本文作者為美國資深記者THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I just spent the last two days at a great conference convened by M.I.T. and Harvard on “Online Learning and the Future of Residential Education” — a k a “How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?”
過(guò)去的兩天里，我參加了由麻省理工學(xué)院(MIT)和哈佛大學(xué)(Harvard)召開(kāi)的一次大會(huì )，主題是“在線(xiàn)學(xué)習和居家教育的未來(lái)”， 這個(gè)主題也可以這么解讀：“如果我的孩子能從大規模在線(xiàn)公開(kāi)課程完全免費地學(xué)到知識，大學(xué)為什么還要收取每年5萬(wàn)美元（約合31萬(wàn)元人民幣）的學(xué)費？”
You may think this MOOCs revolution is hyped, but my driver in Boston disagrees. You see, I was picked up at Logan Airport by my old friend Michael Sandel, who teaches the famous Socratic, 1,000-student “Justice” course at Harvard, which is launching March 12 as the first humanities offering on the M.I.T.-Harvard edX online learning platform. When he met me at the airport I saw he was wearing some very colorful sneakers.
你可能認為，公開(kāi)課革命是一種炒作，不過(guò)，在波士頓給我開(kāi)車(chē)的司機不這么認為。我的老朋友邁克爾·桑德?tīng)?Michael Sandel)開(kāi)車(chē)到洛根機場(chǎng)去接我，他在哈佛大學(xué)教授著(zhù)名的蘇格拉底式的正義論，有1000名學(xué)生上課。這門(mén)課是MIT與哈佛大學(xué)聯(lián)手推出的在線(xiàn)學(xué)習平臺edX提供的第一門(mén)人文課程，它將于3月12日上線(xiàn)。當我和桑德?tīng)栐跈C場(chǎng)會(huì )面時(shí)，我看見(jiàn)他穿著(zhù)一雙色彩非常鮮艷的運動(dòng)鞋。
“Where did you get those?” I asked. Well, Sandel explained, he had recently been in South Korea, where his Justice course has been translated into Korean and shown on national television. It has made him such a popular figure there that the Koreans asked him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a professional baseball game — and gave him the colored shoes to boot! Yes, a Harvard philosopher was asked to throw out the first pitch in Korea because so many fans enjoy the way he helps them think through big moral dilemmas.
“你從哪兒弄的這雙鞋？”我問(wèn)道。桑德?tīng)柦忉屨f(shuō)，他最近去了韓國，在那里，他的正義課程已經(jīng)被翻譯成了韓語(yǔ)，在國家電視臺播出。這門(mén)課讓他在當地成了一個(gè)如此知名的人物， 以至于韓國人請他在一場(chǎng)職業(yè)棒球賽上投出儀式性的第一球，除此之外，他們還送了他這雙鮮艷的鞋。是的，一位哈佛的哲學(xué)教授被邀請在韓國棒球賽上投第一球，因為許多人喜歡他啟發(fā)學(xué)生思考重大道德難題的方式。
Sandel had just lectured in Seoul in an outdoor amphitheater to 14,000 people, with audience participation. His online Justice lectures, with Chinese subtitles, have already had more than 20 million views on Chinese Web sites, which prompted The China Daily to note that “Sandel has the kind of popularity in China usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars and N.B.A. players.”
桑德?tīng)杽倓傇谑谞柕囊粋€(gè)露天劇場(chǎng)給1.4萬(wàn)名聽(tīng)眾授課，現場(chǎng)聽(tīng)眾可以參與課程互動(dòng)。他的在線(xiàn)正義講座配有中文字幕，在中文網(wǎng)站上的瀏覽量已經(jīng)達到了2000萬(wàn)次以上，引起了《中國日報》(China Daily)的關(guān)注，說(shuō)“桑德?tīng)栐谥袊軞g迎的程度，往往只有好萊塢電影明星和美國職業(yè)籃球聯(lián)賽(NBA)球員才能比得上?！?/p>
O.K., not every professor will develop a global following, but the MOOCs revolution, which will go through many growing pains, is here and is real. These were my key take-aways from the conference:
好吧，不是每位教授都能風(fēng)靡全球受到熱捧，然而，在線(xiàn)公開(kāi)課革命已經(jīng)來(lái)臨，它是真實(shí)存在的，盡管它將經(jīng)歷許多成長(cháng)的陣痛。以下是我從這次大會(huì )上獲得的主要心得：
Institutions of higher learning must move, as the historian Walter Russell Mead puts it, from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned.” Because increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know. And therefore it will not pay for a C+ in chemistry, just because your state college considers that a passing grade and was willing to give you a diploma that says so. We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be less interest in how you acquired the competency — in an online course, at a four-year-college or in a company-administered class — and more demand to prove that you mastered the competency.
