Can Campuses Change Before Obsolescence?

Trent Batson urges a closer look at portfolios to really change how higher education does business:

Colleges and universities provide the cultural venue for young people to launch into life professionally and personally; they are spa where young people "get in shape" for adulthood. . . . This spa aspect of college means that colleges and universities will probably remain in business for a long time to come. Despite efforts over the past several decades to move from "I tell you, your remember what I tell you, you write down what I tell you," to "Here is a task that I'll help you organize to accomplish," the "I tell you" model remains overwhelmingly dominant. When I visit campuses, I walk up and down the halls of classroom buildings and from classroom to classroom I hear one voice "telling" knowledge. . . . Neither teacher nor student nor those looking at the bottom line really want this delusional process to cease. Teaching in an open education way introduces too many variables and requires more energy. . . . For those faculty members, instructional designers, faculty development folks, program directors, deans, and provosts already inclined toward fundamental change in how teaching and learning transactions occur, the portfolio approach offers a pathway. The spa will make money as it is, but the spa committed and reorganized around "visible knowledge" (CNDLS at Georgetown) and formative assessment through evidence-based learning will produce better graduates.