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Gary Brown

(the teeming void): This is Data? Arguing with Data Baby - 3 views

teemingvoid.blogspot.com/...ta-arguing-with-data-baby.html

data evidence

shared by Gary Brown on 19 May 10 - Cached
  • Making that call - defining what data is - is a powerful cultural gesture right now, because as I've argued before data as an idea or a figure is both highly charged and strangely abstract.
  • In other words data here is not gathered, measured, stored or transmitted - or not that we can see. It just is, and it seems to be inherent in the objects it refers to; Data Baby is "generating" data as easily as breathing.
  • This vision of material data is also frustrating because it has all the ingredients of a far more interesting idea: data is material, or at least it depends on material substrates, but the relationship between data and matter is just that, a relationship, not an identity. Data depends on stuff; always in it, and moving transmaterially through it, but it is precisely not stuff in itself.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Data does not just happen; it is created in specific and deliberate ways. It is generated by sensors, not babies; and those sensors are designed to measure specific parameters for specific reasons, at certain rates, with certain resolutions. Or more correctly: it is gathered by people, for specific reasons, with a certain view of the world in mind, a certain concept of what the problem or the subject is. The people use the sensors, to gather the data, to measure a certain chosen aspect of the world.
  • If we come to accept that data just is, it's too easy to forget that it reflects a specific set of contexts, contingencies and choices, and that crucially, these could be (and maybe should be) different. Accepting data shaped by someone else's choices is a tacit acceptance of their view of the world, their notion of what is interesting or important or valid. Data is not inherent or intrinsic in anything: it is constructed, and if we are going to work intelligently with data we must remember that it can always be constructed some other way.
  • We need real, broad-based, practical and critical data skills and literacies, an understanding of how to make data and do things with it.
  • Gary Brown on 19 May 10
     
    A discussion that coincides with reports this morning that again homeland security had the data; they just failed to understand the meaning of the data.
Kimberly Green

Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) - 0 views

www.snaap.indiana.edu

national survey arts

shared by Kimberly Green on 09 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Kimberly Green on 09 Aug 10
     
    WSU is participating in this survey. Looks interesting, follow up on students who graduate with an arts degree. Could be useful in program assessment in a number of ways ( a model, sample questions, as well as ways to leverage nationally collected data.) Kimberly Welcome to the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), an annual online survey, data management, and institutional improvement system designed to enhance the impact of arts-school education. SNAAP partners with arts high schools, art and design colleges, conservatories and arts programs within colleges and universities to administer the survey to their graduates. SNAAP is a project of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research in collaboration with the Vanderbilt University Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy. Lead funding is provided by the Surdna Foundation, with major partnership support from the Houston Endowment, Barr Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, Educational Foundation of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. improvement system designed to enhance the impact of arts-school education. SNAAP partners with arts high schools, art and design colleges, conservatories and arts programs within colleges and universities to administer the survey to their graduates. SNAAP is a project of the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research in collaboration with the Vanderbilt University Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy. Lead funding is provided by the Surdna Foundation, with major partnership support from the Houston Endowment, Barr Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, Educational Foundation of America and the National Endowment for the Arts."
Nils Peterson

Google for Government? Broad Representations of Large N DataSets | Computational Legal ... - 0 views

computationallegalstudies.com/...tions-of-large-amounts-of-data

shared by Nils Peterson on 11 Apr 09 - Cached
  • We are just two graduate students working on a shoestring budget.
  • S Spaeth on 11 Apr 09
     
    We agree with both President Obama and Senator Coburn that universal accessibility of such information is worthwhile goal. However, we believe this is only a first step. In a deep sense, our prior post is designed to serve as a demonstration project. We are just two graduate students working on a shoestring budget. With the resources of the federal government, however, it would certainly be possible to create a series of simple interfaces designed to broadly represent of large amounts of information. While these interfaces should rely upon the best available analytical methods, such methods could probably be built-in behind the scenes. At a minimum, government agencies should follow the suggestion of David G. Robinson and his co-authors who argue the federal government "should require that federal websites themselves use the same open systems for accessing the underlying data as they make available to the public at large."
  • Nils Peterson on 12 Apr 09
     
    an interesting example of work with large data sets, but also, a research group that is working "off-shore" from their campus and in a blog in ways that seem to parallel WSUCTLT
Corinna Lo

