By Farhan Noor
If, after reading this white paper, you remain unconvinced then I would have failed in my task.
I have presented overwhelming evidence—both logical and scientific in nature—to make what I see as a compelling case.
And have concluded with a request to government policymakers, university administrators, instructors, and students to convince others of the same. After all, the first step towards improvement is deep understanding and sincere acknowledgement of the problem statement itself; the solution comes later.
Tell me this is not you:
Your family or friends convince you to pursue Economics for your Bachelor’s degree simply because there is serious money to be made in the profession; you enroll for it.
This happens to be a 180-credit undergraduate program comprising of 24 courses spread over 3 years; you are expected to attend 3-hour lectures per course per week to meet the attendance requirement.
You are provided with a Course Outline which informs you, amongst other details, about the topics to be covered each week. All details are pre-determined, pre-fixed, set by the Instructor and the Administrator together.
The Instructor delivers lectures using PowerPoint slides copy-pasted entirely from the course textbook. He explains, in detail, one bullet-point at a time, until he runs out of material or runs out of time.
You pay attention to the Instructor and note down everything he says because that is what the Instructor considers important and therefore would most probably test you on.
Some Instructors, to keep you on your toes, would conduct surprise quizzes. Others would simply rely on the traditional mid-terms and finals.
Final Exam is announced. You take out the Course Textbook, Instructor’s PowerPoint Slides, Past Papers (if available) and your Class Notes, along with a yellow highlighter and flashcards and use it to mark down and memorize all the points you think will be on the Exam.
Your deepest fear is forgetting what you have learnt.
But you manage to score high marks and overall an ‘A’ grade in that course. In fact, you complete all the 24 courses with an ‘A’ grade and earn your Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with distinction by achieving First Class Honors position!
Encouraged by the results, you spend the next two years of your life rinsing and repeating the same routine as described above to earn your Master’s Degree in Economics.
Presently, you are a PhD Level student.
Such is your level of knowledge and expertise in the subject-matter that the usage of mathematical models to make predictions about different things that will happen in the market and the conditions under which it will happen has become a child’s play!
Impressed by your academic achievements, Paul J. Ferraro and Laura O. Taylor[1] of the Georgia State University, US, invite you and 199 other PhD level Economists and Students from 70 different institutions[2] to participate in a professional conference[3].
There, an Opportunity Cost question[4]—a concept usually covered in the first week of an introductory undergraduate class—is presented to you. That question is as follows:
You won a free ticket to see an Eric Clapton concert (which has no resale value). Bob Dylan is performing on the same night and is your next-best alternative activity. Tickets to see Dylan cost $40. On any given day, you would be willing to pay up to $50 to see Dylan. Assume there are no other costs of seeing either performer. Based on this information, what is the opportunity cost of seeing Eric Clapton?
A. $0
B. $10
C. $40
D. $50
The first, second, and third most popular answers were $50 (27.6%), $40 (25.6%), and $0 (25.1%) respectively.
You chose the most popular answer i.e. $50.
However, the least popular answer was actually the correct answer i.e. $10, and only 21.6% of the participants got it right.
That means nearly 80% of PhD level economists and students, which included you, were unable to answer correctly a question on one of the most fundamental concepts in the field of economics!
What went wrong?
***
Dr. Eric Mazur, a Physics professor at the Harvard University, came across a series of articles published in the American Journal of Physics.
David Hestenes, in those articles, discussed the results of a multiple-choice test he administered to about 1,000 students studying for Introductory Physics courses taught by 7 different Instructors—some of whom had received awards for outstanding teaching—at 2 different Institutions. Importantly, each class was taught in a traditional or conventional lecture mode.
The purpose of that test—known as Focus Concept Inventory, or FCI Test[5]—was to determine whether there exists a difference between knowing how to solve a problem and understanding the concepts behind those problems. For example, it is one thing to know the F=ma formula and solving a problem using it and quite another to understand the concept behind it.
