Admonishment Of Coursera Analysis

Great Essays
Admonishment of Coursera
Although a Burkean pedagogy does begin with appreciative reading, Burke also demanded a process of admonishment be used to examine the negative spaces created by equations (LAPE $%#). With this move, Burke hoped that students would not take the explicit motives of a text at face value, instead contrasting them with the underlying motives to determine the larger force of the text. With its strong valorization of technology and goal of mastery, it is likely Burke would have suspicious of Coursera. Using Burkean concepts, I first examine how the educational ladder helps to identify Coursera’s education as a pedagogy of motion and next evaluate how Coursera’s user of a principle of personality reifies a psychology of information.
…show more content…
However, innovation alone does not make a good education. Therefore, I now turn to Burke’s educational ladder to evaluate if Coursera is able produce students who are able to master information in the ways that are most beneficial to democratic society. As the first words to orient students to Coursera’s program, as well as the texts’ status as representative of the larger goals of the company, the site’s slogan is an apt place to begin to deconstruct the ratios that will help place Coursera on the ladder. In the slogan, “take the world’s best courses, online, free” the act (take courses)-scene (online) ratio is given primacy. The additional clause of “free” indicates that the scenic conditions are the best available and thus are foregrounded. Berry notes Burke’s ladder defines this specific ratio by order, specifically cause-effect determinism (80). Coursera’s rhetoric fits this description well. The “mastery” cluster suggests as strong cause-effect relation between the acquisition of knowledge and life success. Additionally, the primacy given to professors as purveyors of knowledge fits into Burke’s broader association of the lower rungs with “partisan indoctrination,” as Coursera expects students to master knowledge and unquestioningly accept it as the …show more content…
To begin, this informational psychology is entrenched Coursera’s reliance on the “student as consumer” metaphor – best illustrated the cost cluster’s focus on the benefits of free education and the program’s overall value. While Burke’s “Linguistic Approach to Education” identified this student as consumer orientation as a problem in 1955, Klumpp & Lamm argue that with publications like “US News’ top universities” this attitude has only become further entrenched, preventing inquiry into the impact of education beyond the individual student (153). In focusing on the individual student, Coursera turns knowledge into commodity for students to consume, rather than the lifelong process Burke hoped it would be. Students need only consume the correct courses to succeed, an orientation more suited towards the mechanization and capitalism of motion than the action of critical

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Equality in Education Education policy is judgmental for differentiating between levels of education. In “Making Sparks Fly,” Mike Rose argues education policy supports more academic education for skills; however, vocational education creates just as skilled and efficient workers as academic education. Rose builds up his creditability by providing three vivid examples —Elias, Cynthia, and Bobby— and relatable emotional appeals to make his audience empathize with the students, additionally, to strengthen his support, Rose includes pieces of reasoning. Rose starts his essay by showing the journey of Elias, Cynthia, and Bobby surviving through a welding program.…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Cassidy never picks a side regarding whether or not a higher education is necessary for the success of a person. However, he presents both sides and provides strong arguments for both cases. Cassidy expresses how the expensive costs of college can make or break a person’s decision regarding whether or not they want to attend. He states, “Students in the United States pay about four times more than their peers in countries elsewhere” (Cassidy, 2015, p.2). The United States is one of the only places in the world to have such high costs for college.…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Along with Formal Education is Life a classroom of Lived Experiences? In the words of John Adams, “There are two educations. One that teaches us how to make a living and the other how to live.” Learning both these forms of education not only helps in a trade or a profession, but also helps in getting liberal education as human beings.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the reading “Are Too Many People Going to College?” first published in 2008, Charles Murray argues that while the need and idea of going to college and getting a B.A. is becoming increasingly more important, not everyone needs a college education. Murray believes that any student that has already graduated from high school has already, in a sense, obtained a college education. He points out that by the time students finishes eighth grade, they should already have learned all the “core knowledge” they need to know (236). By the time they get to high school, students should be focusing more on the liberal aspect of education by taking courses in the “humanities, social sciences, and sciences” where they are “taught at a level below the demand…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    They Say I Say Analysis

    • 2196 Words
    • 9 Pages

    In the book, “They Say, I Say” chapter fourteen discusses the necessity for tertiary education. The fundamental focus of chapter fourteen is to determine whether or not higher education offers the bang for your buck. The chapter initiates disputes beginning with the article, “Are Colleges Worth The Price of Admission?” by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus. This article conveys a controversial issue of the rising cost of admissions and the descending quality of college education.…

