"WGU’s answer to the status quo is to offer a degree that is based on competency rather than time. By gathering information from employers, industry experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution- wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know. Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”"
Once KA starts offering courses that are at university level, perhaps. But as it stands the level of the topics covered on KA is far to superficial to threaten universities. That's not to say it won't happen, but so far I've seen no indication of it.
PS. With all that being said, I'm huge fan of KA, and rooting for their continued success. I just think they're better suited to take on high schools rather than universities.
KA will matter to for-profit universities the minute a KA score triggers your union contract to bump your salary up. (The existence of this interaction is a major reason why for-profit universities love teachers.)
Really? I guess I am in minotrity, but after watching a few lessons on KA I I left with impression that quality of teaching is quite poor.
Educational videos may be one part of education, but they cannot replace all. Teachers are there to stay for a long long time and it has nothing todo with technology.
The 30% profit margin University of Phoenix makes is a signal to other investors to enter the field and innovate! This is a feature not a bug of markets. Non-profit just means they are maximizing more opaque measures of success. Of course the accreditation barriers to entry are still quite innovation stifling.
also, I'd be shocked if WGU doesn't come under fire for 'disparate impact', otherwise known as racism at some point.
Disparate impact is orthogonal to education; it's a legal test that applies to employment, in disputes over the direct relevance of a criterion to job performance. This might affect WGU in some 2nd order way if it were claimed that credential requirements have a disparate impact (well duh, enrollment stats), but that claim would apply equally to any tertiary institution. It seems absurd, but I'm curious if that test has ever been tried against a national professional accreditation... Few quick searches didn't return anything.
FTA: Those fixed standards enable a world of variation. At Western Governors, students aren’t asked to sit in a class any longer than it takes for them to demonstrate that they have mastered the material. In fact, they aren’t asked to sit in a “class” at all.
This article seems to suggest that at other US universities, you actually have to show up to classes to pass them? Is that actually the case????
While you may not have to show up to pass some classes at traditional universities, you still have to wait a semester to pass them. Under the WGU system you can simply pass the class whenever you feel ready and move on to other subjects.
I don't think this is generally true. I can certainly think of a few classes I passed while hardly showing up.
But there are some reasons you might need to regularly show up even without the case of a teacher who counts attendance (which the school might require of them if it's an intro sort of class). There might be unscheduled in-class quizzes (I think this is pretty rare). More commonly, though, the teacher may not have bothered to set up a course website, so without showing up you won't know what the homework is or when the tests are. The latter is something I remember quite a few cases of.
Even if you don't show up, the course still takes up time in the sense that you can generally only register for so many classes at a time.
I understand that you can not show up and pass a class, but why in the world would you spend all that money and time on a physical university if you aren't going to go to class? Why not just read a book and get a job?
at berkeley, or at least the college of engineering, there's no way to test out of classes (according to my adviser), so you have to take the course, but you don't have to go to lecture, unless the class has an attendance requirement.
Some (all? I don't know) schools and regulations tie up your financial aid with attendance in some way or another. It's often more concerning than the grades, but easier to game.
WGU consists of 4 colleges: Teachers', Business, IT, and Health Professions. All well and good but I wish quality online programs were also offered in Math, Natural Sciences, Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Writing,
Humanities, etc... In my view a good College of Arts and Sciences is what makes University good. A great Engineering program would be awesome too.
Seneca College in Toronto has a similar thing going for its Computer Programming diploma. Or at least, this was the case when I went there:
1) You can take an exam for a class at the beginning of the semester if you think you know the material. There is a cost of this exam, but if you pass, then you save money on taking the whole class... and time too.
2) You must complete every single assignment to pass a given class. Your assignments must work 100%. You'll be graded on style.
3) Every class was offered every semester - even during the summer semester. And there was a section for most classes at night.
There's just one issue:
I thought universities were supposed to teach you how to learn, while community colleges were meant for specific job-related skills.
