Minerva CEO Details His High-Tech Plan To Disrupt Universities 106
waderoush (1271548) writes "In April 2012, former Snapfish CEO Ben Nelson provoked both praise and skepticism by announcing that he'd raised $25 million from venture firm Benchmark to start the Minerva Project, a new kind of university where students will live together but all class seminars will take place over a Google Hangouts-style video conferencing system. Two years later, there are answers – or the beginnings of answers – to many of the questions observers have raised about the project, on everything from the way the seminars will be organized to how much tuition the San Francisco-based university will charge and how its gaining accreditation. And in an interview published today, Nelson share more details about how Minerva plans to use technology to improve teaching quality. 'If a student wants football and Greek life and not doing any work for class, they have every single Ivy League university to choose from,' Nelson says. 'That is not what we provide. Similarly, there are faculty who want to do research and get in front of a lecture hall and regurgitate the same lecture they've been giving for 20 years. We have a different model,' based on extensive faculty review of video recordings of the seminars, to make sure students are picking up key concepts. Last month Minerva admitted 45 students to its founding class, and in September it expects to welcome 19 of them to its Nob Hill residence hall."
first the college athletes want to form a Union... (Score:4, Interesting)
meh (Score:1)
Academia squanders vast sums on quasi-professional athletics programs, and other activities that basically qualify as student entertainment, but administration is actually where all the big money gets wasted :
https://chronicle.com/article/Administrator-Hiring-Drove-28-/144519/
We absolutely need "start up" universities that disrupt existing universities by minimizing administrative costs, well administration almost never shrinks except by replacing the whole institution, but..
All these new for-profit educati
Ivy League Schools (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure that's an accurate portrayal of Ivy League schools, and not some capitalist's attempt at devaluing the competition.
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The Ivy League was basically a formal gentleman's agreement (you know, back from the good old days where they banned women and blacks from campus and had strict quotas on Jews) that they would mutually agree to be terrible at sports in order to maintain high academic standards.
Everyone who attends an Ivy League school to play sports is someone who would have been a serious consideration for admission without their athletic ability.
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The Ivy League was basically a formal gentleman's agreement (you know, back from the good old days where they banned women and blacks from campus and had strict quotas on Jews) that they would mutually agree to be terrible at sports in order to maintain high academic standards.
Everyone who attends an Ivy League school to play sports is someone who would have been a serious consideration for admission without their athletic ability.
Of course they're going to be terrible at sports. They don't have any black people on their team!
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Bill Burr says it best :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Ivy League Schools (Score:5, Insightful)
The Republicans who were responsible for emancipation (as an act of war against the rebellious South) is only vaguely related to the current Republican party. The Democrats have a closer link, and again, the civil rights movement was a political attack against the Dixiecrats, who pretended to be Democrats, but actually had an independent agenda.
P.S.: Given what the Federal Govt. has become, are you so sure states' rights was a bad idea? You can trace the current Federal Govt. back to the centralization imposed (by both sides!) during the Civil War.
P.P.S.: Under privitization, prisons have become defacto sources of slave labor. So don't claim that slavery has been eliminated. It's nature has been changed, but it isn't gone.
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P.S.: Given what the Federal Govt. has become, are you so sure states' rights was a bad idea? You can trace the current Federal Govt. back to the centralization imposed (by both sides!) during the Civil War.
And the 17th Amendment didn't help either, now that there's no representation of state government interests in Congress.
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And what are state interests as opposed to the interests of a state's citizens?
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Which state governments are on the verge of collapse, and why?
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No, but the 14th amendment did free slaves, and it was passed mostly by Republicans.
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Similarly, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed with stronger Republican support in Congress (80%) than Dem (60-70%).
And the only Senator in living memory to have been a Klansman was Robert Byrd (D).
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The Republicans of 2014 resemble the Republicans of 1964 as much as Sara Palin resembles Steven Hawking.
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Similarly, the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed with stronger Republican support in Congress (80%) than Dem (60-70%).
True, but that is an artifact of the unusual configuration of the Democratic Party from the 1880s to the 1980s, and is not reflective of the two parties' identities today. For many decades, the South was dominated politically by "Dixiecrats [wikipedia.org]" - Democrats in name (because the Republican Party was so identified with the North) but much closer to modern Republican values in terms of social and fiscal conservatism, hawkish defense views, religious issues, etc. Dixiecrats were something of a historical anachronis
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Manju, is that you?
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Oh, did that hit a little close to home? What does it say about our elites when they can't take a little (well-placed and accurate) criticism? Why are you using a word like "capitalist" as an epithet?
