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Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

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Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#161

Post by haihaibye »

jltsiren wrote: post #129
zdragnar wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always understood it as: A bachelor's is an extension of high school. You show you can assimilate knowledge at a professional level. A masters shows you can do extensive research of existing knowledge in a narrow field. A doctorate shows you can perform novel research and add knowledge to a field. ...but perhaps that is not really applicable to all fields of study. In any case, "glorified dropout" is imho too ha…

I was describing the old system in Finland, which was similar to many countries in the Continental Europe. Master's degree was the primary undergraduate degree. Bachelor's degree existed on paper, but it wasn't recognized in the society. People often got their bachelor's and master's on the same day. At some point, politicians started promoting bachelor's degrees to get people graduate faster. The academia accepted t…

Instead of sweeping generalisations you should qualify statements if it only applies to long ago in a small non English speaking country.

> I'm not familiar with the job market relevance of a bachelor's degree today.

It's OK to say nothing if you have no information to add

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#162

Post by syzarian »

rrrrrrrrrrrr2 wrote: post #136
syzarian wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve taught mathematics for over 20 years in higher education and I strongly disagree with your view on the relative ease of learning math on one’s own. Let’s take a simple example. Here’s the distributive property for rings: a(b + c) = ab + ac It’s easy for me to convince someone that because of this property we get the following: 3(x + 2) = 3x + 6 It’s much harder to convince someone that 3x + 6 = 3(x + 2) It’s har…

I agree with you except for the very last point, that "students need to be guided on problems at the time they do them" . I think this issue is fundamental to the tradeoffs of self studying that I've experienced. I want to point out: the guide doesn't necessarily have to be a human. And textbooks accomplish this by giving examples that walk through how to solve problems similar to the exercises. Unfortunately this is…

My example was geared toward those people learning beginning algebra in 9th grade or so or the great many students who place into pre college level math during their first semester of undergrad. I used the word “ring” because as I was writing my comment I didn’t want any readers to think my example only applied to integers, or rationals, or reals. So I said “ring” trying to capture a nuance that very few people would appreciate.

I contend you are an outlier in the extreme. I think very few people can read a math book and get anything out of it unless they have had training. For one thing, in lower level math we lie to students all the time. We just can’t be honest about things because students at that level can’t appreciate the insane number of nuances. For example, ask a first year calculus student what “dx” means and their answer will be complete nonsense but they don’t know that. We can’t tell students what “dx” really is because it is quite beyond their level of understanding.

Thanks for the discussion. I appreciate your perspective.

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#163

Post by randomdata »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #30

I've worked in the ed-tech space for years and am good friends with many of the early pioneers. Most of the capturable value in education is signal of acquired knowledge and other factors. I'll address the knowledge signaling first. It has been possible for a century to self-study to the equivalent of a bachelor's degree using textbooks but it is very difficult to verify in a reasonable amount of time whether someone…

> Most of the capturable value in education is signal of acquired knowledge and other factors.

Importantly, though, the topic here is higher education, not education. Higher education refers to a type of business. And the business of higher education isn't in the business of education at all, but rather in the business of socialization. The value proposition is exposure to other, generally like-minded, people in which to engage with and form bonds with, particularly with respect to mating.

While at some level something like this very forum could disrupt that there is something missing. Tech hasn't solved for the "human touch" and until then there will be value in stepping out into the real world. And so long as there is value in existing in the real world, people will pay for that.

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#164

Post by jvvw »

randomdata wrote: post #163
Hermitian909 wrote: post #30

I've worked in the ed-tech space for years and am good friends with many of the early pioneers. Most of the capturable value in education is signal of acquired knowledge and other factors. I'll address the knowledge signaling first. It has been possible for a century to self-study to the equivalent of a bachelor's degree using textbooks but it is very difficult to verify in a reasonable amount of time whether someone…

> Most of the capturable value in education is signal of acquired knowledge and other factors. Importantly, though, the topic here is higher education , not education. Higher education refers to a type of business. And the business of higher education isn't in the business of education at all, but rather in the business of socialization. The value proposition is exposure to other, generally like-minded, people in whi…

Definitely. Going to university is also a very gentle way to leave home and grow up - you gradually learn to do things like budget, cook, find accommodation and so on while there is still support around you and have vacations when you can go home to your parents.

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#165

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrr2 »

syzarian wrote: post #162
rrrrrrrrrrrr2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you except for the very last point, that "students need to be guided on problems at the time they do them" . I think this issue is fundamental to the tradeoffs of self studying that I've experienced. I want to point out: the guide doesn't necessarily have to be a human. And textbooks accomplish this by giving examples that walk through how to solve problems similar to the exercises. Unfortunately this is…

My example was geared toward those people learning beginning algebra in 9th grade or so or the great many students who place into pre college level math during their first semester of undergrad. I used the word “ring” because as I was writing my comment I didn’t want any readers to think my example only applied to integers, or rationals, or reals. So I said “ring” trying to capture a nuance that very few people would…

Obligatory: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20141206.png

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#169

Post by baandang »

soferio wrote: post #139
Hermitian909 wrote: post #30

I've worked in the ed-tech space for years and am good friends with many of the early pioneers. Most of the capturable value in education is signal of acquired knowledge and other factors. I'll address the knowledge signaling first. It has been possible for a century to self-study to the equivalent of a bachelor's degree using textbooks but it is very difficult to verify in a reasonable amount of time whether someone…

As for signalling, “The Case Against Education” by Bryan Caplan is a crisply argued case that signalling is >50% at least of what is going on.

I would say 90%. I would contend the main problem is we really don't believe in education as a society.

Most people don't even believe that becoming more educated makes you "smarter". "Smart" is this CPU clock speed you naturally have and then "education" is running the cpu through various benchmarks.

School is just standardization of the benchmarks so it can't be cheap and freely available. We don't want everyone to join the guild. As a society we want joining the guild to be as prohibitively expensive as possible while pretending we wish the guild could be open and free. All a racket and bullshit for 99% of the population.

Re: Why hasn’t technology disrupted higher education already?

#170

Post by rahimnathwani »

nradov wrote: post #29
hammock wrote: post #4

We've already gone through an entire cycle of technology-driven higher education disruption... ever heard of an online degree? Many such online schools have made billions and lost it again by now. Separately, the accreditation scheme upholds a high barrier to entry for disruptors. Specifically, a school must be accredited (gatekept by the US Ed Dept) for matriculating students to be eligible for government financial…

Is the accreditation scheme really a high barrier to entry? Several new institutions of higher education have gained accreditation in recent years. There is some paperwork and hassle involved, but we've got to have quality control to prevent scammers from taking advantage of students and taxpayers. Accreditation doesn't prevent schools from adopting disruptive technologies.

Yup, accreditation is a high barrier to entry.

Make School failed to get accreditation. I doubt Make School is worse than the worst accredited university.

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