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Vander Ark was the first Executive Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From his post: "There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers--a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve 'if-then' statements: 'if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.'" "One problem not addressed by these theories is the lack of innovation diffusion in education--a good idea won't cross the street. Weak improvement incentives and strong bureaucracy have created a lousy marketplace for products and ideas." "Key assumption: teacher effectiveness is the key variable; more good teachers will improve student achievement" "I'm betting on social learning platforms as a lever for improvement at scale in education. Instead of a classroom as the primary organizing principle, social networks will become the primary building block of learning communities (both formal and informal). Smart recommendation engines will queue personalized content. Tutoring, training, and collaboration tools will be applications that run on social networks. New schools will be formed around these capabilities. Teachers in existing schools will adopt free tools yielding viral, bureaucracy-cutting productivity improvement."

"Key assumption: teacher effectiveness is the key variable; more good teachers will improve student achievement" Vander Ark was the first Executive Director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From his post:"There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers--a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve 'if-then' statements: 'if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.'" "One problem not addressed by these theories is the lack of innovation diffusion in education--a good idea won't cross the street. Weak improvement incentives and strong bureaucracy have created a lousy marketplace for products and ideas." "I'm betting on social learning platforms as a lever for improvement at scale in education. Instead of a classroom as the primary organizing principle, social networks will become the primary building block of learning communities (both formal and informal). Smart recommendation engines will queue personalized content. Tutoring, training, and collaboration tools will be applications that run on social networks. New schools will be formed around these capabilities. Teachers in existing schools will adopt free tools yielding viral, bureaucracy-cutting productivity improvement."\n\n\n

Capella has mandatory faculty training program, and then they select from the training program those who will teach. Candidates also pay their own tuition for the "try-out" or training.

The "burden" of accountability mirrors in data what we encounter in spirit. It appears to take less time than university's report and, more to the parallel, a little training might be useful.

A funny, personal, and surprisingly moving talk about Tom Waits, Allah, and poems that come like trains of air.

This is a good tool for connecting.

Minimally the advocates list suggests that higher ed might qualify for a bail out.

Students pay tuition to work for free ... unpaid internships are growing in this down economy, favoring the wealthy who can afford them. But internships are generally valuable for students, administrators say. The complementary courses involve journals, essays, oral presentations, or work portfolios. Independent studies lean toward academics. Companies often see academic credit as substitute compensation that qualifies interns as legally unpaid trainees and keeps them on their colleges' liability insurance. Advertisements specify: "Candidates must be able to receive academic credit." That makes some campus officials bristle. "What they're saying is holding the institution hostage," says Kathy L. Sims, director of career services at the University of California at Los Angeles. Employers don't know colleges' academic standards, she says. "It's really not their call whether their experience is creditworthy." Colleges have dealt with that quandary in various ways. Some, especially those with traditions of experiential learning, vet and monitor internships, enrolling students in courses designed to complement their real-world work. Others let professors sponsor independent studies based on internships. More and more have devised some form of noncredit recognition to try to satisfy employers without altering academic philosophies or making students pay tuition to work free. At Bates College, the game is up. "We're quite adamant about our refusal to play along," says James W. Hughes, a professor of economics. As chairman of the department eight years ago, he got dozens of calls from students, parents, and employers asking for credit for unpaid internships, mainly in the financial industry. "Why is it that we have to evaluate this experience," he says, "just so some multibillion-dollar bank can avoid paying $7.50 an hour?" But the law is vague, and arguably antiquated. In the for-profit sector, guidelines for legally unpaid internships come from a 1947 U

Note shift in NCATE accreditation to make the authentic or clinical training central; the classroom should supplement the authentic. There is also an emphasis on bringing change or transformation to the world.

A list of arguments against SharePoint as a file server with rebuttals from an MS SharePoint developer. The benefits Joel points to are real, but his handwaving about "it does require training" actually helps the other side of the argument..

"I am afraid that if we continue to get cuts at the level we are seeing, we may see a very quiet and disturbing transition from comprehensive, open door community colleges to niche colleges that are not comprehensive in their missions." Delta is also eliminating academic programs that don't fit into the two missions that are being protected: pre-transfer programs and job training. What will go? A lot of remedial education. The college will keep remedial courses for those who need just a course or two to be ready for college level work. But for the courses that enroll hundreds of students a semester who need years of remedial education to get ready for college, Delta is going to say no. Includes basic math, English as a second language (for beginners, newly arrived immigrants), courses aimed at senior citizens

more fodder for Rain King principles and A of A.

The poster in the accompanying picture says: "Education is not for sale". "In response to the massive re-orientation of education toward job training, privatization and the standardization of curricular outcomes mandated by the Bologna Process, students across Europe have been turning out by the thousands. This past June, as many as 250,000 students, parents, schoolteachers, college faculty and staff coordinated a week-long education strike in 90 cities across Germany."

Apropos of Ashley's comments about European views of accreditation and accountability: apparently standardization of curricular outcomes is facing some opposition.

Attention to this issue from this resource--Nature--is a breakthrough in its own right. Note the focus on "flourish in the long term...".

The issue is in the news, but I'm not sure we see utility in this level of discussion. Pulse taking, in any event.

In case you haven't already seen this.  While don't deny higher education needs attention, I personal wish there'd be far more attention paid to lower education and regressive education (my own term for, redressing and improving the education of all U.S. citizens).  We are in the process of destroying our country and our world.  Education as at the very heart of any solution.

More of the discussion in the news--the Atlantic

Apparently NCATE is not sufficient according to some.

An old site worth pondering.

Hutchings is a critical leader in our work--good links to have available, too.