How would you design a curriculum that isn't tailored to an average joe but is mass customized? Any ideas?

Fill the room with people, dont worry about the education per say its all about numbers, funding and targets.

Onto your request.
I wonder how many lectures would prefer to sit in the "media labs" of a uni and spend a few more hours on 1 lecture but videoing it and making it into something they are proud of, maybe throw in excitement etc.

Force them to listen to it a few times, so they see if it is mind numbing etc.

Then as a uni have high quality lectures available to do your initial learning with, whilst doing the readings.

That would tackle self paced learning.

I think "my university" would also have more contact with the students to avoid the "en masse" rope learning 3 nights before the exams, equally a hands on approach to the assignments to make sure they are being tackled thought about and developed. Again trying to avoid the last minute copy and paste mentality.

So this post doesn't get super long I will end with.

"My university" would equally encourage "soft tests" in other subjects which a user / student could take just to get a little familiar with something completely unrelated. The reason behind this is, how do you know that degree is right for you? Why can't ideas come from other fields...

Thats my two cents.

I think people should mainly be taught how to learn even more efficiently on their own, by their own initiative and how to go about it. They should be given all the resources and then left on their own to solve problems. Being autodidactic, that seemed like the best way to go as I had the Internet (all the resources for the web development subject) at my disposal and I simply learned all that was needed while building "toy projects" for myself or by doing client projects. Basically, practice did it for me. I advocate a very hands-on approach.

Realistically though, I couldn't begin to think of implementing this for a large audience. I'm not exactly sure if it would work for others either, maybe that's just my own technique.

In short:
- More freeform;
- Less about teachers (also, please fire the unpassionate teachers);
- Emphasis on learning how to learn autonomously, the different techniques involved and an alternate way of thinking of education.

That last point is important, by feeding knowledge to people, we're not encouraging them to seek that knowledge on their own. Therefore, the standard classes will remain taught the same way. Teach a child how to learn and he will keep learning every day.

@Jerome: Learning definitely is life long but besides the learning how to learn, education also needs to set a foundation on which everyone can build on their own!? I think you're right in pointing out, that Universities and Schools nowadays don't focus enough on how to learn but on the what to learn. I for example had a class on how to write a scientific paper in the last Semester of my Uni education which seemed kind of ridiculous since at that time I had already written most of the papers I would write during my University career. I see that there is a little Chicken-Egg problem because you definitely learn while doing but it still seemed way to late, almost a waste.

To me we need education for 3 things:
1. To learn more about the world around us
2. To lead positive constructive lives
3. To earn a good living / fulfill our ambitions

I think education has to a large extent evolved to fulfill #3. The semester system, along with multiple choice tests, and grading, has made our education system into an assembly line. Students are pushed into the assembly line, given classes, administered tests, branded with a grade and pushed out of the assembly line, into the workforce.

Even though it is not the best way to give education, this system has for the most part worked till now. I think there are several reasons.
1. For many of students, getting an education is simply a means to gain employable skills (I do not say this in a negative way).
2. A university has to provide these skills in a time and cost efficient way to the students, and provide some branding which will be valuable to students, and easy for employers to spot the students they want to recruit.

In the last few years I have taught programming classes at a local college. In one semester, I tried to move away from the regular grading mechanism. However students still needed to be graded. Without going into details I will simply say, in semester, I had to put in an effort which was orders of magnitude greater than the regular effort. Students learned a lot in that semester, and I too enjoyed running that course, but towards the end of the semester, I was also tremendously stressed out managing the course and my regular programming work.

So even though the current education system is sub-optimal, I do not think it is because of evil intentions. It is possibly the most practical mechanism that has emerged over time.

However, many things have changed in the past few decades. The shelf life of knowledge has greatly reduced. The Internet has made it possible to share information, and collaborate with people at a distance. Many businesses have started valuing knowledge over degrees (this is at least true in software, and probably media, advertising, etc as well). The read-write web has made it possible to offer alternate credentials.

So here is the ideal education system according to me:

A student enters the education system with some goals, and connects with mentors who will help her in fulfilling those goals. These mentors may be traditional teachers who work for a university, or may be employees of an organization, senior practitioners who choose to help on the Internet, or people who are now retired.

