Recently the media had fun comparing the vision of life in 2015 depicted in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II with the reality – with the internet being the glaring omission. But what if we were to try to predict the academy’s future? Could we do a more accurate job? After all, isn’t that one of the tasks of university leaders, given that the future is coming even to those who don’t have a time machine in their sports cars?
We asked several distinguished academics to tell us how they imagine higher education will look in 2030. The responses, however, could hardly be more disparate. While one contributor suggests that the rise of artificial intelligence will consign the university to history within 15 years, others believe that technology will continue to have minimal impact. A variety of shades of opinion in between are also set out. ...
[Daniel Schwartz and Candace Thille wrote the following item, "Exams that emphasize mastery of taught knowledge will no longer be the primary tool for judging student performance."]
In many Jane Austen novels, the plot involves landing the best bachelor, at which point the story ends. We find a similar narrative in secondary schools across the US. This plot involves getting into the best college. For students and parents, landing a college place has become the defining symbol of a successful childhood, and their lives are organised towards hooking the prize catch.
So bricks and mortar universities will not disappear any time soon. But while it might be where Austen leaves off, acceptance by the object of their desire is only the beginning of our happy young protagonists’ life stories. Indeed, students at least need to finish their college years before they even get their bachelor – of arts or science. And that is where a number of enhancements are likely to be introduced by 2030.
First, educators will have figured out how to teach really hard concepts – imaginary numbers, quantum physics, a satisfying interpretation of T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Science will have made substantial progress in understanding how people learn and how to produce conditions that optimise learning. New technologies that deliver instruction will also collect precise data on what’s helping students the most and what is not working. A virtuous cycle of rapid feedback and revision to pedagogical innovations will permit the continuous improvement of both instruction and the scientific theories behind it.
Second, exams that emphasise mastery of taught knowledge will no longer be the primary tool for judging student performance. Instead, assessments will evaluate how well students are prepared for future learning – which is the point of university anyway. Students will be presented with new content – material they haven’t been taught in class – and evaluated by how well they learn from that content. In a world where jobs and knowledge change rapidly, assessments should measure students’ will and ability to continue learning.
[For further discussion of the changing role of assessments, see this feature about Schwartz's work and read this interview with him.]
Third, universities’ departmental fiefdoms will be broken up to support the interdisciplinary efforts needed to create innovative solutions to major societal problems, such as reducing reliance on non-renewable resources. Meeting great challenges depends on expertise from all the sciences and humanities, and bureaucratic and cultural barriers to problem-focused research must and will be removed.
This de-Balkanisation of university departments will also result in Health 101 becoming the most popular course. Advances in biology, medicine, psychology and nutrition will combine to offer strong prescriptions for the care of oneself and one’s children that everyone will need to know about; students will learn a range of basic disciplinary theories in an applied context, so that they can see the personal relevance.
New approaches to research, teaching and learning will require collaborative, creative students who know what it means to learn well. To ensure that they have such applicants, universities will need to fulfil their responsibility to pre-collegiate education. This includes pioneering ways to ensure that all children have an opportunity to learn well at the schools that will prepare them for a different – but still happy – ending to their childhoods. College admission will no longer serve as the dreamy end point, but as just one chapter in a long life of learning.
Read the full feature in Times Higher Education with projections from other contributors. Candace Thille and two colleagues offer additional thoughts about the future of online courses in higher education in an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed.
Daniel Schwartz is dean and professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education. Candace Thille is assistant professor at the school.
© Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305.