    • 2196 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    In today’s society it is believed that education is the key to success, and compared to just 50 years ago a high school diploma just does not cut it anymore. It is expected by employers that applicants have at least bachelor’s degree for many professions. Given the high pace world that we live in today some students simply do not have the time or resources to go away to four-year universities. These students often turn to alternate forms of education, including community or for-profit colleges. With community colleges filling up fast these days some students turn to for-profit colleges to achieve their secondary education desires.…

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Boen Wang, a sophomore majoring in engineering science at Penn State who was featured on The Daily Collegian’s Wednesday column, wrote an article called Reasons to make community college free. He insists that making community college free is possible and could potentially reshape higher education. He pinpoints one of the effects of high tuition and presents, “Lack of financial resources is one of the major reasons for such low graduation rates” (Wang). This should worry the college’s staff simply because one of the school 's purposes is to get everyone to graduate. With these low rates, students wanting to apply for the school will not feel confident and are going to assume the institution cannot deliver academic support.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The lap of luxury is not miles away on a coastal sea. Of course, it is in a modern American dorm room, complete with bathroom and expensive food services. The times of studying are long gone when students could instead participate in Nudity Week and simply email professors instead of attending class. These are just some of the examples Tom Nichols utilizes while taking a firm stance on the structure of universities and the students of today. In The Death of Expertise, the chapter “Higher Education: The Customer is Always Right” is where author Tom Nichols, US Naval War College Professor of National Security Affairs, conveys his thoughts on today’s system of higher education by utilizing strategies such as ethical appeals, as well as fallacies…

    • 1672 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the article “Leveling the Field”, Christopher Beha goes undercover as a college student at the University of Phoenix and makes effective claims about the corrupt nature of these institutions and the increasing push for degree attainment by the American government. He reports his experience at the University of Phoenix and how he started to question the integrity of the concept. He addresses the origins of the college and how it has evolved from its original intent. Beha makes his claim by describing his experiences with the organization and the encounters he has with his classmates. He backs up his experience with previously recorded facts and statistics.…

    • 1457 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    03 Feb. 2016. Emily Hanford, writing from the American RadioWorks, discusses the value and importance of a college degree and a college education. Hanford briefly provides a history of education prior to and after World War II and discusses how only a small group of Americans went to college because of the job in the 70s didn’t require a degree. Hanford then continues her article by introducing today’s standards for education and how education is required to survive in today’s society. Hanford then continues her article by introducing subtopics such as the rising value of education, “a class dimension”, and value in “some college”…

    • 1631 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Writer, John Cassidy, in his article in The New Yorker, “College Calculus, ” sums up the history of our higher education from the establishment of Harvard College in Massachusetts. Then he goes further in the discussion of the funding for students and the actions Obama has taken to provide higher education for the people. Cassidy’s purpose of writing this article is to enlighten the reader in what our government our media and the business community speak so fondly of receiving higher education and then Cassidy goes into detail of the actual values higher education has to offer. He takes on a tone of authority to explain his points and his facts as well as adopts a sympathizing tone for the readers to relate with the topic and see the truth…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Giroux views colleges as a space of democracy and intellectualism, where democracy and individualism ought to be encouraged. However, he believes that university, and the democracy it supports, are being threatened by right-wing extremism and excessive capitalism. Giroux states that many individuals hold the idea that “education is now about job training and competitive market advantage” (3). He believes that educators see students as little more than cash cows, and that colleges have essentially become businesses, interested more with money than providing their students a decent education. As a result, humanities and other important classes are overlooked in favor of classes which provide raw economic value.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Price Of Admission

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Indeed, the article puts forth numerous examples of colleges that take different and, some would argue, illogical approaches to funding, and students with varying degrees of success. For example, one college that the article analyzes is The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, which uses the normal standard testing procedures, and also throws in a home test that consists of a number of open-ended questions. On top of this, the college is dedicated to tuition-free education. Examples like this show that education does not have to adhere to the formalized structure that students have become adapted to. Indeed, what might be ticket is, in fact, a restructuring of college as it is known today.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    As we all know, technology is constantly evolving. The perfect example of technological advancements is online learning. Online learning is something that has been around for some time now, but has just recently become much more significant. There are a lot of benefits and supporters of this new learning approach and likewise there are also many disadvantages and opponents. In this essay, I will be talking about two different perspectives on online learning.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Road to Enlightenment as Told by Plato and Freire In “Allegory of the Cave” and “The Banking Concept of Education,” Plato and Paulo Freire criticize the value of education in our society. Although Plato’s writings aren’t modern, their concepts still apply to modern day learning; in fact, many of Freire’s arguments coalesce with Plato’s. In today’s society it is common to view a teacher as an information giver who blesses students with the gift of knowledge. Concurrently it is believed that the student is a receptacle for this information to be stored in.…

    • 1154 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics