Scot L. Newstok has proposed the term `close learning’ to refer to university education as we presently understand it:
“Close learning” evokes the laborious, time-consuming, and costly but irreplaceable proximity between teacher and student. “Close learning” exposes the stark deficiencies of mass distance learning such as MOOCs, and its haste to reduce dynamism, responsiveness, presence.
Or, in summary, “to what are they being given access?”
The argument about access to higher education, the ground on which much of the mooc stooshie is being fought out, is based on ideas about social mobility, and meritocracy: in short, going to university will let you make more money and escape the harsh grinding poverty (intellectual and financial) of whatever benighted hole spawned you.
Continue reading “What do they know of education, who only education know?”