In order to restore a real University of Minerva, Duozhi.com interviewed Ms. Robin Goldberg, CEO of Minerva University who is in charge of student experience.
How does Minerva University, which wants to subvert the traditional university education, do it?
Minerva School, a four-year undergraduate program, began with Minerva Project. Its full name is KGI Minerva Schools at new York, which was founded by Minerva Project Company of California and Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) in 20 12, and was awarded the evaluation committee (WASC) by Keck Graduate School in 20 14.
The designers of this university include LawrenceSummers, former president of Harvard University and US Treasury Secretary, Bob Kerry, former vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and governor of Nebraska, Stephen kosslyn, dean of the Academy of Social Sciences of Harvard University and director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences of Stanford University, and other internationally renowned scholars and educators.
This group of people come together to do one thing, which is to subvert traditional education and change people's impression of universities. So, what subversive measures does Minerva University have?
One is to make universities light and simple.
Traditional universities need to invest a lot of money to build campuses, such as teaching buildings, libraries, laboratories, gymnasiums and other facilities. The practice of Minerva University is to eliminate the concept of campus. In addition to student apartments, other hardware facilities are shared with universities, research institutes and enterprises all over the world.
The second is to change passive teaching into active teaching.
Different from the traditional teaching methods of lectures and exams, all the courses in Minerva University adopt the active learning method. In the small seminar class composed of students from 15 to 19, the professor's speech time does not exceed four minutes. Stephen, one of the founders of brain science? Kosslyn said that Minerva University is the first university in the world to systematically apply "learning science".
Third, the teaching content has changed from knowledge to thinking. Through 100 kinds of thinking methods, the curriculum of various disciplines has been re-integrated, which not only realizes real interdisciplinary, but also subverts the traditional general education model of liberal arts education. Its curriculum design team is composed of several academicians, and the refined thinking method has a distinct era and a high methodological basis, which provides a solid evaluation guide for competency-based teaching. Students' test scores are the standard to measure their mastery of thinking methods.
Fourth, take the city as the campus and make full use of urban resources. Students in traditional universities spend most of their time at school, and universities only provide a small amount of exchanges and enterprise internships. Minerva University not only eliminated the concept of campus, but also eliminated the concept of classroom. With the help of ALF (Active Learning Form), an active learning platform developed by Minerva University, students can conduct long-distance face-to-face teaching in dormitories, cafes and other environments with stable networks all over the world.
Fifth, it is the online multi-player live broadcast platform technology, which is one of the important reasons why Minerva University is favored by capital.
With this platform, all offline teaching interactions can be completed online, including group discussion, debate, voting and simulation of various scenarios, such as business negotiations, traffic conditions and natural environment. Interaction between teachers and students, students and students, such as eye contact, facial expressions and language communication, will be recorded on the platform. Teachers can get feedback from students through course records, and students can also review their own lessons.
In addition, Minerva University has set up a Chief Experience Officer in charge of global experience to support its global immersion learning, and its learning locations are distributed in many cities around the world, including Hyderabad, Buenos Aires, China, Taipei, Seoul, Berlin and London. In addition to studying in San Francisco in the first academic year, students will choose a city to study in startups, research institutes and other institutions in the remaining three academic years.
There are more than 23,000 applicants this year, and the admission rate is only 1.2%.
Since Minerva University officially established enrollment, it has received many positive comments in American higher education. Betsy Devos, the new US Secretary of Education, even called for more Minerva universities in the United States. However, in China, Minerva University has caused some doubts because it is too unconventional. The main problem comes from teaching, and some voices question the teachers of Minerva University, thinking that most of their professors are part-time.
In response, Goldberg responded one by one.
On the issue of teachers, it is reported that the University of Minerva has 450 students (including 50 students from China) in the 2017/2018 academic year, and the number of students in the next academic year (starting in September this year) will be 600, and the first batch of graduates will be welcomed soon.
Matching the number of students, Minerva University has 60 professors, 90% of whom are full-time professors, and most of them are from famous American universities. All professors take part in small classes, with no more than 19 students in each class, so the relationship between students and professors is very close.
In addition, the University of Minerva has also carried out some master's programs. In the summer of 20 17, the University of Minerva welcomed 10 first master graduates.
Goldberg provided a set of data for the teaching quality of Minerva University. At present, all 400 universities in the United States use CLA+, a third-party evaluation agency, to evaluate students' four abilities (critical thinking ability, creative problem-solving ability, logical thinking ability and writing and expression ability). In Minerva, students will take the second assessment ten months after the first one. According to the data provided by CLA+, Minerva students' ten-month assessment scores are 265,438+0% higher than those of other universities.
One of the reasons why Minerva University can achieve good teaching results while adopting such subversive teaching methods is that it is extremely strict in the selection of students. Goldberg said that the University of Minerva * * received 23,000 application letters this year, and the admission rate was only 1.2%, which was lower than that of famous American universities such as Harvard and MIT. In addition, the enrollment of Minerva University has no background consideration and no national quota.
In order to attract outstanding students from all over the world, the tuition fee of Minerva University is only $65,438+02,950 per academic year, including the cost of studying all over the world. In addition, it also provides three ways to support students with relatively weak economic conditions: through internship programs, scholarship programs and small loans to get wages.
Mao Zitong, who has completed Minerva's junior course, said that most of Minerva's students have been practicing since their freshman summer vacation. Although the internships are all found by ourselves, the school will provide corresponding help as long as necessary.
Why is Minerva University favored by investment institutions?
As a non-profit university, tuition is not the main source of funds for Minerva University. As an entrepreneurial project, Minerva University has received two rounds of financing totaling $95 million.
Fundamentally speaking, online education is the future trend. Minerva University's practice helps investment institutions to find and solve three problems in online education: Can it improve learning efficiency? Can you stimulate your interest in learning? Can technology help enterprises reduce operating costs?
The first thing that can be answered is undoubtedly technology. Although Minerva University's online ALF platform only serves its own students at present, after several years of evolution, its stability and functionality have been greatly improved compared with that at the beginning of school, and the application prospect of this technology will be very broad in the future.
Secondly, investing in Minerva, a subversive model, is also the possibility of investing in a future higher education.
Goldberg said that Minerva University is still exporting its ideas and teaching models. In addition to publishing a book to explain its own ideas, Minerva University is also cooperating with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to transplant Minerva's curriculum and teaching system to the freshman course of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. At the same time, Minerva teachers train and teach the teachers of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the teaching target is the students selected by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
For China's education industry, Minerva University is the initial education model to solve the shortcomings of American universities, and it remains to be seen whether it can take root in China.
At present, Minerva University has no graduates, so its alumni resource accumulation and complete transcripts are obviously insufficient compared with traditional prestigious schools. Minerva's biggest challenge at present is to actively and effectively promote the brand.
The best carrier of educational brand is alumni. Therefore, the model value and degree gold content of Minerva University must depend on the excellent degree of alumni and the employment ability and direction of graduates. When the graduation destination of the first batch of graduates is determined, the direction of Minerva model may be clearer. (Duozhiwang Cao Eryin)