There are many, many voices offering observations together with criticisms of universities inward human face upwardly of rising costs tog...
There are many, many voices offering observations together with criticisms of universities inward human face upwardly of rising costs together with tuitions. But none is to a greater extent than qualified than Bill Bowen to address these issues. He is the preeminent economist together with analyst of the institutions of American universities, together with he was a long-serving president of Princeton University. So it is a care for to read his recent gear upwardly of Tanner lectures on this topic, Higher Education inward the Digital Age. (The Kindle edition became available today; link.)
On the damage side, Bowen has a real clear together with reasonable agreement of why academy costs tend to rising to a greater extent than chop-chop than inflation. Universities are real labor-intensive organizations, together with the largest factor of their workforce are highly skilled together with nationally competitive faculty. But highly skilled professionals on academy faculties are linked to job markets exterior of academia, together with salaries inward those external markets locomote along to rising healthily. To keep excellence inward enquiry together with teaching, universities demand to growth compensation annually, together with often at rates that are moderately higher than inflation. There are other damage drivers that Bowen doesn't hash out -- i.e. rising healthcare costs -- but contest for the best faculty is key. (It is unfortunate that he uses the phrase "cost disease," which implies that the rising damage construction inward higher teaching is somehow a chronic failure inside the sector, rather than an inherent characteristic of the nature of the work.)
Moreover, Bowen correctly notes that processes leading to productivity gain inward other parts of the economic scheme withdraw hold non been possible inward the teaching together with enquiry environment. Teaching undergraduates is a time-consuming activeness for skilled professors, together with reducing the fourth dimension per pupil way lowering the lineament of learning that occurs.
The basic persuasion is simple: inward labor-intensive industries such equally the performing arts together with education, in that place is less chance than inward other sectors to growth productivity by, for example, substituting uppercase for labor. (3)Bowen quotes Robert Frank who observed that "it nonetheless takes iv musicians nine minutes to perform Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4, just equally it did inward the nineteenth century" (4).
To live sure, universities demand to locomote along to ameliorate productivity inward the routine line of piece of work concern together with administration of the institution, together with most universities withdraw hold acquire real proficient at this effort. But the compensation costs of maintaining a nationally competitive faculty to a greater extent than often than non outweigh these savings, together with thus the damage of instruction per pupil continues to rising slightly ahead of inflation. (Bowen together with others gauge this premium at near 1 percent; 4.)
Bowen also spends some endeavor on analyzing "productivity" inward the context of universities. Some aspects of academy outcomes are easily quantified -- degrees awarded, fourth dimension to degree, performance on standardized tests. But Bowen makes a key betoken when he observes that possibly the most of import outcome -- educational lineament -- is non measurable; together with yet leaders, faculty, together with managers of universities must rest committed to maintaining together with enhancing the lineament of the teaching they provide. And lineament has a cost. Bowen makes interesting utilisation of a New England Journal of Medicine article on information technology innovations together with productivity; link. Here is a relevant publication from the National Academy Press authored yesteryear Teresa Sullivan together with others, Improving Measurement of Productivity inward Higher Education (link).
In guild to fundamentally alter the damage construction of a academy education, it would live necessary to exercise 1 of 2 possible things: either significantly growth the number of students for whom a unmarried faculty fellow member is responsible (greatly increasing the student-faculty ratio), or growth the number of lower-paid instructors whose project responsibilities are to a greater extent than express than the electrical flow scheme (full responsibleness of all details of a unmarried course, enquiry activity, participation inward departmental affairs, ...). Both of these pathways look similar pregnant steps away from the learning intimacy that Bowen extolls inward the sense of a residential college. "Flipping the classroom" together with maintaining or increasing the amount of faculty contact amongst students sounds similar a corking learning solution -- but it doesn't cut back costs.
What is most interesting near the volume is the 2nd lecture, "Prospects for an Online Fix." Since many breathless voices withdraw hold started to debate that online teaching together with MOOCs are a breakthrough engineering for universities together with colleges that volition homecoming the traditional classroom obsolete, Bowen's accept on this enquiry is an of import one. His overall assessment is a measured one. He thinks that in that place is some argue to aspect that blended pedagogy together with curriculum may inward fact live possible inward ways that heighten learning together with cut back the damage curve. But he also points out that in that place are alone a express number of rigorous studies of learning outcomes for online together with face-to-face instruction, together with these studies exercise non back upwardly a clear wages for either modality. Essentially the most mutual findings are that learning outcomes are roughly similar inward online together with face-to-face classes. More importantly, though, he finds that in that place is real fiddling rigorous enquiry available to evaluate the possibility of damage savings through online instruction. And without pregnant (and growing) damage savings, the engineering shift does non impact the damage curve.
So where does Bowen's electrical flow cautious optimism near online together with blended instruction come upwardly from? Several things look to withdraw hold influenced him since his Romanes Lecture at Oxford inward 2000, which was significantly to a greater extent than dubious near the prospects for cost-reducing, effective online academy instruction. One is the cluster of innovations inward software-based quizzing, coaching, together with tutoring that withdraw hold occurred inward the yesteryear 10 years. Another is the finding of some studies that faculty together with online course of instruction designers are starting fourth dimension to acquire the hang of how to utilisation the online medium to greater pedagogical number than just placing a traditional course of instruction online amongst existing materials together with techniques. And a third, on the learning-outcomes side, is the educational payoff that may resultant from "flipping the classroom" -- relieving the faculty fellow member from lectures together with using face-to-face fourth dimension for discussion, coaching, together with probing of learning quality.
