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Ed Webb

Liberal Education after the Pandemic | AAUP - 1 views

www.aaup.org/...beral-education-after-pandemic

LiberalArts liberal_arts education future US USA pandemics economy sustainability science climate opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 19 Sep 20 - Cached
  • The current massive and unanticipated experiment in online education could transform higher education as we know it. We should begin these difficult conversations about the future of the liberal arts now, in cyberspace, before the new normal takes shape—whenever that may be. Even if we feel trapped in our own homes and beset with anxiety and cabin fever, we also have an opportunity to reconsider the aims of higher education not in the abstract but in this concrete historical moment, with attention to specific institutional needs, public policy proposals, ideological pressures, and the overarching economic crisis.
  • A genuine commitment to ethical, historically aware, egalitarian, or democratic principles can land an individual in a world of trouble. I am thinking, for example, of the basic scientific literacy, historical awareness, and ethical commitment that equip an individual citizen to recognize the expertise of infectious disease specialists and reject the common sense of neighbors or the priorities and demands of an employer—or to spot the bogus claims, fundamental incompetence, or ethical depravity of some elected leaders. Such scientific literacy and basic familiarity with statistical analysis allow nonexperts to understand the arguments of climatologists and reject the sophistry of coworkers or talk show hosts or governors who point out, for example, that “the climate has always been changing.”
  • The reason that individual institutions cannot pitch such potential outcomes under ordinary circumstances is that these intellectual faculties serve the public good but do not necessarily advance the economic interests or career objectives of individual prospective or current students, especially those incurring significant debt. Being a whistleblower, for example, is generally a costly, painful career move—but the public needs to know nonetheless if the US military is shooting civilians in the streets of Baghdad; or the pharmaceutical industry is engineering a profitable opioid epidemic; or the health insurance industry is denying legitimate claims.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • just as the current crisis represents an opportunity for the people who have been working hard to privatize everything imaginable, dismantle public education, sink net neutrality, and align higher education with the demands of prospective employers and industry moguls (think here of the interventions of the Koch brothers in higher education, for example), it also represents an opportunity to push for the basic conditions under which a liberal education might properly serve its public functions. We should use these months to advocate for the kinds of public policies, such as tuition-free higher education, that recognize liberal education as a common good. We must articulate the reasons why a liberal education is in fact a common good and why a liberal education is disfigured if it is made to promote the demands of prospective employers.
  • We need a society capable of devising new and more humane social contracts, new political economies, new food and energy grids, and sustainable use of resources—whether or not these projects produce financial dividends for individual graduates or for their employers. An accessible, publicly funded liberal education decoupled from the demands of industry and prospective employers is the best way to prepare people to do these things.
  • we should use these months of confinement to strategize about a long-term case for liberal education and for public investment in an educated citizenry. Now is the time to invest some of our intellectual capital in education advocacy that ultimately makes a difference not only in the lives of students but also for the collective well-being of our nation and the world
Vicki Davis

Why Technology Will Never Fix Education - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 11 views

chronicle.com/...230185

technology edu_news

shared by Vicki Davis on 31 May 15 - No Cached
funckymonkey liked it
  • Vicki Davis on 31 May 15
     
    Interesting article in Journal of Higher Ed with Many Great Points "The real obstacle in education remains student motivation. Especially in an age of informational abundance, getting access to knowledge isn't the bottleneck, mustering the will to master it is. And there, for good or ill, the main carrot of a college education is the certified degree and transcript, and the main stick is social pressure. Most students are seeking credentials that graduate schools and employers will take seriously and an environment in which they're prodded to do the work. But neither of these things is cheaply available online. Arizona State University's recent partnership with edX to offer MOOCs is an attempt to do this, but if its student assessments fall short (or aren't tied to verified identities), other universities and employers won't accept them. And if the program doesn't establish genuine rapport with students, then it won't have the standing to issue credible nudges. (Automated text-message reminders to study will quickly become so much spam.) For technological amplification to lower the costs of higher education, it has to build on student motivation, and that motivation is tied not to content availability but to credentialing and social encouragement. The Law of Amplification's least appreciated consequence, however, is that technology on its own amplifies underlying socioeconomic inequalities.
David Warlick

