EXPeditions - The living library of knowlegde

Mike Sharples - New ways to learn and teach

A teacher’s role is shifting away from providing educational content to orchestrating students’ learning and nurturing their confidence.
 
Key Points
Scientific insights are helping educators develop evidence-based improvements in teaching and learning.
A teacher’s role is shifting away from providing educational content to orchestrating students’ learning and nurturing their confidence.
The state has a role in providing resources and support to schools and universities, especially during periods of abrupt change, such as that caused by a pandemic.

Mike Sharples - How technological advances can improve education

With varying degrees of success, cutting-edge technologies have been introduced into schools throughout history.
 
Key Points
With varying degrees of success, cutting-edge technologies have been introduced into schools throughout history.
While online learning originally seemed disappointing, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are helping universities support students outside the classroom.
Human teachers are unlikely to be replaced any time soon. Instead, new pedagogies are aimed at helping educators further support students to achieve educational goals.

Michael Roth - Practical virtue : from classroom to life

Many of us today are asking: how can we take what people learn in a classroom, especially in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, and apply that outside the classroom?
About Michael Roth
"I'm the President and a professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
My work is on how people make sense of the past. I have spent many years thinking about the philosophy of history through films, political theory, psychology and psychoanalysis. Most recently, I've written a couple of books around education, how it changes one's history and how it uses the past to create a different kind of future."
Key Points
• A current question in the humanities and social sciences is how to apply classroom learning to people’s lives.• Philosophy can be useful for developing habits of reflection that lead to a better life.• Ideas of virtue change over time. The capacity to survive suffering wasn’t key to moral elevation in the ancient world, but today the survivor is ennobled in popular culture.
From classroom to real life
Many of us today are asking: how can we take what people learn in a classroom, especially in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, and apply that outside the classroom?
I teach a course called Virtue and Vice in Literature, History and Philosophy. We begin with Confucius and we end with Spike Lee, Maggie Nelson and Danielle Allen. The course is about the idea of virtue and how it changes over time. I want my students to have a sense of what Aristotle meant by moderation, or what Aquinas meant by beatitude or Machiavelli by virtuosity. That’s important; I want them to learn from the texts. But it’s even more important that they learn about virtue as something they can practise outside of class.

Michael Roth - Freedom of speech and freedom to disagree in school and beyond

Freedom of speech is about freedom of expression. I want to be able to express myself, in dance, or in painting or in speech, because I should be able to tell you what I think.
About Michael Roth
"I'm the President and a professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
My work is on how people make sense of the past. I have spent many years thinking about the philosophy of history through films, political theory, psychology and psychoanalysis. Most recently, I've written a couple of books around education, how it changes one's history and how it uses the past to create a different kind of future."
Key Points
• Having others disagree with us is fundamental to learning when we are wrong.• Instead of focusing on our own freedom to disagree, we should want others to have the freedom to disagree with us.• Freedom of expression is important, but authority figures have a responsibility to stop people from using expression as a tool of intimidation or harassment. Debates on the lack of debate
All over the United States, there are extraordinary debates about whether you can have a debate. People say there’s no debate going on, and they’re debating that. Some people who think of themselves as left-wing liberals or moderates feel like they’ve been outflanked by students they call “woke”, which means students who are very concerned about racism and racist oppression. Some people on the right think that universities have become centres of indoctrination and nobody can disagree. Recently, I did an interview with an education publication that asked: ‘Isn’t it true that academic freedom has declined precipitously in recent years because people are self-censoring – people are afraid to speak their minds?’

Caitlin Zaloom - The real cost and value of higher education

The pandemic has reminded us that higher education is a public good.
About Caitlin Zaloom
"I am a cultural anthropologist and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.
I’ve written books about finance and its relationship to technology, class, family and higher education."
Key Points
• The cost of a college education has spiralled since the 1990s, forcing middle-class families and their children to take on crushing amounts of debt.• Nonetheless, having a college degree has never been more important. For many people, it’s a prerequisite for maintaining a middle-class lifestyle.• The pandemic has reminded us that higher education is a public good. Doctors, nurses and other college-trained professionals are more important than ever. Sucked into finance
Finance touches so many aspects of our lives, including things that we don’t commonly associate with it. Take higher education. In today’s United States, families and students pay huge sums to get a college education. The average cost of attendance at a state school is $25,000 per year. That’s $100,000 per student for a four-year education. At a private institution, it’s double that. That means that middle-class families can’t afford to send their children to college without using debt and investment tools that are given to them by the government and financial industries. They are sucked into finance in order to achieve the most basic goals of middle-class life.

Caitlin Zaloom - Renewing democracy by restoring free tuition

Free tuition is essential. Democracy is improved when young people from different backgrounds come together and learn how to work through their differences.
About Caitlin Zaloom
"I am a cultural anthropologist and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.
I’ve written books about finance and its relationship to technology, class, family and higher education."
Key Points
• The general trend since the 1970s has been for governments to withdraw from supporting higher education, putting more financial pressure on middle-class families.• Free tuition is essential. Democracy is improved when young people from different backgrounds come together and learn how to work through their differences.• Current US politicians, from the president to state legislators, are more responsive to the idea of higher education reform and debt cancellation than they have been in decades. Social speculationThe financialisation of higher education that we see in the United States has its equivalents around the world. The UK and Chile are just two examples of places that are now relying more on students and their families to pay high sums for education.
One of the consequences of the financialisation of higher education is that families are forced into a speculative position. College is more important than ever for young adults to have a shot at a good life, well-paid work and family stability – not to mention good health and longevity. Students and families have to put down an enormous amount of money simply to give themselves a chance, but they have no way of knowing whether it will pay off.
That is what I call social speculation. They’re putting down money now, taking on debt and making investments for an idea about the future that may or may not come to pass.