Official Google Blog: Transparency, choice and control - now complete with a Dashboard! - 2 views

googleblog.blogspot.com/...cy-choice-and-control-now.html

google

shared by Corinna Lo on 06 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Corinna Lo on 06 Nov 09
     
    "In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. "
Nils Peterson

Amazon.com: Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design: R. Klanten, N. Bourqu... - 0 views

www.amazon.com/...ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

data design problem-representation

shared by Nils Peterson on 29 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • Nils Peterson on 29 Mar 09
     
    Found this via a review in PBK which says "haut couture" of info graphics
  • Corinna Lo on 07 Apr 09
     
    Here you can preview some of the pages in the book. http://www.gestalten.com/books/detail?id=ceaea7651adf9ba0011b78b89b9d0295
Peggy Collins

The enterprise implications of Google Wave | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com - 1 views

blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe

wave collaboration google

shared by Peggy Collins on 01 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Peggy Collins on 01 Oct 09
     
    "What Google has done with the Wave protocol is essentially create a new kind of social media format that is distinctively different from blogs, wikis, activity streams, RSS, or most familiar online communication models except possibly IM. Both blogs and wikis were created in the era of page-oriented Web applications and haven't changed much since. In contrast, Google Wave is designed for real-time participation and editing of shared conversations and documents and is more akin to the simultaneous multiuser experience of Google Docs than with traditional blogs and wiki editing. Though Google is sometimes criticized for missing the social aspect of the Web, that is patently not the case with waves, which are fundamentally social in nature. Participants can be added in real-time, new conversations forked off (via private replies), social media sharing is assumed to be the norm, and connection with a user's contextual server-side data is also a core feature including location, search, and more. The result is stored in a persistent document known as a wave, access to which can be embedded anywhere that HTML can be embedded, whether that's a Web page or an enterprise portal. Users can then discover and interact with the wave, joining the conversation, adding more information, etc. Google has also leveraged its investments in Google Gadgets and OpenSocial, two key technologies for spreading online services beyond the original boundaries of the sites they came from. All in all, Google Wave is a smart and well-constructed bundle of collaborative capabilities with many of the modern sensibilities we've come to expect in the Web 2.0 era including an acutely social nature, rapid interaction, and community-based technology."
Joshua Yeidel

Learn More about Pivot | Live Labs Pivot - 1 views

www.getpivot.com

visualization microsoft pivot

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 21 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 21 Apr 10
     
    "Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web."
Gary Brown

Empowerment Evaluation - 1 views

eevaluation.blogspot.com

evaluation

shared by Gary Brown on 20 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Empowerment Evaluation in Stanford University's School of Medicine
  • Empowerment evaluation provides a method for gathering, analyzing, and sharing data about a program and its outcomes and encourages faculty, students, and support personnel to actively participate in system changes.
  • It assumes that the more closely stakeholders are involved in reflecting on evaluation findings, the more likely they are to take ownership of the results and to guide curricular decision making and reform.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The steps of empowerment evaluation
  • designating a “critical friend” to communicate areas of potential improvement,
  • collecting evaluation data,
  • encouraging a cycle of reflection and action
  • establishing a culture of evidence
  • developing reflective educational practitioners.
  • cultivating a community of learners
  • yearly cycles of improvement at the Stanford University School of Medicine
  • Gary Brown on 20 Oct 10
     
    The findings were presented in Academic Medicine, a medical education journal, earlier this year
Joshua Yeidel

Putting Learning Under a Microscope - Curriculum - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...48997

higher_education learning assessment

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 02 Nov 09 - Cached
  • First, the faculty has designed a unified curriculum.
  • Second, the faculty members are organized under a single academic unit, no matter their disciplinary backgrounds.
  • Third, the program plans to collect an enormous amount of data about student performance and to analyze those data in new ways.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • an elaborate database that will help them track the success (or lack thereof) of various instructional techniques.
  • Joshua Yeidel on 02 Nov 09
     
    A startup campus in health sciences attempts to put into practice many OAI-like approaches in health sciences. Amid the enthusiasm there is some anecdotal evidence about practical difficulaties like coordinating curriculum and finding time for research.
Nils Peterson

