"Hands on learning is a necessary part of college, but here's what it doesn't teach students," by Jeff Selingo / @jselingo, in the Washington Post

"For students, college is a series of disconnected experiences: the classroom, the dorm, the athletic field, the internship. Yet what employers tell me gets college students hired is the ability to translate what they learned in one place (the classroom, for instance) to another that is far different from where they originally learned a concept (a project on an internship)."

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

One of my favorite books on teaching is You Have Not Taught Until They Have Learned by basketball legend John Wooden.

In Wooden's field, the coach can immediately determine whether the "student" has "learned." But for those of us who teach in classrooms and not on basketball courts, Wooden's title requires a second half: And They Have Not Learned Until They Can Transfer Their Learning to New Kinds of Problems.

How does your school design opportunities for students to transfer their learning to new situations? (See Question of the Week below.)

***

"What campus-based studies are showing about test-optional policies," in Inside Higher Ed

"The study -- based on data from 28 colleges and universities -- found that institutions going test optional tended to see increases in applications, a more diverse pool of applicants and greater diversity in enrolled students. And perhaps most important, the study found that those who do not submit test scores graduate at the same or higher rates than do other students."

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

I suspect that in the future we will look back on standardized testing as something like massive traffic that caused useless frustration and hundreds of millions of hours of lost productivity.

In that same future, we will have far superior methods for assessing learning and sharing it with the world. Cue Mastery Transcript Consortium.

***

"Would You Bypass College for Real World Learning?" on Knowledge @ Wharton High School

"Notwithstanding tales of successful college dropouts, it still takes some courage to take the leap. 'Leaving behind the safety of the classroom and choosing to build a business instead isn’t easy or glamorous,' says Allyson Dias, director of the Thiel Fellowship in a press release. 'But our Fellows have found what we suspect to be true more broadly: young people learn best by doing things in the real world.'"

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

The Basecamp team believes that the purpose of any education is to form a learner's mind, heart, and soul so that she can contribute to the common good. We don't anticipate large numbers of students opting out of college, but increasing opportunities speak to the value of learning-by-doing. In the future, colleges that thrive will (as Selingo points out in the first article) design opportunities for students to toggle among hands-on learning, transfer of knowledge, and personal and team formation.

***

Question of the week: 

***

Thank you for reading this post from Basecamp's blog, Ed:Future. Do you know someone who would find the Ed:Future blog worthwhile reading? Please let them know that they can subscribe here.