Peter Mandler - Dismantling the myth of educating for future jobs

Education should aim to assist children in becoming happy, confident, flexible and trainable.
About Peter Mandler
"I am Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.
I’m a historian of modern Britain and of the modern world. Over the last 20 years, I’ve aligned my work representing historians as academics and teachers with my research in education: I’ve become immersed in the recent history of education. My main interest is asking why people have gotten more and more education over the last generation or two."
Key Points
• The world is changing rapidly. While education cannot prepare students specifically for future tasks, it should provide them with the tools they need to cope.• Since future challenges are difficult to predict, education should aim to assist children in becoming happy, confident, flexible and trainable.• Studying a discipline deeply is beneficial to children. This is true despite the fact they may not seek employment in the discipline later in life.
Education is encrusted in all sorts of myths. One such established myth is that we are educating for the future. There’s a factoid currently in circulation which claims, for the generation now in school, something like 50% of their future jobs have not yet been invented. I’m sorry to say that this has again made headlines. Indeed, it was referenced at the World Economic Forum, the gathering of elite business leaders in Davos.
There’s a very bright Canadian blogger who did a little digging and discovered that this particular factoid has been in circulation since the late 1950s; usually spread by leadership groups interested in conveying a future of rapid change while espousing their leadership capabilities.

Peter Mandler - What is a good education?

Inequality operates throughout an individual’s life, not just through one’s education. Equal education can help address inequality but cannot solve it.
About Peter Mandler
"I am Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.
I’m a historian of modern Britain and of the modern world. Over the last 20 years, I’ve aligned my work representing historians as academics and teachers with my research in education: I’ve become immersed in the recent history of education. My main interest is asking why people have gotten more and more education over the last generation or two."
Key Points
• Inequality operates throughout an individual’s life, not just through one’s education. Equal education can help address inequality but cannot solve it.• Privileged children use their educational advantages to further intensify their advantages after leaving the education system.• There is no economic reason for society to favour science skills. This bias discourages children who are better at other subjects such as creative arts.
One of the problems when researching the topic of education is that education generates a lot of myths. I want to do the job of a historian in busting those myths without necessarily depreciating the value of education. This is a necessary contrast to make; however, it may not be important for the reasons people think.
One such myth is that you need education to function in the workforce of the future. Another is that education is required to make a more equal society or, as commonly cited in Britain, education is needed for social mobility.
Education gives everyone the chance to improve themselves and their lives, but it isn’t particularly effective at accomplishing social mobility. This is true for the same reasons that education is not suitable for training people for specific jobs. This is partly because inequality is generated across our entire lives, not just during our school years.

Peter Mandler - Democracy and the desire for more education

Greater social equality and civil rights lead to a greater demand for education, as individuals seek to leverage their improved standing in society.
About Peter Mandler
"I am Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge.
I’m a historian of modern Britain and of the modern world. Over the last 20 years, I’ve aligned my work representing historians as academics and teachers with my research in education: I’ve become immersed in the recent history of education. My main interest is asking why people have gotten more and more education over the last generation or two."
Key Points
• Democratic systems were developed in many countries throughout the 20th century. Their establishment ushered in a greater demand for education.• The Flynn effect describes the increase in measurable intelligence occurring in developed and developing countries likely to be the result of increased mobility.• Greater social equality and civil rights lead to a greater demand for education, as individuals seek to leverage their improved standing in society.
I think there are a few main factors that affect our demand for education. These are prominent circumstances that have affected a large part of the world over the last century. The most obvious is democracy. Democracy arrived in most places at the beginning of the 20th century, and since then it has typically expanded the demand for education.
Initially, this trend began, as the elite classes were forced to concede universal suffrage. At the time, elites needed a way to ensure a ruly and well-behaved electorate. In response to this concern, they implanted schools in every community. As democracy became embedded in societies, the education system began to work for democracy, rather than attempt to control it.
I believe newly and fully democratised populations understand that education is a necessary piece of equipment for citizenship. As such, individuals pursue it up to the age of citizenship, which is usually 18. Regardless, there’s a pretty good correlation between democratising societies and the provision of education.

Anna Vignoles - The economics of education and the reform of our education systems

Assessment and formative feedback so that the child knows what they're doing wrong and learns from their mistakes are vital for improving academic achievement.
About Anna Vignoles 
"Formerly Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, I am the Director of the Leverhulme Trust and an economist of education.
I’m an economist of education, which means I apply economic principles to the study of education. I do lots of work on trying to understand the effectiveness of different education systems, of understanding the causes of inequality in our education systems, and I try to come up with practical solutions to how we can narrow these inequalities."
Key Points
• Education inequality depends on context. What is needed in low-income countries to reduce education inequalities is different from what is necessary for higher-income countries.• We need to find a balance between centralised and locally-run education systems. There should be enough autonomy at a school and teacher-level while monitoring school systems and setting common standards.• In order to reduce financial stress, you can improve social welfare payments or invest in parenting interventions, which can help families in disadvantaged circumstances cope with their environment better.
Education inequality depends on context. What is needed in a low-income country to reduce education inequalities is distinct from what we would need to do in the United States, for example. Nevertheless, by and large, if we focus on developed countries in order to reduce educational inequalities, we need to address two issues: first, we must try to reduce inequalities outside the education system. A child who is born into a very low-income family experiences things in childhood that are detrimental to his or her academic achievement, and this starts early on. Therefore, the first thing we need to think about is how we can support families to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they're better poised to start school. We might also want to focus on what we can do within the education system. The one thing we know that matters most for education achievement other than family background is the quality of teaching.