2009 Annual Meeting | Conference Program - 0 views

www.aacu.org/...program.cfm

shared by Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09 - Cached
  • This session explores the notion that assessment for transformational learning is best utilized as a learning tool. By providing timely, transparent, and appropriate feedback, both to students and to the institution itself, learning is enhanced – a far different motive for assessment than is external accountability.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      need to get to these guys with our harvesting gradebook ideas...
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      decided to attend another session. Hersh was OK before lunch, but the talk by Pan looks more promising
  • Academic and corporate communities agree on the urgent need for contemporary, research-based pedagogies of engagement in STEM fields. Participants will learn how leaders from academic departments and institutions have collaborated with leaders from the corporate and business community in regional networks to ensure that graduates meet the expectations of prospective employers and the public.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      here is another session with links to CTLT work, both harvesting gradebook and the ABET work
  • Professor Pan will discuss the reflective teaching methods used to prepare students to recognize and mobilize community assets as they design, implement, and evaluate projects to improve public health.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Students tasked to learn about a community, ride the bus, make a Doc appt. Then tasked to do a non-clinical health project in that community (they do plenty of clinical stuff elsewhere in the program). Project must build capacity in the community to survive after the student leaves. Example. Work with hispanic parents in Sacramento about parenting issue, ex getting kids to sleep on time. Student had identified problem in the community, but first project idea was show a video, which was not capacity building. Rather than showing the video, used the video as a template and made a new video. Families were actors. Result was spanish DVD that the community could own. Pan thinks this is increased capacity in the community.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Freshman Survey annually examines the academic habits of mind of entering first-year students.  Along with academic involvement, the survey examines diversity, civic engagement, college admissions and expectations of college. 
  • The project aims to promote faculty and student assessment of undergraduate research products in relation to outcomes associated with basic research skills and general undergraduate learning principles (communication and quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and integration and application of knowledge).
  • They focus educators on the magnitude of the challenge to prepare an ever-increasingly diverse, globally-connected student body with the knowledge, ability, processes, and confidence to adapt to diverse environments and respond creatively to the enormous issues facing humankind.
  • One challenge of civic engagement in the co-curriculum is the merging of cost and outcome: creating meaningful experiences for students and the community with small staffs, on small budgets, while still having significant, purposeful impact. 
  • a)claims that faculty are the sole arbiters of what constitutes a liberal education and b) counter claims that student life professionals also possess the knowledge and expertise critical to defining students’ total learning experiences.  
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      also, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
  • This session introduces a three-year national effort to document how colleges and universities are using assessment data to improve teaching and learning and to facilitate the dissemination and adoption of best practices in the assessment of college learning outcomes.
  • Exciting pedagogies of engagement abound, including undergraduate research, community-engaged learning, interdisciplinary exploration, and international study.  However, such experiences are typically optional and non-credit-bearing for students, and/or “on top of” the workload for faculty. This session explores strategies for integrating engaged learning into the institutional fabric (curriculum, student role, faculty role) and increasing access to these transformative experiences.
  • hands-on experiential learning, especially in collaboration with other students, is a superior pedagogy but how can this be provided in increasingly larger introductory classes? 
  • As educators seek innovative ways to manage knowledge and expand interdisciplinary attention to pressing global issues, as students and parents look for assurances that their tuition investment will pay professional dividends, and as alumni look for meaningful ways to give back to the institutions that nurtured and prepared them, colleges and universities can integrate these disparate goals through the Guilds, intergenerational membership networks that draw strength from the contributions of all of their members.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      see Theron's ideas for COMM.
  • Civic engagement learning derives its power from the engagement of students with real communities—local, national, and global. This panel explores the relationship between student learning and the contexts in which that learning unfolds by examining programs that place students in diverse contexts close to campus and far afield.
  • For institutional assessment to make a difference for student learning its results must result in changes in classroom practice. This session explores ways in which the institutional assessment of student learning, such as the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education and the Collegiate Learning Assessment, can be connected to our classrooms.
  • Interdisciplinary Teaching and Object-Based Learning in Campus Museums
  • To address pressing needs of their communities, government and non-profit agencies are requesting higher education to provide education in an array of human and social services. To serve these needs effectively, higher educationneeds to broaden and deepen its consultation with practitioners in designing new curricula. Colleges and universities would do well to consider a curriculum development model that requires consultation not only with potential employers, but also with practitioners and supervisors of practitioners.
  • Should Academics be Active? Campuses and Cutting Edge Civic Engagement
  • If transformational liberal education requires engaging the whole student across the educational experience, how can colleges and universities renew strategy and allocate resources effectively to support it?  How can assessment be used to improve student learning and strengthen a transformational learning environment? 
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Purpose of university is not to grant degrees, it has something to do with learning. Keeling's perspective is that the learning should be transformative; changing perspective. Liberating and emancipatory Learning is a complex interaction among student and others, new knowledge and experience, event, own aspirations. learners construct meaning from these elements. "we change our minds" altering the brain at the micro-level Brain imaging research demonstrates that analogical learning (abstract) demands more from more areas of the brain than semantic (concrete) learning. Mind is not an abstraction, it is based in the brain, a working physical organ .Learner and the environment matter to the learning. Seeds magazine, current issue on brain imaging and learning. Segway from brain research to need for university to educate the whole student. Uses the term 'transformative learning' meaning to transform the learning (re-wire the brain) but does not use transformative assessment (see wikipedia).
  • But as public debates roil, higher education has been more reactive than proactive on the question of how best to ensure that today’s students are fully prepared for a fast-paced future.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Bologna process being adopted (slowly) in EU, the idea is to make academic degrees more interchangeable and understandable across the EU three elements * Qualification Frameworks (transnational, national, disciplinary). Frameworks are graduated, with increasing expertise and autonomy required for the upper levels. They sound like broad skills that we might recognize in the WSU CITR. Not clear how they are assessed * Tuning (benchmarking) process * Diploma Supplements (licensure, thesis, other capstone activities) these extend the information in the transcript. US equivalent might be the Kuali Students system for extending the transcript. Emerging dialog on American capability This dialog is coming from 2 directions * on campus * employers Connect to the Greater Exceptions (2000-2005) iniative. Concluded that American HE has islands of innovation. Lead to LEAP (Liberal Education and America's Promise) Initiative (2005-2015). The dialog is converging because of several forces * Changes in the balance of economic and political power. "The rise of the rest (of the world)" * Global economy in which innovation is key to growth and prosperity LEAP attempts to frame the dialog (look for LEAP in AACU website). Miami-Dade CC has announced a LEAP-derived covenant, the goals must span all aspects of their programs. Define liberal education Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world intellectual and practical skills responsibility integrative skills Marker of success is (here is where the Transformative Gradebook fits in): evidence that students can apply the essential learning outcomes to complex, unscripted problems and real-world settings Current failure -- have not tracked our progress, or have found that we are not doing well. See AACU employer survey 5-10% percent of current graduates taking courses that would meet the global competencies (transcript analysis) See NSSE on Personal and social responsibility gains, less tha
  • Dr. Pan will also talk about strategies for breaking down cultural barriers.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 24 Jan 09
       