A quick question: how many corrupt government officials will the Ivy League graduate this year? How many of them will go on to oppress the American people with outrageous, unworkable ideas while all the time enjoying the approval of their own consciences? The Ivy League exists to perpetrate a culture of c
Post-Scarcity Princeton: Abundance vs. Elitism (Score:2)
From my essay discussing excellence vs. elitism & privilege: http://www.pdfernhout.net/post... [pdfernhout.net] :-) And maybe with robots to do anything people did not want to do? This is just intended as a humorous example, of course. I'm not suggesting Princeton would run the world of the future or that everyone would r
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So, the question becomes, how do we go about getting the whole world both accepted into Princeton and also with full tenured Professorships (researchy ones without teaching duties except as desired?
why not just go the trades / apprenticeship system (Score:3)
So people can learn real skills in a real work place settings.
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Because no-one would learn anything in the vast majority of businesses. Big business is too bureacratic to teach apprentices and small business is too pathetic and underfunded.
Re:why not just go the trades / apprenticeship sys (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that would require real "work" and they've spent the last 15-20 years telling people that trades and apprenticeships as worthless. That's why there's such a demand for them these days.
Re:why not just go the trades / apprenticeship sys (Score:4, Interesting)
In many cases what you suggest is sound. In many other cases, it is not.
For instance, you could probably get away with an apprenticeship for computer programming. Yet you would not get away with an apprenticeship for computer science. There is too much background knowledge that must be acquired for that to be viable. Besides, universities are pretty much an apprenticeship for computer scientists once they hit graduate school. (Assuming that the student is going into research, of course.)
Universities also serve many other functions. At least that is the case for students who are going about things in an intelligent manner. Since the goal is learning, rather than training, the student is free to think. You also have opportunities to make contact with other people in the field, may they be your peers or your instructors. This opens up both research and employment opportunities.
That all assumes that the student is doing more than attending lectures, reading books, and completing assignments. It assumes that the student is being more than a student. One of my professors put it best when he said that he isn't the instructor and we aren't his students. Rather, we are all colleagues. Unfortunately, most of the students didn't get that.
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Technology does not improve education (Score:5, Insightful)
Using a wide variety of teaching techniques and evaluating their quality improves education. This is essentially what Minerva is proposing. The video conferencing is incidental.
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Clueless. (Score:5, Insightful)
You people are no more education experts because you were students than you are dental experts because you've had cavities!
It has little to do with the political parties. The political system is a big factor in today's problems but it is not the parties who are to blame; other than for their contribution to a dysfunctional political process and for their pandering to an ignorant public demanding idiotic things with no basis in reality. Things were better when only 1 party pandered and education was much lower of importance to voters. It became important as everybody wanted their brat to have more earning potential. People don't really want their kid to THINK, they want them to get a high paying career (the nutty sports parents are a good example.)
There is plenty of science on how poor kids are greatly impacted by their lifestyle; it has more impact than the education system; but it is far easier to blame things disconnected from your responsibilities! The conditions under which poor children live are collectively OUR responsibility; and that goes for abused and messed up children who are not poor but who damage the learning environment. We can't demand responsibility from parents or their children for their actions-- that doesn't poll well, so as a result any successful politician of either side picks the best lies to tell the voters.
Doesn't matter if you vote for those who "reform" the system or hire private; they both pitch a set of metrics to sell the parent - and selling is not the goal. Public education didn't put anything into marketing itself in the past; but now public elementary schools budget for marketing (which just reflects a larger societal problem.)
Then you have the matter of trying to succeed 100% with no margin of error. It's a great example of perfect being the enemy of good. You can break a good thing by trying to get that last few % not to mention all the effort and resources that last few % can cost... Yeah, I'm saying it is ok to have an acceptable failure rate. It happened in the past and they got us here to our constant reform mess when we are going down hill trying to perfect it... or more like perfect the perception of it.
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Awesome. Wish I had mod points and I could award all of them to this post as Informative or Insightful.
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No, what I actually said was [slashdot.org],
Your "host files engine" is a useless, CPU-sucking piece of crap, and I am very far from being the first one to say this. (Furthermore, you actually boast about its horrid performance as if it were something to be desired.) In addition, it overrides the Task Scheduler for no good reason whatsoever. That in my opinion qualifies it as something I would never in a million years permit anywhere near any machine that I use or administer; IOW it is for all intents and purposes malware and no amount of your ranting and raving and trolling and crapflooding is ever going to change this fact.
Are we clear on this? Great! Guess that means you're free to sod off now.
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You should really look before you leap, Smart Guy.
It's *not* "one person's opinion".
I quoted *nine different comments* from *nine different people* who said they tried the product and found that, basically, it didn't work. And I didn't see a single positive comment amongst the entire bunch.
