Academics are ¡°burning the candle at multiple ends¡± as they struggle to marry an 18th-century ideal of their craft with the demands of the 21st-century world, according to edtech guru Daphne Koller.

Professor Koller, a former Stanford University artificial intelligence researcher who helped found the massive open online course provider Coursera, attributed ¡°the great resignation that¡¯s hitting academia¡± to requirements for university staff to ¡°do?it?all¡±.

Today¡¯s academic is expected to be ¡°the single repository of all the wisdom of their field, a great communicator, a great researcher and a great grant writer [who] can teach online, all while trying to maintain a work-life balance¡±, she told the Universities Australia conference in Canberra.

¡°Maybe we need to have a more diverse set of skills that reside within a university without all residing necessarily within that same magic academic.¡±

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Professor Koller said academia¡¯s work model still bore hallmarks of a time when ¡°you were the repository of all of the knowledge in your discipline, because there wasn¡¯t very much of it, and you were able to disseminate that by lecturing to people, because books were expensive so you couldn¡¯t even get people to read them¡±.

Professor Koller is co-founder of the hybrid learning platform Engageli and founding chief executive of Insitro, a company that uses machine learning to develop pharmaceuticals. She rejected suggestions that the lecture was ¡°a?thing of the past¡±, saying learning required a combination of approaches.

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¡°In the same way that we go and see a good play or a good movie, [and] sometimes it¡¯s not the same as reading the book, I?think that there is something magical about a truly good lecture that¡¯s able to get everyone energised and excited about the content. Some amount of that is good, but it can¡¯t be the only thing. Certain [learning] styles work well for some and are completely useless for others,¡± she said.

Professor Koller also rejected claims that the metaverse, which she likened to virtual reality, was the next big thing in education. ¡°Flying through the pyramids of Egypt, or doing a chemical experiment where¡­the molecules or the atoms are seen from the inside ¨C those are wonderful integration experiences that allow students to immerse themselves in their learning,¡± she said.

¡°But will day-to-day teaching happen in the metaverse, and will that be hugely additive to what we¡¯re able to do today? I?don¡¯t think the problem lies in 2D?pictures on a screen versus avatars. How does an instructor meaningfully engage with individual students, understand what it is that they¡¯re learning, where they¡¯re not learning, how one can help them? It¡¯s less about the venue and more about how to create the right set of tools for instructors to truly have that dialogue with their students. And I?don¡¯t think that¡¯s about the metaverse.¡±

Professor Koller also said universities needed to be more ¡°deliberate¡± about creating workplace cultures in which academics were expected to engage ¡°openly, constructively and with respect¡± with peers from different disciplines.

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She said universities ¨C and certainly university departments ¨C tended to develop their cultures organically. ¡°But I¡¯ve come to be wary of organic development of culture as a good thing, because it¡¯s very easy for it to go awry.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com