[FRIAM] My plan to disrupt education

Fri Oct 29 17:33:30 EDT 2021

Dave, Sounds like a wonderful program. Is it continuing? If not, why not?
If so, how has the structure changed so that it sustains itself as an
ongoing effort?

-- Russ Abbott
Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 12:40 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm>
wrote:

> Pieter,
>
> Your plans are admirable and exciting.I wish you the best in this
> endeavor. If you would have any interest, I would be happy to share my
> experience in New Mexico developing and delivering an industry award
> winning program — the Software Development Apprenticeship.
>
> We totally blew up the academy. The program had no courses — instead we
> defined "competencies" that had to be demonstrated — acknowledged by peers,
> professors, and industry professionals — at five different levels:
> basically following directions or rote learning; applying knowledge solo;
> applying in different context; mentoring others / sharing knowledge; and
> making an 'original' contribution or extension to the knowledge. Everyone
> had to master all the "competencies" to level 3, but would vary widely by
> individual interest in which ones were achieved at higher levels.
>
> We had a "one room schoolhouse" where students worked in teams on
> real-world development projects alongside industry professionals, graduate
> students to freshmen mixed on each team.
>
> If we had packaged the knowledge delivered in the program into traditional
> semester credit courses it would have been the equivalent of two
> undergraduate and three graduate degrees. Subjects far transcended
> programming and other computer science topics to include business (of
> course since business constituted the vast majority of our projects), hard
> and soft sciences, writing, presentation, inter-personal and "soft" skills,
> philosophy and history (Computer Scientists and Software Engineers are
> abysmally ignorant of their own history and the thought foundations of
> their discipline), art (including computer graphics of course, but much
> more), and math (but probability and statistics and geometry instead of
> calculus).
>
> Students learned 'on-demand'. The project to which they were assigned
> would require some specific knowledge and they would "demand" that
> learning. Actually, every six weeks, students would complete a learning
> plan and the faculty had to combine them into a set of modules for lecture
> and presentation in the ensuing 6-week interval. All teaching took place in
> the same open lab/classroom, so everyone either directly or by "osmosis"
> picked up on what was being taught.
>
> The program was immensely successful. Our student body came from the
> poorest county in the poorest state (sometimes Louisiana would take first
> place) and were woefully unprepared for college. But they succeeded: one
> exemplar student entered the program lacking even rudimentary user skills
> like "cut and paste," but was a team leader and J2EE mentor at the start of
> his second semester. (He was also the only one who figured out why the Hero
> — movie of same name — did not kill the warlord unifying China in a
> wonderfully written essay.)
>
> Our student body was 70% minority (mostly because of where we were and the
> mission of the University) and 51-54 percent female.
>
> Half of the students in the first year of the program had papers (not
> student presentations but full papers) accepted to OOPSLA and Agile  both
> conferences had a 90+ percent rejection rate). Every student was place in
> jobs, often before graduation and often with the companies who gave us
> apprenticeship projects.
>
> The preceding is just bragging, but I am very proud of what we did.
>
> We had two faculty, myself and Pam Rostal and both of us worked 70-90 hour
> weeks which would not be sustainable long term. We did attract a lot of
> attention and industry "superstars" would drop by to mentor in their
> particular area for 2-3 weeks at a time.
>
> If you have interest in any details, please ask off-list and I will be
> happy to respond.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2021, at 12:25 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>
> The public education system in South Africa is largely broken. For those
> who can afford it, we have very good schools, but the majority cannot and
> the education options for them are bleak.
>
> I plan to do something about it.
>
> This is my second attempt. About three years ago I started a school as a
> proof of concept with a radical model to have very high quality yet very
> low cost education and it failed miserably. (I managed to make plans for
> the kids and I don't believe any suffered from the experience - I pulled
> the plug before too much harm was done). I've thought, and discussed it a
> lot, and I'm ready to roll out my second, very different attempt.
>
> The basis of this is that there are plenty of resources available for
> free, and provided you manage the environment properly, kids can and will
> teach themselves.
>
> My plan is a model with two legs, both legs offering very high quality
> education, but the first leg is relatively expensive and has "bells and
> whistles" to attract the wealthy and the second is bare bones to make it
> affordable for those kids whose parents can't pay.
>
> The profit from first leg schools then cross-subsidise the costs of the
> second leg schools.
>
> The concept for both legs are copied from https://www.khanlabschool.org/
> , adapted for local conditions of course. The second leg schools will just
> be a low cost version, but the education offered will still be world class.
>
> Our academic year starts in January. I'm working flat out to have my first
> school of the first leg open in January 2022. Then to have the first school
> of the second leg open in January 2023. Then to learn from the experience,
> adapt and roll it out so that every child in South Africa has access to
> world class education in five years time.
>
> Pieter
>
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