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Gary Brown

For Accreditation, a Narrow Window of Opportunity - Commentary - The Chronicle of Highe... - 4 views

chronicle.com/...65980

accreditation

shared by Gary Brown on 24 Jun 10 - Cached
  • After two years as president of the American Council on Education, I feel compelled to send a wake-up call to campus executives: If federal policy makers are now willing to bail out the nation's leading banks and buy equity stakes in auto makers because those companies are "too big to fail," they will probably have few reservations about regulating an education system that they now understand is "too important to fail."
  • Regardless of party, policy makers are clearly aware of the importance of education and are demanding improved performance and more information, from preschool to graduate school. In this environment, we should expect college accreditation to come under significant scrutiny.
  • It has also clearly signaled its interest in using data to measure institutional performance and student outcomes, and it has invested in state efforts to create student-data systems from pre-kindergarten through graduate school.
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  • Higher education has so far navigated its way through the environment of increased regulatory interest without substantial changes to our system of quality assurance or federally mandated outcomes assessment. But that has only bought us time. As we look ahead, we must keep three facts in mind: Interest in accountability is bipartisan, and the pendulum has swung toward more regulation in virtually all sectors. The economic crisis is likely to spur increased calls from policy makers to control college prices and demonstrate that students are getting value for the dollar. The size of the federal budget deficit will force everyone who receives federal support to produce more and better evidence that an investment of federal funds will pay dividends for individuals and society.
  • If we do not seize the opportunity to strengthen voluntary peer accreditation as a rigorous test of institutional quality, grounded in appropriate measures of student learning, we place at risk a precious bulwark against excessive government intervention, a bulwark that has allowed American higher education to flourish. When it comes to safeguarding the quality, diversity, and independence of American higher education, accreditors hold the keys to the kingdom.
  • all accreditors now require colleges and universities to put more emphasis on measuring student-learning outcomes. They should be equally vigilant about ensuring that those data are used to achieve improvements in outcomes
  • share plain-language results of accreditation reviews with the public.
  • It takes very little close reading to see through the self-serving statements here: namely that higher education institutions must do a better PR job pretending they are interested in meaningful reform so as to head off any real reform that migh come from the federal authorities.
  • THEREFORE, let me voice a wakeup call for those who are really interested in reform--not that there are many.1.There will never be any meaningful reform unless we have a centralized and nationalized higher educational system. Leaving higher education in the hands of individual institutions is no longer effective and is in fact what has led to the present state we find ourselves in. Year after countless year we have been promised changes in higher education and year after year nothing changes. IF CHANGE IS TO COME IT MUST BE FORCED ONTO HIGHER EDUCATION FROM THE OUTSIDE.
  • Higher education in America can no longer afford to be organized around the useless market capitalism that forces too many financially marginalized institutions to compete for less and less.
  • Keeping Quiet by Pablo NerudaIf we were not so singled-mindedabout keeping our lives moving,and for once could do nothing,perhaps a huge silencemight interrupt this sadnessof never understanding ourselvesand of threatening ourselves with death.
  • Gary Brown on 24 Jun 10
     
    It is heating up again
Gary Brown

The Chimera of College Brands - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...65764