      Pan. found a non-profit agency to be a conduit and coordinator to level the power between univ and grass roots orgs. helped with cultural gaps.
Matthew Tedder

Turning Work into Play with Online Games | h+ Magazine - 0 views

hplusmagazine.com/...turning-work-play-online-games

education

shared by Matthew Tedder on 16 Jan 10 - Cached
  • Matthew Tedder on 16 Jan 10
     
    This is about games to improve employee work.
  • Matthew Tedder on 16 Jan 10
     
    This is about using online games to engage employees in work. This is very much the core of what I was talking about, except for education. For those more knowledgeable about software design: my thoughts so far were on using Google's V8 Javascript engine and a 3D engine, such as Ogre3D, perhaps wrapped by QT or SDL. The worlds would be managed on the server but code for each object type shipped to the clients and run, sychronized there. Everything would be an "object"--even a world itself (a container object). Each object would comprise of four code modules plus its media files (3D models, sounds, etc.): Affector -- this receives sensory input then filters and translates that to the object's internal properties. Intrinsor -- this is the object's behavioral programming. For example, it can be the functions of an espresso machine object or the AI and/or user-interface connector of an animate object, etc. Mitigator -- this is the code that controls the internal environment of any objects contained within this object. It mitigates the effects of contained objects to the affects of others. For example, a world object, a boat, a house, or a bag. The physics, weather, and such will depend on what they are contained within. The mitigator may also initiate effects to contained objects. Effector -- this provides the API for action attempts to the Intrinsor. It then filters and translates the action attempts to the objects actual action attempts that are read by this object's containor. (Yes--I mispelled some words above intentionally) This design provides a framework for a persistent world of decent individual performance. The V8 engine compiles to fast machine code (and caches). Only very minimal data need be communicated over the network. Objects can run in parallel precisely the same, so if a client fails the system continues. Updates of virtually any kind can be made on-the-fly without stopping the game. New object types will be relatively easy to b
Gary Brown

