At some point education must be self-directed and yet it requires peers.
As access to quality information becomes cheaper and almost ubiquitous, an interesting consequence appears clear. Anyone can learn almost anything online and the limiting factor for education is accreditation centers. The Accreditation part I will cover it next, I was planning on doing it today, but someone just raised the bar of what a post should be on Steemit.
TL;DR This post is about:
- Credentialing as seen by a tech mogul (Naval Ravitank), who sees it as gatekeeping from meritocracy.
- Me wondering if that's true, why is there's no current alternative in Math or Physics (which I say is probably due to more than merely credentialing)
- An idea of how one could go about creating a self-made curriculum
- Me saying we are far from replacing credentialling
Problems with Self-Education
One of my favorite Twitter accounts, @naval is the one by Naval Ravikant CEO of AngelList a widely successful VC. He recently posted on education.
If the primary purpose of school was education, the Internet should obsolete it. But school is mainly about credentialing. Schools survive anti-educational behavior (i.e. groupthink) due to symbiosis between institutions that issue and accept credentials. Employers looking past traditional credentials can arbitrage the gap. Ycombinator made $Bs doing this for young founders. The more MERITOCRATIC an industry, the faster it moves away from false credentialing. I.e., the MBA and tech startups. A generation of auto-didacts, educated by the Internet & leveraged by technology, will eventually starve the industrial-education system. Until then, only the most desperate and talented students will make the leap. Even today, what to study and how to study it are more important than where to study it and for how long. The best teachers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best peers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. Educational credentials are badges that admit one to the elite class. Expect elites to struggle mightily to justify the current system. Eventually, the tide of the Internet and rational, self-interested employers will create and accept efficient credentialing... and wash away our obsolete industrial-education system.
Two points gained my attention. One was credentialing, as someone that has been in self-education most of my life and is part of a field protected by credentialing as is medicine. Two was the meritocratic nature of MBA's and Tech start-ups.
At the beginning of my reconsideration of what meritocracy is, and about meritocracy in STEM, I found this article as my first option of search in google, titled "Once and for all: Tech is not a meritocracy", the article was mainly about social barriers for certain groups of people to advance in tech and although it could be true, is not what I was expecting.
Nothing stops you from creating the million dollars app or protocol regardless of your age or background, from starting a business and getting rich. Maybe that's where the highest stakes are and the reason for such high meritocracy a VC likeRavitank claims. But made me wonder, If this is true then I want to know how meritocratic and away from credentialing STEM fields are.
Probably the smartest people you'll ever meet are in the Physics and Maths department. Can you really turn yourself into a Physicist or Mathematician on your own just with the internet? What would a system of "credentialing" look like ?
Even when subjects like Physics and Mathematics can be highly theoretical, how come one doesn't see more self-directed success from these fields. You will always find "geniuses" or motivated self-learners but what about the big majority.
Feedback
The biggest problem at the moment I presume is lack of good feedback. Roughly speaking, borrowing from biology there are two kinds of feedback: Negative and Positive
A negative feedback is a process that allows Homeostasis 
A Positive feedback 
Wanna know how to study on your own to become a Physicist? here's a resource for Physics by a Nobel awarded physicist. 
Wanna give it a try?
This is my opinion on how it could be done. I would like to contribute in the future to create such a world but I think is far away,
This is a way to do it: "How to"
The most effective way is finding and following the Flow. University is a two faced beast there to guide us by “standardized” (lectures, assignments, problem sets and EXAMS), so we don’t fool ourselves, and “Peers” who are there to motivate us and be our mirrors as a negative feedback, because they can see your flaws more easily than you (also to network but it can be achieved as easily somewhere else, a skill on its own: Churches, political activism or dancing are far more effective, for instance) So let me address how you could supplement those two incredibly important missing pieces by using the OCW as your partial guide.
Now, for something to be effective is necessary to first determine a goal and judge the process based on such a goal. Without a goal set in stone, all work is meaningless and deemed as a failure when lost from sight. Set a plan and follow it without stopping until the end.
The more specific your goal the easier it will be to accomplish.
First things first: Basics.
There’s nothing more important than a strong foundation in the subject you are studying. Courses have requirements if you don’t fulfill them many opportunities to learn the subject will be lost without you realizing.
e.g. Let’s suppose your goal is to achieve a mastery of the subject comparable to that of the people who took the class by the end of a semester in the 75 percentile, as self-graded according to the rules in the syllabus… Let’s pick a course… Single Variable Calculus fall of 2007 from the MIT OCW. See? specific.
The prerequisites for this course are not stated in the OCW web page, unlike other more advanced subjects, since is assumed you should have that knowledge since high school. What now? You ask or read somewhere else what you should know and find that is actually trigonometry and algebra. How do you learn this or do you really need it? Now you need a test to find how good your basics are and if you are ready to take this course. In order to find such a test a good strategy is to find who are the most competitive people for this subject, in algebra and in trigonometry in the country (Remember you are taking a course in one of the best universities in the world to keep the bar set high). You probably could find that Math Olympiad medalists are the best and that a lot of them prepare by using a set of books and a webpage known as TheArtofProblem solving. They have diagnostic tests to know if you are ready for a subject.
Algebra: https://data.artofproblemsolving...
Precalculus: https://data.artofproblemsolving...
Geometry: https://data.artofproblemsolving...
If you can solve them easily proceed to the syllabus of the Calculus course in this supposition, another wise study those subjects first since you are not ready yet.
Since your circumstances are not the same as theirs (the people taking the course in person) you are at a serious disadvantage. Mainly because: A) You don’t have an incentive to focus your attention and follow the process until the end without quitting B) You have no peers to feedback on your current status in the course and your life C) You have no one to ask for help directly D) until you are finished you can never be sure if you want it enough.
To solve this here’s a possible way.
“Set a space exclusive for studying this subject in your personal space”. Take your laptop or tablet or phone to a place where you only study and do an activity to start class religiously. This could be a chair nothing more than a chair, but make sure you do nothing else with that chair. [This sets a particular state of mind, like a ritual. Since you are alone you are like an athlete and athletes know how important is to respect rituals for self-discipline]
“Write a diary at the end of the day and read it at the end of the week” The best option would be to share your experiences with someone who shares the same experience or a private tutor in person. Try to find one of those, but most likely you will not. Forums, YouTube comments, are good to ask questions but unless you can set something like a Skype partner you are alone. In science studying alone is not that rare, you are your best friend and to reevaluate yourself is good to have a perspective on how you are doing. Diaries are similar to what in science people call prospective studies. Historians take diaries really really seriously for this reason as evidence.
“Your book is your god, pray by solving problem sets”. Always remember you can ask specific questions about a problem set or publish your doubts in the OCW forums or here in Quora. But you must complete the assignments on your own. So whatever you must do read and read again your book to solve problems. After finishing a chapter take a blank piece of paper and without looking at the book write the subject until is finished in that previously blank piece of paper, like a presentation. keep those papers in a special place, the same place you will conserve unaltered your self-tests and self-exams. Whatever the result you must keep them and advance. Otherwise abandon immediately.
“Have fun” Remember, the videos and notes are guides and don’t cover the subject entirely. They are the least you should know for the future. If you don’t read on your own and solve the problems you will learn shit. You are free you can stop and abandon at any moment, is hard but the recompense is knowledge and fun.
Ready. Set…
Now is a moment to start. Go to the syllabus and print it. Next, go to the Calendar at the of the OCW page, modify it according to your personal requirements. This is your Schedule. Plan this carefully and print it. Most people don’t know how to do a schedule, so this is how: You write what you already do and optimize. Never write things as they should be. e.g. Put in your daily chores, your social life, your eating time, your sleeping time, your cat videos on YouTube. Whatever you already do, by the minute. Start from there to negotiate the free spaces in your schedule, there you are going to accommodate your study. Otherwise, you will fail. Don’t fight reality, negotiate. Let it in a visible spot in your study space, the place where you only study. Check and write in the syllabus the moment you start class and the moment you end class every day. I repeat, Plan this carefully but fast, you can not stop at the Calendar. “Plans are useless but planning is everything”
Get a folder for your finished scheduled assignments and your graded scheduled exams.