quality market accountability

shared by Gary Brown on 10 Jun 10 - Cached
  • What you get from a college, by contrast, varies wildly from department to department, professor to professor, and course to course. The idea implicit in college brands—that every course reflects certain institutional values and standards—is mostly a fraud. In reality, there are both great and terrible courses at the most esteemed and at the most denigrated institutions.
  • With a grant from the nonprofit Lumina Foundation for Education, physics and history professors from a range of Utah two- and four-year institutions are applying the "tuning" methods developed as part of the sweeping Bologna Process reforms in Europe.
  • The group also created "employability maps" by surveying employers of recent physics graduates—including General Electric, Simco Electronics, and the Air Force—to find out what knowledge and skills are needed for successful science careers.
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  • If a student finishes and can't do what's advertised, they'll say, 'I've been shortchanged.'
  • Kathryn MacKay, an associate professor of history at Weber State University, drew on recent work from the American Historical Association to define learning goals in historical knowledge, thinking, and skills.
  • In the immediate future, as the higher-education market continues to globalize and the allure of prestige continues to grow, the value of university brands is likely to rise. But at some point, the countervailing forces of empiricism will begin to take hold. The openness inherent to tuning and other, similar processes will make plain that college courses do not vary in quality in anything like the way that archaic, prestige- and money-driven brands imply. Once you've defined the goals, you can prove what everyone knows but few want to admit: From an educational standpoint, institutional brands are largely an illusion for which students routinely overpay.
  • Gary Brown on 10 Jun 10
     
    The argumet for external stakeholders is underscored, among other implications.
Theron DesRosier

Half an Hour: The New Nature of Knowledge - 0 views

halfanhour.blogspot.com/...new-nature-of-knowledge.html

downes knowledge learning network

shared by Theron DesRosier on 24 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 24 Mar 09
     
    The very forms of reason and enquiry employed in the classroom must change. Instead of seeking facts and underlying principles, students need to be able to recognize patterns and use things in novel ways. Instead of systematic methodical enquiry, such as might be characterized by Hempel's Deductive-Nomological method, students need to learn active and participative forms of enquiry. instead of deference to authority, students need to embrace diversity and recognize (and live with) multiple perspectives and points of view. I think that there is a new type of knowledge, that we recognize it - and are forced to recognize it - only because new technologies have enabled many perspectives, many points of view, to be expressed, to interact, to forge new realities, and that this form of knowledge is emerged from our cooperative interactions with each other, and not found in the doctrines or dictates of any one of us.
Joshua Yeidel

Ning's Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...free-networks-cuts-40-of-staff

ning web2.0 social networking

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 16 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 16 Apr 10
     
    "One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal, the company is making some major changes: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people - over 40% of its staff."
Sarah Usher

Police Jobs Through Police-Recruitment UK - 1 views

I was searching for police force jobs that will suit the qualifications that I have. I searched in offices and online until I came across Police-Recruitment UK. I was able to set my sights on a sp...

police force jobs

started by Sarah Usher on 06 Sep 11 no follow-up yet
Gary Brown

You Only Get This Type of Education in Class - Mythic Attributes of the Lecture ~ Steph... - 0 views

www.downes.ca/...page.cgi

lecture learning

shared by Gary Brown on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Gary Brown on 09 Jun 09
     
    You Only Get This Type of Education in Class - Mythic Attributes of the Lecture Good discussion of the use of the lecture in online learning, both on whether it is advisable, and on how to approach the idea. Given that the lecture has such a bad reputation, why do I produce so many of them? What I have found is that I do some of my best thinking though speaking. Giving a talk forces me to reconceptualize my thoughts. So for me, a lecture is inevitably a learning experience. As for my audience, well, I have often maintained that they learn very little from the content of the lecture, and much more from my mannerisms and approach. A lecture (like a demonstration) isn't a learning event (except for the speaker), it's an enabling event, a celebration of what we already know and believe. Lectures challenge, invigorate, enliven, enable and enlighten, but they do not teach (much). Experience teaches. David Jones, The Weblog of (a) David Jones, June 9, 2009. [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Experience] [Previous][Next]
  • Gary Brown on 09 Jun 09
     
    This is a provocative description of the lecture
Joshua Yeidel

Wired Campus: Student Beats Cheating Charges for Posting Work Online - Chroni... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...index.php

assessment higher_education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 08 Jul 09 - No Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 08 Jul 09
     
    "A student majoring in computer science at San Jose State University said he fought against a professor who had tried to force him to remove his homework from the Internet, and won..." For computer science assignments where a working solution to a specific problem is the expected response, the implications are clear. But what are the implications for assessment (and for higher educaiton generally)?
Gary Brown

