By JEFF DEGRAFF, Michigan Public Radio
Instead of being the vehicle to join the middle class that it once was, higher education is now an obstacle that actually prevents access to knowledge and reinforces existing privilege. This was the powerful message of a compelling Economist cover story last year titled America’s New Aristocracy. The essay argues that college in the U.S. needs to change. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), including TED, Coursera, and edX, reproduce tired models of teaching by featuring talking heads delivering lectures. Methods like those used by the Khan Academy represent a radical change in the way we imagine the classroom. In this model, students receive the primary course material to read through and learn before coming to class. This way, during actual class time, the instructor can work with the students in applying the shared concepts to real situations. This flipped-classroom approach is essentially applied liberal arts: the high-mindedness of trivium and quadrivium meets the practicality of John Dewey.
http://michiganradio.org/post/its-time-rethink-liberal-arts-education-michigan#stream/0
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