Details | LinkedIn - 0 views

www.linkedin.com/groupItem

accountability

shared by Gary Brown on 11 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Although different members of the academic hierarchy take on different roles regarding student learning, student learning is everyone’s concern in an academic setting. As I specified in my article comments, universities would do well to use their academic support units, which often have evaluation teams (or a designated evaluator) to assist in providing boards the information they need for decision making. Perhaps boards are not aware of those serving in evaluation roles at the university or how those staff members can assist boards in their endeavors.
  • Gary Brown • We have been using the Internet to post program assessment plans and reports (the programs that support this initiative at least), our criteria (rubric) for reviewing them, and then inviting external stakeholders to join in the review process.
Gary Brown

Learning Assessments: Let the Faculty Lead the Way - Measuring Stick - The Chronicle of... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...26779

assessment

shared by Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • The barriers to faculty involvement in assessment have been extensively catalogued over the years. Promotion and tenure systems do not reward such work. Time is short and other agendas loom larger. Most faculty members have no formal training in assessment—or, for that matter, in teaching and course design. Given developments in K-12, there are concerns, too, about the misuse of data, and skepticism about whether assessment brings real benefits to learners.
  • Moreover, as Robin Wilson points out, some campuses have found ways to open up the assessment conversation, shifting the focus away from external reporting, and inviting faculty members to examine their own students’ learning in ways that lead to improvement.
  • Does engagement with assessment’s questions change the way a faculty member thinks about her students and their learning? How and under what conditions does it change what he does in his classroom—and are those changes improvements for learners? How does evidence—which can be messy, ambiguous, discouraging, or just plain wrong—actually get translated into pedagogical action? What effects—good, bad, or uncertain—might engagement in assessment have on a faculty member’s scholarship, career trajectory, or sense of professional identity?
  • Gary Brown on 08 Sep 10
     
    Hutchings is a critical leader in our work--good links to have available, too.
Gary Brown

International Group Announces Audit of University Rankings - International - The Chroni... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124882

ranking colleges

shared by Gary Brown on 11 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • the organizer unveiled a project that would effectively rank the rankers.
  • As rankings proliferate around the world, they are increasingly having a direct impact on the decisions of students, academic staff, institutions, and policy makers, but each of those groups differs in its use of rankings and the sophistication it brings to evaluating them.
  • IREG's principles, which emphasize clarity and openness in the purposes and goals of rankings, the design and weighting of indicators, the collection and processing of data, and the presentation of results.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Whether the audit will actually work remains to be seen. Many of the people who attended the meeting expressed deep skepticism and unease about how effectively a rigorous and independent audit procedure could be applied.
  • rankings have become an intensely competitive business, and that any audit procedures would need to be clear and open enough to ensure that competitors were not pronouncing on one another's work.
  • Gary Brown on 11 Oct 10
     
    Sheesh
Theron DesRosier

The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy - The Conversation - H... - 3 views

blogs.hbr.org/...is_to_info_as_info_is_not.html

datainformationknowledgewisdom learning

shared by Theron DesRosier on 05 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 05 Feb 10
     
    "But knowledge is not a result merely of filtering or algorithms. It results from a far more complex process that is social, goal-driven, contextual, and culturally-bound. We get to knowledge - especially "actionable" knowledge - by having desires and curiosity, through plotting and play, by being wrong more often than right, by talking with others and forming social bonds, by applying methods and then backing away from them, by calculation and serendipity, by rationality and intuition, by institutional processes and social roles."
  • Theron DesRosier on 05 Feb 10
     
    An interresting take on assumptions about knowledge.
  • Kimberly Green on 08 Feb 10
     
    Really interesting quote, Theron. I wonder if it's a chunk that could be used as a prompt for a faculty discussion, to open up the dialogue about what is learning. And then how does a program design a curriculum and syllabi / assignments to teach and assess, towards a much broader understanding of knowledge (and skills)?
Gary Brown

