Modularity, BMWs, & MOOCs

Recognize this? It cost me $1,000.

bmwWhen my car was detailed, this part of the steering column was damaged. It doesn’t come any smaller. You can’t buy these individually.

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BMW has decreed that you have to buy all these parts, even when some of them are perfectly okay. (My car’s issue was with the collar thing-a-ma-bob in the center.)

Dumb design, eh? It’s just like college. There are separable pieces:

  1. initial assessment, interview, and admissions
  2. lectures, classes, and curriculum
  3. small seminars
  4. faculty office hours and advice
  5. grades and post-assessment
  6. credentialing and degrees
  7. registrar and official records

In my case, I had to buy all these things from a single supplier, my Alma Mater.

MOOCs raise interesting issues. Why can’t people buy what they need from whatever source works for them?

To use David Weinberger’s term, are these anything more than small pieces, loosely joined?

For #1, I applied to and was accepted by several colleges; it happens all the time.

For #2, I studied independently to beef up what I learned in lecture halls. I could watch just as good quality recordings on the net.

For #3, bull sessions taught me more than seminars anyway. Conversation with beer is always more productive than conversation without.

For #4, a friend of mine attending BU got great insights by interviewing Harvard profs who assumed he was one of them. I’ve had great success getting in touch with four out of five world-class experts I’ve approached online.

For #5, experiential assessment is on the way; at least one school is issuing credits to MOOCers who can prove their competency.

For #6, some schools have been granting academic credit for experiential learning for 40 years.

For #7, personal learning portfolios may fill the gap. Look at my badge collection.

Boy Scouts

Pipe dream? Consider this: a fellow of my acquaintance sold sales courses to the most skeptical people in the world: stock brokers. Brokers are paid commission only. Rip them away from the phone to take part in a workshop, they lose money. And they tell you how they feel about that. Jerk!

Brokers begged to take my friend’s offering because it demonstrably worked. Take the program, sell as lot more. They abandoned their phones for the morning.

The secret was to teach the brokers a simple discipline in the workshop and follow up with personalized calls to each broker for the next few months.

Unbeknownst to the workshop graduate, the person who called was not a sales expert. She was a Berkeley student working from a script. “How are you doing against your plan? How many calls? How often this or that?” Intersperse this with some Carl Rogers therapy. “Tell me more. How did that make you feel? Are you proud of the results you are achieving? What are you going to do better next time?”

People hear what they intend to hear. Placebos work. “Your coach/advisor will help you boost your numbers 40%. She’s done is twenty times before for people just like you.”

“Hi, this is your personal T.A., Warren Gates with a little cordial advice for you.”

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