Analysis Paralysis--Why do they rhyme? - 3 views

analyticalconsulting.info

reflection analysis

shared by Gary Brown on 27 May 10 - Cached
  • To an analyst such as myself, it is rather unfortunate that the words rhyme.
  • When we analyze data or systems we certainly do want the patterns to reveal themselves – to come loose – to emerge despite the forces that are holding fast breakthrough realizations and insights needed in order to facilitate progress, positive change and growth.
  • organizations which embrace self-analysis are the most successful organizations. The lesson: You need not break it in order to fix it.
  • Gary Brown on 27 May 10
     
    This is a fun one to look at and makes a few good points.
Nils Peterson

Half an Hour: Open Source Assessment - 0 views

halfanhour.blogspot.com/...open-source-assessment.html

Downes learning2.0 outcomes_assessment learning_community end_of_LMS

shared by Nils Peterson on 13 Sep 10 - Cached
  • When posed the question in Winnipeg regarding what I thought the ideal open online course would look like, my eventual response was that it would not look like a course at all, just the assessment.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 13 Sep 10
       
      I remembered this Downes post on the way back from HASTAC. It is some of the roots of our Spectrum I think.
  • The reasoning was this: were students given the opportunity to attempt the assessment, without the requirement that they sit through lectures or otherwise proprietary forms of learning, then they would create their own learning resources.
  • In Holland I encountered a person from an organization that does nothing but test students. This is the sort of thing I long ago predicted (in my 1998 Future of Online Learning) so I wasn't that surprised. But when I pressed the discussion the gulf between different models of assessment became apparent.Designers of learning resources, for example, have only the vaguest of indication of what will be on the test. They have a general idea of the subject area and recommendations for reading resources. Why not list the exact questions, I asked? Because they would just memorize the answers, I was told. I was unsure how this varied from the current system, except for the amount of stuff that must be memorized.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 13 Sep 10
       
      assumes a test as the form of assessment, rather than something more open ended.
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  • As I think about it, I realize that what we have in assessment is now an exact analogy to what we have in software or learning content. We have proprietary tests or examinations, the content of which is held to be secret by the publishers. You cannot share the contents of these tests (at least, not openly). Only specially licensed institutions can offer the tests. The tests cost money.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 13 Sep 10
       
      See our Where are you on the spectrum, Assessment is locked vs open
  • Without a public examination of the questions, how can we be sure they are reliable? We are forced to rely on 'peer reviews' or similar closed and expert-based evaluation mechanisms.
  • there is the question of who is doing the assessing. Again, the people (or machines) that grade the assessments work in secret. It is expert-based, which creates a resource bottleneck. The criteria they use are not always apparent (and there is no shortage of literature pointing to the randomness of the grading). There is an analogy here with peer-review processes (as compared to recommender system processes)
  • What constitutes achievement in a field? What constitutes, for example, 'being a physicist'?
  • This is a reductive theory of assessment. It is the theory that the assessment of a big thing can be reduced to the assessment of a set of (necessary and sufficient) little things. It is a standards-based theory of assessment. It suggests that we can measure accomplishment by testing for accomplishment of a predefined set of learning objectives.Left to its own devices, though, an open system of assessment is more likely to become non-reductive and non-standards based. Even if we consider the mastery of a subject or field of study to consist of the accomplishment of smaller components, there will be no widespread agreement on what those components are, much less how to measure them or how to test for them.Consequently, instead of very specific forms of evaluation, intended to measure particular competences, a wide variety of assessment methods will be devised. Assessment in such an environment might not even be subject-related. We won't think of, say, a person who has mastered 'physics'. Rather, we might say that they 'know how to use a scanning electron microscope' or 'developed a foundational idea'.
  • We are certainly familiar with the use of recognition, rather than measurement, as a means of evaluating achievement. Ludwig Wittgenstein is 'recognized' as a great philosopher, for example. He didn't pass a series of tests to prove this. Mahatma Gandhi is 'recognized' as a great leader.
  • The concept of the portfolio is drawn from the artistic community and will typically be applied in cases where the accomplishments are creative and content-based. In other disciplines, where the accomplishments resemble more the development of skills rather than of creations, accomplishments will resemble more the completion of tasks, like 'quests' or 'levels' in online games, say.Eventually, over time, a person will accumulate a 'profile' (much as described in 'Resource Profiles').
  • In other cases, the evaluation of achievement will resemble more a reputation system. Through some combination of inputs, from a more or less define community, a person may achieve a composite score called a 'reputation'. This will vary from community to community.
  • Nils Peterson on 13 Sep 10
     
