Song: What If We Could Build Higher Education From Scratch? What Would It Look Like?
Viewed: 35 - Published at: 2 years ago
Artist: Cathy Davidson
Year: 2014Viewed: 35 - Published at: 2 years ago
What if we could start all over again and design higher education from scratch? What would a university look like if there were no legacies from medieval knowledge traditions, Enlightenment epistemologies or taxonomies, or Industrial Age requirements, regulations, departments, majors, minors, distribution requirements, professional schools, or standardized assessment metrics, or contemporary problems ranging from defunding of public education to the burgeoning and ever increasing endowments of private universities? What kinds and forms of institutions of learning might we come up with? Or maybe we don't need any institutions at all? And how could our imagined universities help to inform our activism about transforming the actual institutions we inhabit now? Below the photo (of a student-generated two-day "FutureClass" at the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona), you'll find a template and a series of open-ended questions to get us started on imagining the university from scratch. #FutureEd
For UPDATES to the document below, and to add your comments to an evolving document (we'll be collecting and adding to this until May 2014), visit this public commentable Google Doc. The template in this blog post was updated last from the Google Doc on January 7, 2014.
Backstory: Next semester, in the class I'm teaching on "The History and Future of Higher Education," one project my face-to-face students will take on is creating their own institution of higher (tertiary) learning, from scratch, with no legacy concerns. They will then put up three or four different model institutions on the Coursera Forum for the MOOC version of "The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education," where as many as 50,000 participants (so we've been warned!) might be involved. Can you imagine what that will be like if even some tiny percentage, say 5 percent, from all over the world, were to participate in such a thought experiment? It's going to be facinating. My videos are very amateurish, but I hope that we'll be able to turn this into a "meta MOOC" where the real action happens on the Forums, through participation. I keep hearing about whole classes or even professional associations that will be taking the MOOC together. I've heard about reading groups and collections of teachers too. The Forums are what matter--what people add, what they take away, what they contribute, what they question--will be a highlight of the course (you can register, it's free of course, here).
To get the conversation going in an expansive way, check out the "opportunity art" of Chicago artist/real estate developer/community activist Theaster Gates? What if his project was the space of higher learning? What would you have to learn in order to be able to engage and organize a community in an impoverished part of Chicago to raise funds, convince the Mayor to give them the deed, and restore a beautiful bank abandonned for decades to be beautiful, functional, historically accurate, repurposed, and sustainable while remaining accessible and responsive to the needs of its community? If you were President or Dean at Theaster University, what would you need to require for admission? How would you design this educational experience so it was meaningful in the process and useful in the life beyond? What histories of building, renovation, decline and fall would you want your students to read? What theories of community? What political organization would you aspire to within the community of students, builders, artists, visionaries? What social theory? What gender theory? What race and class theory? What educational theory? Who would be the teachers? You would be training carpenters, artists, philosopher, environmentalists, community organizers, teachers, managers, executives, and future mayors and presidents. How would you certify someone's skills or declare someone's "graduation" from Theaster U? Read about Theaster Gates in Ben Austen, "The Opportunity Artist," New York Times, Dec 20, 2013.
All this is part of the larger HASTAC 2014 open, user-created initiative of courses, workshops, seminars, and online crowdsourced resources. Here again is the url where you can learn more or offer an event to contribute. Just click on the "Suggest an Addition" button and fill out the form to join the HASTAC Initiative on transforming higher ed:
UPDATED JANUARY 7, 2014DESIGNING HIGHER EDUCATION FROM SCRATCH: An Evolving Template of Open-Ended QuestionsName of our [imagined, fictive, future] university:
Logo, mascot, or motto:
Drawing or napkin sketch of the university:
We specialize in:
Our mission is:
We believe that all education is vocational in the sense intended by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, that we are being trained for the vocation of leading better, happier, more productive lives that contribute to society. The kind of society we are contributing to is:
The aspect of society to which our university contributes is:
-----------------------
Location:
(Where would the school be located? Would it be in a building, online, take a whole city as its campus, or maybe the whole world?)Would it be in a building, online, take a whole city as its campus, or maybe the whole world?)
