Bill Gates never finished college, but he is one of the single most
powerful figures shaping higher education today. That influence comes
through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, perhaps the world's
richest philanthropy, which he co-chairs and which has made education
one of its key missions.
The Chronicle sat down with Mr. Gates in an exclusive
interview Monday to talk about his vision for how colleges can be
transformed through technology. His approach is not simply to drop in
tablet computers or other gadgets and hope change happens—a model he
said has a "really horrible track record." Instead, the foundation
awards grants to reformers working to fix "inefficiencies" in the
current model of higher education that keep many students from
graduating on time, or at all. And he argues for radical reform of
college teaching, advocating a move toward a "flipped" classroom, where
students watch videos from superstar professors as homework and use
class time for group projects and other interactive activities. As he
put it, "having a lot of kids sit in the lecture class will be viewed at
some point as an antiquated thing."
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