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In a previous rant, I took the education business to task for their barriers to customers as well as the industry’s lack of innovation to reduce cost and improve productivity. This post is an extension of that screed.
As I see it, part of education’s problems is that it is labor intensive. They need to improve productivity so that can educate more students with the same facilities as well has reducing costs so that education is accessible to more students.
I think of the court case of the University of Michigan in which it was argued whether or not the University could choose who would attend based on their race. In the end, the court said the school could use racial preferences. I presume they meant they could use them as long as these preferences went to racial minorities. However, that’s an argument for a different post.
In my world, every one would be admitted. The schools production capacity would be such that everyone that had the money could get educated. The racial argument ONLY occurred because the school’s production capacity is insufficient to meet demand.
The strange thing is I don’t see any effort on the part of the University to increase their production capacity. That is counter to any other industry I’ve seen. If any of my clients had to turn away customers, they would increase their production until that no longer happened. But then, my clients, unlike many Universities, are private citizens and not governmental agencies.
Back to how schools can increase their productivity. As a geek of sorts, I believe the computer is the tool to better education for all. First back to basics.
What is education?
I would define education as putting facts and techniques into people’s minds. What technique is best at doing that? My answer is Flash Cards – and computers can do flash cards very easily.
Pulling from my personal experience in training many computer users, I have developed what I call the “hole” technique of learning. If I give you, information that you have no current use for, it’s like pouring water on a tabletop. It just flows away. However, if you have a problem and I give you information on how to solve that problem, you will likely remember it.
Flash Cards play into that situation. By presenting the student with a problem, “What’s the answer to this?” the student is more likely to remember the answer. In addition, the computer can ask that same question over and over and over again, until the student remembers it. Repetition is the mother of learning.
Writing course software to this technique is pretty labor intensive. However, once it is done, then thousands, even millions of students can use and learn from the material. And you don’t have to commute to a school to learn it. You can do it entirely over the internet. Do you see how much this could lower the cost of education? It could be dramatic.
I feel creative minds can use this technique to teach 95% of all course material. The other 5% may require class interaction.
While I don’t’ claim to have all the answers to improving the education industries economics, I feel it is critical for us as a nation to fix this problem. If the US is going to be competitive in this world, we need to teach our people effectively and in a cost effective manner.
There is too much at stake to fail.
Posted by Ted at January 25, 2004 4:25 PM