Get the textbook specified in the readings section. You are not paying for the university so the least you can do is buy the book. A used or old edition can do just fine. Also, print the supplemental material.
//According to the schedule, the first part is “recitation: Graphing - 0” that is missing in the videos. But present in the course reader// Don’t panic if the material is lost in a course. It will happen. This happens from time to time in person also. Sometimes people miss classes. If I do a quick search on google I find that some MIT courses have Teaching assistant lectures, known as recitations to help with the assignments. Like this one from a different year, still useful. Recitation Introduction for MIT 18.01SC, 18.02SC
If you can not find a resource, complete it quickly with something from somewhere else or if impossible ignore it and continue. Don’t cut the flow.
OK. Now we go to the first video lecture. Read the recommended section in your book before watching the lecture. Get your notebook and lecture notes ready from the OCW for that specific class. Write the hour you start the lesson in your schedule. Watch it from the OCW page to minimize distractions, not from YouTube; from start to finish without pausing or repeating sections. Don’t go back until the lesson is finished. This is extremely important. You must not cut the flow. If you missed something write when it happened and review it after you write in the syllabus and schedule the hour you ended the lesson. I can not emphasize enough how important this is. The video is a great thing for reviewing, but when listening to the lecture for the first time NEVER go back or cut the flow by pausing. Take notes.
Do the assignments as stated in the “assignments OCW page. Remember the people of OCW wrote those instructions for real people like you to follow them. This is it. This is the heart of the course. The most important things are those problems and the skills you develop by solving them. It might be an essay for other courses or something else but you learn by applying the recently acquired knowledge. This is an art and this is you. Whatever necessary is permitted. Complete your assignments by your own set day. If you do not complete this by your due date leave a piece of paper saying you didn’t complete it in the special place for your grades and grade accordingly. “An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes in his subject, and how to avoid them” W. Heisenberg. So fail fast and GLORIFY the worst mistakes you make in this sets, ask for the worst pitfalls to whomever you can ask help from.
Create a question bank. This is something M.Ds know thanks to the USMLE. Mock exams and question banks are what improve your grades. Turn your notes into questions and get some more from a friend or the internet. The purpose of questions is to refresh the memory to its maximum potential and teach your brain how to use that information on the spot. The review of the questions should be done in rapid-fire, without stopping to read what you had wrong. Flow.
Your memories get fixed on the stone during high-stress moments. So when you find that your knowledge of a subject is strong. Put yourself in a high-stress environment (High noise, distraction, time-limited) to fix it in your memory, we call this PIMPING. When learning a shaky subject, variate scenarios and find a low-stress environment, to avoid fixing your shakiness in your memory (quiet, focused, not limited by time).
Write in your diary your feelings, your doubts, your day.
Finally exams. Don’t advance a subject without full mastery. Print the exam, time yourself and grade it. If you failed, excelled or had a bad result doesn’t matter. Put it in a special place where you keep your grades. Now you can go and search other versions of this exam, review the subject and correct your gaps in knowledge or practice, quickly. Doing many exams is more important than reviewing. Name the exam as your second try, repeat until you can succeed. Keep the successful non-official repetitions in your notebook or your textbook, they are not the official grade.
University is there to guide us and test us in a standardized way so we don’t fool ourselves (lectures, assignments, problem sets and EXAMS). Peers are there to motivate us and be our mirrors.
Complete your schedule. The uninterrupted course of action that’s the Flow. If you failed, which I doubt if you followed the process, don’t repeat the course. Try something else to master this subject. regardless of the result after finishing treat your self for your effort.
Is a mere thought but true massive decentralization of credentialing is maybe years away. Who knows.
