Small institute of higher learning

[SpaceBadger]

Perhaps, though the nearest world where that can be found is about twenty parsecs away at this time. I'm inclined to believe that research would be difficult to do and that higher education would be mostly restricted to acquiring more advanced knowledge without discovering new knowledge themselves.

I was just thinking that in a colony that size, someone who has completed the equivalent of a four year degree might very well be the colony expert in his/her specialty, with no one more knowledgeable around to guide further learning without going offworld.

 

[Garyius2003]

Spread out across part of a continent, as mentioned above.


Hans

65k people spread across Iowa couldn't support a campus for post high school learning other than as add on classrooms at small local school districts (small in building size, huge in land boundaries). Yellow grav buses?

65k in the area of the District of Columbia (or the City of London) could support a small campus if there was enough interest in post secondary ed.

 

[rancke]

65k people spread across Iowa couldn't support a campus for post high school learning other than as add on classrooms at small local school districts (small in building size, huge in land boundaries). Yellow grav buses?

Why not? What does the geographical spread matter? Students can travel to the institution and live in student lodgings.


Hans

 

[Murdoc]

Murdoc uses Kuwait as an example. There is a nation with lots of money but the vast majority of the people living there are not getting an advanced education and the university structure available is nothing to brag about. This is due to the country making most of its wealth off a basic resource that doesn't require massive amounts of educated people to extract. What people are needed are more easily imported than home grown.

Which just makes it an even better example of why you have to take all these different things into account. Thank you.

I'm sorry my original post was too vague. I had thought that the mention of the colony prospering and the lack of comments to the contrary would imply that 21st Century Western nations would be a good source of inspiration. I was hoping someone would know about student and teacher ratios in the Real World.

Even "21st century western nations" can vary a lot. I try not to make assumptions where there is vagueness because I could be wrong and that wouldn't be helpful.

The knowledge TL is 12, but the relatively short time to build infrastructure (50 years) probably mitigates against a full exploitation of TL12 technology. So maybe rich TL7 countries of contemporary Earth will not be the worst possible analogy.

Mind you, even figures from Kuwait could be useful, as long as I knew they were from Kuwait and could take the difference between it and my fictional colony into account.

What you may want to do is look at Wikipedia's List of Countries by Population, then pick one or two that may resemble your colony somewhat (with a similar population of course), and see what they have available. Or even List of (US, whatever) Cites by Population and do the same. Of course, you have to take into account that those cities exist within a nation where many other cities lie within hours of them, or that those countries exist in a global economy. My point is that you say that the nearest other populated planet is 20 parsecs away, so they are getting no support from the outside. That means that those 60,000 people need to be producing, operating, and maintaining everything themselves, from food, to clothes, entertainment, machines, computers, tools, plumbing, housing, cookware, pens, paper, news, toys, weapons, music, music players, TVs, kitchen appliances, roads, electricity, batteries, mining equipment, farming equipment, office equipment, phones, air conditioners, heaters, bathtubs, medicines, medical tools, etc. etc. My point is that it is easy to take for granted all the things we have today in the 21st century western countries, and where it all came from. Personally I think that if they have an accomplished TL 7 economy that that is a pretty impressive feat and use a lot of automation (possibly some of the TL 12 stuff there). If you haven't yet I highly recommend the video game Tropico for teaching all the intricacies of even a small economy. It'd be a good model for how your colony developed I think (TL differences aside).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

A ratio of 20:1 would mean 125 teachers and a ratio of 100:1 would mean 25 teachers. Perhaps around 100 would be reasonable?

I just realized a disconnect... those ratios are per class. That is assuming that all the students take a full schedule of classes in a day.

2500 students is more than I had guessed. I wonder if there would be room for more than one such institution?

2,500 is a rough guess, assuming a 6-year window (18ish to 24ish) for most of your students, and a demographic curve that is high in youngsters. (A near asymptotic curve, like this one, with increasing age along the bottom axis.)

You didn't specify the source of your population growth, so I assumed that one so dramatic had to have a lot of immigration. And, I assumed that immigration would look a lot like frontier immigration in US history: youngish families (or pre-family) and lots of young adults. Some percentage of those might end up in your university, as well as a goodly chunk of the youth born there.

(Y'all feel free to beat up on my numbers, there. I haven't crunched anything hard - just some TLAR [That Looks About Right].)

If you want your school to be more elite (not teach AgriBusiness and Mining and Materials Engineering, but Medicine and Philosophy and Physics) then it will have a smaller student body.