BTW, whether or not *I've* ever written a disk defragmenter has fuck-all to do with the issue of how well *this* disk defragmenter works or doesn't work, so don't even bother with the attempt at misdirection.
And for the l
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More importantly the idea that we are collectively responsible for anything is part of the problem. The only kind of responsibility that matters is individual responsibility.
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No. I reply to the post that looks like it'll get noticed quicker by the moderators. don't take it personal.
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On the other hand, such districts can be poorer. While the suburban schools are wealthier. My state used to have heavy state funding of schools, to even out disparities), but that started to be cut. According to a quick google search, the year it came under heavy attack involved a state congress that leaned Republican.
That would make sense if not for two things. First, those inner city schools were already failing before the state funds were cut. Second, there is no correlation between how much a school district spends per student and its success at teaching those students. A few years back, the Washington, DC school district was spending more per student than any other school district in the country, yet was one of the worst school districts in the country (I have not seen the numbers for a few years, so it may no longe
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You really want to state that there is no correlation between what a school district spends per student and success? Then I propose that you take a school district of your choice and educate them with no money (that means no facilities, no transportation, no teachers, no curriculum, no materials, etc) and I'll take the Washington DC school district. They will go to class every day for their entire K-12 education. Then we'll compare outcomes.
But, as a rule, you can predict how students are doing on a broa
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Wealthy areas have students that do well, poorer areas, less so.
Right the explanation must be the fact that they have more money to spend on schools. It could not possibly be because those who have values that encourage their children to value getting an education are more likely to be wealthy, while those who do not encourage their children to get an education are more likely to be poor. It is not possible that the same factors which cause the parents of children in wealthy neighborhoods to be wealthy are the same factors which cause those parents to raise well-educate
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The same lecture for 20 years, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, there are faculty who want to do research and get in front of a lecture hall and regurgitate the same lecture they've been giving for 20 years.
This may sound bad (as Nelson no doubt intended) for subjects that are relatively recent, such as anything IT related, or the more advanced courses. But tell me, how much meaningful changes were there in the past 20 years for introductory subjects like algebra or calculus? Or the introductory to intermediate courses for most physical sciences?
Go read the Feynman Lectures and tell me how much change was needed due to advances since it was given? Except for maybe a mention of Higgs and LHC somewhere?
Education is not entertainment, if the subject matter have not changed, why should a good lecture needs to change for the sake of change? It's not like we are giving the lecture to the same audience 20 times. Except, maybe, due to the decrease in competency of the students?
It is not the timelyness, it is the format. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lecturing is an ineffective way to teach because most people cannot pay attention to and retain a traditional lecture. Someone who has been giving the same lecture for 20 years was teaching sub-optimally 20 years ago and has not improved. You are correct that they may not have gotten worse either.
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I enjoyed lectures when I went to college. You either had poor presenters or didn't care about the topics.
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Perhaps you enjoyed them, but it is highly unlikely you remember them. Physiological measures of attention, such as heart rate, show students do not pay as much attention to lectures past the first few minutes.
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However, watching a video taped lecture may be a very good way of learning. You can always pause the lecture and go back.
Re:It is not the timelyness, it is the format. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Any kind of lecture is low-rent bullshit pedagogy. Real education has students read/experience "static" material on their own time and do interactive problem solving in face-to-face time with instructors. That, however, costs money.
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Lecturing is an ineffective way to teach because most people cannot pay attention to and retain a traditional lecture.
That's why students are told to take notes. That's why students are told to study outside lectures; tutorials and — where appropriate for the course — practical sessions in labs reinforce the lecture. You don't learn by just listening to someone, but it is part of how you learn.
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Lecturing is an ineffective way to teach because most people cannot pay attention to and retain a traditional lecture.
That's why students are told to take notes. That's why students are told to study outside lectures; tutorials and — where appropriate for the course — practical sessions in labs reinforce the lecture. You don't learn by just listening to someone, but it is part of how you learn.
THIS. Students that have problem learning from lectures most likely are treating the lecture as a movie (as the article alluded to), they expected to be passively entertained (a.k.a. spoon fed), instead of making an effort to learn actively. Then they wonder why they didn't learn anything and complained the lectures are too boring (i.e. not entertaining).
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Professor here. A few comments:
1. There's lots of us who hate lecturing, but basically have to do it because of pressure to teach as many students at once as possible. It's difficult to organize contact with large numbers of students simultaneously in formats other than lecture.
2. I'm not opposed to online lectures, and think they're probably the best option in some situations, or at least good supplementary options. However, are they really an improvement? People bash lectures, but unless you're lecturing
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On the whole I agree with you - learning is hard work and expensive for both teacher and student. I have several times heard your argument that good lectures are interactive. It is equivalent to saying good lectures include things which are not lecture.
