‘It is certainly important to educate people to make better decisions’ Kenn Ross
This July one of the most considerable educational programmes Island 10–22 was held in Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow. It was aimed at university chancellors, academic staff and people involved or interested in the evolution of the education system in Russia. It was organized by University 20.35, the first university in Russia providing opportunities for professional development by creating individual educational trajectories and tracking digital skill profiles. Kenn Ross, Managing Director of Asia at Minerva and one of Island 10–22 lecturers discusses the trends in higher education, compares models of Minerva and University 20.35 and gives advice to traditional universities.
Kenn, do you like Island 10–22?
It’s wonderful. Unfortunately I’ve only been here for part of the time. I know it has been going on for almost 2 weeks. I am personally happy to see the participants of the sessions that I’ve done are engaged. It has been a long and busy week for all of them but their energy level is great and I appreciate it.
You had a visionary lecture and workshops here. What did you discuss with the participants?
In the workshops what we were trying to do was to have people better understand one key academic element that we have at Minerva. We basically focused on one particular aspect, which was how we approach training students in these transferable skills, habits of mind as we call them. We put it in the context of why it is important, namely so that students would be able to apply these habits to make more effective decisions, particularly decisions that influence a lot of people. We call it decisions of consequence. In that context we chose basically one of the 80 habits of mind (or cognitive skills) which can be applied to many contexts. We chose one — the concept of weighing decisions and how to use tools to make better decisions. We also discussed how our brain works; we talked about these elements and the reasons why our brain is sometimes biologically not very conducive to making logical decisions, how emotions play into decisions. And again why it is certainly important to educate people to make better decisions and therefore why universities really need to consider how they are educating and what they teach in this context and using Minerva as a model hoping to inspire them in this respect.
What feedback did you get from the students?
I didn’t get any official form of feedback from them, but after each session there were a lot of people who approached me and seemed very interested in interacting.
What did they ask you?
The most common question was about the Minerva model and its aspects. People like to dig deeper: they asked about the programme and how we select students, how our pedagogy effectively ensures that all of these habits of mind can be practiced across disciplines. Participants of Island were quite curious about these questions.
What are the basic principles of the Minerva model? If we compare Minerva with University 20.35, what are the differences and similarities?
There are some similarities, but there are also some differences. The first thing is that both universities try to rethink how people learn, what they learn in a modern context and so on. It is great to see that University 20.35, like our university and like some others, teaches many things that are more relevant. So we have lots of commonalities in terms of philosophy and ideas about what we are actually trying to do.
There are ways in which University 20.35 and Minerva also leverage technology to create more personalized learning experiences for students. We create more intimate learning environment for classes. Our students also travel around the world.
On the surface, in some ways Minerva is similar to traditional universities. Students study for 4 years and get traditional, accredited degree.
We exist not only for our own students, but we also help other institutions (universities) reform. In order to do so they have to be able to take what we have and fit it into their education systems.
Though Minerva and University 20.35 do different things we seem to be together on the same path as we offer students and learners something that is more effective, relevant and modern.
What trends in modern higher education do you treat as the most important? How should universities develop?
There are so many things that are happening in universities and in academics, and experts like discussing what might actually happen. I will talk about things I know personally. Minerva helps traditional universities to change themselves, to change what is not ideal about their education systems by inventing something new or by using the curriculum and pedagogy we have created in their schools. Last year Minerva began working with other universities that now have adopted parts of the Minerva system: curriculum, pedagogic practices and so on. It is challenging for traditional universities to do so due to their rigid bureaucracy, but we are trying to make it as easy as possible for them. We see this trend and believe it will continue.
What is probably going to take a little longer is the creation of new universities, new schools; it’s very hard and takes a lot of time for people to establish new institutions. And again the reason why we are here is to help progressive educational reformers who say they want to start a new school, college, university or higher education organization. And many of them do find their way to us because they understand they could do it very quickly and cheaply if they work with Minerva as we have an entire system including curriculum, pedagogical practices, and more. In practical terms it would mean that you can start another university with a strong academic structure and system that is now proving to be more effective than traditional universities. And you can do it for US$100,000. That is insane how low the barrier of entry is. You could do so much with so little nowadays, so much better education quality for so much less cost. As more and more people realize it this would be another trend.
And if we talk about modern technologies what role artificial intelligence (AI) and big data will play in higher education?
We use big data not only to personalize learning experiences but also to analyze individuals and groups, courses and professors’ performance. AI can assist with classroom interaction and analyze students’ responses and reactions. Humans are very good at doing that, but depending on the environment there may be not enough human resources for that. There is a lot of interesting potential there.
What advice could you give to the participants of Island 10–22? How should they change their universities development strategies?
First of all I would say that I understand that all those who work in traditional universities have very challenging jobs, even more challenging than several decades ago.We believe that the most important stakeholder in higher education is the student, and there may be some other stakeholders including the market and employers. And these last few stakeholders are quite dissatisfied with how traditional universities are educating people. University as it exists in most places is not effectively preparing people for the modern era. So I think universities have to recognize that reform is not only necessary but also possible without too much pain. Universities such as Minerva, or University 20.35 can help them with it. So we can work together for the improvement of education for everybody.
