Recap: This is the last of a five part series on education in the twenty-first century, dealing with a problems and advantages in a blended learning environment. In parts one through three we discussed the advantages of technologically aided blended learning in enhancing effectiveness in the memorization and understanding phases of learning and in part four we briefly mentioned the potential drawbacks relating to the regurgitative learning process as impacted by blended learning. In this final post we will discuss perhaps the change with highest potential for both gain and loss in the educational system.
The other day, I was sitting in my religion class. I can't remember exactly what we were discussing, but it included a discussion on the etymology of some word and its Hebrew translation. The fact that I don't remember what that word was or why we were discussing it is strange, considering that I find that sort of topic fascinating. However, this day I was distracted by something the professor said in his introduction of the topic.
As he was writing the Hebrew on the board he said something to the effect of, "now, if you've taken our Hebrew class, you know what this word means. Otherwise, you don't so just hang tight."
OK, I remember what the word was. It was שמש, or shemesh, which means "sun." I remember now because I was slightly bothered by the fact that I shouldn't know what that word means, because I haven't taken "their" course in Hebrew. Yet I did know what it meant. Why? Because education in the 21st century is less connected to the traditional classroom than ever before.
The purpose of this post is not to tell how or why I learned that word. The scope of that story is to illustrate an unfortunate mindset that seems to lurk in the minds of some people: that an education is somehow not a personal responsibility, and that whatever we need to know will be imparted to us by our professors and then we move on. The corollary of this idea is that whatever we learn we must be taught.
In the past, this was partially true, especially in the days we first considered in this series before books and learning supplies were easy to come by. If you wanted to know something, you found someone who knew or figured it out yourself. Today all I have to do is ask Google, and answers begin falling into my lap. And I don't mean just trivia and tidbits. I mean meaningful understanding and applications.
My deep interest in blended education and reform was ignited when I attended an entrepreneurship seminar at Snow College at which David Wiley was the guest speaker. David Wiley is an innovator in the educational arena and a proponent of open education. The idea is exactly what I said in the previous paragraphs: you don't have to enroll in a formal, traditional course to learn something. This is in fact the premise of Degreed, a "lifelong learning platform" he helped found, whose mission is to "jailbreak the degree."
During his presentation, he introduced us to this platform and demonstrated how it could be used to organize a portfolio of learning from many different sources. Sources I'd never heard of before with strange names, such as Udacity and Coursera.
I was enthralled. I immediately went home, skipping the rest of my "real" classes and signed up. With these resources which are "blended" to the maximum extent of the word, I have learned about game theory, astronomy, computer science, physics and more, all without setting foot in a brick and mortar classroom or paying a dime.
This is the world that awaits us: a world of "open," universally accessible, and applicable education.
What remains to be seen is if and how we will implement it. There are many problems to face: how can formal education (a fantastic environment for creative learning and innovation) and open education (the ability for anyone to learn anything, anywhere) coexist?
And more importantly, will we accept it? As in any area, as our power increases, so does our responsibility. Learners in the 21st century must be more proactive than ever. No one is going to make you sign up for a course on Coursera. No one is going to be watching over your shoulder as you complete your flipped classroom work at home, where the incentive to cheat or shirk is going to be higher than ever. Forcing this behavior is neither feasible nor possible. The solution is a dramatic paradigm shift in our educational system, where extracurricular learning and creativity is the norm, not the deviation. If we can do so, society will prosper as its members educate themselves through all channels in a responsible manner. If this does not occur, we will see an ever widening gap between those who are proactive and successful and those who are not.
Of course, this decision will not be made collectively, but as individuals personally chose to be proactively engaged learners or not. My hope is not only that our educational infrastructure will effectively integrate the opportunities presented us by the modern blended learning environment, but that the individuals of our society will allow that system to flourish through their proactive and engaged learning mindset.
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