Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
chronicle.com
Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
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Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#2I like the suggestion to separate instruction from credentialing, allowing excellent students anywhere to prove themselves as such.
However, I strongly object to the business idolatry expressed: trading Nobel laureates for "entrepreneurs, inventors, and executives." Why not both?
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#3"Mr. Khan conjures an image of a new campus in Silicon Valley where students would spend their days working on internships and projects with mentors, and would continue their education with self-paced learning similar to that of Khan Academy."
Because of course the entire world centers around SV and tech. And even if you are just trying to work as a manager at a regional chain in Kansas there is something you can learn from Silicon Valley.
"Mr. Khan writes that he admires the work of Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, who set up a fellowship program for college students to drop out and pursue entrepreneurship with the help of financial backing and mentors"
The entire world is not cut out to be entrepreneurial. In fact most of the world isn't and can't (not everybody can be a chief we do need indians as the saying goes).
Noting also that Kahn takes the traditional route of publishing a traditional printed book (by Hachette Book Group) to get his views across. And will most likely go on a typical book tour and do the usual media publicity route. Nothing wrong with that. Just like there is value in traditional universities and things like Kahn "Academy".
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#4He's spot on I think.
* mentors
* hands on experience and dives into theory/standard learning
* live "on campus"
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#5He's spot on I think. * mentors * hands on experience and dives into theory/standard learning * live "on campus" I was lucky to have all of these at a standard liberal arts college, albeit not in the exact doses that Khan is talking about. It made my education great.
I've followed a similar background becoming an Engineer. I did the co-operative education while an undergrad and got valuable mentoring and working experience in the marketplace. Now I'm an organizer for a local R users group which meets at a university. We do a lot of hands on and practical theory which has benefited me and our data science community.
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#6He's spot on I think. * mentors * hands on experience and dives into theory/standard learning * live "on campus" I was lucky to have all of these at a standard liberal arts college, albeit not in the exact doses that Khan is talking about. It made my education great.
One of the great successes of the university I attended were several weekly hour-long two-on-one sessions (two students, one supervisor) with either a professor or a grad student, talking about that week's lectures.
The regularity and length of them allowed a relationship to be built up over the course of the semester, and you could be damn sure you'd learn a lot more from that dialogue than you ever would from sitting bleary-eyed in the lecture hall at 9am.
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#7It's about time we see some disruption in education. The old school methods of schooling will not work in this day and age. For example in the tech sector, more companies are looking for graduates that have experience rather then just a CS degree. There are free resources to learn how to code like Codeacademy, Udacity, Coursera, Mozilla’s P2PU, Google Code University, and MIT Open Courseware. There are also more and more high-quality paid resources, both online and off, like General Assembly, Treehouse or Bloc, not to mention local continuing ed classes. Mr. Khan and Peter Thiel are headed in the right direction.
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#8I like the suggestion to separate instruction from credentialing, allowing excellent students anywhere to prove themselves as such. However, I strongly object to the business idolatry expressed: trading Nobel laureates for "entrepreneurs, inventors, and executives." Why not both?
Separating instruction and credentialing (and a third item - learner support) has been suggested by others before (http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/768/1414 ), and I do think it is a good idea in theory.
But look at where it has already been done before, like Microsoft or IT certifications. They are okay, but don't really have a whole lot of value because it is too easy to 'cram for the exam' - there are even services in many countries that help with this. I wouldn't want to hire someone solely based on their certificates or badges - I'd want to see a portfolio of their work, hear from previous co-workers, and of course speak with the person to see about their skills in communicating and working with others.
And outside of some technical skills or rote knowledge, most skills can't be so easily measured by test questions.
A better argument for a 'new college' would highlight how right now a college degree doesn't really indicate what a person has learned, and the evidence points to not much actual learning happening in college (see Academically Adrift: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_la...). This isn't surprising since most professors aren't trained in how to teach effectively and properly support learning, and neither are most in industry, either.
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#9He's spot on I think. * mentors * hands on experience and dives into theory/standard learning * live "on campus" I was lucky to have all of these at a standard liberal arts college, albeit not in the exact doses that Khan is talking about. It made my education great.
One of the great successes of the university I attended were several weekly hour-long two-on-one sessions (two students, one supervisor) with either a professor or a grad student, talking about that week's lectures. The regularity and length of them allowed a relationship to be built up over the course of the semester, and you could be damn sure you'd learn a lot more from that dialogue than you ever would from sitti…
I've heard that's what you get at Oxford. Seems great but as a mere mortal who attended a slightly less prestigious institution, I had to make do with tutorial groups where 18-20 people would cram into a room designed for 12.
Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College
#10"Mr. Khan conjures an image of a new campus in Silicon Valley where students would spend their days working on internships and projects with mentors, and would continue their education with self-paced learning similar to that of Khan Academy." Because of course the entire world centers around SV and tech. And even if you are just trying to work as a manager at a regional chain in Kansas there is something you can lea…
I think your criticism isn't completely fair. I'm fairly certain that the narrow design and location of his thought experiment is because he is most familiar with the finance and tech industries (His degrees are in Math, EE, and Business). He's clearly spent a lot of time in school and is familiar with his pain points and would like to fix them (for better or worse)[1].
If I was in the same position I wouldn't bother expunging my ideas about what would make a better art school because I'm clueless about art schools.
[1]My experience has been that Community Colleges already do a lot of what he's suggesting (at least mine did) and I doubt his university style campus could compete on cost with a CC.
edit: forgot that asterisks italicize text.