WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Michael Wesch): .... Hey, hello everybody! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Welcome to the first connected course's live session. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm here with Randy Bass and Cathy Davidson 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we're going to talk about "The end of higher education", 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 both in that sort of gloomy sense of what's happening right now 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and, you know, are things -- are we really coming to an end, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are we at a turning point? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But also about the "end" of higher education as in the "purpose" of higher education: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what should it be? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if this is a moment of reinvention 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe this is a chance to redefine who we are and what we're doing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, we have Randy Bass and Cathy Davidson, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 two outstanding scholars and great thinkers in this area. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Randy is Vice-provost for Education and Professor of English at Georgetown University. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was also the founding director of Georgetown's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or "CNDLS". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Really a wonderful organization, and I had the pleasure visiting there once 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and had a wonderful time: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this is a great space of innovation in education and pedagogy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He has written many wonderful things; I'll just point to one that might be relevant to this: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in -- I think it was just maybe a couple of years ago -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Disrupting ourselves - the problem of learning in higher education." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's a great article that I think provides some good background 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for some of the things we'll be talking about today. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then also, we have Cathy Davidson here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cathy recently moved to the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She is now Distinguished Professor and Director of the Futures Initiative there, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is a program designed to train the next generation of college professors 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I saw once how many people you might be affecting. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's tremendous, and I think we're all excited to have somebody like you in that position, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 affecting so many people and possibly, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 having a tremendous influence on the future of higher education through that role. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cathy has authored a number of great books. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Recently she wrote "Now you see it" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which also offers some great reflection on her own life 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and how she's learned over the years and, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's some great stories in there, I don't want to spoil it for you guys, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but you should all read it right from the beginning so you can 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get a sense of how somebody can take their own life experience and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 learn from it and create better learners. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I'll leave it at that and we'll go ahead and get started. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The way we're gonna start out is, actually, I've asked them all -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 each to reflect on the best class they ever taught, so we're gonna start there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, uh, Randy do you want to start us off with the best class you ever taught? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Randy): Well, sure and this is, of course, in my own mind 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not necessarily in the opinion of the students, but 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thank you, Michael for inviting me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's great to be here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Um, I would say one of the most rewarding classes I ever taught was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a course that I co-taught with an architect, Ann Pendleton-Julian, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it was called "The future of the university as a design problem", 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so pertinent to our topic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But we taught it as what we called 'the humanities studio' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it was a blend of the kind of inquiry that you would do in a seminar 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but rigorously taught like an architecture studio. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we had what architects would call table crits or desk crits and wall crits 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where students would pin up their work and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 formal presentations of their work where we flew people in for their mid-term and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had guests at the final. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And after doing precedent work and reading theory and background 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 students spent most of the time working on their designs of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what the university would look like in 2030. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It really could've been any topic, the point was that in groups 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they were working on a design-based concept that they made their own 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it was their own from beginning to end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The rhythm of this, they were mostly working in drawings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They would work for hours and then come in for critiques 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then go away with the 10% of their idea that was still live and throw away 90%. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I taught writing for 25 years as an English professor 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've never taught a class where people-- where the students became so 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fearless of revision 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in a way that just had them -- just -- just driven 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the idea. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was an atmosphere of great student ownership. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They felt like they were working on a problem that mattered to them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they were presenting to an authentic audience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The two of us, as faculty, were really just bumpers or 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 scaffolds for them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and all my career I've really wanted to make the classroom 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a place where people thought of it as a place to come to work, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not a place to come to listen 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's really what the studio is. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a place for you to come to work on your own with your small group 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and with your mentors. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, so that was, I think, the most rewarding class I taught 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and those are some of the salient features. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Michael): Mmhmm. That's great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How about you Cathy? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Cathy): Um, I'm gonna mention one class that then 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 became the basis of a second class 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and these are the last 2 years that I taught at Duke University. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One was a class on 21st century literacies 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we were doing -- it was students from Duke University, North Carolina 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and NC State University. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I had to go away and give a talk at the Digital Media Learning Conference 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we were gonna be -- so my students helped prepare 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they were going to be virtual participants of that conference. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We'd been using lots of collaborative tools throughout the course. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It didn't seem like a problem to be gone. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The virtual panel worked great. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I came back and the students had mutinied. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I, uh, used learning contracts for my classes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We'd created class constitution, they'd thrown everything out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they didn't want to do that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is the fear that many academics have about peer-led, student-lead work. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Except, instead of them trying to get away with something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what they decided was they loved what we were doing so much 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they wanted to write a handbook about it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the rest of the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They rewrote their contracts saying if on final exam time 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they did not deliver a completed book manuscript, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with each of them doing a chapter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they'd already done the 'table of contents' and everything, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they would all fail the course. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, as an academic I would never fail everybody for not working collectively 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but they were willing to put their reputations on the line. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't done it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but here's the book. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We did a physical book, it's also up on Github, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's on Haystack, it's been downloaded 16,000 times 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just from the Haystack website. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know what the numbers are from other sources. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The following year I then taught a MOOC on 'The history and future of higher education' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where we used this as our textbook for 18,000 students. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I had 18 face-to-face students again from Duke, North Carolina 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 State and University of North Carolina, undergraduate, graduate students from 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 computer science to MFA students 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the students were the -- used the MOOC as a chance to think about MOOCs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was kind of what we called it the 'meta-MOOC' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the Chronicle for Higher Education asked us to, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 asked me, actually, to write a column each week on it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I said "Well, that would be hypocritical if I wrote the column" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so each week my students wrote the column and we, again, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 self-published it into a little book up there 'Columns each week' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on what they were learning from co-teaching the MOOC 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and our final project, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 partly inspired by what Randy and Ann had done, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was working closely with Ann during the year, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was, um, project of creating higher ed from scratch. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We had 3 different design teams where we asked probably 200 questions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about what is an education for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then did business plans models, CAD drawings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of 3 very, very different kinds of institutions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Fascinating. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Also, as Randy said, it was a situation where I came in and listened 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 more than -- far, far more than I taught. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was an amazing experience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The downside was with the MOOC students were awake 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 24/7, literally. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The endless cycle and my students were so engaged 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they were saying they weren't sleeping at all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They were up all night typing to people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a group in Otago, New Zealand. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was another group in India, there was another group in Thailand 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there were several groups in Europe and in Latin America 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they were up all night talking about assessment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 New plans for assessment and new ideas for assessment 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and other kinds of topics relevant to 'the history and future of higher education'. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, the upside: engagement, the downside: insomnia. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, but it was an incredible experience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Michael):Yeah, I mean, I, I can relate to that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I guess the favourite class that I pull out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is a very small class, it's 10 students 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and every year we've been kinda pushing the envelope 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of how authentic it gets, I guess. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, it's a methods class and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in this case, anthropology methods 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so I'm just trying -- getting them to do anthropology. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so, my favourite class -- this last year they actually got to move into 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a retirement community and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 live there for the whole semester (Cathy: Wow!) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so it's very, um.. y'know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in many ways we were disconnected from the wider world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in terms of-- like we weren't leveraging internet like we normally do, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it was really special and I think we still, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hit a lot of these things you guys have been talking about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, the sense of ownership, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the fearlessness of revision 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and all of that came, I think, because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we were studying problems that matter. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We had this authentic audience we were working for. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 All these things that you guys mentioned just now 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I could go on and on, these are -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you guys hit on some really great stuff. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cathy, you mentioned the contract 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and not only the contract but also the rewriting of the contract 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that was, obviously, emblematic of this intensive engagement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which, obviously, got -- almost went too far, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Uh, so we have all these different elements and I think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 these classes that we've each described 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in many ways, describe something special happening 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when people come together to learn together, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's something that can't happen just in learning on your own. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that then gets that -- the next question I wanted to approach 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that is, what is this education all about? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What can higher education be for? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you hear a lot of the rhetoric now 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about how education is changing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and these apocalyptic visions of the end of higher education, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 do you guys hear any, kind of, assumptions about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what the purpose of higher education is, in those different visions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and are there visions that concern you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Are there people who seem to be suggesting that education is, kinda, for something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's maybe not as complete as the experiences we just described? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Cathy): Sure, uh. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Should I go ahead, Randy? Or do you wanna go ahead? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Randy): No, go ahead. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Cathy): Well, I have a number of thoughts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One, I actually think that the gloom and doom about higher education being over 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is premature 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and to paraphrase Twain, as we all do, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one thing about MOOCs, Massive Online Open Coursework, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is clearly if we are willing to offer the products of higher education and specialised learning 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for free and in a way people can assess it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 millions of people want it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, for awhile, I would say 5 years ago, that rhetoric was 'higher education is over, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 nobody is interested, it's a bunch of fuddy-duddys doing their own navel-gazing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there's no engagement with the world'. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, guess what? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You put it online for free and millions and millions of people around the world want it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the demographics of MOOCs are the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 same people who are part of the 'Bored at Work' movement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Y'know, 30 years old, you already have a degree, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're not doing this for any other reason but that you really want some kind of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 intellectual, emotional nourishment in the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I think higher education is more validated now than ever. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The cost is a real problem 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the cost is because of 50 years of defunding of public education 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and of research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The part, that to me, is the end of higher education in the negative sense is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people who see higher education as being a gold mine and a profit-mine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's for things that have nothing whatsoever to do with education, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but only have to do with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what I literally mean in the historic sense of profiteering, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is a quasi-legal set of structures that make it possible for somebody to get 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 too much money with too little effort, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with too little competition among other sources 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and for reasons that are different than the mission of education. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that, to me, is the big thing to worry about right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Higher education itself, I think, has never been more vital and never been more needed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At the same time I do believe, and I say this a lot, if we can be replaced by computer screens we should be. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And by that I mean if we're not doing something amazing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in our classroom and taking this very precious thing we have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the opportunity to interact with one another, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whether it's on-screen like this or face-to-face. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If we're not figuring out a better way of doing it then sitting up there like a robot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 yabbering at people who are reading the newspaper in those classrooms that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that abolished laptops as if that's gonna solve the problem, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then we should be replaced by computer screens 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think it's a challenge to us to be as meaningful and urgent 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and relevant and connected to people's lives and connected to one another as we possibly can 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and to make the educational system experience 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 something that truly is life-changing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if it isn't life-changing then sure, go to a degree mill and do whatever you have to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to get your education, but, uh that's my polemic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Michael): Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Randy): Well, I, I completely agree and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what it is that we believe 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is different about higher education from 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 other modes of learning 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is not necessarily what has always been a reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I think that we believe in the values 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it can be life-changing, it can be transformational, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it can be holistic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of course, the reality is that for lots of students who pass through 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very traditional looking universities, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're not actually getting that kind of education. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I think part of what, I hope that the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 apocalyptic wave -- those 2 or 3 years where we all went extinct 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 according to the front pages of the media 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then we all came back to life (Cathy laughing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are when MOOCs went extinct and now we're back and everything's OK. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That is putting pressure on us to ask the questions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about how effective-- are we really doing the things we're claim we're doing? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that we haven't done a particularly good job 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the evidence of what difference it makes to go through this kind of an education- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 versus getting your learning somewhere else. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nor have we always done a very good job across higher education 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for a really diverse, broad, equitable population, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of thinking about the design of the overall education, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and to what extent the entire education is really tending toward this transformation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think a lot of people have enjoyed the luxury that somehow the whole package- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the milieu of the campus, finding that exceptional relationship with the professor, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the opportunity in the co-curricular experience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That ends being transformational. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With a lot of time spent in courses that are not inspirational or transformational. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A lot of other activity that feels like you're just moving through requirements or checking boxes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we're far from having designed this system that's really optimized 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the kind of learning that I think we all believe that the institution can provide. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Michael): I think the people who are here with us today 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are coming up at this in two ways, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One is they are thinking about how to change the structure a little bit, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they are thinking about leveraging Internet and creating informal networks of learning, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so on that could merge with formal networks of learning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So they working on that element. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then I think most people listening in right now are also teachers in the traditional sense. 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