Virtual simulations, labs and tutorials allow for continuous feedback that helps the student along. The student’s progress is tracked step by step, and that information is then used to make improvements to the course. Several studies have shown that students learn a full semester’s worth of material in half the time when the online coursework is added. More students stick with the class, too. “We now have the technology that enables us to go back to what we all know is the best educational experience: personalized, interactive engagement,” Dr. Smith says.

From elsewhere in the article:

P2PU’s mission isn’t to develop a model and stick with it. It is to “experiment and iterate,” says Ms. Paharia, the former executive director of Creative Commons. She likes to talk about signals, a concept borrowed from economics. “Having a degree is a signal,” she says. “It’s a signal to employers that you’ve passed a certain bar.” Here’s the radical part: Ms. Paharia doesn’t think degrees are necessary. P2PU is working to come up with alternative signals that indicate to potential employers that an individual is a good thinker and has the skills he or she claims to have — maybe a written report or an online portfolio.

Er, like prices that reflect peer ratings of work samples, and rankings in prediction markets?

153 million students are now enrolled at universities around the world, a 53 percent jump in just nine years. With many nations unable to keep up with this growing demand, students have strong incentives to seek higher education wherever they can find it.

Their confident faces smile out from billboards across the city. Their promotional grins are plastered across double-decker buses, subway light boxes, even on TV.

These are Hong Kong’s “star tutors,” accorded near-celebrity status for their ability to make learning fun and help students pass exams in everything from English to chemistry.

Tutoring is common in Asia, where intense emphasis on grades and exams means parents are willing to shell out. More than half of Hong Kong’s youths get assistance outside school, a recent survey found.

The industry here is especially competitive and commercialized as tutors mimic the city’s showbiz industry to attract students and grab a share of the $460 million market.

“Those images of fame and stardom have been sustained and re-invented in different forms, resulting in tutors now packaging themselves as the superstars of the education sector in order to appeal to students,” says Gerald Postliglione, a professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Star tutors spare no costs on publicity. Even tutors who belong to one of the four major chains here must self-promote. But successful tutors can command hundreds of students.

Those at the very top see their lives splashed across the pages of the city’s gossip magazines, revealing how many luxury cars they drive or properties they own. Some reports put their salaries as high as $1.5 million a year. One English tutor, Richard Eng, is famous for his love of Ferraris.

An excerpt:

The model of 21st century learning described in this plan…leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size-fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices.

It’s not complicated…

An excerpt:

To keep today’s students engaged in learning, teachers recognize that it is essential for instruction to be tailored to individual students’ skills and interests. More than 90% of teachers say that differentiated assignments are absolutely essential for improving student achievement and engaging students in learning.

In Fall 2007, the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) adopted a new curriculum…The curriculum was the school’s most far-reaching change in thirty years , emphasizing customization…

See you there!

From the February 17, 2010 edition of the New York Times:

Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.

…The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.

The program is being organized by the National Center on Education and the Economy, and its goals include insuring that students have mastered a set of basic requirements and reducing the numbers of high school graduates who need remedial courses when they enroll in college. More than a million college freshmen across America must take remedial courses each year, and many drop out before getting a degree.

…Kentucky’s commissioner of education, Terry Holliday, said high school graduation requirements there had long been based on having students accumulate enough course credits to graduate.

“This would reform that,” Dr. Holliday said. “We’ve been tied to seat time for 100 years. This would allow an approach based on subject mastery — a system based around move-on-when-ready.”

[British PM Gordon] Brown also said he wanted to build up Britain’s universities. “There are 1,000 universities being built in India and we want to be part of this educational export. I think that education will be perhaps our biggest export in 20 years’ time,” he told the Financial Times.

My submission (with supporting info): Advocate for ‘jobs stimulus’ that subsidizes consumers and producers of customized education, and operators of associated online markets.

Predictable?

You can comment and/or vote at the site.

A fantastic post about disrupting education.

Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi “calls out” a comment I left on his blog. The comment excerpts from this blog entry of mine.

From After the Frat, a blog:

A brilliant idea by Frank Ruscica about how to finally get out of this economic quagmire.

A fusion of the internet and higher education, arguably America’s two greatest assets, to create affordable, customized, and high quality education for everybody. This would accelerate the growth of a young and extremely profitable industry while teaching the skills required to aggressively compete in the data driven global economy.

WOW.

Check it out, http://www.opportunitv.com/

This was not a public service announcement. I am not getting paid for this. I actually think its a great idea.

Whew!

Earlier reviews can be seen in footnote [1] of the Introduction page.

21st-century schools should integrate new technologies for learning and create personalized structures for supporting students.

…Also key is the creation of networks that allow teachers, leaders, schools and districts to learn from one another.

…Although it would be romantic to assume that massive change can come exclusively from school-to-school networking, the power of learning systems has proven to be stronger than the power of mandates to transform schools.

In no small part, the markets described on this site are designed to expedite the build-out of such networks. For details, see the Jobs Quickly page.