CTLT and Friends

Neil Gershenfeld: The beckoning promise of personal fabrication

"If each of the five benchmarks does not measure a distinct dimension of engagement and includes substantial error among its items, it is difficult to inform intervention strategies to improve undergraduates' educational experiences,"

nly one benchmark, enriching educational experiences, had a significant effect on the seniors' cumulative GPA.

Other critics have asserted that the survey's mountains of data remain largely ignored.

"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.

Principles of Genuine Evaluation When we set out to explore the notion of ‘Genuine Evaluation’, we identified 5 important aspects of it: VALUE-BASED -transparent and defensible values (criteria of merit and worth and standards of performance) EMPIRICAL – credible evidence about what has happened and what has caused this, USABLE – reported in such a way that it can be understood and used by those who can and should use it (which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s used or used well, of course) SINCERE – a commitment by those commissioning evaluation to respond to information about both success and failure (those doing evaluation can influence this but not control it) HUMBLE – acknowledges its limitations From now until the end of the year, we’re looking at each of these principles and collecting some of the highlights and lowlights  from 2010 (and previously).

What do Wikipedia, Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and Threadless Tees have in common? All were created outside the traditional product development model using a mass collaborative approach. In mass collaborative product development (MCPD), large groups of people compete and collaborate globally to develop new products and services.

the MCPD phenomenon is under way in the management and business communities. But few have examined it from an engineering design standpoint.

A more natural process

“We’ve saved Boeing, for example, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “Sending a project to us runs about $8,000 to $10,000, the work gets done, and the students get an educational experience on top of that.”

And the company mentors add tremendous value. In a class of 50, with 10 mentors, I’ve effectively reduced the student-instructor ratio to 5:1.”

To improve how student learning is measured, Lumina will seek to support and advance tools, tactics, and systems that effectively define and measure both generalizable skills, like abstract reasoning and critical thinking, and subject-specific skills that students learn. The nation should also learn from measurement tools now in use, like the Collegiate Learning Assessment and the Voluntary System of Accountability, Mr. Merisotis says.

My thesis is this. We live in a world where much is changing, quickly. Economic crises, technology, ideological division, and a host of other factors have all had a profound influence on who we are and what we do in higher education. But when all is said and done, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what matters most. To paraphrase the oft-used maxim of the famous political consultant James Carville, it's the learning, stupid.

We believe that, to significantly increase higher education attainment rates, three intermediate outcomes must first occur: Higher education must use proven strategies to move students to completion. Quality data must be used to improve student performance and inform policy and decision-making at all levels. The outcomes of student learning must be defined, measured, and aligned with workforce needs. To achieve these outcomes (and thus improve success rates), Lumina has decided to pursue several specific strategies. I'll cite just a few of these many different strategies: We will advocate for the redesign, rebranding and improvement of developmental education. We will explore the development of alternative pathways to degrees and credentials. We will push for smoother systems of transferring credit so students can move more easily between institutions, including from community colleges to bachelor's degree programs.

"Lumina defines high-quality credentials as degrees and certificates that have well-defined and transparent learning outcomes which provide clear pathways to further education and employment."

Lori Whisenant knows that one way to improve the writing skills of undergraduates is to make them write more. But as each student in her course in business law and ethics at the University of Houston began to crank out—often awkwardly—nearly 5,000 words a semester, it became clear to her that what would really help them was consistent, detailed feedback.

She outsourced assignment grading to a company whose employees are mostly in Asia.

The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail.