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Nils Peterson

Accreditation and assessment in an Open Course - an opening proposal | Open Course in Education Futures - 1 views

edfutures.com/...t-open-course-opening-proposal

shared by Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10 - Cached
  • A good example of this may be a learning portfolio created by a students and reviewed by an instructor. The instructor might be looking for higher orders of learning... evidence of creative thinking, of the development of complex concepts or looking for things like improvement.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10
       
      He starts with a portfolio reviewed by the instructor, but it gets better
  • There is a simple sense in which assessing people for this course involves tracking their willingness to participate in the discussion. I have claimed in many contexts that in fields in which the canon is difficult to identify, where what is 'true' is not possible to identify knowledge becomes a negotiation. This will certainly true in this course, so I think the most important part of the assessment will be whether the learner in question has collaborated, has participated has ENGAGED with the material and with other participants of the course.
  • What we need, then, is a peer review model for assessment. We need people to take it as their responsibility to review the work of others, to confirm their engagement, and form community/networks of assessment that monitor and help each other.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • (say... 3-5 other participants are willing to sign off on your participation)
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10
       
      peer credentialling.
  • Evidence of contribution on course projects
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10
       
      I would prefer he say "projects" where the learner has latitude to define the project, rather than a 'course project' where the agency seems to be outside the learner. See our diagram of last April, the learner should be working their problem in their community
  • I think for those that are looking for PD credit we should be able to use the proposed assessment model (once you guys make it better) for accreditation. You would end up with an email that said "i was assessed based on this model and was not found wanting" signed by facilitators (or other participants, as surely given the quality of the participants i've seen, they would qualify as people who could guarantee such a thing).
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10
       
      Peer accreditation. It depends on the credibility of those signing off see also http://www.nilspeterson.com/2010/03/21/reimagining-both-learning-learning-institutions/
  • I think the Otago model would work well here. I call it the Otago model as Leigh Blackall's course at Otago was the first time i actually heard of someone doing it. In this model you do all the work in a given course, and then are assessed for credit AFTER the course by, essentially, challenging for PLAR. It's a nice distributed model, as it allows different people to get different credit for the same course.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 10
       
      Challenging for a particular credit in an established institutional system, or making the claim that you have a useful solution to a problem and the solution merits "credit" in a particular system's procedures.
Gary Brown

Why Liberal Arts Need Career Services - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...48973

careers

shared by Gary Brown on 04 Nov 09 - Cached
  • I have consulted with deans who say they really want to improve their career-services programs—but no, they can't offer career courses for credit, their professors aren't interested in supervising internships, and they must tread lightly around anything that might be seen by the faculty as encroaching vocationalism.
  • I've also heard from numerous professors, "Our good students go to graduate school. We don't need to focus on those who are looking for jobs."
  • I have also been told, "The professors are too busy teaching to worry about how the students will use their knowledge. It's not their job." And I've had more than one faculty member confess to me that they really aren't sure how what they teach applies in the nonacademic world.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • There's no way to predict which moments of a liberal-arts education will be directly relevant in the workplace, but it's imperative that students know such moments occur frequently, and that the skills and knowledge they're learning are far from obscure and irrelevant.
  • We use visual-thinking techniques to help students connect the dots between their academic experience and the workplace.
  • But the opportunity to teach a career course that directly draws from a liberal-arts curriculum is not offered at many institutions. Instead, if courses are offered at all, they typically focus on basic job-finding skills like résumé writing and networking, serving to reinforce professors' worst beliefs about career advising: that it distracts and detracts from the educational process.
  • Professors, academic deans, and career-center staff members must work together. Learn what is happening in each other's shops. And don't have just a superficial conversation about services—instead, engage in a conversation about what is truly distinct about the curriculum, what students are learning, and how to make employers care.
  • Career-center personnel should find out what employers are seeking and what they say about your students.
  • If more liberal-arts faculties and career experts get together, watch out—the results could be amazing.
  • Gary Brown on 04 Nov 09
     
    As we work with CLA, perhaps inviting Careers Services to join as independent reviewers will help the effort
  • Joshua Yeidel on 05 Nov 09
     
    What seems to be missing here is inclusion of employers directly into the learning community. If professors "aren't sure how what they teach applies in the nonacademic world", get somebody directly involved who is, as one voice in the conversation, anyway. Of course this will be challenging to the professoriate, but it could also be revitalizing.
Joshua Yeidel

Can Gates Foundation's Millions Remake Higher Education? - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

chronicle.com/...123824

higher_education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 25 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Another Gates grantee, Highline Community College, in Washington, created different tracks for students planning to major in math-heavy fields and for all the others. Highline is one of 29 colleges in Washington that got Gates money as part of a $5.3-million grant given to the Washington State Board for Technical and Community Colleges.
  • Joshua Yeidel on 25 Aug 10
     
    "All are focusing, to varying degrees, on learning communities as a way to improve remedial education. The idea is that the linked courses create peer-support networks, build greater cohesion in the curriculum, and enable students to earn some college credits along with precollege work."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 25 Aug 10
     
    One aspect of the Gates Foundation's massive move into higher education. The remedial aspect quoted may raise memories for some of us...
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.
Nils Peterson

An emerging model for open courses @ Dave's Educational Blog - 0 views

davecormier.com/...merging-model-for-open-courses

shared by Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10 - Cached
  • if I was going to advise any *learner* about pursuing their interest (and by definition, in an “open” situation the set of learners is not prescribed), I’d urge them to find an *existing* robust community of people already talking about that subject, and then focus on helping them develop skills to engage, as a newcomer, with existing coversations and communities.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10
       
      Says Scott Leslie. I think we have been saying similar things.
  • Can the two ideas– open, networked learning communities and open courses affiliated with and/or products from institutions not only co-exist, but feed off of one another? I get the asymmetry aspect, I really do, but I’m not convinced that institutions have no worth or that the situation for continuing– maybe even increasing– that worth is hopeless
  • @Scott Leslie. Thanks for your comment on the language of ‘courses’, or in my case ‘modules’. It has helped me realise that my approach to open education post my looming retirement may be trapped in the wrong mindset. I have been trying to think of how I can convert a module I teach at Leeds Uni that dies when I retire to an OE resource ‘in the wild’. I have been thinking about how it can be packaged as an OE module that a community of network of open learners can engage with and exploit/re-purpose according to individual and collective needs. I assumed that I and others would somehow organically become mentors (open tutors?) and flexibly help out as required. Perhaps I should be trying to develop links with existing communities engages in discussions and project around the discipline of my module and try and contribute there somehow. I think your comment illustrates the difficult transition in moving between open education as content (based on a formal education model) and open education as process that engages disparate audiences with varied agendas and objectives.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 01 Sep 10
       
      Seems to be someone who wants to explore the fine line of releasing his modules into the wild. It might be interesting to engage him
Gary Brown

Brainless slime mould makes decisions like humans | Not Exactly Rocket Science | Discover Magazine - 0 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...ld-makes-decisions-like-humans

learning

shared by Gary Brown on 13 Aug 10 - Cached
  • These results strongly suggest that, like humans, Physarum doesn’t attach any intrinsic value to the options that are available to it. Instead, it compares its alternatives. Add something new into the mix, and its decisions change.
  • But how does Physarum make decisions at all without a brain?  The answer is deceptively simple – it does so by committee. Every plasmodium is basically a big sac of fluid, where each part rhythmically contracts and expands, pushing the fluid inside back-and-forth. The rate of the contractions depends on what neighbouring parts of the sac are doing, and by the local environment. They happen faster when the plasmodium touches something attractive like food, and they slow down when repellent things like sunlight are nearby.
  • It’s the ultimate in collective decision-making and it allows Physarum to perform remarkable feats of “intelligence”, including simulating Tokyo’s transport network, solving mazes, and even driving robots.
  • Gary Brown on 13 Aug 10
     
    This probably also apples to change theory....
Joshua Yeidel

EDUCAUSE Teaching and Learning Challenges '09 - Debate the list, join the community and collaborate with colleagues - 0 views

tlchallenges09.ning.com

web_2.0 educause higher education

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 09 Jan 09 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 09 Jan 09
     
    Ning network for the EDUCause T&L Challenges project. Everything but the wiki...
Jayme Jacobson

Blurring the Boundaries: Social Networking & ePortfolio Development - 2 views

docs.google.com/Doc

portfolios social networking learning identity

shared by Jayme Jacobson on 24 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Jayme Jacobson on 24 Feb 10
     
    Helen Barrett does a nice job of formally bringing together a number of threads we've been exploring. She weaves in Pink's new book "Drive," Csíkszentmihályi and Flow and many other popular but relevant voices. I think this is worth absorbing into some of our work.
Gary Brown

2 Efforts to Provide Data on Colleges to Consumers Fall Short, Report Says - Administration - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 2 views

chronicle.com/...64433

accountability

shared by Gary Brown on 02 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Higher education will have to be more accountable for its performance and more open to consumers about the actual cost of attending a college, and help people make easier comparisons among institutions, in order to succeed as the nation's economic engine, says a new report from two nonprofit think tanks here.
  • too little information to make informed choices about where they will get the most from their tuition dollars, say researchers at the two organizations, the libertarian-leaning American Enterprise Institute, and Education Sector, which is a proponent of reforming higher education
  • And without a more thorough and open form of accountability, institutions will not have any incentive to make the changes that will improve students' success,
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "If existing flaws are not resolved, the nation runs the risk of ending up in the worst of all worlds: the appearance of higher education accountability without the reality," the authors say.
  • The two voluntary systems criticized in the study are the University and College Accountability Network, begun in September 2007 by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities to provide information about private colleges, and the Voluntary System of Accountability,
  • it does not obligate institutions to gather or reveal any data that are not already available elsewhere,"
  • associations are beginning to offer workshops and other opportunities for system participants to learn how to use the data they're collecting to improve the college experience for students, she said
  • VSA has the testing lobby written all over it
  • We may all appreciate the cultural context inhibiting public accountability but it is also important to understand that this same accountability is lacking internally where it effectively thwarts attempts to manage the institution rationally; i.e., informed with a continuous flow of mission-critical performance information. With the scant objective information at their command, college presidents and their associates must perform as shamans, reading the tea leaves of opinion and passion among stakeholders.
  • On balance, America's institutions of higher education function in a managerial vacuum.
  • Gary Brown on 02 Mar 10
     
    More of the same and the discussion is familiar--our challenge is to bring this topic to the attention of our points.
Theron DesRosier

Come for the Content, Stay for the Community | Academic Commons - 0 views

www.academiccommons.org/...come-content-stay-community

inorganic_chemistry repository community 2.0 learning

shared by Theron DesRosier on 15 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 15 Sep 09
     
    The Evolution of a Digital Repository and Social Networking Tool for Inorganic Chemistry From Post: "It is said that teaching is a lonely profession. In higher education, a sense of isolation can permeate both teaching and research, especially for academics at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). In these times of doing more with less, new digital communication tools may greatly attenuate this problem--for free. Our group of inorganic chemists from PUIs, together with technologist partners, have built the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource Web site (VIPEr, http://www.ionicviper.org) to share teaching materials and ideas and build a sense of community among inorganic chemistry educators. As members of the leadership council of VIPEr, we develop and administer the Web site and reach out to potential users. "
Theron DesRosier

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything - 0 views

arxiv.org/0711.0770

physics math Garrett Lisi 2.0 learning NoP

shared by Theron DesRosier on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 14 Apr 09
     
    Garrett Lisi's paper is the most downloaded article on the arXiv. When you go to this page check out the blog links on the right-hand side of the page. This is an example of an open scientific network of practice.
Nils Peterson

How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education | Page 3 | Fast Company - 0 views

www.fastcompany.com/...who-needs-harvard.html

shared by Nils Peterson on 13 Aug 09 - Cached
  • If open courseware is about applying technology to sharing knowledge, and Peer2Peer is about social networking for teaching and learning, Bob Mendenhall, president of the online Western Governors University, is proudest of his college's innovation in the third, hardest-to-crack dimension of education: accreditation and assessment.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 24 Sep 09
       
      Spoke too soon
  • Theron DesRosier on 13 Aug 09
     
    "We said, 'Let's create a university that actually measures learning,' " Mendenhall says. "We do not have credit hours, we do not have grades. We simply have a series of assessments that measure competencies, and on that basis, award the degree." WGU began by convening a national advisory board of employers, including Google and Tenet Healthcare. "We asked them, 'What is it the graduates you're hiring can't do that you wish they could?' We've never had a silence after that question." Then assessments were created to measure each competency area. Mendenhall recalls one student who had been self-employed in IT for 15 years but never earned a degree; he passed all the required assessments in six months and took home his bachelor's without taking a course.
Theron DesRosier

Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE - 3 views

www.educause.edu/...199389

assessment AAC&U learning_outcomes

shared by Theron DesRosier on 30 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 30 Aug 10
     
    A featured article in Educause Quarterly contains this quote: "The importance of authentic, web-enabled learner assessment is clearly behind Caulfield's notion of "loosely coupled assessment" (first coined in a blog post by Mike Caulfield July 31, 2007) and WSU's harvesting gradebook project, with which we claim shared intellectual roots."
Nils Peterson

Two Bits » Modulate This Book - 0 views

twobits.net/modulate

p2pu recursive public Kelty

shared by Nils Peterson on 24 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Free Software is good to think with… How does one re-mix scholarship? One of the central questions of this book is how Free Software and Free Culture think about re-using, re-mixing, modifying and otherwise building on the work of others. It seems obvious that the same question should be asked of scholarship. Indeed the idea that scholarship is cumulative and builds on the work of others is a bit of a platitude even. But how?
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 24 Sep 10
       
      This is Chris Kelty's site for his book Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Learned about the idea "recusive public" at the P2PU event, and from that found Kelty. This quote leads off the page that is inviting readers to "modulate" the book. The page before gives a free download in PDF and HTML and the CC License and invitation to remix, use, etc, and to "Modulate" so I came to see what that term might mean.
  • I think Free Software is “good to think with” in the classic anthropological sense.  Part of the goal of launching Two Bits has been to experiment with “modulations” of the book–and of scholarship more generally–a subject discussed at length in the text. Free Software has provided a template, and a kind of inspiration for people to experiment with new modes of reuse, remixing, modulating and transducing collaboratively created objects.
  • As such, “Modulations” is a project, concurrent with the book, but not necessarily based on it, which is intended to explore the questions raised there, but in other works, with and by other scholars, a network of researchers and projects on free and open source software, on “recursive publics,” on publics and public sphere theory generally, and on new projects and problems confronted by Free Software and its practices…
Gary Brown

Let's Make Rankings That Matter - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 3 views

chronicle.com/...124802

rankings

shared by Gary Brown on 04 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • By outsourcing evaluation of our doctoral programs to an external agency, we allow ourselves to play the double game of insulating ourselves from the criticisms they may raise by questioning their accuracy, while embracing the praise they bestow.
  • The solution to the problem is obvious: Universities should provide relevant information to potential students and faculty members themselves, instead of relying on an outside body to do it for them, years too late. How? By carrying out yearly audits of their doctoral programs.
  • The ubiquitous rise of social networking and open access to information via electronic media facilitate this approach to self-evaluation of academic departments. There is no need to depend on an obsolete system that irregularly publishes rankings when all of the necessary tools—e-mail, databases, Web sites—are available at all institutions of higher learning.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A great paradox of modern academe is that our institutions take pride in being on the cutting edge of new ideas and innovations, yet remain resistant and even hostile to the openness made possible by technology
  • We should not hide our departments' deficiencies in debatable rankings, but rather be honest about those limitations in order to aggressively pursue solutions that will strengthen doctoral programs and the institutions in which they play a vital role.
Theron DesRosier