Our university is mobile through
Our students are mobile through
Our university is part of a network of
Our students are networked to one another through
-------------
OUR SOCIETY’S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Our university is nationally located in
Our university is international in scope
At our university, we believe the role of higher education in society is to
We believe X % of our society should have a post-secondary education
We believe those without a post-secondary education should have training in
We believe the “sort” for who goes on to tertiary education begins at age
We believe the “sort” for what field you will study in higher ed begins at age
We believe/don’t believe general education is important for everyone because
We believe general education stops in formal education at age
The social philosophy behind our system of education is that higher education leads to social mobility and social mobility is a worthy goal because
The social philosophy behind our system of education is that social mobility is less important than providing everyone, at all social levels, with the means to thrive and those means should be provided at age
--------------------
OUR VALUES
WHAT WE VALUE:
Our mission is:
Our mission remains the same/changes every year because:
We specialize in:
We pride ourselves on:
We value learners who have these skills, abilities, or qualities:
Our learners know that we value these skills, abilities, or qualities because:
Our learning content is designed to transfer these skills, abilities, or qualities by:
We know our learners have these skills, abilities, or qualities when they:
People who work with our learners recognize them for being:
Our organization is part of a network that we value because:
Our learners are networked to one another through:
Our learners are interested in and motivated by:
Our learners do their best when:
---------------------------
COMPARABLES (Purpose: to elicit great innovative and historical comparisons worldwide)
We compare ourselves to these X institutions (worldwide) that exist now because
We compare ourselves to X institutions (worldwide) that once existed
We do not believe any feature of our institution resembles any other because
We believe X feature of our institution is unique because
------------------------------------
COSTS
Our tuition is
Our tuition is paid by
For students who cannot afford our tuition, we offer
We do/do not accept philanthropic gifts
We use/do not use state funds
We use/do not use corporate funding
We do/do not have trustees
Our (future) alums will have no role/a role in our future by
---------
STUDENTS
Our ideal students are:
We identify our ideal student by word-of-mouth from
We identify our ideal students by/not by test scores
We identify our ideal students by/not by GPA
We identify our ideal students by/not by an open competition
We identify our ideal students by
We contact our ideal students by
We advertise to our ideal students by
We recruit our key students by
We define diversity as
We ensure that diversity by
Our students are all in the age group of X to Y
Our pre-requisites for admission are:
----------
PEDAGOGY
All/none/some of our classes are lectures
All/none/some of our classes are seminars
All/none/some of our classes include labs
All/none/some of our classes have experiential learning
--------------------------------
KNOWLEDGE
Our specialty is
We have courses in
We do not have courses, we have
Our courses take place in
You do not pass a course in a specific subject, content area, or skill until you
Our curriculum is arranged by :
We have/do not have required courses in:
We have/do not have distribution courses:
We have/do not have majors in:
Our major in X looks like:
We have/do not have minors in:
Our minor in X looks like:
No, we do not organize knowledge by majors and minors, we organize knowledge by:
An example of how we organize knowledge in X is
We offer/do not offer liberal arts or general education that looks like
We are specialist and follow the European and international model of only accepting students into a specialized area
The specialized areas we cover are
-----------------
LEARNING MATERIALS
We have/do not have textbooks that are
Besides textbooks, we use
Different courses use different kinds of books and other learning materials such as
Our university has a library which consists of
Our library uses existing/new/open access materials because
----------------
RESEARCH
Our students are/are not engaged in original research on
Our students are/are not engaged in basic research in
Our students are/are not engaged in applied research in
The research and research facilities are funded by
The research is tied to learning/teaching through
The areas of original research are
We do/do not do social science research that may/may not lead to policy decisions
We receive/do not receive funding for policy research from
We support/do not support creative expression--in all the arts--as a fundamental component of research
We support/do not support research in the humanities as a fundamental component of research
Our students conduct original research in collaboration with
Our faculty engage in original research in/with/by/for
-----------------
COMMUNITY
Our relationship to the community that surrounds us is
Community members are part of our institution by
Our town is our gown because
------------------------
PROGRESS AND PATHWAYS
Classes are/are not graded
Attendance (physical, virtual) is/is not expected/required
You pass a class by
You fail a class by
There is no such thing as passing/failing a course because
We know when you have succeeded at our university, when . . .:
We recognize achievement by this assessment system:
We do not recognize achievement but assume peers will by this system:
We do not recognize achievement but assume our students will recognize it themselves by:
We acknowledge exceptional mastery by
We do not acknowledge one student as more exceptional than another
We have requirements for graduation and they are
We award graduation certificates for
We do not award any graduation credentials because
We ensure civil, creative behavior by students by
We have/do not have a judiciary system run by
--------------------
ASSESSMENT
Our current assessment system is
There will/will not be assessment by humans (self, peers, experts/mentors, teachers)
There will/will not be assessment by computers
There will/will not be formative assessment
There will/will not be summative assessment
There will/will not be authentic assessment (assessment of real-world tasks)
There will/will not be rubrics
There will/will not be multiple-choice tests
There will/will not be
There will/will not be letter grades
