Redesigning education - Brainstorm | Hacker News Reader

Redesigning education - Brainstorm

geekybusiness.com

5 pointsmkuhn17 comments

    Not Found

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

EDIT: Hmm. Worked the third time of trying.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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?

.. isn't respected or appreciated

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

Trying to reshape education you are up against strong forces.

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.

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.

I think it's mandatory to get a nuanced view over the purposes of various educations. I see a wide spectrum from the narrow focused vocational training to the preparation for cutting-edge development.

I also don't think people should go to "university" (or apprentice) just once in their lifetime. Education, and a diversifying of knowledge, should be life long.

i'm not talking about vocational training, more akin to pair programming for accountants or something.

everybody has an intern, everybody is an intern somewhere else.

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

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com