The scientist and blogging - 1 views

www.sylvienoel.ca/blog

scientist blogging learning network

shared by Theron DesRosier on 31 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 31 Mar 10
     
    Some suggestions fort Scientists about blogging. "So what should you put in your blog? (1) Talk about your research. What have you done in the past? What are you working on at the moment? There is some controversy as to how transparent you should be when talking about your research (OMG, someone is going to steal my idea if I write it down! No wait, if everyone knows I said it first, then they can't steal it!), so it's up to you to decide how comfortable you are about sharing your research ideas. I'm old-fashioned enough that I tend towards the side that thinks we should be discreet about the details of what we're working on, but I also understand the side that wants everything to be out there. (2) Talk about other people's research. Do you agree with their results? Do you think that they missed something important? You may feel unqualified to criticize somebody else's work, but science does not advance through groupthink. Remember, part of your job as a scientist will be to review other people's papers. Now is as good a time as any to start practicing. (3) Talk about issues related to your research. Are you working on smartphones? Talk about how they're being integrated into museum visits. Working on accessibility issues? Talk about some of the problems that the handicapped encounter during their daily routine. Just make sure you choose to talk about something that interests you so that you feel motivated to write to your blog. "
Gary Brown

Assumptions about Setting the Right Classroom Climate - 0 views

www.facultyfocus.com/...ng-the-right-classroom-climate

classroom management agency

shared by Gary Brown on 02 Sep 09 - Cached
  • September 2, 2009 Assumptions about Setting the Right Classroom Climate By: Maryellen Weimer in Effective Classroom Management   SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Assumptions about Setting the Right Classroom Climate", url: "http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-classroom-management/assumptions-about-setting-the-right-classroom-climate/" });ShareThis For quite some time now I’ve been interested in a widely held set of assumptions faculty make about the need to assert control at the beginning of a course. The argument goes something like this: When a course starts, the teacher needs to set the rules and clearly establish who’s in charge. If the course goes well, meaning students abide by the rules and do not challenge the teacher’s authority, then the teacher can gradually ease up and be a bit looser about the rules.
  • If all potential challenges to authority are headed off at the pass, then the teacher can devote full attention to the content, and isn’t that where the teacher’s expertise really shines? And so the classroom becomes a place that showcases teaching more than learning? My suspicion is that most teachers overreact to potential threats.
  • Gary Brown on 02 Sep 09
     
    Our friend Mary Ellen Weimer sets the stage for addressing a critical bottleneck to innovation, suggesting faculty insecurity/inexperience result in exerting authority.
S Spaeth

CEL | Daniel Goleman - Ecological Intelligence - 0 views

www.ecoliteracy.org/...daniel_goleman.html

collaboration

shared by S Spaeth on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • Psychologists conventionally view intelligence as residing within an individual. But the ecological abilities we need in order to survive today must be a collective intelligence, one that we learn and master as a species, and that resides in a distributed fashion among far-flung networks of people. The challenges we face are too varied, too subtle, and too complicated to be understood and overcome by a single person; their recognition and solution require intense efforts by a vastly diverse range of experts, businesspeople, activists — by all of us.
  • S Spaeth on 23 May 09
     
    The shared nature of ecological intelligence makes it synergistic with social intelligence, which gives us the capacity to coordinate and harmonize our efforts. The art of working together effectively, as mastered by a star performing team, combines abilities like empathy and perspective taking, candor and cooperation, to create person-to-person links that let information gain added value as it travels. Collaboration and the exchange of information are vital to amassing the essential ecological insights and necessary database that allow us to act for the greater good.
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