    Fine piece, transformative. "were students given the opportunity to attempt the assessment, without the requirement that they sit through lectures or otherwise proprietary forms of learning, then they would create their own learning resources."
Gary Brown

Opinion | Legislature's waning support for higher education creates chasm for middle cl... - 1 views

seattletimes.nwsource.com/...2012959173_guest22smith.html

future of education

shared by Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Today in Washington, the traditional on-campus experience is increasingly enjoyed primarily by children of the wealthy or the very poor who are very bright.
  • The Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board reports that based on the number of degrees per 100 residents, our children are not as well-educated as their parents.
  • we rank 48th in undergraduate enrollment and 49th in graduate enrollment. We are losing business to other states and need to realize they probably have better educated work forces.
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  • it is time for Washington to return to the concept that all individuals, regardless of their incomes, should have the opportunity to have access to an affordable, high-quality education.
  • If our public universities do not get increased support from the state of Washington, they will decrease in quality and need to become increasingly private.
  • Samuel H. Smith is president emeritus of Washington State University, a member of the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board, and a founding board member of the College Success Foundation and the Western Governors University. He is also a member of The Seattle Times board of directors.
  • Gary Brown on 22 Sep 10
     
    An old friend...
Gary Brown

Academic Grants Foster Waste and Antagonism - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Educ... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124920

grants

shared by Gary Brown on 20 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • We think that our work is primarily organized by institutions of higher education, or by departments, or by conferences, but in reality those have become but appendages to a huge system of distributing resources through grants.
  • It's time we looked at this system—and at its costs: unpaid, anxiety-filled hours upon hours for a single successful grant; scholarship shaped, or misshaped, according to the demands of marketlike forces and the interests of nonacademic private foundations. All to uphold a distributive system that fosters antagonistic competition and increasing inequality.
  • Every hour spent working on or worrying about grants is an hour that could be better spent on research (or family life, or civic engagement, or sleep). But every hour not spent on a grant gives a competitive edge to other applicants.
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  • The grant is basically an outsourcing of assessment that could, in most situations, be carried out much better by paid professional staff members.
  • Meanwhile grant-receiving institutions, like universities, become increasingly dependent on grants, to the point that faculty members and other campus voices can scarcely be heard beneath the din of administrators exhorting them to get more and more grants.
  • Colleagues whose research may be equally valuable (based on traditional criteria of academic debate) could be denied resources and livelihoods because, instead of grant writing, they favor publishing, or public engagement, or teaching.
  • Grant applications normalize a mode of scholarly writing and thought that, whatever its merits, has not been chosen collectively by academe in the interests of good scholarship, but has been imposed from without, with the grant as its guide. And as application procedures grow more stringent, the quality of successful projects is likely to sink. Can we honestly expect good scholarship from scholars who must constantly concentrate on something other than their scholarship? Academic life is increasingly made up of a series of applications, while the applied-for work dwindles toward insignificance.
  • It's time, I think, to put an end to our rationalizations. My spine will not be straightened. The agony will not be wiped off my brain. My mind misshapen will not be pounded back, and I have to stop telling myself that everything will be OK. Months and years of my life have been taken away, and nothing short of systemic transformation will redeem them.
Kimberly Green

