There are two trends in higher education that signal a major transformation is occurring: an unsustainable rise in costs, and the emergence of MOOC’s (massive online open courses).
Rising tuition costs 2003-2013:
Source: US News & World Report 2013
MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses – global hubs for learning materials and learning communities, and a relatively recent innovation of the Internet.
The term MOOC originated in 2008, and the movement has since grown to encompass many top tier universities, offering individual courses with enrollments in the hundreds of thousands.
Considering that in 2010 the average student loan debt was $26,682, and 10% of these students owed more than $61,894, it’s no surprise free open courseware is gaining huge momentum.
Rising tuition stands in sharp contrast with the irrelevant or impersonal curricula that can plague large brick-and-mortar universities. Sitting in auditoriums with thousands of other students for courses you will forget about as soon as they’re over make a mockery of the one in five U.S. households with student debt.
This video from the Daily Californian takes a look at overloaded auditorium courses at UC Berkeley last fall. According to John DeNero, course lecturer for CS 61A mentioned in the video,
“Almost all of the learning in computer science courses happens in the lab and when they’re working on projects. So if you don’t fit in the room, you can definitely still participate in all the important parts of the course.”
Looking Ahead: Global Curriculum Marketplaces
The next generation of academic infrastructure will look more like an open-air market than a red brick schoolhouse. Contexts that are functional and relevant to the student will replace the over-crowded auditoriums, supported by online mobile devices capable of instantly connecting students to mentors and each other.
Open and proprietary mLearning curricula designed for hands-on, just-in-time learning can be assembled, accredited, and made available on a single platform. This same platform can then assist in instruction and assessment, while recording and reporting a student’s progress and usage patterns.
Within a new academic infrastructure, this record becomes the foundation of a mobile transcript that follows the student throughout his or her education, testifying to one’s skills and experience in everything from online Codecademy courses to professional certifications, performance support, and postdocs.
What we’re witnessing now is a new institution taking shape – one which is at once centralized and disaggregated. Sustainability, scalability, and accessibility are at its fundamental core, along with connectivity and a new kind of global community.
As digital technologies become more affordable, reliable, and portable, the educational landscape itself is becoming more flexible, more contextual.
At Allogy, we see the mobile curriculum marketplace as the future of higher education. We’re working every day to make hands-on and high-quality learning accessible, personal, and practical for students of all disciplines and circumstances.
