Interview With Sal Khan

Jeffery R. Young interviews Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy . Khan has recommendations for remaking students' academic experience. This is his vision:

But a lot of their time, their days are not spent in these 300-person lecture halls taking notes, trying to take exams on things that will have very little relevance to what they will eventually do or, even if it does, they’ll forget.
Instead they should be out in the field doing things — and that doing things, it could be interning at a Google or a Khan Academy.
It could be doing research at a local, it could be at another university or at a pharma company.
It could be working with a tech incubator or a business incubator and trying to start or innovate something new.
It could be getting mentored by a great writer, kind of in an apprentice system and you’re trying to learn how to write similar types of novels.

-DD

A Curated Skill Set May Replace Traditional Degrees

Matt Pittinsky and Mike Buttry suggest that universities may begin offering short academic programs that meet the needs of adult students who need certifications in a special area. The vision of Pattinsky and Buttry is that the cost of a traditional bachelor's degree is excessive when a working degree only needs a specialized skillset to update their vocational knowledge. They feel that students will work with universities to curate their own programs of study which target their vocation.

My own opinion is that the bachelor's degree will continue to offer a cachet to any student, and that the type of rapidly acheived vocationally-targeted recognition which Pittinsky and Buttry are proposing is already offered by vocational schools and community colleges.

-DD