In studying educational production and experiential learning from the perspective of how knowledge is formed it is important to keep in mind that changes at the institutional level are happening because 21st century learners, and in some instances their parents, are forcing a realignment of educational offerings to prepare students for the 21st century knowledge workforce. “Just as physical capital is created by changes in materials to form tools that facilitate production, human capital is created by changes in persons that bring about skills and capabilities that make them able to act in new ways.” (Coleman 1988: S100) This characterization of human capital formation appears especially applicable to self-directed apprenticeship because knowledge is created through a learning focus rather than a teaching focus.
A Yale professor, who also is an administrator, told me that the Center for Engineering, Innovation and Design (“CEID”) is an example of a modern learning facility because students are empowered to take ownership of their education. He emphasized that CEID aids in the trend towards “problem-directed” learning. Under this learning model, students take ownership of a problem that they want to explore; they define the path of inquiry, and then discover a solution. Yale, at the institutional level, defines and facilitates the environment that affords this “problem-directed” or “project-directed” learning to occur in.
MIT, a peer institution of Yale, seemingly understands that 21st century learners have different expectations about how, what, where, when and why they learn. “The MIT education of the future is likely to be more global in its orientation and engagement, more modular and flexible in its offerings, and more open to experiments with new modes of learning,” proclaimed a news release from the MIT News Office. This news release introduced the final report of the Institute-Wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education, which had been convened 18 months ago by President L. Rafael Reif to “envision the MIT of 2020 and beyond.” Relf released the report with a letter to the MIT community, saying, the report “marks the beginning of an exciting new period of educational experimentation at MIT.” Consistent with the notion that 21st century learners learn differently than prior generations, the report makes 16 recommendations that lay the groundwork for MIT “to reinvent education for future generations of learners both on its camps and beyond.” Moreover, the report, which is in line with my development of the wide toolbox framework, recognizes that students are accessing information in new ways, therefore MIT must put mechanisms in place that accommodate this new culture of learning:
The way in which students are accessing material points to the need for the modularization of online classes whenever possible. The very notion of a “class” may be outdated. This in many ways mirrors the preferences of students on campus. The unbundling of classes also reflects a larger trend in society—a number of other media offerings have become available in modules, whether it is a song from an album, an article in a newspaper, or a chapter from a textbook. Modularity also enables “just-in-time” delivery of instruction, further enabling project-based learning on campus and for students worldwide.
In light of MIT’s stature as an elite educational institution, the recommendations of this report will reverberate beyond the MIT campus and its global community.
As I wrote recently there is a gap between how today’s students learn and how they are being taught. Some Yale administrators along with educators at all levels are wringing their hands over the question of how to manage engagement in the classroom and how to make teachers more effective disseminators of information. Whereas MIT acknowledges that the very notion of a “class” may be outdated. In my view, there is disruption going on at Yale and other campuses. But unlike the typical pattern of disruption where the disruption is coming from outside the company or industry, in higher education the disruption is coming from inside the academy.
A cohort of students is taking more control of what, when, where, how and why they learn. They are using institutional facilities to facilitate this process while taking ownership of the form and substance of their preparation as 21st century knowledge workers. The experiments in learning that are occurring at Yale and MIT have the potential to transform how learning occurs at elite educational institutions. The cohort that my research examines is in the vanguard, along with some faculty, in progressively and proactively creating human capital through taking responsibility for what, when, where, how and why and modern learners learn.