I wrote this post on the week 3 forum in response to the following suggestion: 'The future is here, it's just not very evenly distributed' (William Gibson):
Perhaps one reason for this is that in education 'nobody dies' - i.e. the worst that can happen is that students learn nothing. In pharmaceutical research, if a drug is found to be harmful it is instantly withdrawn. With car safety testing, a new improvement is quickly made mandatory - or at the very least is implemented by most manufacturers to enable them to argue that their car is as safe as that of their competitors. But in HE it doesn't seem to matter if one teacher is amazing, innovative and produces satisfied students while another stands at the the front and talks at them for an hour.
Perhaps the growth of market forces in the global HE market and arrival of many more private providers will finally tip the balance away from subject specialist knowledge and towards good teaching practice. If students/customers are increasingly able to vote with their feet, universities will need to articulate their value propositions more clearly to respond to their students'/customers' needs and wants.
In the light of the Fullan article about Steve Jobs' approach to product design, another thing springs to mind. Jobs is credited for initiating the revolution in 'consumer tech' - in other words, products driven primarily by what consumers want rather than what companies want to sell them. Jobs' touch of genius was his ability to predict and create something that consumers wanted before they knew what it was. If we were to translate this concept into Higher Education, what would the revolution in 'consumer education' look like?
A large percentage of the current provision could be viewed as constituting the range of average, tried-and-tested products that universities want to sell, rather than the cutting-edge, innovative 'iPad-type' products that consumers really desire. What would these educational products look like? Highly interactive, personalised courses that you could modify and adapt according to your personal tastes? Where the curriculum was negotiated between student and teacher? Where the delivery of the course was tailored to your needs, incorporating whatever blend of technology and face-to-face that you wanted?
Or will it take another Steve Jobs to invent something that we can't currently conceive of wanting, but which will revolutionise Higher Education when it arrives?
Perhaps one reason for this is that in education 'nobody dies' - i.e. the worst that can happen is that students learn nothing. In pharmaceutical research, if a drug is found to be harmful it is instantly withdrawn. With car safety testing, a new improvement is quickly made mandatory - or at the very least is implemented by most manufacturers to enable them to argue that their car is as safe as that of their competitors. But in HE it doesn't seem to matter if one teacher is amazing, innovative and produces satisfied students while another stands at the the front and talks at them for an hour.
Perhaps the growth of market forces in the global HE market and arrival of many more private providers will finally tip the balance away from subject specialist knowledge and towards good teaching practice. If students/customers are increasingly able to vote with their feet, universities will need to articulate their value propositions more clearly to respond to their students'/customers' needs and wants.
A large percentage of the current provision could be viewed as constituting the range of average, tried-and-tested products that universities want to sell, rather than the cutting-edge, innovative 'iPad-type' products that consumers really desire. What would these educational products look like? Highly interactive, personalised courses that you could modify and adapt according to your personal tastes? Where the curriculum was negotiated between student and teacher? Where the delivery of the course was tailored to your needs, incorporating whatever blend of technology and face-to-face that you wanted?
Or will it take another Steve Jobs to invent something that we can't currently conceive of wanting, but which will revolutionise Higher Education when it arrives?
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