正如歷史學(xué)家沃爾特·拉塞爾·米德(Walter Russell Mead)所說(shuō)，高等教育機構必須行動(dòng)起來(lái)轉變模式，從注重花了多少時(shí)間學(xué)習轉變?yōu)樽⒅貙?shí)際學(xué)到了什么。這是因為，這個(gè)世界越來(lái)越不在乎你知道什么。所有的知識都可以通過(guò)谷歌(Google)找到。這個(gè)世界只在乎你能利用自己的知識做什么，而且只有這個(gè)是有價(jià)值的。所以，這個(gè)世界不會(huì )為你的化學(xué)得了C+而給你報酬，因為那只能說(shuō)明你的州立學(xué)院認為你化學(xué)及格了，并愿意給你頒發(fā)一個(gè)文憑說(shuō)明這一點(diǎn)。我們在向著(zhù)一個(gè)更加注重能力的世界邁進(jìn)，這個(gè)世界對你如何獲取能力不那么感興趣——不管你是通過(guò)在線(xiàn)課程、通過(guò)四年大學(xué)學(xué)習、或者是通過(guò)公司管理的課程獲取這種能力都無(wú)所謂——這個(gè)世界更多地要求你能證明，你掌握了這些能力。
Therefore, we have to get beyond the current system of information and delivery — the professorial “sage on the stage” and students taking notes, followed by a superficial assessment, to one in which students are asked and empowered to master more basic material online at their own pace, and the classroom becomes a place where the application of that knowledge can be honed through lab experiments and discussions with the professor. There seemed to be a strong consensus that this “blended model” combining online lectures with a teacher-led classroom experience was the ideal. Last fall, San Jose State used the online lectures and interactive exercises of M.I.T.’s introductory online Circuits and Electronics course. Students would watch the M.I.T. lectures and do the exercises at home, and then come to class, where the first 15 minutes were reserved for questions and answers with the San Jose State professor, and the last 45 were devoted to problem solving and discussion. Preliminary numbers indicate that those passing the class went from nearly 60 percent to about 90 percent. And since this course was the first step to a degree in science and technology, it meant that many more students potentially moved on toward a degree and career in that field.
因此，我們必須超越當前的信息傳授模式——教授是“講臺上的圣人”，學(xué)生做筆記，然后再進(jìn)行膚淺的評估——進(jìn)入另外一種制度，要求學(xué)生、并且賦予他們能力在網(wǎng)上按自己的步伐掌握更多基礎知識，而教室則成了和教授討論的地方，對所學(xué)知識的運用，也可以通過(guò)實(shí)驗室里的實(shí)驗得到磨練?，F在好像有一種強烈的共識，認為這種將在線(xiàn)課程和以老師為主導的教室教學(xué)結合起來(lái)的“混合模式”是最理想的。去年秋天，圣何塞州立大學(xué)(San Jose State)使用了MIT電路與電子學(xué)的入門(mén)網(wǎng)絡(luò )課程和互動(dòng)練習。學(xué)生在家里觀(guān)看MIT的課程并完成作業(yè)，然后再來(lái)上課。課堂上，開(kāi)始15分鐘用來(lái)向圣何塞州立大學(xué)的教授提問(wèn)，教授做出解答，剩下45分鐘用來(lái)解決問(wèn)題，進(jìn)行討論。初步數據顯示，這門(mén)課考試及格的學(xué)生人數比例從近60%增加到了大約90%。而且，因為這門(mén)課是取得理工科學(xué)位的第一步，這就意味著(zhù)，更多學(xué)生可能會(huì )繼續學(xué)習，將來(lái)取得該領(lǐng)域的學(xué)位，從事該領(lǐng)域的職業(yè)。
We demand that plumbers and kindergarten teachers be certified to do what they do, but there is no requirement that college professors know how to teach. No more. The world of MOOCs is creating a competition that will force every professor to improve his or her pedagogy or face an online competitor.
我們要求水管工和幼兒園教師取得相應的資質(zhì)，但卻沒(méi)要求大學(xué)教師應該知道如何教書(shū)?，F在不一樣了。在線(xiàn)公開(kāi)課正在制造一種競爭，這種競爭將迫使每位教授改善自己的教學(xué)方法，否則便會(huì )在網(wǎng)上遇到競爭者。
Bottom line: There is still huge value in the residential college experience and the teacher-student and student-student interactions it facilitates. But to thrive, universities will have to nurture even more of those unique experiences while blending in technology to improve education outcomes in measurable ways at lower costs. We still need more research on what works, but standing still is not an option.
說(shuō)到底，住宿式學(xué)院和它所帶來(lái)的教師與學(xué)生、學(xué)生與學(xué)生互動(dòng)的經(jīng)歷仍然有巨大的價(jià)值。但為了今后的成功，大學(xué)必須在鼓勵更多這種獨特的學(xué)習經(jīng)歷的同時(shí)，結合科技手段，用更低的成本，以可衡量的方式提高教學(xué)的效果。什么教育方式有效，我們還要有更多的研究，但原地不動(dòng)不是出路。
Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor and expert on disruptive innovation, gave a compelling talk about how much today’s traditional university has in common with General Motors of the 1960s, just before Toyota used a technology breakthrough to come from nowhere and topple G.M. Christensen noted that Harvard Business School doesn’t teach entry-level accounting anymore, because there is a professor out at Brigham Young University whose online accounting course “is just so good” that Harvard students use that instead. When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over.
哈佛大學(xué)商學(xué)院教授、顛覆性革新的專(zhuān)家克萊頓·克里斯汀森(Clayton M. Christensen)曾做過(guò)一個(gè)很有說(shuō)服力的講座，說(shuō)如今的傳統大學(xué)就像上世紀60年代的通用汽車(chē)公司(General Motors)。就在那之后，豐田(Toyota)利用技術(shù)上的突破性進(jìn)步，由一個(gè)名不見(jiàn)經(jīng)傳的企業(yè)，變成了超越通用汽車(chē)的行業(yè)巨頭?？死锼雇∩赋?，哈佛大學(xué)商學(xué)院已經(jīng)不再教會(huì )計入門(mén)知識了，因為楊百翰大學(xué)(Brigham Young University)一位教授的在線(xiàn)會(huì )計課程“非常好”，連哈佛大學(xué)的學(xué)生都聽(tīng)那個(gè)課程。當杰出的東西變得可以輕易獲得，平淡無(wú)奇的東西就沒(méi)市場(chǎng)了。
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