Points will/will not be awarded
Assessment will/will not be binary (pass/fail)
Assessment will/will not align to internal standards
Assessment will/will not align to external standards
There will/will not be levels or tiers of assessment
Hard skills will be assessed
Soft skills will be assessed
Learners will/will not be involved in designing assessments
----
TEACHERS
We chose our teachers by
We do not have any teachers because
We use peer mentoring and peer teaching because
We support peer-to-peer learning by
We use/do not use MOOCs or other online classes instead of classroom teachers
We have/do not have flipped classrooms because
We have all full-time teachers, who have benefits and job security, because
All our teachers are contingent/adjunct faculty because
Some of our teachers are contingent/adjunct faculty because
Our teachers earn tenure by doing
None of our teachers have tenure because
All of our teachers have tenure with built in renewal requirements that are
-------------------
GOVERNANCE
We ensure democratization of the institution through
Students govern by
Students and teachers govern together by
Change happens at our institution by
Innovation happens at our institution by
When there are strong, conflicting viewpoints, we resolve differences by
--------------------------------
ADMINISTRATION/LEADERSHIP
We do/do not have administrators because
All of our administrators are current/former teachers
All of our administrators are current/future students
Students “pay” tuition by running all aspects of our university including
We have a team of professional administrators
We do not have administrators; we have leaders because
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who run the physical plant of the university
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who run admissions, recruitment and other functions
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who care for the grounds (if we have grounds)
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who design and manage technology
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching housekeeping staff
-------------------
FACILITIES, EVENTS, OPPORTUNITIES
We have/do not have residential living facilities
We have/do not have varsity sports teams
We have/do not have intramural sports
We do/do not have clubs, social events such as
We do/do not have outside lectures, speakers
We do/do not have performances
We have/do not have community engagement programs
We have/do not have undergraduate research experiences
We have/do not have fraternities and sororities
We have/do not have arts facilities
We have/do not have labs
We have/do not have computer and technology maker spaces
We do/do not give out tablets/iPads to all entering students
We do/do not have enterprise educational software
We do/do not give out ukuleles (see comment), sketch books, other unexpected creative and social materials in order to
-------------------------------
FUTURE
Our students go on to be
Our students go on to professional schools in
Our students go on to graduate schools in
When students leave our institution, they are
--------------------
ACTIVISM: BEYOND MODELS
We are using ideas generated from this exercise to make a real world intervention and innovation here _______
Our method for having real world impact is
Our communications plan for action is
Our networking plan for forming alliances with other change makers is
-------------------------------------
The photographs are of FutureClass, a two-day series of workshops, panels, exercises, and activities put on by five of my students in a tent outside the Museum of Modern Art as part of Mozilla's Drumbeat Festival. Nov 3-5, 2010
For UPDATES to the document below, and to add your comments to an evolving document (we'll be collecting and adding to this until May 2014), visit this public commentable Google Doc. The template in this blog post was updated last from the Google Doc on January 7, 2014.
Backstory: Next semester, in the class I'm teaching on "The History and Future of Higher Education," one project my face-to-face students will take on is creating their own institution of higher (tertiary) learning, from scratch, with no legacy concerns. They will then put up three or four different model institutions on the Coursera Forum for the MOOC version of "The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education," where as many as 50,000 participants (so we've been warned!) might be involved. Can you imagine what that will be like if even some tiny percentage, say 5 percent, from all over the world, were to participate in such a thought experiment? It's going to be facinating. My videos are very amateurish, but I hope that we'll be able to turn this into a "meta MOOC" where the real action happens on the Forums, through participation. I keep hearing about whole classes or even professional associations that will be taking the MOOC together. I've heard about reading groups and collections of teachers too. The Forums are what matter--what people add, what they take away, what they contribute, what they question--will be a highlight of the course (you can register, it's free of course, here).
To get the conversation going in an expansive way, check out the "opportunity art" of Chicago artist/real estate developer/community activist Theaster Gates? What if his project was the space of higher learning? What would you have to learn in order to be able to engage and organize a community in an impoverished part of Chicago to raise funds, convince the Mayor to give them the deed, and restore a beautiful bank abandonned for decades to be beautiful, functional, historically accurate, repurposed, and sustainable while remaining accessible and responsive to the needs of its community? If you were President or Dean at Theaster University, what would you need to require for admission? How would you design this educational experience so it was meaningful in the process and useful in the life beyond? What histories of building, renovation, decline and fall would you want your students to read? What theories of community? What political organization would you aspire to within the community of students, builders, artists, visionaries? What social theory? What gender theory? What race and class theory? What educational theory? Who would be the teachers? You would be training carpenters, artists, philosopher, environmentalists, community organizers, teachers, managers, executives, and future mayors and presidents. How would you certify someone's skills or declare someone's "graduation" from Theaster U? Read about Theaster Gates in Ben Austen, "The Opportunity Artist," New York Times, Dec 20, 2013.
