LSBR Blog
Cultural Change in Learning
According to Richard Keeling and Richard Hersh, there is a need for a paradigm shift in priorities across higher education. Academic quality and intensity of study get too little attention in comparison to rankings and student promotion. Cultural Change in Learning Higher education in America is in jeopardy, a lot of college graduates are unable to think critically and creatively, speak and write reasonably and convincingly, understand complex issues, accept responsibility and accountability, listen to other ideas or meet expected targets of employers. This is so wrong. How did the American Higher education system become this way when the rest of the world looks up to her as the best? The only explanation for this academic degradation is the lack of a serious culture of teaching and learning. The inability of students to learn is perceived as the result of a poorly delivered education. Every institution that is worth its quality should be able to deliver a sound education in character and learning. Resolving the learning crises would, therefore, require thorough and fundamental changes in our colleges and universities. There must be wholesome and real changes that go beyond simplistic answers like merely reducing cost or improving efficiency to improve quality and value. What is needed is non-incremental change; to make higher learning a reality, we as a nation must undertake a comprehensive review of the entire undergraduate higher education and introduce reforms in universities and colleges. In our society, and higher education a learning culture is of utmost importance our K-12 schooling has been reduced to a basic skill acquisition program that effectively leaves most students unprepared for college-level learning, bachelor degree have been reduced to a mere avenue of getting a job (though today that avenue does not get you to any reasonable position). The academy has adopted an increasingly consumer-based ethic that has produced a costly and dangerous effect: the expectation and standards of a rigorous education have been displaced by tiny disguised professional or job training curriculum. Teaching and learning have been devalued, de-prioritised, and replaced by an emphasis on magazine rankings; an increased admission and enrolments, bigger and better facilities, more revenues from side businesses, and the hunt for research grants have all replaced learning as a primary standard for decision making. Teaching is rapidly losing its prestige, seemingly contracted professors have little or no motivation to spend time with undergraduate and impact knowledge, let alone evaluate the progress of their students. The focus is more on retaining students to maintain budgets with little or no attention being given to hard work on the students’ part as well. On the contrary, students are rewarded with grades for minimal effort to keep the institutions populated. This neither
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