about a topic, when that information is readily available to him. Instead, any interaction with teachers should be about the hard parts of education i.e. actually applying what you’ve learnt. Also, internet based education tools need to link themselves with labs to make learning more tangible.

Collaborative learning: The internet has revolutionized communication, it should be able to do the same for communication within the classroom. Like an extended version of pair programming, we should learn collaboratively so that can skills and best practices spread faster. “The best way to learn is to teach someone”, by learning together we both teach and learn at the same time.

Hoping for a transformation.

Education Inflation

Recently read this article in the Times Of India about Double MBA's becoming a new trend in education. 

One MBA just isn't enough to get you ready for the corporate world anymore,  you need two of these degrees so you can bag your dream job of selling soaps!

A clear example of unnecessary educational inflation pushed to its limits. 

A sad case where the whole purpose of getting a second degree is not to improve one's knowledge or acquire a better set of skills but rather to gain an image.

In an age when detailed information about any subject is just a click away, spending a year or more re-educating yourself is scarcely justified.

A double MBA isn't really the problem but a symptom of the larger problem of an image-based job/education system. Getting into a top B school allows you get into an elite club whose brand and alumni contacts are now at your disposal. People are hired more for what claim to be and from where they are, rather than for what they've done. People are pursuing these second degrees because it is the only way for them shed the stereotype of being from an Indian B-school and having less exposure. 

Do you really need to go a classroom to get exposure, wouldn't it make more sense to get relevant work experience instead? 

People are paying such a high price just to gain an image. I do not question that most of these institutions may be excellent academically but that's not what most of their students are coming to them for. Do we really want to keep promoting this vicious cycle of elitist institutions? Shouldn't we rather create a expertise-centric system where what matters is What can you do ? and How well can you do it ?