Shouldn't doctors, lawyers, nurses, computer programmers etc... all be getting their job-specific diplomas, just like the mechanics and the electricians? And shouldn't 'degrees' be more research oriented anyway? Why are degrees more valued when whats needed in most cases is someone with a specific skill? Do people with degrees really think that people with diplomas are incapable of learning? Do employers feel this way?
Degrees are less about learning than making sure you will do a certain amount of work for at least two years and more usually four, even if the work is dumb. So it signals intelligence and conscientiousness.
Having a degree tells people you're at least capable of being a member of the middle class. You're intelligent and biddable enough. Elite university graduates also got some implicit training in the social norms of the upper classes, and by virtue of the intense competition to get in you can be sure anyone who graduated from them is smart. More accurately, anyone they accepted, the dropout rate for top tier US universities is very low (except for Caltech).
And yes, people with degrees do think people without are dumber, and employers likewise, because its true. And alternative certifications for different modes of training/types of knowledge fall prey to the same problems. Having separate, respected educational systems, rather than one for the real people and one for the losers requires relatively low social mobility, or at least hard social mobility.
I took a bachelors from WGU because I dropped out of college many years ago and went out of the country. I came back and just wanted one to say I had a bachelors. I can say I practically learned nothing from WGU and the coursework was incredibly easy. This is for the IT degree. To be fair to them, most courses were IT certifications. So the real problem was the IT certifications were useless, I mean really, what use is Security+ and related certs. Anyway that is my opinion. I did some IT admin work first, then got more into programming with Ruby on Rails. Probably my path is a bit atypical.
As someone who has interviewed candidates from physical universities with IT degrees I can say the same is probably true of them. I see candidates all the time who can recite the OSI Model by heart but can't figure out a Windows XP system isn't connecting to the network because it doesn't have an IP Address.
I found this article really interesting, Read all the way through it on my phone and made sure to come online to comment.
I have to find myself agreeing that the competency based off of actual employers is one of the best way to get stuff done. And now if KA can get actual teachers and setup actual accreditation systems then all these for-profit groups will be under even more pressure. As people that want these services to thrive I feel the best way for us to allow this to happen is to help them market their schools. Blog posts etc etc that link to the site will hopefully make a google search for "online college" send WGU and Khan to the top.
I for one may be signing up. (I already attend Khan to learn about linear algebra.) Having a business degree from WGU would round out my current repertoire rather nicely I think.
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of getting a grad degree for "resume dressing" purposes optimized for price/prestige/convenience.
I was pleasantly surprised that there quite a few options after you get over the signal vs. noise problem: finding legit, accredited schools in the sea of diploma mills who spends a ton on marketing on spam (just google "online degree").
The best place I've found to do research on accredited programs (both undergrad & grad) school that cater to adult students is http://www.degreeinfo.com/forum.php. It is the home of a community of people who are good at hacking the diploma game and share their info readily. Folks there tend to favor schools that are in the spirit of this school in the OP article (price/prestige/convenience) but there is quite a good range of schools discussed (for example Duke U.'s MBA program tends to be reviewed favorably as is Delaware for undergrad).
There even intrepid individuals there who had foregone the traditional 4 year, "physical seat" undergrad for 2 years of working part-time and distance learning (can be with CLEP exams and the right program).
[+] [-] herdrick|14 years ago|reply
"WGU’s answer to the status quo is to offer a degree that is based on competency rather than time. By gathering information from employers, industry experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution- wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know. Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”"
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|14 years ago|reply
1. Free
2. Gamification of learning (aka certification)
3. Social web integrated into learning (a network to see your certifications)
4. Inverting the traditional model - do your homework in class watch vids/read at night at home.
KA is on the way toward replacing traditional degrees the same way Stackoverflow and Github are replacing traditional resumes.
[+] [-] dagw|14 years ago|reply
PS. With all that being said, I'm huge fan of KA, and rooting for their continued success. I just think they're better suited to take on high schools rather than universities.
[+] [-] patio11|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimantas|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ap22213|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nazgulnarsil|14 years ago|reply
also, I'd be shocked if WGU doesn't come under fire for 'disparate impact', otherwise known as racism at some point.