The students didn’t do very well on the FCI Test. Hestenes, therefore, rightly concluded that the students were just memorizing information and solving problems without really understanding the fundamental concepts of physics.
Dr. Eric Mazur’s first instinct was to dismiss the results. After all, his were Harvard University students—students having near-perfect SAT scores—and this was such a basic test! However, when he gave his students the test, he saw similar results! Worse, a student asked him “How should I answer these questions? According to the way you taught me, or according to the way I usually think about these things?”
The same test was later conducted at a larger scale—6,542 students enrolled for 62 Introductory Physics courses—and the results were remarkably consistent. This reinforced the conclusions.
So, what went wrong?
***
Behavioral Economist Daniel Kahneman in his 2001 book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, talks about one logical question posed to thousands of university students. That question was as follows:
A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Quite shockingly, more than 50% of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton—all Ivy League Universities—gave the incorrect answer. That percentage is 80% when considering other less selective universities.
Again, what went wrong?
***
David Hestenes, in those articles, discussed the results of a multiple-choice test he administered to about 1,000 students studying for Introductory Physics courses taught by 7 different Instructors—some of whom had received awards for outstanding teaching—at 2 different Institutions. Importantly, each class was taught in a traditional or conventional lecture mode.
The purpose of that test—known as Focus Concept Inventory, or FCI Test[5]—was to determine whether there exists a difference between knowing how to solve a problem and understanding the concepts behind those problems. For example, it is one thing to know the F=ma formula and solving a problem using it and quite another to understand the concept behind it.
The students didn’t do very well on the FCI Test. Hestenes, therefore, rightly concluded that the students were just memorizing information and solving problems without really understanding the fundamental concepts of physics.
Dr. Eric Mazur’s first instinct was to dismiss the results. After all, his were Harvard University students—students having near-perfect SAT scores—and this was such a basic test! However, when he gave his students the test, he saw similar results! Worse, a student asked him “How should I answer these questions? According to the way you taught me, or according to the way I usually think about these things?”
The same test was later conducted at a larger scale—6,542 students enrolled for 62 Introductory Physics courses—and the results were remarkably consistent. This reinforced the conclusions.
So, what went wrong?
***
Behavioral Economist Daniel Kahneman in his 2001 book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, talks about one logical question posed to thousands of university students. That question was as follows:
A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Quite shockingly, more than 50% of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton—all Ivy League Universities—gave the incorrect answer. That percentage is 80% when considering other less selective universities.
Again, what went wrong?
***
Something is very wrong with the higher education system as seen from the three scenarios discussed above.
And I believe it is the higher education system itself that is blameworthy. There is extraordinary evidence to safely conclude that the status-quo just doesn’t work.
And how can it? This system was developed in an entirely different day and age and as such is naturally divorced from the realities of the 21st century. From this perspective, the system should be considered a dinosaur in this age.
According to the leading Educationalist Sir Ken Robinson, “The problem is that the current system of education was designed and conceived for a different age. It was conceived in the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and in the economic circumstances of the industrial revolution.” In other words, “The problem is, they are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past.”
In the words of Bernie Trilling & Charles Fadel[6], “It has been observed that today’s education systems operate on an agrarian calendar (summers off to allow students to work in the fields), an industrial time clock (fifty-minute classroom periods marked by bells), and a list of curriculum subjects invented in the middle Ages (language, math, science, and the arts).”
Try to relive any time period without five discoveries or innovations that define and characterize the 21st century exclusively: i) Knowledge & Ideas as Capital; ii) Synergy of Education, Psychology, & Cognitive Neuroscience; iii) High Speed Internet; iv) Online Educational Technologies; and v) Faster and Powerful Computers. And then develop a higher education system for yourself and compare that with the current higher education system. What do you think you will find?
Quite shockingly, the difference would not be defining. As a matter of fact, the 21st century higher education system is almost the same system that we had since the 18th century, going back as far as the 11th century in history, and even earlier, in some aspects.
