Ultimate 5-minute Article About Courses on Creating Marathons About Intensives [actually, not]
I’m impressed by the number of opportunities to learn today. By learning, I mean not just gaining knowledge about how to effectively clean your apartment or how to make an impressive PC-set but even mastering new specialty. But two things are bothering me: people who don’t use these opportunities (and that’s the topic for another article) and capitalism.
What is learning?
I can only imagine how people relate to non-academic education in Western countries because it’s trendy to learn today in Ukraine and Russia. But there are two completely different definitions of the word “learning”:
- Going through mountains of unknown words, principles, and concepts. Connecting theory with practice. Wishing to stop everything just to watch TV (that’s inevitable, you should review your learning approach if you don’t have such thoughts).
- Taking expensive courses with prestigious diplomas. Adding information about all the classes to your resume. Posting Instagram photos with the process of your learning.
What’s the difference in these definitions? The first is something difficult that can make no result at the end and has a high risk to stay unfinished. The second one is an excellent opportunity to show everyone that you are a modern person who is eager to knowledge (not that you are smart, though) because this prestige means a lot in today’s world.
On the other hand, we have a world with a lot of young entrepreneurs who, in turn, have illustrative examples of success stories of the same young entrepreneurs. It doesn’t mean that these people should create their school, hire professionals in some field of knowledge, and develop a strong program. It could be just a course, intensive, or marathon. Yeah, those exact things are the most trendy today.
So, your knowledge is slightly above average, you make your course and start making money. It’s a natural process, and it works.
Quality
And the problem here is the quality of the learning. Of course, it will be an ideal world where everyone learns from just the professionals, but here’s another maxim. Instead of having professionals, we have “professors” with the amount of knowledge enough just to fill the course.
I’m almost sure that some courses are like those “rewrites.” A person starts to learn something, finds it easy for him to master it, and decides to make “the best course in the world on that topic” that will be perfect for novices, but will “also useful for professional.” Did you see that? Of course, you did: such advertisements are everywhere.
Sometimes these courses might be not so bad. They are just useless. But lots of people ask money for their job.
If you are also a passionate learner, you might already know this: people teach not to teach but to make money. At one point, the internet could help us with a wide range of reviews and sites-aggregators, but I must admit, it doesn’t work also. Why?
- Very frequently people leave reviews not about the quality of knowledge they’ve got but about the course: how smiley was the lecturer, how “interesting” were the homework, etc. They perceive it as another type of entertainment and not a way to learn.
- 2. People actually think the course was good. The lecturer might gather the information and present it clearly, so the learner would think that’s really valuable.
IMPORTANT! Even good learning almost entirely consists of known information. But it also has feedback and personal experience of the teacher. It shouldn’t be “a book with the most necessary information” or “a series of lectures without water,” as people usually perceive it.
And the last thing is the result of that was discussed before. These creators start to think that they are perfect, based on the reviews. Some kind of unity arises here, where learners are thankful for the knowledge, and the teachers are glad to give it because of their rising self-confidence.
Why is it essential for me? [And should be for you?]
I think that the main problem here is an opportunity for both sides of this unity to create a profitable industry that has no real impact.
And it results in the lowering of the quality of a learning process.
Teachers are happy; learners are happy. (Not real teachers and not real learners). Teachers want to make more courses, and learners want to give money for it because it’s good to be educated and somehow it may show them as better professionals.
I see great potential in internet learning, and it has a huge distraction, to my mind.
I also have a thought that maybe everything is happening as it should be: people who want to show their “knowledge,” will have an opportunity to use these courses, and the real eager learners will also find the ways to really learn. I’m not sure about other countries, but here, in Ukraine, we have organizations that can even sell you a university diploma. It’s almost the same.
The main problem is that in the real world, these places to learn come first, and places to buy a piece of paper are underground. But on the internet, poor courses, intensives or marathons are at the front. At first, they make it harder to find something valuable. And later, they make people who want to learn to think that the internet is not the right place to do it. But it really is!
I enrolled in these courses:
Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects!
The Science of Everyday Thinking
Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python
The first one helped me to learn better. I always use passive thinking now; with a great effort, I rejected the idea of making notes and constant repeating.
The second helped to broaden my knowledge about critical thinking. It made me feel more confident about my own mistakes and reactions towards everything around me.
The last one was the hardest, but it gave me profound knowledge of programming basics.
In Ukraine, we also have Prometheus — a MOOC platform that creates its courses and translates the best from all over the world.
And these are only the examples I can personally vouch. So, I’m sure there are more of them.
