Our friend Pippa has decamped to Berlin and is doing some very interesting things with DIY education. She's started her own "DIY Masters" programme to learn everything she wants on her own terms and give her studies the same status and support as a formal masters degree.
It's a research project at the moment and she's blogging her progress here, and we're all really keen to see how she gets on. Here's a video of Pippa talking about the DIY Masters and sharing her progress so far.
Myself, Pippa and others have been talking about this DIY Masters idea for a while now. I actually posted something similar on my scrapbook a while ago, which led to some interesting discussions there. We've started a thread on our forum for people to discuss the idea of a Masters in Everything, so please do chip in to the conversation there too.
The idea is fairly simple: to let anyone design a course themselves which meets their learning needs, buying educational services for anyone, unrestricted by institutional affiliation, and have their studies supported and recognised in the same way as an institutional masters programme. It's not about replacing or undermining existing MA Programmes; it's about creating something different, a bottom-up version, learner-driven, flexibly assessed, with massive choice of subjects and teachers, and a more efficient cost model.
Pippa's doing the action research into what it would take to create her own masters programme, but we're particularly interested in learning what tools, facilities and structures people need to organise their own "Masters in Everything". And then we want to build the tools to make it easy for people to do their own thing.
Thinking about what I'd need to run my own MA course, so far I've got:
* mentors - people to guide me in particular subjects, and in learning in general
* a tutor - someone to suggest teachers, classes and things to learn, and make it all hang together
* teachers (find my own, and also get recommendations from people I know)
* networks - subject based (interest-based/targetted) and place or tutor based (social/serendipitous)
* venues to meet in
* academic support - course materials (possibly), peer study groups, libraries, alumni contacts
* evidence afterwards that I wasn't just messing around (possibly qualifications, Linkedin-style testimonials, practical project work)
Anything else you can think of? Would you be interested in doing a Masters in Everything? Let me know, or else please tell me why this won't work!
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Course content in the curriculum would be better of to be specific to the area, needed for specialist tutorial or reference resource assistance to enable competency to be achieved within the range of the area of study. Your evidences or portfolio for assessment can be readily pre/or self determined.Just a thought.
I am interested in your program, but cannot if it is purely academic but Masters in DIY through skills biased is the way for me.
Brilliant idea, especially for those of us on the boundaries of multiple academic disciplines! A number of academic institutions are opening up resources (from course materials to papers). Perhaps tutorial groups could be a form of peer review and source of the Linkedin-style recommendations.
Keep thinking!
I am very interested in the relationship between informal and formal learning and the idea of equivalent studies (by formally accredited students in traditional academia on one side and by self-directed learners on the other)
I have been studying issues around education and ICT - especially the changing relationships between teachers, learners, and knowledge for many years (informally). I am glad to have come across this discussion.
I think it's a brilliant idea as long as the person is self-motivated. The only test or criteria before someone starts out on doing his/her DIY Masters is to check if he/she is motivated enough. This can only be done by example, so maybe the person should prove his/her motivation and drive by working on a pilot self-initiated project. This project will be judged by the chosen mentor and only if the mentor thinks that the person is motivated will he/she guide him.
I personally think this is an excellent idea for self-driven people who have the longing to learn. I say, 'self-driven' only because this could also become an excuse for lots of people and therefore it is essential to filter these lazy people out as their lithargy will dilute the dedication & credibility of the hard-working genuine learners.
This has definitely got me thinking and I will write to Pippa and fix a meeting when I'm in Berlin in May 2009.
Andy, it will work. I am sure of it.
For a number of years, I have been co-creating individual Master's programmes with and for execs around a strategic thing they need to do at work. My experience is that value really comes from community. Of course, tutors, mentors and content matter. But it is what happens when people support and teach each other that really makes the difference.
I suppose this is obvious, and I do not mean to be teaching anyone to suck eggs. Just saying that nurturing the community is where I will be trying to put a lot of effort in taking my work online.
Hi Andy
Colleagues and I used learning agreements as the vehicle for creating individually-designed Master's programmes at a UK university. The framework was used across all faculties - business, sciences, engineering, design, healthcare etc.
The learning agreement is like an empty framework of learning goals, activities, learning outcomes, assessment criteria and modes of assessment - all to be specified to fit the needs and requirements of individual students. Customised content is dropped into the framework, according to subject and faculty, and is co-designed by the learner, a facilitator and subject expert.
I would be delighted to tell you more if you are interested.
Thanks to everyone for your comments.
Anne Marie, that sounds fascinating, shall we talk more offline? I'm keen to find a way to start sharing the best practice around this, I think there will be lots of people who have worked on similar endeavours and have stories to tell and models to share. How do you think this could best be achieved?
Gaurabh, perhaps the decisions around whether someone is sufficiently self-motivated could be left to individual 'directors of studies' to decide whether they want to take someone on? That way, good educational mentors can establish their own reputations as course leaders and attract better, more motivated students. Someone wanting to begin an MA would need to convince someone they respected to take them on, rather like the old guild/apprenticeship model in the craft world.
Ben/Pam, peer review was actually one of the models for assessment in progression from apprentice to journeyman/master, I think there's a lot to learn here. It's a good model for assessing informal and practical skills, and could easily be 'evidenced' in a Linkedin-style e-testimonials system.
Whatever happens, it needs to be really simple, and not centrally controlled.
Hi, I am delighted to find such interests as this has also of great interests me a lot. I have personally declined to enter university, because I have strong impression that this is only a shell which has no real substance in it. I feel most people here on universities came to get a degree which can be used for getting a good job instead of thisrts for knowledge.
This is not the essence of learning.
I know that people learn a lot if not all useful things outside of the formal system of education. The critical question is how to get acknowledged for this?
I like the idea on "Mastering Everything" and "DIY Masters" and will follow development of this ideas keenly. And also there are people doing this already, they only call it different. For example Andrius Kulikauskas an social web entrepreneur http://www.ms.lt and http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?AndriusKulikauskas who describes himself as "an independent thinker who is on a quest to know everything and apply that knowledge usefully"
Anyway I will blog about this on my blog: http://opensourcelife.wordpress.com
The funding and accreditation are two basic problems for every diy learner.
At this moment, I am doing research on UK online communities, which is funded by Mornflake http://mornflake.com and I found this site because of help from them. So sometimes its interesting how things solve them out. This is one way of funding I guess.
I'm glad to see this discussion since I started doing my own DIY masters a few weeks ago. I haven't blogged about it because it's still so new, but am heartened to see I'm not the only one going my own way.
What interests me about the discussion is the reliance on teachers and institutions. All well and good if that works for you, but so far, my programme is entirely self-directed using books and apps like Circus Ponies Notebook to keep things organised. I've come up with goals, projects and a timeline. I'm working on my syllabus at the moment.
This is all self-directed partly because I can't afford to pay official teachers, but mainly it's because I've discovered that I learn best when I set things up for myself. Only I can say what I need to learn, and how and when. And it's so much fun!
As for the post worrying about slackers, I think you don't slack when you want to learn something. It's like starting a social enterprise: it's something you'd do for free.
Well a DIY masters has to be in something you want to learn anyway -- it's just a more formalised process.
For me, it helps me stave off guilt for not doing "real" work, and gives me a sense of purpose and achievement. I also have the goal of sharing what I learn so it helps me feel what I'm doing is useful, valuable and not just navel-gazing.
Anyway, thanks for exploring this and if anyone else is going down this route, I hope you'll get in touch.