To illustrate, consider the following 5 mutually reinforcing, interlocking components of the current Higher Education System developed centuries ago and which still exists today: i) Knowledge Transmission as Educational Goal; ii) Lecture as Instruction Strategy; iii) Textbooks as Instruction Resource; iv) Rote Learning to Pass Examinations; and v) Grades as Motivation for Learning.
[Click here for Part 2]
[Click here for Part 3]
_____________________
[1] Source: “Do Economists Recognize an Opportunity Cost When They See One? A Dismal Performance from the Dismal Science”. URL: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcec/docs/ferrarotaylorbep.pdf . An Article submitted to “The B.E. Journals in Economic Analysis & Policy”, 2005
[2] Approximately 45% of the participants were from Institutions ranked in top-30 economics department for the period 1993-2003. In addition, approximately 61% of the participants have taught an introductory economics course at the University level.
[3] The 2005 Allied Social Services Association (ASSA) meetings were held in Philadelphia, US
[4] This question was adapted from Page 4 of Robert Frank and Ben Bernanke’s Textbook titled “Introduction to Microeconomics” (2001)
[5] See URL: http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/ImpactCI-D-pp.1-103.pdf
[6] “21st century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times”, pp. 48
And I believe it is the higher education system itself that is blameworthy. There is extraordinary evidence to safely conclude that the status-quo just doesn’t work.
And how can it? This system was developed in an entirely different day and age and as such is naturally divorced from the realities of the 21st century. From this perspective, the system should be considered a dinosaur in this age.
According to the leading Educationalist Sir Ken Robinson, “The problem is that the current system of education was designed and conceived for a different age. It was conceived in the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and in the economic circumstances of the industrial revolution.” In other words, “The problem is, they are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past.”
In the words of Bernie Trilling & Charles Fadel[6], “It has been observed that today’s education systems operate on an agrarian calendar (summers off to allow students to work in the fields), an industrial time clock (fifty-minute classroom periods marked by bells), and a list of curriculum subjects invented in the middle Ages (language, math, science, and the arts).”
Try to relive any time period without five discoveries or innovations that define and characterize the 21st century exclusively: i) Knowledge & Ideas as Capital; ii) Synergy of Education, Psychology, & Cognitive Neuroscience; iii) High Speed Internet; iv) Online Educational Technologies; and v) Faster and Powerful Computers. And then develop a higher education system for yourself and compare that with the current higher education system. What do you think you will find?
Quite shockingly, the difference would not be defining. As a matter of fact, the 21st century higher education system is almost the same system that we had since the 18th century, going back as far as the 11th century in history, and even earlier, in some aspects.
To illustrate, consider the following 5 mutually reinforcing, interlocking components of the current Higher Education System developed centuries ago and which still exists today: i) Knowledge Transmission as Educational Goal; ii) Lecture as Instruction Strategy; iii) Textbooks as Instruction Resource; iv) Rote Learning to Pass Examinations; and v) Grades as Motivation for Learning.
[Click here for Part 2]
[Click here for Part 3]
_____________________
[1] Source: “Do Economists Recognize an Opportunity Cost When They See One? A Dismal Performance from the Dismal Science”. URL: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwcec/docs/ferrarotaylorbep.pdf . An Article submitted to “The B.E. Journals in Economic Analysis & Policy”, 2005
[2] Approximately 45% of the participants were from Institutions ranked in top-30 economics department for the period 1993-2003. In addition, approximately 61% of the participants have taught an introductory economics course at the University level.
[3] The 2005 Allied Social Services Association (ASSA) meetings were held in Philadelphia, US
[4] This question was adapted from Page 4 of Robert Frank and Ben Bernanke’s Textbook titled “Introduction to Microeconomics” (2001)
[5] See URL: http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/ImpactCI-D-pp.1-103.pdf
[6] “21st century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times”, pp. 48
No comments:
Post a Comment
Use of any abusive or inappropriate language will give us a reason to delete your comment.