[+] [-] bugsbunnyak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drbaskin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathgladiator|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buff-a|14 years ago|reply
This article seems to suggest that at other US universities, you actually have to show up to classes to pass them? Is that actually the case????
[+] [-] doctoboggan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sakura_k|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sniffnoy|14 years ago|reply
But there are some reasons you might need to regularly show up even without the case of a teacher who counts attendance (which the school might require of them if it's an intro sort of class). There might be unscheduled in-class quizzes (I think this is pretty rare). More commonly, though, the teacher may not have bothered to set up a course website, so without showing up you won't know what the homework is or when the tests are. The latter is something I remember quite a few cases of.
Even if you don't show up, the course still takes up time in the sense that you can generally only register for so many classes at a time.
[+] [-] Jabbles|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixtofour|14 years ago|reply
I understand that you can not show up and pass a class, but why in the world would you spend all that money and time on a physical university if you aren't going to go to class? Why not just read a book and get a job?
[+] [-] joshAg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jach|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mechnik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vishaldpatel|14 years ago|reply
1) You can take an exam for a class at the beginning of the semester if you think you know the material. There is a cost of this exam, but if you pass, then you save money on taking the whole class... and time too.
2) You must complete every single assignment to pass a given class. Your assignments must work 100%. You'll be graded on style.
3) Every class was offered every semester - even during the summer semester. And there was a section for most classes at night.
There's just one issue: I thought universities were supposed to teach you how to learn, while community colleges were meant for specific job-related skills.
Shouldn't doctors, lawyers, nurses, computer programmers etc... all be getting their job-specific diplomas, just like the mechanics and the electricians? And shouldn't 'degrees' be more research oriented anyway? Why are degrees more valued when whats needed in most cases is someone with a specific skill? Do people with degrees really think that people with diplomas are incapable of learning? Do employers feel this way?
[+] [-] barry-cotter|14 years ago|reply
Degrees are less about learning than making sure you will do a certain amount of work for at least two years and more usually four, even if the work is dumb. So it signals intelligence and conscientiousness.
Having a degree tells people you're at least capable of being a member of the middle class. You're intelligent and biddable enough. Elite university graduates also got some implicit training in the social norms of the upper classes, and by virtue of the intense competition to get in you can be sure anyone who graduated from them is smart. More accurately, anyone they accepted, the dropout rate for top tier US universities is very low (except for Caltech).
And yes, people with degrees do think people without are dumber, and employers likewise, because its true. And alternative certifications for different modes of training/types of knowledge fall prey to the same problems. Having separate, respected educational systems, rather than one for the real people and one for the losers requires relatively low social mobility, or at least hard social mobility.
Seneca College sounds real cool.
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amalag|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomOfTTB|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremyarussell|14 years ago|reply
I have to find myself agreeing that the competency based off of actual employers is one of the best way to get stuff done. And now if KA can get actual teachers and setup actual accreditation systems then all these for-profit groups will be under even more pressure. As people that want these services to thrive I feel the best way for us to allow this to happen is to help them market their schools. Blog posts etc etc that link to the site will hopefully make a google search for "online college" send WGU and Khan to the top.
I for one may be signing up. (I already attend Khan to learn about linear algebra.) Having a business degree from WGU would round out my current repertoire rather nicely I think.
[+] [-] gte910h|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qrgnote|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GBond|14 years ago|reply
The best place I've found to do research on accredited programs (both undergrad & grad) school that cater to adult students is http://www.degreeinfo.com/forum.php. It is the home of a community of people who are good at hacking the diploma game and share their info readily. Folks there tend to favor schools that are in the spirit of this school in the OP article (price/prestige/convenience) but there is quite a good range of schools discussed (for example Duke U.'s MBA program tends to be reviewed favorably as is Delaware for undergrad). There even intrepid individuals there who had foregone the traditional 4 year, "physical seat" undergrad for 2 years of working part-time and distance learning (can be with CLEP exams and the right program).