If you are assuming a really small college, then you might have more than one. Or, you could have one university with multiple campuses and multiple colleges.* Your administrative staff demands go up a little when you do that. If you go with the larger student body, then you might have a campus/college in one area that teaches AgriBusiness, and another that teaches Mining.

I think graduate degrees in that small of a population would almost have to be off-world. (It appears 11% of Americans in 2011 had a Masters or Doctorate, and some percentage of those are in Puppetry or Ethnic Studies or Navel-Gazing or some such - which are simply not going to happen on a colony that you describe.) The infrastructure to support those is going to be too large for the small quantity you get. You can either import all your doctors, or you can send them off somewhere to return once they have their degree.

* I am using the old-style concept of University being the institution, and Colleges being divisions within the University. There are other uses distinguishing Universities from Colleges, too. (I refuse to ever take a class from UMUC - any school that calls itself University of Maryland University College just can't be trusted to know what the heck it's doing!)

 

[aramis]

Some breakpoints from my master's program (in ed), and 10 years substitute teaching

2-6 students — "small group" — curriculum is easily individualized, attention can be given to in-class work routinely, lecture seldom needed. Behavior correction, if needed, is able to be immediate and informal, and attentiveness can be individually monitored for focused on-task/on-target.
5-15 — small class — lecture begins to become a matter of practicality, but it is still possible to work in small group mode if periods long enough. Individual attentiveness less easily monitored, formal structures begin to dominate. Much work still done and checked in class.
11-25 — Class — lecture and group activity begins to take over teaching mode. Individual attentiveness no longer readily monitored, but spot checking still practical; student behavior monitoring switches to visibly unsafe or disruptive. Much work begins to be checked outside of work-time. Practical Classes by demonstration and replication with direct oversight.
20-40 — large class — Individual attention minimal. Very limited spot-checking of individual attentiveness; ability to check for on-task cursory. Work to be turned in dominant, but can still include some checked during class, tho' not nearly as often on an individual basis. Practical Classes by demonstration and independent replication limited direct oversight.
30-50 — Lecture — Individual attention no longer practical. On-task behavior monitored by productivity. Turn-in work (as opposed to class-work) becomes more common, much of it outside instruction time. Practical Classes by demonstration and independent replication monitored by partners.
40-100 — impersonal lecture — instructor contact typically 1-way, lecture or demonstration only. Most work moved outside the instruction time, and turned in to be graded; often, grading by objective measure or by assistants. Student guidance often moved to assistants. Practical classes by demonstration, with independent replication monitored by partners and overseen by assistants. Ensemble music courses in this range graded by limited direct assessments and by noticed errors in rehearsals.
70+: assistants about only contact students have with instruction team. Lecturer often remote. Work turn in often reduced to a few tests and papers. Instructor often only sets assignments and grading criteria, seldom actually engages with student work. Productivity about only measure used. Practical classes seldom this large. Ensemble music classes often are into the 150+ range - but individual assessment often by noticed errors rather than actual direct assessment.

Also note that quality of instruction drops with each size category. in a small group, quality can be monitored closely, and even minor errors corrected on the spot. At 70+, student work is almost always unmonitored, feedback is delayed significantly, and failure to comprehend goes unnoticed until evaluations.

Computer aided instruction and assessment can massively increase comprehension and quality of instruction. Lecture followed by CAI sessions can allow rapid assessment and reteaching. Instructor monitoring of success rates can show detailed feedback. It doesn't change the mode much, but does improve quality.

 

[Enoki]

If you want your school to be more elite (not teach AgriBusiness and Mining and Materials Engineering, but Medicine and Philosophy and Physics) then it will have a smaller student body.

"More elite?!" If there are just 60,000 or so people on this planet and looking to expand a number of PhD Philosophers sitting in the local pub does little to move things along. Discovering the next new sub-atomic particle (assuming that is possible without mega-credits of investment in equipment) isn't going to put bread on the table.

AgriBusiness, Mining, Materials, and Medicine would be far better choices as would Engineering in general, Electronics / Electricity, FTL drive design, or a whole plethora of applicable sciences. Even things like Biology, Organic Chemistry, or Accounting would be more useful than a Philosopher....). For this colony, a Philosopher is about as useful as a pair of Double D teats on a rattlesnake.... o:

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Well, Enoki, I didn't say it *should* I said *if*. I agree with your assessment of what it *ought* to teach.