Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash
M’ha semblat força interessant l’article de Matt Reed Education When Information Is Free a l’Inside Higher Education. Comença preguntant-se
“The whole system perplexes me. We live in an age where the flow and breadth of information has never been more inexpensive and readily available, yet colleges are more expensive than ever. The whole thing feels like a house of cards.” — Will Federman
Every so often, through the miracles of the interwebs, ideas will crash into each other and inadvertently produce provocative wreckage. That happened this week when Will Federman’s tweet and Deborah Williams’s Inside Higher Ed piece about English composition saving the world came across my screen.
Federman’s tweet reflects a commonly held view. If information is less expensive and more easily accessed than it has ever been — which it is — then what, exactly, are colleges doing? Why are they so expensive?
Als MOOC, s’hi pot participar de franc i es poden veure materials (videos, text, etc.), però per fer els exercicis, que te’ls corregeixin… i per tenir un certificat, cal pagar. És a dir, per tenir la informació, és de franc; per aprendre millor, cal pagar. Una mica em sembla com aquella persona que aprèn mitjançant llibres: segurament que es pot, però si algú et mostra els continguts més rellevants, t’ajuda a resoldre dubtes, t’emociona amb el tema… tot és més fàcil.
M’agrada això:
But helping a student develop the ability to write clearly about difficult topics, to reason quantitatively, to synthesize information from various fields, to see nuance and to develop the confidence to stand as a producer of worthwhile ideas takes more than an app.
Put differently, education now can be less about the material and more about the student.
I don’t mean that in a “selfie culture” kind of way, but as something closer to self-awareness. What matters to you? What gifts do you have that others don’t? How should you live your life? How should we, as a society, live our lives? And how do you communicate those things so that other people can understand them?
És a dir, no estem parlant d’instrucció, sinó d’aprenentatge.
I en aquest article hi tenim alguna pista del que hauria de ser la docència universitària, i el paper del professorat. Aportar alguna cosa més enllà dels materials. I que ja es fa, per cert.