

Redesigning education - Brainstorm - mkuhn
http://www.geekybusiness.com/redesigning-education

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RiderOfGiraffes

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        The requested URL /redesigning-education
        was not found on this server.
    

EDIT: Hmm. Worked the third time of trying.

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mkuhn
Sry, I don't know why this is happening but since a few hours the Blog works
on and off. I'm trying to fix it and already contacted the Posterous guys...

The normal Blog URL should work: <http://www.geekybusiness.com/> there you can
also see the whole post unfortunately the comments also seem not to load.

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RiderOfGiraffes
These things happen, I'm commenting not because it's a problem for me - I'll
just hit reload every few minutes - but if you have customers they'll go "WTF:
not working - I'm out ..."

I've experienced this first hand. Small, insignificant wobbles that you
personally wouldn't normally wory about on a web site and suddenly people go -
"It doesn't work!".

Deeply annoying, but true.

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jonsen
Is it even possible to brainstorm education design? How would you evaluate
ideas? How do we define learning objectives? How do we measure learning
outcomes?

The problems with education are not solved by arbitrary discussions.
Discussions will remain superficial until we have more consensus on the true
nature of education, I think.

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mkuhn
So let's start there, what do you think is the nature of education?

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jonsen
That's a big question. Ultimately human education is nothing but an
evolutionary drive. You have to learn some basics to become a functional
member of society. To survive and to keep society rolling. How an individual
actually ends up being able to perform and actually performs is accidental to
a high degree. The overall societal effect of this mass of arbitrary
performers is a very complex phenomenon. To really study that we should look
to the field of systems theory. And I believe the deep answers to this
question can only come from systems theory.

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mkuhn
You have a very interesting take on the topic. You start on a much lower level
than I would have but I will think about it.

Thanks for the inspiration.

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theblackbox
here in the UK the government has pledged to getting 50% of school leavers
through University Education.... average student debt is now ~£23K .... Ka-
Ching!

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jhaglund
i think apprenticeship followed by certification will be the next
"university". extract a course catalog from your social networks.

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mkuhn
Interesting Idea, in Switzerland we already have that but it isn't respected
or appreciated as highly as a "pure" University degree.

Maybe we have to see the differing purposes the two possibilities have

1\. Apprenticship followed by certification is for people with "real world",
jobs that work relatively hands-on

2\. University in the classical sense is more about furthering the scientific
background, pushing the boundaries of a discipline?

What do you think?

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jonsen
_.. isn't respected or appreciated_

By whom? And on what premises? Ingrained cultural norms?

Trying to reshape education you are up against strong forces.

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mkuhn
The education is of a different level and people get a more practical view on
the advanced topics.

It isn't as respected because of historical isues but also because of the
differing levels that the education through the differing paths (wants to)
achieve(s). But I think you shouldn't compare Apples with Pears. I think the
purpose of the two paths is different as explained in my last comment above.

Officials in Switzerland and especially the OECD often claim that Switzerland
has a too low rate of University Graduates but I don't necessarily think so,
it is another angle from which the question on how to redesign education can
be approached.

One thing you're definitely right is that there are quite a few string foirces
out there that like the status quo.

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jonsen
Strong forces towards status quo equals high stability. Not necessarily a bad
thing. If you want change think chaos theory. Find the trigger that makes the
system jump to a new pattern of stability.

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modelic3
Is it possible to apply to YCombinator with the idea of starting a university
because that would be totally awesome.

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mkuhn
I think it could be difficult to do within the assigned timeframe or the
ressources that ar eprovided without completely rethinking the "University".

Something in the style of Academic Earth but much more interactive and
community oriented could be very interesting. The only problem is that the
content is quite expensive to produce when it isn't available through existing
institutions.