All this is part of the larger HASTAC 2014 open, user-created initiative of courses, workshops, seminars, and online crowdsourced resources. Here again is the url where you can learn more or offer an event to contribute. Just click on the "Suggest an Addition" button and fill out the form to join the HASTAC Initiative on transforming higher ed:
UPDATED JANUARY 7, 2014DESIGNING HIGHER EDUCATION FROM SCRATCH: An Evolving Template of Open-Ended QuestionsName of our [imagined, fictive, future] university:
Logo, mascot, or motto:
Drawing or napkin sketch of the university:
We specialize in:
Our mission is:
We believe that all education is vocational in the sense intended by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, that we are being trained for the vocation of leading better, happier, more productive lives that contribute to society. The kind of society we are contributing to is:
The aspect of society to which our university contributes is:
-----------------------
Location:
(Where would the school be located? Would it be in a building, online, take a whole city as its campus, or maybe the whole world?)Would it be in a building, online, take a whole city as its campus, or maybe the whole world?)
Our university is mobile through
Our students are mobile through
Our university is part of a network of
Our students are networked to one another through
-------------
OUR SOCIETY’S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Our university is nationally located in
Our university is international in scope
At our university, we believe the role of higher education in society is to
We believe X % of our society should have a post-secondary education
We believe those without a post-secondary education should have training in
We believe the “sort” for who goes on to tertiary education begins at age
We believe the “sort” for what field you will study in higher ed begins at age
We believe/don’t believe general education is important for everyone because
We believe general education stops in formal education at age
The social philosophy behind our system of education is that higher education leads to social mobility and social mobility is a worthy goal because
The social philosophy behind our system of education is that social mobility is less important than providing everyone, at all social levels, with the means to thrive and those means should be provided at age
--------------------
OUR VALUES
WHAT WE VALUE:
Our mission is:
Our mission remains the same/changes every year because:
We specialize in:
We pride ourselves on:
We value learners who have these skills, abilities, or qualities:
Our learners know that we value these skills, abilities, or qualities because:
Our learning content is designed to transfer these skills, abilities, or qualities by:
We know our learners have these skills, abilities, or qualities when they:
People who work with our learners recognize them for being:
Our organization is part of a network that we value because:
Our learners are networked to one another through:
Our learners are interested in and motivated by:
Our learners do their best when:
---------------------------
COMPARABLES (Purpose: to elicit great innovative and historical comparisons worldwide)
We compare ourselves to these X institutions (worldwide) that exist now because
We compare ourselves to X institutions (worldwide) that once existed
We do not believe any feature of our institution resembles any other because
We believe X feature of our institution is unique because
------------------------------------
COSTS
Our tuition is
Our tuition is paid by
For students who cannot afford our tuition, we offer
We do/do not accept philanthropic gifts
We use/do not use state funds
We use/do not use corporate funding
We do/do not have trustees
Our (future) alums will have no role/a role in our future by
---------
STUDENTS
Our ideal students are:
We identify our ideal student by word-of-mouth from
We identify our ideal students by/not by test scores
We identify our ideal students by/not by GPA
We identify our ideal students by/not by an open competition
We identify our ideal students by
We contact our ideal students by
We advertise to our ideal students by
We recruit our key students by
We define diversity as
We ensure that diversity by
Our students are all in the age group of X to Y
Our pre-requisites for admission are:
----------
PEDAGOGY
All/none/some of our classes are lectures
All/none/some of our classes are seminars
All/none/some of our classes include labs
All/none/some of our classes have experiential learning
--------------------------------
KNOWLEDGE
Our specialty is
We have courses in
We do not have courses, we have
Our courses take place in
You do not pass a course in a specific subject, content area, or skill until you
Our curriculum is arranged by :
We have/do not have required courses in:
We have/do not have distribution courses:
We have/do not have majors in:
Our major in X looks like:
We have/do not have minors in:
Our minor in X looks like:
No, we do not organize knowledge by majors and minors, we organize knowledge by:
An example of how we organize knowledge in X is
We offer/do not offer liberal arts or general education that looks like
We are specialist and follow the European and international model of only accepting students into a specialized area
The specialized areas we cover are
-----------------
LEARNING MATERIALS
We have/do not have textbooks that are
Besides textbooks, we use
Different courses use different kinds of books and other learning materials such as
Our university has a library which consists of
Our library uses existing/new/open access materials because
----------------
RESEARCH
Our students are/are not engaged in original research on
Our students are/are not engaged in basic research in
Our students are/are not engaged in applied research in
