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"The Self-Absorbed Higher-Education System October 6, 2011, 10:29 pm By Jeff Selingo American academics often like to talk about how the higher-education system in the United States is the best in the world. I'm not quite sure how this status is determined-especially given our declining position in the OECD rankings-but we seem to have adopted the belief that the problems in the U.S. education system reside in elementary and secondary schools, not on college campuses. Perhaps it's just a sign of the times in which we live. Modesty, it seems, is out of style. In a thought-provoking talk at the Washington Ideas Forum this week, the New York Times columnist David Brooks maintained that we live in an era of "expanded conception of self." That attitude, he believes, results in the trends we have witnessed in recent years toward increased consumption, polarization, and risk. "We have moved from a culture of self-effacement to one of self-expansion," Brooks said. In some ways, the Brooks lecture was a fitting endnote to a conversation earlier in the day at the forum where I gathered with a dozen education, business, and think-tank leaders for a spirited discussion of the state of the American higher-ed system. After two hours of talking, there was no more agreement on how to improve the system than when we had walked into the room. Indeed, the diversity of constituencies represented in the room couldn't even settle on what the system should be doing. (That was despite the best efforts of the moderator, Clive Crook, who as a Brit admitted at the outset how confusing and complex the U.S. higher-ed system is.) Higher ed is feeling good about itself these days because it remains in demand. Why offer classes at more convenient times when you're getting a record number of applicants? Why hold the line on rising costs when students are willing to take on more debt? Why collect better job-placement data to provide to prospective students when they're

"A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man 'Academy' on YouTube Are his 10-minute lectures the future? Salman Khan, a former financial analyst, has created 1,400 educational videos and posted them to YouTube. "My single biggest goal is to try to deliver things the way I wish they were delivered to me," he says. By Jeffrey R. Young The most popular educator on YouTube does not have a Ph.D. He has never taught at a college or university. And he delivers all of his lectures from a bedroom closet. This upstart is Salman Khan, a 33-year-old who quit his job as a financial analyst to spend more time making homemade lecture videos in his home studio. His unusual teaching materials started as a way to tutor his faraway cousins, but his lectures have grown into an online phenomenon-and a kind of protest against what he sees as a flawed educational system. "My single biggest goal is to try to deliver things the way I wish they were delivered to me," he told me recently. The resulting videos don't look or feel like typical college lectures or any of the lecture videos that traditional colleges put on their Web sites or YouTube channels. For one thing, these lectures are short-about 10 minutes each. And they're low-tech: Viewers see only the scrawls of equations or bad drawings that Mr. Khan writes on his digital sketchpad software as he narrates."

"The Better-Mousetrap Problem By Kevin Carey Discussions of technology and higher education tend to veer from "This. Changes. Everything" techno-triumphalism to assertions that using the Internet to educate people is clearly a plot to turn higher education into a cheap corporate commodity on par with bulk packages of frozen french fries. As is often the case, the most interesting work in the field right now sits close to the equipoise between the two, as my colleague Ben Miller documents in his new report, The Course of Innovation, which you should read. The report focuses on the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), which has spent the last decade working with scores of colleges and universities to transform mostly introductory college courses with technology. NCAT's track record is impressive. To the extent that such things can be proven without elaborate randomized control trials, they've proven that thoughtful, faculty-driven course redesign can simultaneously improve student learning and reduce per-student costs. Not by a little, either: Many colleges have cut costs by over 50 percent and improved learning in the bargain. NCAT's suite of course transformation models have proved effective in a wide variety of subjects and settings, from rural community colleges to Research I universities, in courses ranging from math and foreign language to composition and women's studies. (I've written previously about NCAT success stories here and here.) Yet in many ways the most interesting part of the NCAT story isn't the colleges that have adopted these proven methods. It's the colleges that haven't-i.e., most colleges. NCAT has built a better mousetrap, but the world hasn't beaten a path to its door. This is despite the fact that the mousetrap in question improves student learning and cuts costs in a time when colleges are constantly being harangued by policy makers about learning and the economic environment has left many institutions desperately sear

This talk addresses the ways in which education focuses narrowly on ways ot thinking and does not promote the creative thinking that we need for the future. You will enjoy the humor also.

This really lays down a challenge to define what education is about and what it is for. Very thought provoking.

The Race Between Education and Technology, by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, $19.95, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, March 2010, ISBN-10: 0674035305, ISBN-13: 978-0674035300, pp. 496. Mass education is what set the United States apart from all other nations starting in the 19th Century and extending through much of the 20th century, as the authors explain in this award-winning book. Rather than educating only the elite who could pay for it, America educated more people for more years at no charge. As the U.S. turned out even more educated people than needed to meet the demands of technology, its wages, productivity and income equality increased, according to Drs. Goldin and Katz, both Harvard University economics professors. Gains from this expanding economic growth became more or less equally distributed across society. In the last couple of decades of the 20th Century, the country began losing what it cast as the race between education and technology. In the meantime, other countries had begun educating more of their own people. Students of some nations began exceeding U.S. high school and college graduation rates, as well as outscoring American students on standardized exams. "Rising inequality, lagging productivity for a prolonged period, and a rather non-stellar educational report card have led many to question the qualities that once made America the envy of all and a beacon for the world's people," the authors write. As they note, "the supply of educated Americans slowed considerably" after 1980. Technology raced ahead of educational gains in the United States. The authors expand on the reasons for these gaps, analyze trends in education and economics that are at the root of the problem and examine some solutions. As the bottom line, to fix the problems and regain our competitive edge in the world, the authors suggest that the U.S. re-examine assumptions about education and turn out more people with analytical, direct-service an

At the summer AASCU meeting, Twitter was used (along with Lady Gaga) as iconic representations of the kinds of "new" thinking and doing that may be useful for supporting the Red Balloon initiative. Issued in September 2010, "Twitter in Higher Education 2010: Usage Habits and Trends of Today's College Faculty" reports data and findings from the second annual survey on Twitter usage and trends among college faculty. (from the Executive Summary): This year's survey, like that conducted in 2009, sought answers to some of the fundamental questions regarding faculty members' familiarity, perception, and experience with the micro-blogging technology, as well as whether they expect their Twitter use to increase or decrease in the future. We also examined year-to-year comparisons to see how the Twitter landscape has changed during the past 12 months.

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