The kinds of courses that are most oftentimes studied inward enquiry near online teaching are to a greater extent than often than non on the technical side of the curriculum: statistics, accounting, together with calculus withdraw hold been studied for learning outcomes yesteryear both approaches. We powerfulness imagine that entry-level courses inward the sciences, engineering, together with line of piece of work concern powerfulness autumn inward the same full general scope. But what near courses inward humanities, human resources, marketing, ethnography, history, or sociology? Are in that place online pedagogies that would offering an effective base of operations for learning inward these fields? How tin nosotros live assured that the abstract cognitive together with analytical skills associated amongst fine art history, philosophy, or estimator pattern are genuinely existence developed inward the students who accept these kinds of courses online?
Here is the vision that Bowen ultimately offers of the "university inward the digital world":
Can nosotros imagine a academy inward which
- Faculty collaborate to a greater extent than on teaching (with engineering serving equally the forcing function)?
- Faculty devote to a greater extent than of their fourth dimension to promoting "active learning" yesteryear their students together with are freed from much of the tedium of grading together with fifty-fifty giving essentially the same lecture countless times?
- Students have more, together with to a greater extent than timely, individualized feedback on assignments?
- Instruction is guided yesteryear evidence drawn from massive amounts of information on how students learn, what mistakes students unremarkably make, together with how misunderstandings underlying those mistakes tin live corrected ("adaptive learning")?
- Technology is used to convey the perspectives of a to a greater extent than various pupil torso onto its campus through its capacity to engage students from just about the world?
- Technology extends the educational procedure throughout one's life through the educational equivalent of booster shots? And ideally:
- A academy inward which institutional costs together with tuition charges rising at a slower rate? (44)
And Bowen instantly seems to think that this favorable outcome is possible, using novel tools available to faculty together with academic leaders:
I am today a convert. I withdraw hold come upwardly to believe that instantly is the time. Far greater access to the Internet, improvements inward Internet speed, reductions inward storage costs, the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated mobile devices, together with other advances withdraw hold combined amongst changing mindsets to advise that online learning, inward many of its manifestations, tin Pb to at to the lowest degree comparable learning outcomes relative to face-to-face instruction at lower-cost. (45)What is surprising to me near Bowen's electrical flow optimism is that it seems premature, given Bowen's ain commitment to rigorous measures of lineament together with costs. As he points out repeatedly inward the lecture, the high-quality studies of educational effectiveness are non yet available inward sufficient volume to permit confident conclusions; together with studies of the damage construction of online together with blended instruction are fifty-fifty less detailed.
But to a greater extent than concerning is the number of defining to a greater extent than adequately the kinds of intellectual together with social maturation nosotros most desire to get amongst an undergraduate education, together with whether the pedagogies that emerge inward online teaching are effective inward creating those forms of development. It is 1 thing to assist a pupil larn the cardinal doctrines of Descartes, Hume, together with Kant equally a listing of propositions; it is quite some other to assist him or her to think critically, creatively, empathetically, together with innovatively near the philosophical developments together with social context that stimulated these ideas near rationalism together with empiricism.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 related concern is the job of generating pupil solar daytime of the month inward learning. The best classes I withdraw hold had inward my career equally a philosophy professor withdraw hold been those inward which students gained an excitement together with solar daytime of the month amongst the issues which led them to desire to larn to a greater extent than near the subject. They wanted to hash out ideas inward the course of instruction together with exterior the class; they were happy to live steered towards additional readings; they took on the dependent plain affair equally their own. How does this shape of intellectual solar daytime of the month emerge from an online class? How does the learning acquire personal? How does the pupil acquire a stake inward the learning together with an intellectual passion for taking it further? Bowen recognizes the importance of straight contact amongst professors inward generating this sort of solar daytime of the month (67-68); but he suggests, somehow, that this personal contact volition live increasingly the say of the richer institutions. "The mix volition vary yesteryear institutional type, together with relatively wealthy liberal arts colleges together with selective universities tin live expected to offering to a greater extent than in-person teaching than tin many less privileged institutions" (68). But what if the in-person contact is genuinely the hole-and-corner sauce -- the ingredient that makes the recipe work?
I nonetheless recollect taking the GRE inward philosophy equally a senior philosophy pupil at the University of Illinois inward 1971. It struck me equally existence no to a greater extent than than a scholastic joke, probing for the student's cognition near names together with key doctrines inward the history of philosophy without whatsoever existent powerfulness to assess philosophical cognitive skills. This standardized attempt had cypher whatsoever to exercise amongst existent philosophical thinking, or the skills of reasoning together with questioning that start to contribute to one's existence a capable philosopher. I fearfulness that online teaching inward philosophy together with other areas of the humanities would live vulnerable to precisely this fatal weakness: emphasizing facts together with formal structures of doctrines, but giving curt shrift to evolution of the critical skills that are needed to brand sense of the issues inward the field. Could nosotros imagine Wittgenstein without Frege together with Russell?
(Here is an splendid survey of electrical flow enquiry on online teaching yesteryear Bowen together with Kelly Lack; link.)
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