This colorized woodcut from the 14th century shows the model of instruction on which the first universities were founded 500 years ago. Without a printing press to duplicate textbooks, a reader recited text to students who were are expected to copy the speech into their own version of the book. Nevertheless, some students in the back are shown falling asleep. Despite the invention of the printing press, the computer, the internet, virtual reality, and every other information communication technology known to humankind, this model of instruction still persists (except in my class, where no one ever falls asleep).
In The Secret of University Success, I wrote that universities (including my employer, Arizona State University) market prestige. Because universities are in the knowledge business, and it is so darn expensive to assess the quality of knowledge, the principal…
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