I saw an interesting post on DTube last month called “What Would A Steemit School Look Like?” In the video, @axios talks about how a more traditional school could be built around the Steemit platform. Some of the main points were:
- Put a focus on finding and applying information.
- Keep students engaged in doing/creating things — reward them with upvotes.
- Create an environment where students will seek to share what they learn and interact with each other.
It was a really interesting video so definitely worth checking out!
Steem University
I want to talk about what a Steem university could look like and how I think it could be completely different from our current system.
Part of the reason I'm making this video is because I'd like your feedback. I'm in the process of building a site like the one I'm about to describe and I want to hear what you think about it: What do you like? What don't you like? What’s missing? Let me know in the comments!
A New Model
I imagine a Steem university as a giant collection of courses online, where students can learn anything for free. Teachers can create free courses, but still earn money from them, and students can actually earn money by participating. Here are the three main components:
- A system for creating and posting video and/or text based courses
- A Stack Overflow style question and answer section for each course
- A marketplace where teachers can offer tutoring services to students
Basically, I imagine it could be a digital flipped classroom. If you’re unfamiliar with this type of teaching style, teachers assign homework to watch videos or read articles/books, and then they do what would normally be homework (exercises to test understanding of the material) in the classroom with the teacher and their fellow classmates.
This type of collaborative learning lets students learn with each other and the help of the teacher. Also, because students read and watch the learning materials at home, it gives them the opportunity to pause and rewatch a video lecture, or reread an article if they’re having trouble understanding it the first time. It’s not about creating a strict environment where students have to fight against their every urge not to fall asleep during a lecture. Instead it banks on the fact that humans can’t always pay attention, and that learning collaboratively with peers, or with one on one support from an expert is much more effective.
Free Courses
In a Steem university, the courses would all be available for free. These courses could be organized in a similar way to sites like Udemy or Khan Academy. The main difference is that course creators could earn money from the upvotes of students, and students could earn money by upvoting each other. Students could also earn money by creating study materials or other useful things that would add to the courses, like study guides or videos explaining complicated topics.
This type of platform would be different from sites like Khan Academy because it empowers people at the individual level to create learning materials. It’s not a big nonprofit that is working together to create a set of courses. In this sense you’re getting the best from anyone who’s willing to participate, not just the best of what Khan Academy can create.
Tutoring and Communities
In addition to the learning materials, a Steem university would contain a marketplace where instructors can offer tutoring services to students, and communities where students can work together on the courses.
The money that students earn from participating in the course — answering other students’ questions, creating study guides, etc. — could be put to use in an online marketplace for tutors and mentors. Instructors could list their availability and take on students to tutor via video chat and accept SBD for payment.
It is so expensive to keep professors on staff at a university where they’re also working on their own research. If we’re going to strip down higher education in a way that makes it more affordable and accessible, we need a new and more efficient way for instructors to connect with students.
There could be communities built around each course where students can chat about the material, answer each other’s questions and post the study materials they make. This might look like a forum, or possibly like Stack Overflow where the best answers get voted to the top.
Technology is going to continue evolving at a rapid rate and traditional institutions are too slow and expensive to adapt to these changes. I don’t want traditional universities to disappear — I think they are amazing places where students can come together and better themselves — but I do think there’s room for a different model that’s less expensive and more accessible. We need a system that is more agile and can meet the demands as they’re created.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
I honestly think platforms like Steem offer the opportunity to make this type of thing possible. I’m excited to help make it happen!
What do you think a Steem university could look like? What are the most important components? What parts of a traditional university would be hard to replicate? Let me know in the comments!
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Globuldub - Foreign Exchange: https://soundcloud.com/globuldub/foreign-exchange
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