Commodification of Academic Research (Inside HIgher Ed) - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...radder

education higher_education

shared by Kimberly Green on 25 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Kimberly Green on 25 Oct 10
     
    This article provides an international view of the commodification of academic research, including this base line definition, from an email interview with Hans Radder, a professor of the philosophy of science and technology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Q: Academic research has always cost money to produce, and led to products that made money for others. How is the "commodification" of research different today than in past periods? A: Commodification means that all kinds of activities and their results are predominantly interpreted and assessed on the basis of economic criteria. In this sense, recent academic research is far more commodified than it was in the past. In general terms, one can say that the relation between "money" and specific academic activity has become much more direct. Consider the following examples: first, the amount of external funding acquired is often used as a measure of individual academic quality; second, specific assessments by individual scientists have a direct impact on departmental budgets; for instance, if I now pass this doctoral dissertation, my department receives a substantial sum of money; if not, it ends up with a budget deficit; third, the growing practice of patenting the results of academic research is explicitly aimed at acquiring commercial monopolies. Related to these financial issues are important and substantial changes of academic culture. Universities are increasingly being run as big corporations. They have a top-down command structure and an academic culture in which individual university scientists are forced to behave like mini-capitalists in order to survive, guided by an entrepreneurial ethos aimed at maximizing the capitalization of their knowledge.
Corinna Lo

Revolution, Facebook-Style - Can Social Networking Turn Young Egyptians Into a Force fo... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25bloggers-t.html

facebook

shared by Corinna Lo on 24 Jan 09 - Cached
  • Corinna Lo on 24 Jan 09
     
    Freedom of speech and the right to assemble are limited in Egypt, which since 1981 has been ruled by Mubarak's National Democratic Party under a permanent state-of-emergency law. An estimated 18,000 Egyptians are imprisoned under the law, which allows the police to arrest people without charges, allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government. Newspapers are monitored by the Ministry of Information and generally refrain from directly criticizing Mubarak. And so for young people in Egypt, Facebook, which allows users to speak freely to one another and encourages them to form groups, is irresistible as a platform not only for social interaction but also for dissent.
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.
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  • 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.
Joshua Yeidel

The Tower and The Cloud | EDUCAUSE - 0 views

www.educause.edu/...133998

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 06 Nov 08 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 06 Nov 08
     
    "The emergence of the networked information economy is unleashing two powerful forces. On one hand, easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals. People can now discover and consume information resources and services globally from their homes. Further, new social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and edification of information on the Internet. Empowerment of the individual -- or consumerization -- is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor of new and emerging virtual ones. Second, ubiquitous access to high-speed networks along with network standards, open standards and content, and techniques for virtualizing hardware, software, and services is making it possible to leverage scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be emerging is industrial-scale computing -- a standardized infrastructure for delivering computing power, network bandwidth, data storage and protection, and services. Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 03 Dec 08
     
    Consumerization and industrialization beg the question "Is this the end of the middle?"; that is, what will be the role of "enterprise" IT in the future? Indeed, the bigger question is what will become of all of our intermediating institutions? This volume examines the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization in higher education.
Gary Brown

Struggling Students Can Improve by Studying Themselves, Research Shows - Teaching - The... - 3 views

