Scaling the Seminar
Michael Feldstein,
eLiterate,
Nov 02, 2020
Michael Feldstein argues that "scaling the seminar is essential for equity if we want to avoid a two-track system of education—one at expensive universities and another for the rest of us." He also argues that "one major reason we haven't arrived at this solution before now is that EdTech is stuck in something of a cul-de-sac... pursuing the solutions that have helped improve student self-study by providing machine-generated feedback on formative assessments." True, too true. Anyhow, I'm not sure I'd agree with him that the seminar is "the gold standard" but I'd agree that it's valuable (otherwise, we'd never have invented pubs and coffeehouses). But how to scale it? Feldstein writes, "I think it's possible to scale the seminar and active learning across most disciplines. I think we should put more energy into improving the quality of peer feedback." But what's the difference between this and small groups? Maybe we'll find out as Feldstein adds more to his discussion.
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