To answer Ted first, I don't know if the big technology companies will take
over the teaching responsibilities of college and university professors,
but it is clear to me that the nature (and the number of teaching
positions) will change. There seems to be a close parallel here between
with the Luddites, circa 1815. Automated looms put intense pressure on the
textile work force in Britain and some of them fought change fiercely. In
the end the Luddites lost but society as a whole had better fabrics at
lower cost. It remains to be seen whether the large companies or a new
venture will be the winner in this modern struggle. But it is not just
educators per se who are at risk. IBM, for one, has tried to position
itself to deliver not just educational materials, but database products
that will track all students in a district or even a whole state thus
eliminating small armies of clerical workers.
Now a comment on the Raspberry article. I think that the vast majority of
parents and students, not just the lower SES, in this country have lost
sight of something very fundamental: up to some very young age it is the
responsibility of the parent to educate the child and to instill the idea
that continuous self education is what will really matter in the long run,
not school per se. See "A Hope in the Unseen," by Suskind for an idea of
how much difference parents can make.
A couple of URLs related to "A Hope in the Unseen,"
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/v22/v22n29/cedrick
.html
http://www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/hopeintheunseen_bgc.html
Now to try to tie the two posts together. Over the summer, I enrolled my 7
year in the Stanford University EPGY math program. He completed grades
3,4,5, and 6 with about an hour per day of work. I am satisfied that self
paced distance learning can work. This quarter he is back in private
school and we have yet to work out what the curriculum will be, but there
is little doubt in my mind that calculus is not too far in the future and
that this level of performance would have been difficult if not impossible
in the public schools readily accessible. In fact, there are not very many
private schools in San Diego that would support this and the time required
to commute to them would overwhelm the time actually spent on task. I
expect that we will be consumers of some of the products that Panitz seems
to abhor. The inconvenience of driving to most schools appears to have a
substantial cost/benefit penalty relative to the potential use of the same
amount of time playing soccer or baseball. Virtual reality soccer just
doesn't cut it compared to the real thing, so for now we'd rather use our
precious time to drive to games and practices. Certainly, there are some
schools worth driving to or living at. But many of the lower tier schools
(public K-12, undergrad, and even grad) are rapidly being eclipsed in
quality by electronic media. I guess that the challenge facing Ted and
public school educators is how to make their product so good that they can
trigger similar choices by most consumers of their products and hold onto
market share.
Often, it seems to me that the key point in this debate is the issue of
"self paced". Instructors at all levels are faced with the bore the
best/lose the worst quandry every day. Aggresive tracking and self paced
instruction are two reasonable solutions. And as we gain a better
understanding of how people learn (for example see Emerging Minds by
Siegler; Oxford Press), and the innate biochemical/biophysical differences
in learners, the ability of software to tweek itself to the current user
will become even more important.
----------
> From: Jerry Becker <jbecker@siu.edu>
> To: jbecker@siu.edu
> Subject: Failing schools? No, failing parents.
> Date: Saturday, September 04, 1999 08:21
>
> From the Washington Post, Friday, September 3, 1999; Page A27 --[See
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/03/015l-090399-idx.html
]
>
> Failing Schools? No, Failing Parents
>
> By William Raspberry
>
> Florida has launched what has to be the most fascinating school voucher
> experiment the nation has seen. It is elegant in its simplicity, it
speaks
> precisely to those parents who believe the public schools are failing
their
> children, and it leaves in the hands of the public school system the
power
> to put the program out of business.
>
> The scheme (dubbed A+ Plan for Education by Gov. Jeb Bush) begins by
>............ [[snip]]
----------
> From: ted panitz <tpanitz@cape.com>
> To: stlhe-l@unb.ca; wac-l@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu; aera-c@asu.edu;
aera-k@asu.edu; aera-j@asu.edu; math@lists.davis.k12.ut.us;
mathedcc@archives.math.utk.edu; CLTALK@asu.edu
> Subject: [MATHEDCC] Who will teach in the 21st century??
> Date: Friday, September 03, 1999 08:31
>
> Hi Listers,
>
> Do you think the big technology software and hardware companies,
> with all their money and people power, will be able to take over our
> teaching responsibilities by developing sophisticated internet courses
> which include videos, CD's, lectures from well known teachers, computer
> testing/grading etc.???
>
> If NO, why not?
> If YES, then what can we do about it, if anything?
> Should they take over teaching?
>
> You know my position, that we must change from lecturing to
> interactive, students centered classes, as a mechanism to stop R2D2 from
> taking over. What do you think??
>
> In order to fan the flames a little more I have taken a quote from
> Michael Margolis' paper "Brave New Universities". The web site where the
> entire document may be accessed in at the end of the article.
>
> Please reply to the list.
>
> Regards,
> Ted
> tpanitz@cape.com
>
> Michael Margolis (1997) clearly identifies the driving force behind the
> commoditization of university instruction and the consequences this will
> have on the future of teaching in the university. Margolis states the "
> Market capitalism, not the Internet per se, is the force behind
> developing the wired university". He believes that students will embrace
> distance learning because of the financial benefits they will receive,
> partially through reduced tuition and elimination of other expenses
> associated with taking courses on college campuses. He states, "A
> college degree from an accredited program will
> suffice- the cheaper the better- as long as it increases a student's
> chance of securing a decent first job to help pay back his or her loans.
> The "high-tech" universities of the next century will be hailed as yet
> another triumph of the free market. (p1)
>
> [[snip]]
>
> In order to succeed with implementing all of these reforms,
> university managers will have to overcome the troglodytes who resist
> marketing higher education as a commodity. These reactionaries argue
> that education in the arts and sciences is also an experience that
> provides worthwhile non-material benefits that enrich a person's time,
> and they often cite philosophies of education that run back at least to
> Thomas Jefferson. In the global economy, however, customers see higher
> education as training and
> credentialing to secure jobs that provide better
> remuneration. The American public understands
> that every major endeavor- with the possible
> exception of religion- needs to be evaluated on a
> commercial basis." (p6)
>
> Margolis, M. "Brave New Universities"
> http:/www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_5/margolis/index.html
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Other sites of interest in this debate
> David Noble articles
> http://communication.ucsd.edu/dl/ddm1.html
> http://communication.ucsd.edu/dl/ddm2.html
> http://communication.ucsd.edu/dl/ddm3.html
>
> Boyer Commission Report
> http://www.sunysb.edu
> ( click on the Boyer Commission Report) or
> http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/
[[end of Panitz's post]]
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