chronicle.com/...64004

feedback peer review

shared by Gary Brown on 13 Feb 10 - Cached
  • "We're trying to document the role of processes that are different from standard student-outcome measures and standard ability measures,
  • We're interested in various types of studying, setting goals for oneself, monitoring one's progress as one goes through learning a particular topic."
  • Mr. Zimmerman has spent most of his career examining what can go wrong when people try to learn new facts and skills. His work centers on two common follies: First, students are often overconfident about their knowledge, assuming that they understand material just because they sat through a few lectures or read a few chapters. Second, students tend to attribute their failures to outside forces ("the teacher didn't like me," "the textbook wasn't clear enough") rather than taking a hard look at their own study habits.
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  • That might sound like a recipe for banal lectures about study skills. But training students to monitor their learning involves much more than simple nagging, Mr. Zimmerman says. For one thing, it means providing constant feedback, so that students can see their own strengths and weaknesses.
  • or one thing, it means providing constant feedback, so that students can see their own strengths and weaknesses.
  • "The first one is, Give students fast, accurate feedback about how they're doing. And the second rule, which is less familiar to most people, is, Now make them demonstrate that they actually understand the feedback that has been given."
  • "I did a survey in December," he says. "Only one instructor said they were no longer using the technique. Twelve people said they were using the technique 'somewhat,' and eight said 'a lot.' So we were pleased that they didn't forget about us after the program ended."
  • "Only one instructor said they were no longer using the technique. Twelve people said they were using the technique 'somewhat,' and eight said 'a lot.' So we were pleased that they didn't forget about us after the program ended."
  • And over time, we've realized that these methods have a much greater effect if they're embedded within the course content.
  • "Once we focus on noticing and correcting errors in whatever writing strategy we're working on, the students just become junkies for feedback,"
  • "Errors are part of the process of learning, and not a sign of personal imperfection," Mr. Zimmerman says. "We're trying to help instructors and students see errors not as an endpoint, but as a beginning point for understanding what they know and what they don't know, and how they can approach problems in a more effective way."
  • Errors are part of the process of learning, and not a sign of personal imperfection,"
  • Self-efficacy" was coined by Albert Bandura in the 1970's
  • "Self-efficacy" was coined by Albert Bandura in the 1970's,
  • The 1990 paper from _Educational Psychologist_ 25 (1), pp. 3-17) which is linked above DOES include three citations to Bandura's work.
  • The 1990 paper from _Educational Psychologist_ 25 (1), pp. 3-17) which is linked above DOES include three citations to Bandura's work.
  • What I am particularly amazed by is that the idea of feedback, reflection and explicitly demonstrated understanding (essentially a Socratic approach of teaching), is considered an innovation.
  • Gary Brown on 13 Feb 10
     
    selected for the focus on feedback. The adoption by half or fewer, depending, is also interesting as the research is of the type we would presume to be compelling.
Gary Brown

American Colleges Lag in Meeting Labor Needs - Research - The Chronicle of Higher Educa... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...63395

employers

shared by Gary Brown on 05 Jan 10 - Cached
  • American colleges are only "moderately responsive" to changes in the labor markets
  • In general, growth in employment opportunities and wages and demand for specific occupations do increase degree completion. But that relationship operates with a lag, with the strongest correlations occurring with a delay of four to seven years—the time it takes to earn an undergraduate or advanced degree
  • As a result, employers must look elsewhere to fill jobs, such as hiring skilled workers from abroad.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The study also does not wholly account for the role job switching plays in meeting work-force needs.
  • If American businesses do not want to rely on foreign workers in particular fields, the authors note, they will need to consider strategies to expand the production of domestic degrees in key areas,
  • The recent adminstrative challenge to our acrediting agencies is one of many examples of not only a call for greater accountability but a public expectation of educations promise for a better life continuing to deliver
  • Gary Brown on 05 Jan 10
     
    The real drive behind accountability....
Gary Brown

News: Different Paths to Full Professor - Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

