{"id":593,"date":"2012-11-14T18:00:13","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T18:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rulesofreason.wordpress.com\/?p=593"},"modified":"2012-11-14T18:00:13","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T18:00:13","slug":"the-education-revolution-at-our-doorstep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=593","title":{"rendered":"The education revolution at our doorstep"},"content":{"rendered":"

University education is at the brink of radical transformation. The\u00a0revolution\u00a0is already happening and the Khan Academy<\/a>, Udacity<\/a>, Coursera<\/a> and the Marginal Revolution\u00a0University<\/a>\u00a0are just the harbingers of a change that will soon sweep over universities throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Alex Tabarrok has a must-read piece on the coming revolution in education here<\/a>. The entire piece is highly recommended, so I am not gonna even try to summarize it here, but this part stands out:<\/p>\n

Teaching today is like a stage play. A play can be seen by at most a few hundred people at a single sitting and it takes as much labor to produce the 100th viewing as it does to produce the first. As a result, plays are expensive. Online education makes teaching more like a movie. Movies can be seen by millions and the cost per viewer declines with more viewers. Now consider quality. The average movie actor is a better actor than the average stage actor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a result, Tabarrok predicts that the market for teachers will became a winner-take-all market with very big payments at the top: the best teachers would be followed by millions and paid accordingly.<\/p>\n

My prediction is that the revolution in education will also lead to greater specialization<\/strong> – maybe you can’t be the best \u00a0Development Economics teacher, but you can be the best teacher on XIXth Century Agricultural Development in South-East Denmark: economies of scale brought by online education can make such uber-specialization of teaching portfolios profitable (or, indeed necessary).<\/p>\n

Surprisingly or not, it is American\u00a0entrepreneurs\u00a0and institutions who lead this revolution. In Europe, online education is still\u00a0relegated\u00a0to pre-master programs and the like and is too often a thoughtless extrapolation of traditional education practices online. Sooner rather than later, the revolution will be at our doorstep. We better start preparing.<\/p>\n

[P.S. the Guardian aslo run a recent piece<\/a> on the topic as well]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University education is at the brink of radical transformation. The\u00a0revolution\u00a0is already happening and the Khan Academy, Udacity, Coursera and the Marginal Revolution\u00a0University\u00a0are just the harbingers of a change that will soon sweep over universities throughout the world. Alex Tabarrok has a must-read piece on the coming revolution in education here. The entire piece is highly recommended, so I am not gonna even try to summarize it here, but this part stands out: Teaching today is like a stage play. A play can be seen by at most a few hundred people at a single sitting and it takes as much labor to produce the 100th viewing as it does to produce the first. As a result, plays are expensive. Online education makes teaching more like a movie. Movies can be seen by millions and the cost per viewer declines with more viewers. Now consider quality. The average movie actor is a better actor than the average stage actor. As a result, Tabarrok predicts that the market for teachers will became a winner-take-all market with very big payments at the top: the best teachers would be followed by millions and paid accordingly. My prediction is that the revolution in education will also lead to greater specialization – maybe you can’t be the best \u00a0Development Economics teacher, but you can be the best teacher on XIXth Century Agricultural Development in South-East Denmark: economies of scale brought by online education can make such uber-specialization of teaching portfolios profitable (or, indeed necessary). Surprisingly or…<\/p>\n

Continue readingThe education revolution at our doorstep<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[43,44],"tags":[67,211,369,402,421,450,451,452,568,637,662],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g3hj-9z","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":523,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=523","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":0},"title":"Solve for the equilibrium: Dutch higher education","date":"October 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"1) The number of first-year students in the Netherlands has soared from 105 000 in 2000 to 135 000 in 2011. The 30% increase is a direct result of government policy which links university funding with student numbers. In some programs in the country, student numbers have more than doubled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Game theory"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1041,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=1041","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":1},"title":"Books on public policy","date":"October 26, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a list of recommended books on public policy, including introductory textbooks and more advanced texts, including handbooks and books on more specific topics within the field of public policy analysis. Introductory textbooks: Knill, C., & Tosun, J. (2012).\u00a0Public policy: A new introduction. Macmillan International Higher Education. Howlett, M.,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "public policy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":116,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=116","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":2},"title":"Course on Research Design","date":"November 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am teaching again the Research Design class for the MSc in Public Administration at Leiden University. It is a rather challenging course since the\u00a0 background of the students is so diverse (from Religious Studies to Psychology to International Relations) and because most of the students have\u00a0very little\u00a0training and a\u00a0certain\u00a0dislike\u00a0for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Teaching"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":463,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=463","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":3},"title":"Cutting funds for political science research","date":"May 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Just wanted to pass along this\u00a0troubling piece of news: In the US, the\u00a0House has voted to abolish funding for political science from the National Science Foundation altogether, and\u00a0to cut the American Community Survey - an in-depth representative survey providing data to policy makers (education, housing, etc). The Dark Ages are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science politicisation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":287,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=287","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":4},"title":"Hyperlinks","date":"February 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Science visualization challenge 2011 192 answers to the question 'What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation?' Higher education for the masses [commentary by Felix Salmon] Researchers feel pressure to cite superfluous papers","rel":"","context":"In "Hyperlinks"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=158","url_meta":{"origin":593,"position":5},"title":"Foreign media exposure and democratization","date":"November 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This paper [ungated; longer version] has it all: a \u00a0design based on a 'natural experiment', recently declassified East German public opinion surveys, and a counterintuitive result - exposure to West German TV\u00a0increased support for the the East German communist regime. Here is the abstract: In this case study of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Natural experiments"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}