Higher Educations Future

So I know this is a little late but there was some reading, and a lot of conversations around the changing of higher education.  The general consensus that I was able to come up with was that higher education is in constant change.  Every university/post secondary institution is continually updating their curriculum and changing their courses to meet the needs of the next student.  Not much of a shock to me but the conversation turned interesting when I used the J. H. Newman quote “assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot” to describe the concept of university/post secondary education.  I asked if this was still the concept.  The people I talked with then thought and some agreed while some did not.  


Massage Therapist: "Of course that is the case.  If we don't meet to see the technique and practice it then how do we know if we are doing it properly?"

Resident Surgeon: "I would agree for the most part because people try to go to the place they feel will serve them the best.  But there are a lot of universities that people can go to get their undergrad degree before they decide what they want.  Bachelor degrees are the new high school diplomas." 

Teacher: "I don't think it has to be people from all over.  What is the University of Regina's enrollment at with people only from Regina?  I bet most of the university has Regina or surrounding area students."

Law Student: "Sure, people go to where they need to get their education.  I don't care if I know anyone or not, I will meet new people, I have enough friends so I just want to go to school to get my degree and start my life.  I will go where I need to do that."

So some of them missed the point so I then asked them since they agreed so emphatically I asked them if they could have taken a number of their courses online in the comfort of their bedroom and gotten the same educational outcome?

Massage Therapist: "Probably not, we did a lot of hands on things that needed to be in a lab essentially.  I don't see how you would learn without doing a lot of the practice."

Resident Surgeon: "For the theory courses yes, I would have rather stayed at home, but there were a lot of classes where I would not have even understood the lectures if I didn't have someone to sit down with and talk about for hours at a time."

Teacher: "The courses sure I could have done a lot of them at home, but how would the prof of known that it was me doing the work?  Also when it comes down to actually practicing teaching how would I have gained that experience without being in the classrooms? There are certain things that you need human interaction for."

Law Student: "It seems that most of my courses involve so much reading that I do most of my courses in the comfort of my own home, but the discussion and conversation that goes on in class is where the epiphanies come from.  I could get some of it from an online course but I don't see the deeper understanding coming through."  

So after the weeks topic of how university/post secondary will change I believe that it already is.  We are utilizing so much more technology than every before, but what will university/post secondary look like in the future, I am not certain.  But I do hope that the human connection is not lost.  I do not see how some learning can be embedded without human interaction.   This topic is interesting and there was a TIME article about What Colleges Will Teach in 2025.
Who knows but it will be interesting.