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Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

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Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#51

Post by aidenn0 »

drd wrote: post #26

“… the faculty would consist of professionals the students would work with as well as traditional professors ... by de-emphasizing or eliminating lecture-based courses, having their students more engaged in research and co-ops in the broader world …” The problem lies in the teaching materials and the teachers. In most cases, faculties don’t have real world working experience, so they just provide their students with…

"Also, the race in producing research artifacts is extremely distracting for the faculty members. Universities need to distinguish between teaching faculty and research faculty."

I disagree. When you make research faculty teach undergraduates, you are basically forcing them to interact with the undergraduates, which is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#52

Post by drd »

aidenn0 wrote: post #51
drd wrote: post #26

“… the faculty would consist of professionals the students would work with as well as traditional professors ... by de-emphasizing or eliminating lecture-based courses, having their students more engaged in research and co-ops in the broader world …” The problem lies in the teaching materials and the teachers. In most cases, faculties don’t have real world working experience, so they just provide their students with…

"Also, the race in producing research artifacts is extremely distracting for the faculty members. Universities need to distinguish between teaching faculty and research faculty." I disagree. When you make research faculty teach undergraduates, you are basically forcing them to interact with the undergraduates, which is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Yes, it is mutually beneficial. But, I have seen how new hires are suffering due to the fact that they have not gained practical knowledge at school. So, there is a problem.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#53

Post by randomdata »

nekopa wrote: post #28

So really this boils down to one question: what is the purpose of universities? Put simply, is it- A: to make prepared members of society B: to make prepared members of a work force Now this is not as simplistic as it seems. Some may argue that A results in B. Some say that B is necessary for A to happen. My view is why can't we have both?

C: A place to pursue one's passions with like-minded people.

I'm not sure the purpose is A or B at all, though some people certainly come away with those attributes.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#54

Post by frankphilips »

pfortuny wrote: post #15
frankphilips wrote: post #7

It'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…

Do not confuse old with crappy. The fact that most lecture-based schools are crappy does not diminish the value of a lecture (cf. Oxford etc.). The problem is not necessary the method but the numbers. Of course, a "lecture" on Perl is probably as useless as a "practical with computers" on Metaphysics.

Not all lecture-based schools are crappy. However, the reality is that the more practical experience people have, the faster they learn. Having a boring "lecture" on Perl is less productive then having a quick 10 minute session on building a Hello World app using Perl. People essentially learn by doing, it's as simple as that.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#55

Post by therandomguy »

jfarmer wrote: post #47
shadowfiend wrote: post #18

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that different from apprenticeships. There's a wider exposure to ideas, perhaps (because maybe you jump between internships instead of staying with one), but at its most basic level the proposed idea is training people to do jobs instead of trying to expand their th…

Caveat: I'm a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp ( http://devbootcamp.com ), so I have strong opinions. :D "The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job." No, I don't think that's fair. There's no "we." Everyone -- students and institutions -- have a different answer to "what is the purpose of an education?" In the US, we've been experimenting with the full spect…

"The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job."... That is indeed fair. The parent I assume is talking about the current general perception about universities in US.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#56

Post by nsedlet »

thedaveoflife wrote: post #46
tokenadult wrote: post #29

There are several interesting comments on this article that relate to company hiring procedures. With the help of other HN participants, I have gradually compiled references to build a FAQ file on that subject, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 which seems to be well liked by other participants here. To relate what the research says to what Salman Khan is proposing, it is a widely replicated finding all ove…

But there is no incentive for colleges and universities to change anything about their practices. Demand for college education has never been higher and is increasing even still. The question to ask is, if our higher education system is in such dire need of reform how come it is so popular? Why are people willing to going into a lifetime of debt just to participate in this system which, according to your linked resea…

One answer is that higher education may be experiencing a bubble right now. It's true that more people are going to college than ever before and tuition has never been higher. But that only means that college degrees have perceived value, and not necessarily value that comes from their contribution to the productivity of society.

The benefits of a degree to employability are obvious, but for a lot of students the benefit to one's knowledge and skills are dubious (e.g. low-quality undergrad business programs). The cost of college, on the other hand, and the opportunity cost of four years of lost productivity, is huge.

