What Andrew Rossi along with the team behind this great documentary were trying to do is to get along with the full picture of what is really happening, so they make us tick about the whole system of higher education not only in America but also what is reflected of it upon the whole world.
And they try to emphasize that there is a problem in all areas of higher education. Including the economical aspects as of all the bombs explode in the American economy, Student loan debt in the nation has reached 1 trillion dollars. The rise in student tuition is unsustainable, yet nearly half of the students are showing no significant gains in learning.
And they discuss the idea whether college is worth it or not?
"In education there are these powerful social forces, that work where people just imitate what other people are doing without reflecting on why they are doing it. Things like "How do you get into the right college?", "How does your kid get on the right track?", college has been sold and over sold as the key to a better future, And something is going very wrong with it over the last few decades." —Peter Theil, Co-founder PayPal
In "Ivory Tower" they need us to really rethink what are the specific things that people are learning and why are these things valuable? And they want the viewer to thoroughly examine the ingredients of that black-box of higher education.
Jumping from the physical class to the virtual one, "Ivory Tower" tries to see if there are comparisons between both and whether or not one system is better than the other, starting from the question; What does college provide?
1. Knowledge 2. Network of peers 3. Credential/Diploma
And whether or not some or all of these things could be provided by any of the higher education models presented.
Discussing MOOCs "Massive open online courses" and whether they are going to transform America's higher education, and going through these professors who took part in the first round of MOOCs, left Stanford to start their own venture capital funded startups (Coursera, Udacity, etc ) and their rival in the east coast edX, which is coming out of MIT and Harvard.
The documentary also discusses the retention and pass rates in online courses and why they are lower than face-to-face classes. "Just because you can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink so by the same talking students have to have discipline, motivation and persistence." — Ellen Junn, Provost, San Jose State University
The documentary tries to ask "How do we put these things together, the face to face and online opportunities and how we can come up with hybrid models" trying to search for solutions that could balance the system and make it future-proof.
It's a very informative documentary that I would highly recommend for students, parents and anyone one with concerns about education as well.
And they try to emphasize that there is a problem in all areas of higher education. Including the economical aspects as of all the bombs explode in the American economy, Student loan debt in the nation has reached 1 trillion dollars. The rise in student tuition is unsustainable, yet nearly half of the students are showing no significant gains in learning.
And they discuss the idea whether college is worth it or not?
"In education there are these powerful social forces, that work where people just imitate what other people are doing without reflecting on why they are doing it. Things like "How do you get into the right college?", "How does your kid get on the right track?", college has been sold and over sold as the key to a better future, And something is going very wrong with it over the last few decades." —Peter Theil, Co-founder PayPal
In "Ivory Tower" they need us to really rethink what are the specific things that people are learning and why are these things valuable? And they want the viewer to thoroughly examine the ingredients of that black-box of higher education.
Jumping from the physical class to the virtual one, "Ivory Tower" tries to see if there are comparisons between both and whether or not one system is better than the other, starting from the question; What does college provide?
1. Knowledge 2. Network of peers 3. Credential/Diploma
And whether or not some or all of these things could be provided by any of the higher education models presented.
Discussing MOOCs "Massive open online courses" and whether they are going to transform America's higher education, and going through these professors who took part in the first round of MOOCs, left Stanford to start their own venture capital funded startups (Coursera, Udacity, etc ) and their rival in the east coast edX, which is coming out of MIT and Harvard.
The documentary also discusses the retention and pass rates in online courses and why they are lower than face-to-face classes. "Just because you can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink so by the same talking students have to have discipline, motivation and persistence." — Ellen Junn, Provost, San Jose State University
The documentary tries to ask "How do we put these things together, the face to face and online opportunities and how we can come up with hybrid models" trying to search for solutions that could balance the system and make it future-proof.
It's a very informative documentary that I would highly recommend for students, parents and anyone one with concerns about education as well.