www.insidehighered.com/...osu

SoTL research Tenure and Promotion

shared by Gary Brown on 11 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Ohio State is embarking on discussions on how to change the way professors are evaluated for promotion to full professor. University officials argue that, as in tenure reviews, research appears to be the dominant factor at that stage, despite official policies to weigh teaching and service as well.
  • The concept in play would end the myth that candidates for full professor (and maybe, someday, candidates for tenure) should be great in everything. Why? Because most professors aren't great at everything.
  • Once research eminence is verified, teaching and service must be found only to be "adequate."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • This approach is insidiously harmful," Alutto said. "First, it generates cynicism among productive faculty, as they realize the 'game' being played. Second, it frustrates productive faculty who contribute to their disciplines and the university in unique and powerful ways other than -- or in addition to -- traditional research. Third, it flies in the face of everything we know about the need for a balanced portfolio of skills to achieve institutional success."
  • Measuring impact is always difficult, particularly when it comes to teaching and service," he said. "But it can be done if we focus on the significance of these activities as it extends beyond our own institution -- just as we expect such broad effects with traditional scholarship. Thus, indicators of impact on other institutions, recognition by professional associations, broad adoption of teaching materials (textbooks, software, etc.) by other institutions, evidence of effects on policy formulation and so on -- all these are appropriate independent indicators of effectiveness."
  • Gerber said, the idea of "counting" such contributions in faculty evaluations is an embrace of Ernest Boyer's ideas about "the scholarship of teaching," ideas that have had much more influence outside research universities than within them.
  • Gary Brown on 11 Mar 10
     
    Reconsidering SoTL at Ohio State
  • Kimberly Green on 29 Mar 10
     
    Responding to this portion: This approach is insidiously harmful," Alutto said. "First, it generates cynicism among productive faculty, as they realize the 'game' being played. Second, it frustrates productive faculty who contribute to their disciplines and the university in unique and powerful ways other than -- or in addition to -- traditional research. Third, it flies in the face of everything we know about the need for a balanced portfolio of skills to achieve institutional success." How does OAI navigate these real concerns / hurdles with our program assessment efforts? If we convince/force leadership to "value" teaching and SoTL but it carries little or no weight in terms of promotion and tenure (I give you Carol Anelli, for example), then don't we become part of that "game"?
Nils Peterson

The Age of External Knowledge - Idea of the Day Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/...the-age-of-external-knowledge

shared by Nils Peterson on 10 Mar 10 - Cached
  • David Dalrymple, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks human memory will no longer be the key repository of knowledge, and focus will supersede erudition. Quote: Ignacio Rodriguez Before the Internet, most professional occupations required a large body of knowledge, accumulated over years or even decades of experience. But now, anyone with good critical thinking skills and the ability to focus on the important information can retrieve it on demand from the Internet, rather than her own memory. On the other hand, those with wandering minds, who might once have been able to focus by isolating themselves with their work, now often cannot work without the Internet, which simultaneously furnishes a panoply of unrelated information — whether about their friends’ doings, celebrity news, limericks, or millions of other sources of distraction. The bottom line is that how well an employee can focus might now be more important than how knowledgeable he is. Knowledge was once an internal property of a person, and focus on the task at hand could be imposed externally, but with the Internet, knowledge can be supplied externally, but focus must be forced internally.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 10 Mar 10
       
      Kevin Facemyer and I offered a somewhat similar thought in the late 90's -- in a small education journal lost in the depths of time. We referred to it as "extra-somatic knowledge" and postulated that if you can retireve information in a timeframe that lets you continue with a conversation, it is the functional equivalent of knowing it (knowing in the older, within one's head sense).
Gary Brown

News: The Specialists - Inside Higher Ed - 4 views

www.insidehighered.com/...statistics

for profits

shared by Gary Brown on 13 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Choosing the academic program at a single university, they say, is a relic of a time before online education made it possible for a student in Oregon to take courses at a university in Florida
  • Much of the talk about this imminent unbundling has come from colleges that predict that students might want to transfer credits from other colleges that might have different missions. But the competition may also come from entities that do not even offer degrees.
  • The company outsources grading and other work to master’s degree-holders in India for much less than it would cost to employ similarly qualified teaching assistants in the United States.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • the confluence of several economic factors — particularly rising tuition and the unwillingness of many students to take on exorbitant debt, especially as they see their degree-holding peers struggling to land jobs — may force institutions to consider turning to outside specialists if they want to continue offering certain courses.And if they don’t, Smith says, students will likely turn to the outside specialists themselves.
  • Gary Brown on 13 Apr 10
     
    Variations on a theme, but notable now in particular as we debate general education reform.
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