Educators Mull How to Motivate Professors to Improve Teaching - Curriculum - The Chroni... - 4 views

chronicle.com/...63718

assessment

shared by Gary Brown on 25 Jan 10 - Cached
  • "Without an unrelenting focus on quality—on defining and measuring and ensuring the learning outcomes of students—any effort to increase college-completion rates would be a hollow effort indeed."
  • If colleges are going to provide high-quality educations to millions of additional students, they said, the institutions will need to develop measures of student learning than can assure parents, employers, and taxpayers that no one's time and money are being wasted.
  • "Effective assessment is critical to ensure that our colleges and universities are delivering the kinds of educational experiences that we believe we actually provide for students," said Ronald A. Crutcher, president of Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, during the opening plenary. "That data is also vital to addressing the skepticism that society has about the value of a liberal education."
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • But many speakers insisted that colleges should go ahead and take drastic steps to improve the quality of their instruction, without using rigid faculty-incentive structures or the fiscal crisis as excuses for inaction.
  • Handing out "teacher of the year" awards may not do much for a college
  • W.E. Deming argued, quality has to be designed into the entire system and supported by top management (that is, every decision made by CEOs and Presidents, and support systems as well as operations) rather than being made the responsibility solely of those delivering 'at the coal face'.
  • I see as a certain cluelessness among those who think one can create substantial change based on volunteerism
  • Current approaches to broaden the instructional repertoires of faculty members include faculty workshops, summer leave, and individual consultations, but these approaches work only for those relatively few faculty members who seek out opportunities to broaden their instructional methods.
  • The approach that makes sense to me is to engage faculty members at the departmental level in a discussion of the future and the implications of the future for their field, their college, their students, and themselves. You are invited to join an ongoing discussion of this issue at http://innovate-ideagora.ning.com/forum/topics/addressing-the-problem-of
  • Putting pressure on professors to improve teaching will not result in better education. The primary reason is that they do not know how to make real improvements. The problem is that in many fields of education there is either not enough research, or they do not have good ways of evaluationg the results of their teaching.
  • Then there needs to be a research based assessment that can be used by individual professors, NOT by the administration.
  • Humanities educatiors either have to learn enough statistics and cognitive science so they can make valid scientific comparisons of different strategies, or they have to work with cognitive scientists and statisticians
  • good teaching takes time
  • On the measurement side, about half of the assessments constructed by faculty fail to meet reasonable minimum standards for validity. (Interestingly, these failures leave the door open to a class action lawsuit. Physicians are successfully sued for failing to apply scientific findings correctly; commerce is replete with lawsuits based on measurement errors.)
  • The elephant in the corner of the room --still-- is that we refuse to measure learning outcomes and impact, especially proficiencies generalized to one's life outside the classroom.
  • until universities stop playing games to make themselves look better because they want to maintain their comfortable positions and actually look at what they can do to improve nothing is going to change.
  • Gary Brown on 25 Jan 10
     
    our work, our friends (Ken and Jim), and more context that shapes our strategy.
  • Matthew Tedder on 26 Jan 10
     
    How about using examples of highly motivational lecture and teaching techniques like the Richard Dawkins video I presented on this forum, recently. Even if teacher's do not consciously try to adopt good working techniques, there is at least a strong subconscious human tendency to mimic behaviors. I think that if teachers see more effective techniques, they will automatically begin to adopt adopt them.
Gary Brown

U.S. GAO - Program Evaluation: A Variety of Rigorous Methods Can Help Identify Effectiv... - 1 views

www.gao.gov/GAO-10-30

rcts alternative methodology

shared by Gary Brown on 01 Dec 09 - Cached
  • In the absence of detailed guidance, the panel defined sizable and sustained effects through case discussion
  • The Top Tier initiative's choice of broad topics (such as early childhood interventions), emphasis on long-term effects, and use of narrow evidence criteria combine to provide limited information on what is effective in achieving specific outcomes.
  • Several rigorous alternatives to randomized experiments are considered appropriate for other situations: quasi-experimental comparison group studies, statistical analyses of observational data, and--in some circumstances--in-depth case studies. The credibility of their estimates of program effects relies on how well the studies' designs rule out competing causal explanations.
  • Gary Brown on 01 Dec 09
     
    a critical resource
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