A Love Letter to Shifting Paradigms in Higher Ed
Today is Valentine’s Day. So, in honor of the holiday, I’m going to throw out some love on and props to those things I find pretty cool on the higher ed landscape. But first, a little background. Valentine’s Day — it is believed — began in the late Fifth Century when Pope Gelasius I declared a Christian feast day in honor of St. Valentine and, at the same time, abolished the ancient Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, which was traditionally held on February 15. Lupercalia was one of the oldest known Roman festivals. It celebrated fertility, and not much else is known about it. Although it’s been co-opted by greeting card and chocolate makers, the holiday has survived under it’s current name…
via Affordable Schools Online:
Today is Valentine’s Day. So, in honor of the holiday, I’m going to throw out some love on and props to those things I find pretty cool on the higher ed landscape. But first, a little background.
Valentine’s Day — it is believed — began in the late Fifth Century when Pope Gelasius I declared a Christian feast day in honor of St. Valentine and, at the same time, abolished the ancient Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, which was traditionally held on February 15. Lupercalia was one of the oldest known Roman festivals. It celebrated fertility, and not much else is known about it. Although it’s been co-opted by greeting card and chocolate makers, the holiday has survived under it’s current name for a millennium and half and, as Lupercania, for several hundred years before.
How is it that we, in some form, are still celebrating a holiday that pre-dates the Roman Empire? Because Valentine’s Day has evolved with us, and we have continually adapted it to be (somewhat) relevant in light of our current place in history.
To complete my tortured metaphor, that’s what higher ed needs to do to remain relevant. Over the past few years we’ve seen some signs of such evolution. And I love them.
Happy Valentine’s Day to Free Schools!
People and employers are beginning to understand that the value of higher ed is in the education, itself, not in the diploma handed out. More and more in today’s global, crowd-sourced, freelance economy, employers and clients are looking for mad skills and chops more than a fancy credential.
That’s why I love the idea of non-profits like CodeAcademy. One of several sites that will teach you to code — for free or at a nominal cost — CodeAcademy offers those so-inclined to learn what amounts to a modern trade. Students can then take what they learn, build an app or design a site, and, suddenly, they are viable candidates for paying jobs. What’s truly beautiful about this model is that coding languages are global, so anyone with an Internet connection and Google translate, anywhere in the world, could ostensibly learn this crucial, modern skill.
Another nonprofit that I’m loving — especially for its global reach — is University of the People. With no brick and mortar campus, all instruction at the tuition-free university is delivered online over the Internet. While the school offers degrees (both bachelors and associates) in computer science and business administration, the degrees are not yet accredited. But the instruction is real, and People University has some powerful educational partners including Yale Law School, New York University and the United Nations.
University of the People is at the forefront of offering world-class education to students who may not have access to higher ed in their own countries — or in places where the education matters more that the diploma. The school offers a unique perspective on what the future of education could be and represents a really sweet shift in the traditional college paradigm.
MOOCs Be Mine!
Accredited or not, massively open online courses (MOOCs) rock. They are a fantastic way to simply learn on your own by taking classes sponsored by renowned, accredited universities and taught by their faculty. I’ve enrolled for MOOCs for three semesters, now, and although I have nothing more than an unaccredited electronic certificate to show for them, they have enhanced my life.
That being said, companies like EdX and Coursera offer verified certificates — at a cost of around $50 — that they hope can one day translate into college credits. The courses offered through Coursera and other MOOC providers are not Last February, for example, the American Council on Education (ACE), which advises 1,800 schools on matters of accreditation, recommended that several MOOCs be approved for college credit at its member institutions. The problem is that ACE member schools are not bound by the Council’s recommendations. And, at this point, none of the sites through which MOOCs are offered confer degrees. So, those who enroll in the courses simply out of interest or for the educational value, are getting a tremendous bargain — the courses are free or cheap.
Even if you don’t actually get credit for MOOC courses, you can still translate them into college credits, or at least, college savings. You can use MOOCs to study for credits by exam like CLEP. Or if your school requires you to take placement tests on entry, use the MOOCs to bone up on math and language skills and avoid paying for a remedial prerequisite class.
Yep, these are the things I’m loving about higher ed today. Hope you all are able to focus on some love today, too. Happy Valentine’s Day!
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A Love Letter to Shifting Paradigms in Higher Ed
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