The research and research facilities are funded by
The research is tied to learning/teaching through
The areas of original research are
We do/do not do social science research that may/may not lead to policy decisions
We receive/do not receive funding for policy research from
We support/do not support creative expression--in all the arts--as a fundamental component of research
We support/do not support research in the humanities as a fundamental component of research
Our students conduct original research in collaboration with
Our faculty engage in original research in/with/by/for
-----------------
COMMUNITY
Our relationship to the community that surrounds us is
Community members are part of our institution by
Our town is our gown because
------------------------
PROGRESS AND PATHWAYS
Classes are/are not graded
Attendance (physical, virtual) is/is not expected/required
You pass a class by
You fail a class by
There is no such thing as passing/failing a course because
We know when you have succeeded at our university, when . . .:
We recognize achievement by this assessment system:
We do not recognize achievement but assume peers will by this system:
We do not recognize achievement but assume our students will recognize it themselves by:
We acknowledge exceptional mastery by
We do not acknowledge one student as more exceptional than another
We have requirements for graduation and they are
We award graduation certificates for
We do not award any graduation credentials because
We ensure civil, creative behavior by students by
We have/do not have a judiciary system run by
--------------------
ASSESSMENT
Our current assessment system is
There will/will not be assessment by humans (self, peers, experts/mentors, teachers)
There will/will not be assessment by computers
There will/will not be formative assessment
There will/will not be summative assessment
There will/will not be authentic assessment (assessment of real-world tasks)
There will/will not be rubrics
There will/will not be multiple-choice tests
There will/will not be
There will/will not be letter grades
Points will/will not be awarded
Assessment will/will not be binary (pass/fail)
Assessment will/will not align to internal standards
Assessment will/will not align to external standards
There will/will not be levels or tiers of assessment
Hard skills will be assessed
Soft skills will be assessed
Learners will/will not be involved in designing assessments
----
TEACHERS
We chose our teachers by
We do not have any teachers because
We use peer mentoring and peer teaching because
We support peer-to-peer learning by
We use/do not use MOOCs or other online classes instead of classroom teachers
We have/do not have flipped classrooms because
We have all full-time teachers, who have benefits and job security, because
All our teachers are contingent/adjunct faculty because
Some of our teachers are contingent/adjunct faculty because
Our teachers earn tenure by doing
None of our teachers have tenure because
All of our teachers have tenure with built in renewal requirements that are
-------------------
GOVERNANCE
We ensure democratization of the institution through
Students govern by
Students and teachers govern together by
Change happens at our institution by
Innovation happens at our institution by
When there are strong, conflicting viewpoints, we resolve differences by
--------------------------------
ADMINISTRATION/LEADERSHIP
We do/do not have administrators because
All of our administrators are current/former teachers
All of our administrators are current/future students
Students “pay” tuition by running all aspects of our university including
We have a team of professional administrators
We do not have administrators; we have leaders because
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who run the physical plant of the university
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who run admissions, recruitment and other functions
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who care for the grounds (if we have grounds)
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching staff who design and manage technology
We do/do not have a professional non-teaching housekeeping staff
-------------------
FACILITIES, EVENTS, OPPORTUNITIES
We have/do not have residential living facilities
We have/do not have varsity sports teams
We have/do not have intramural sports
We do/do not have clubs, social events such as
We do/do not have outside lectures, speakers
We do/do not have performances
We have/do not have community engagement programs
We have/do not have undergraduate research experiences
We have/do not have fraternities and sororities
We have/do not have arts facilities
We have/do not have labs
We have/do not have computer and technology maker spaces
We do/do not give out tablets/iPads to all entering students
We do/do not have enterprise educational software
We do/do not give out ukuleles (see comment), sketch books, other unexpected creative and social materials in order to
-------------------------------
FUTURE
Our students go on to be
Our students go on to professional schools in
Our students go on to graduate schools in
When students leave our institution, they are
--------------------
ACTIVISM: BEYOND MODELS
We are using ideas generated from this exercise to make a real world intervention and innovation here _______
Our method for having real world impact is
Our communications plan for action is
Our networking plan for forming alliances with other change makers is
-------------------------------------
The photographs are of FutureClass, a two-day series of workshops, panels, exercises, and activities put on by five of my students in a tent outside the Museum of Modern Art as part of Mozilla's Drumbeat Festival. Nov 3-5, 2010
( Cathy Davidson )
www.ChordsAZ.com