With the help of mentors the student defines learning goals, and identifies resources. These resources could be traditional classes, books, or digital material (videos, text, audio...).

With these materials and a micro mentor network, the student learns. If they have doubts, they have a variety of resources to turn to. Their immediate teachers, mentors, a local study group, or just helpful people on the Internet who enjoy mentoring (maybe we can call them micro-mentors). There are several tools, both real world as well as digital to enable this.

As the student learns, they leave a digital learning trail. One possible way is using blogs, audio recordings, wikis, contributions on forums, and other digital artifacts. So students blog their assignments and problem sets. Maybe some students will be able to do practical work which is similar in nature to the assignments and problem sets.

Senior practitioners, traditional teachers, mentors from the community, help the student understand holes in their knowledge (their strengths and weaknesses). The student subsequently fills in the holes by seeking help from their mentor network, self-study, thus working towards a better understanding. Community members endorse a students' understanding of their topic of study. Maybe tests still have a place... I don't know for sure.

When a student knows enough, they can enter the workforce. Proof of their knowledge already exists on the Internet. Some organizations may accept them purely based on their digital portfolio, while others may expect them to take some tests. Students can prepare for these tests, if they want to get employed in that organization.

Students however, do not stop their education after getting employed. The process outlined above continues, but perhaps at a slower pace.

This to me is the ideal educational scenario. But it will not be without problems.

There will always be the issue of credibility of an online portfolio, and endorsements from random mentors. There will be issues with self-discipline. College gives a certain structure. Doing it by oneself needs a lot of will-power and discipline. One can easily while away time, thinking they are learning something.

But I think this scenario is workable. I like it because it can allow students to learn at their own pace, from many mentors, thus gaining knowledge and wisdom from many sources. But most importantly, it allows students to take control of their education, and seek out the best albeit disparate sources from different places (even very long distance - physically)

Here's my own humble effort towards contributing towards this goal - http://www.adaptivelearningonline.net

--
Regards
Parag Shah

Title: 1) University 2.0 – iPod-Feeling @ Universtiy

Question: How does your dream for the University 2.0 look like?

Short Description: The increasing sophistication and diffusion of "Web 2.0 (The Participatory and Mobile Web)" offer opportunities for innovative business and management practices not only for enterprises, but also for universities. How could the University St. Gallen (HSG) innovate in its learning & teaching principles and practices, as well as in its management? The term "2.0" implies that living with the Web (including mobile) is cool, fun, easy, and integrated into daily student life: So what would your Dream-University-2.0 look like to make you feel about it, about studying there, like the fan-community of Apple feels about iPhones and about the company overall? Terms associated with "Web 2.0" are principles such as Openness, Collective Intelligence, Perpetual Beta, and applications such as Podcasting (e.g. the so-called dual mode program of the University of Darmstadt, in which whole lectures are available as Podcasts (for iPod) and can be subscribed via RSS feed), Blogging and Microblogging (e.g. Twitter), Wiki-Way-Collaboration, Social Networking, Using Newsreaders, Social Bookmarking, etc.). Please, think of all aspects of your student life. And for your ideally very concrete ideas consider the learners’ as well as the teachers’ perspective.

Personally I think the proposal you've written is based on two ideas:

1. How to use recent developments in technology to improve current Universities and the way they teach
2. How to get Students to be more involved and engaged with the implied question if Web 2.0 style tools could facilitate this.

The Internet and in extension Web 2.0 tools definitely offer new opportunities in education, especially in distance learning. MIT with its Open Courseware initiative and StartUps such as Academic Earth definitely make use of this and also the University St. Gallen has started doing so. The Assessment lectures that get recorded could be made available online easily but as far as I know Professors opposed the idea of making the lectures public (for various reasons, none known to me).

What I don't think is that just the use of tools can shift people's mindset. This would have to be encompassed by a larger campaign to improve the image and increase student involvement and engagement.

The question I'm currently asking myself is, if those to things can be asked at the same time or if they first have to be dealt with individually before one tries to integrate the efforts.