If you run a university, this is a scary position to be in - bubbles can end quickly. If this is indeed a bubble, then a shift in employer perception of a degree's value could end it.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#57

Post by saraid216 »

jfarmer wrote: post #47
shadowfiend wrote: post #18

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that different from apprenticeships. There's a wider exposure to ideas, perhaps (because maybe you jump between internships instead of staying with one), but at its most basic level the proposed idea is training people to do jobs instead of trying to expand their th…

Caveat: I'm a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp ( http://devbootcamp.com ), so I have strong opinions. :D "The problem is this: somehow we mutated universities into a place where everyone goes in order to get a job." No, I don't think that's fair. There's no "we." Everyone -- students and institutions -- have a different answer to "what is the purpose of an education?" In the US, we've been experimenting with the full spect…

> No, I don't think that's fair. There's no "we." Everyone -- students and institutions -- have a different answer to "what is the purpose of an education?"

We have different answers, to be sure, but how is that answer expressed? The only thing my parents cared about when I chose my college and major was, "What kind of job can you get with that degree?" I was on good terms with the faculty and staff of my major and they felt compelled to acknowledge that most people worry about having a job when they leave school and thus, that faculty and staff felt obligated to explain the marketability of their taught skills, even if they had to go digging and networking with employers to find such answers.

You claim that, in the US, we have been experimenting for 150 years, but you only provide as an example your own, personal anecdotal experience as someone who has become a co-founding entrepreneur. You don't even provide UChicago's answer (which, had you done so, would have been an invitation for other alumni to disagree with you).

I don't see any meaningful experimentation happening. I see universities struggling to be everything to everyone, and not really having any idea how to do it anymore, except to provide for the lowest common denominator: the need to make a living after parental support runs out.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#58

Post by saraid216 »

captobvious wrote: post #45
shadowfiend wrote: post #18

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that different from apprenticeships. There's a wider exposure to ideas, perhaps (because maybe you jump between internships instead of staying with one), but at its most basic level the proposed idea is training people to do jobs instead of trying to expand their th…

I agree that having a population highly capable of reasoning and critical thinking is a good thing. But I do think this vision of an enlightened society is a little bit of an ivory tower fantasy. We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents. Most people need to be employees. And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like…

> We don't live in a society where people have a large amount of freedom and exist as free independent agents.

But should we? And if so, why may we not work towards it?

> And if you are an employee you will exist in a dictatorship with a military-like structure, and doing critical thinking and proper reasoning will be downright dangerous.

This is complete bullshit. You understand neither the military nor corporations, both of which can and do permit and encourage back talk.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#59

Post by svachalek »

shadowfiend wrote: post #18

And the pendulum swings back. While there are differences, fundamentally the proposition of mentors, internship-based learning, and living on site is not that different from apprenticeships. There's a wider exposure to ideas, perhaps (because maybe you jump between internships instead of staying with one), but at its most basic level the proposed idea is training people to do jobs instead of trying to expand their th…

You're forgetting the university as a place to get drunk, get high, get laid, and play football which appear to be pretty high priorities for many if not most students.

You're also forgetting the university as a rubber-stamp credential, an exclusive mark of membership into a particular subgroup of people we like to allow into our other particular subgroups, which from my anecdotal experience is the #1 reason parents want their kids to go to college.

The university as a "place of higher learning" was created back when monks copied every book by hand. I think the way we've managed to gold-plate all of the more modern and typical reasons for college with this lofty image thousands of years later is pretty impressive. By now I think we can probably come up with much better/cheaper forms of "higher learning" but I suspect too much of society depends on keeping it where it is.

Re: Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

#60

Post by saraid216 »

tokenadult wrote: post #29

There are several interesting comments on this article that relate to company hiring procedures. With the help of other HN participants, I have gradually compiled references to build a FAQ file on that subject, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543 which seems to be well liked by other participants here. To relate what the research says to what Salman Khan is proposing, it is a widely replicated finding all ove…

> A college or university that says to the world, "Our graduates who obtain our diplomas demonstrate their competence with work-sample tests, the results of which we list on their official academic records" would rapidly gain notice from companies with research-based hiring procedures. (And why would anyone want to work for a company with hiring procedures that are contrary to the best research?)

In Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, he talks about how companies had actually sent his department letters that explicitly said, "We will hire your graduates." Which, as he noted, is pretty amazing.

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