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Lecturing is an ineffective way to teach because most people [nowadays] cannot pay attention to and retain a traditional lecture.
There, corrected it for you. 20 years ago, most people in college have had no problem paying attention to lectures. YMMV.
Someone who has been giving the same lecture for 20 years was teaching sub-optimally 20 years ago and has not improved. You are correct that they may not have gotten worse either.
That's your prejudice showing. All the great teachers in college in the past century had no problem doing their great teaching with lectures (among other means).
If you have trouble paying attention to lectures and learning from it, have you considered that, perhaps, you shouldn't be in college to begin with?
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Based on physiological evidence, normal attention span is only a few minutes. I am not aware of any studies of how attention span is changing, but I doubt it is changing much. Great teachers of the past were great compared to their peers, not compared to modern techniques. And many of them did not lecture.
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If you have trouble paying attention to lectures and learning from it, have you considered that, perhaps, you shouldn't be in college to begin with?
This is a discriminatory attitude. Disadvantaged students (for example, those from poor families) are less able to cope with ineffective teaching. Based on controlled experiments, good teaching benefits all students, but it has a bigger benefits for those who used to be considered "not college material".
You addressed your comments to me personally. Notice my user ID number. It has been some years since I passed all my lecture classes.
Research. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a major point is wasted. Certain researchers fund their research by teaching. Recently I read some blog, ( I'll try to find it ), where a mathematician asked that if Calculus is replaced by video lectures, how will mathematicians find the money to continue doing their research?
I'm not saying that we should continue to force students to listen to crappy lectures by teachers that only give lectures cause it funds their research. What I am saying is that research is often times important and we need an alternate way of funding it.
too risky (Score:3, Insightful)
My daughter was quite interested in this for a while, but there is one serious problem: they are making a lot of changes at once, and evaluating the results will not be easy, especially with such a small sample of students who, by self-selection, are going to be anything but representative of the rest (for one thing, they are going to be big risk takers). It will take years to see how well this works, considering how difficult it already is to evaluate the quality of the education at various colleges.
I don't know how much these considerations influenced my daughter, but she ended up picking a conventional college, partly because she applied Early Decision and got in. Minerva might have been on her list for a second round. (And yes, she is a risk taker, and not interested in Greek life or football :)
The founders are smart people and what they say makes sense, but I know many smart people who made a lot of sense, and their startups still didn't quite work out.
Lesser Universities (Score:2)
The below ignores the other aspects of university such as meeting people, and that many courses do require very hands on interaction such as a chemistry lab. While this is true it there is potentially still many courses that do avail themselves to a pure online experience.
This then presents a few interesting things to ponder:
My RSS feed had me worried (Score:3)
Minerva CEO Details His High-Tech Plan To Disrupt Univers...
That's pretty amibitious.
My kid applied for one of 45 spots (Score:3)
And we aren't all "sour grapes" about not getting admitted. Minerva offered free tuition to the first class of 45, which seemed like both a good deal, and appropriate given they were still going through "shakedown" (the interview by skype process was more like a high school play than a Broadway performance). There is no doubt that the model, given the time and attention these 45 kids will get, will provide for a stunning class. As does United World College, another free tuition experiment started by Armand Hammer which relies on subsidy to maintain recruiting excellence.
What remains to be seen is whether it succeeds in creating a sustainable economic model. Yes, the USA's universities have probably overinvested their endowments in a "country club" gyms and campus accouterments. But Minerva is "pure play", the equivalent of penny stock. Will the fact that these 45 students are impressive today cause impressive students to pay tuition tomorrow, and will the lack of accouterments generate savings for the student consumer, or be siphoned into the startup costs of Minerva? Since it will probably take 10 years before any of these graduates have a chance to be recognized, they have to either produce evidence of superior education and training, or continue to make it a high value, or have to compete more seriously with a Stanford/Harvard than they had to a $0 tuition. The fact that free software attracts smart users doesn't prove your software will take significant share from Microsoft, and the fact that you get smart students to enroll in free education doesn't signify the universities charging tuition are doomed.
If the impressive kids come out in 4 years and say the Minerva experience was "not ready for prime time" and that they wish they'd gone to college, will Minerva be able to fix the bugs in the software? By the way, my kid's going to a top Canadian university, $6K per year, and is certain to have a recognized degree in 10 years. The strong arguments Minerva makes about the true value of Harvard speak well for Kings and McGill. Twin goes to UWC, btw.
Re:Correction UWC (Score:2)
No lab courses - no meaningful science education (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No lab courses - no meaningful science educatio (Score:4, Informative)
Memory implants (Score:3)
Chemisty Lab (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong?
it's = it is. its != it is (Score:2)
... will do what?