Idaho Teachers Fight a Reliance on Computers - NYTimes.com - 8 views

www.nytimes.com/...t-a-reliance-on-computers.html

shared by David Warlick on 05 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      I'm not sure what this means, "High-tech Vangard," though I guess I understand why a state would want to make up a term like this and use it to label what they are trying to do.  
  • To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      To me, the salient question is, "Are teachers and administrators less important than technology?"  If they're not, then you find some other way to pay for the tech.
  • And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      OK, several comments here. 1. I have no problem with "less a lecturer."  However, I do not advocate the elimination of lecture.  It is one of many methods for teacher and learning. 2. The implication of the last part of the sentence is that the computer is becoming the/a teacher, delivering instruction.  I do not agree with this characterization of technology.  It is a tool for helping students learn, not for teaching them (with some exceptions).  It extends the learners access to knowledge and skills...
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      My question here is, "Why are the requiring online classes?"  If it is part of the "high-tech vangard" thing, then I don't really understand.  If it is because they believe that it is more effective for learning, well, that's a complex issue that depends on so many things that have NOTHING to do with the state's legislature.  If it is because students will be taking online courses in their future, and then need to learn to take online courses while in high school, then I can support that.  I do not believe that it is appropriate to compare online courses to face-to-face courses.  Fact is, sometime online is the only way you can access the knowledge/skills that you need.  We need to be comfortable with that.  But it has little to do with technology.  It's learning!
  • improve student learning.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      This is a phrase that irks me.  I think that we should be using contemporary information and communication technologies for teaching and learning, because our prevailing information environment is networked, digital, and info-abundant.  We should be using tech to make learning more relevant to our time...
  • “I fought for my country,” she said. “Now I’m fighting for my kids.” Gov. C. L. Otter, known as Butch, and Tom Luna, the schools superintendent, who have championed the plan, said teachers had been misled by their union into believing the changes were a step toward replacing them with computers. Mr. Luna said the teachers’ anger was intensified by other legislation, also passed last spring, that eliminated protections for teachers with seniority and replaced it with a pay-for-performance system. Some teachers have also expressed concern that teaching positions could be eliminated and their raises reduced to help offset the cost of the technology. Mr. Luna acknowledged that many teachers in the state were conservative Republicans like him — making Idaho’s politics less black and white than in states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where union-backed teachers have been at odds with politicians.
  • The teacher does become the guide and the coach and the educator in the room helping students to move at their own pace.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      This is so far off the mark that I do not know where to begin.  OK, here's what I would say.  "Our children live in a time of rapid change.  Therefore, they must become resourceful and relentless learners.  Being a teacher in such classrooms requires an expanding array of skills and activities, among them, being resourceful and relentless learners in front of their students -- adapting to today's prevailing information environment and the information and communication technologies that work it."  Probably need to find a simpler way to express this.
  • The plan requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      Again, why?
  • Mr. Luna said this would allow students to take subjects that were not otherwise available at their schools and familiarize them with learning online, something he said was increasingly common in college
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      I agree with this.  It's a good reason to require Online courses, to learn to take them, and to be expected to take some course that is so esoteric that it's not offered locally.
  • becomes the textbook for every class, the research device, the advanced math calculator, the word processor and the portal to a world of information.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      I am not in disagreement with this statement.  I'd be no less disagreeable with omission to textbook.
  • Teachers are resisting, saying that they prefer to employ technology as it suits their own teaching methods and styles. Some feel they are judged on how much they make use of technology, regardless of whether it improves learning. Some teachers in the Los Angeles public schools, for example, complain that the form that supervisors use to evaluate teachers has a check box on whether they use technology, suggesting that they must use it for its own sake.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      We get so hung up on "technology."  It's the information that's changed.  There should be a check box that says, in what ways is the lesson including networked, digital, and abundant information?
  • That is a concern shared by Ms. Rosenbaum, who teaches at Post Falls High School in this town in northern Idaho, near Coeur d’Alene. Rather than relying on technology, she seeks to engage students with questions — the Socratic method — as she did recently as she was taking her sophomore English class through “The Book Thief,” a novel about a family in Germany that hides a Jewish girl during World War II.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      This is a wonderful method for teaching and timeless.  However, if the students are also backchanneling the conversation, then more of them are participating, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing, and the conversation has to potential to extend beyond the sounding of the bell.  I'm not saying, this is a way of integrating technology, I'm saying that networked collaboration is a relevant way for students to be learning and will continue to learn after school is over.
  • Her room mostly lacks high-tech amenities. Homework assignments are handwritten on whiteboards. Students write journal entries in spiral notebooks. On the walls are two American flags and posters paying tribute to the Marines, and on the ceiling a panel painted by a student thanks Ms. Rosenbaum for her service
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      When I read this, I see a relic of classrooms of the past, that is ignoring today's prevailing information landscape.
  • Ms. Rosenbaum did use a computer and projector to show a YouTube video of the devastation caused by bombing in World War II. She said that while technology had a role to play, her method of teaching was timeless. “I’m teaching them to think deeply, to think. A computer can’t do that.”
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      Yes, she's helping them to think deeply, but how much more deeply would the be thinking if she asked her students to work in teams and find videos on YouTube that portray some aspect of the book, critique and defend their selections.
  • She is taking some classes online as she works toward her master’s degree, and said they left her uninspired and less informed than in-person classes.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      Again, it is not useful to compare online course to f2f.  They're different, and people need to learn to work within them.
  • The group will also organize training for teachers. Ms. Cook said she did worry about how teachers would be trained when some already work long hours and take second jobs to make ends meet
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      I look forward to learning how they will accomplish this.
  • For his part, Governor Otter said that putting technology into students’ hands was the only way to prepare them for the work force. Giving them easy access to a wealth of facts and resources online allows them to develop critical thinking skills, he said, which is what employers want the most.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      It disturbs me that policies may be coming out of an environment where the conversation probably has to be factored down to such simplistic statements.  Education is complex, it's personal, and it is critical -- and it's not just about what employers want!
  • “There may be a lot of misinformation,” he said, “but that information, whether right or wrong, will generate critical thinking for them as they find the truth.”
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      Bingo!
  • If she only has an abacus in her classroom, she’s missing the boat.
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      And doing a disservice to Idaho's children!
  • Last year at Post Falls High School, 600 students — about half of the school — staged a lunchtime walkout to protest the new rules. Some carried signs that read: “We need teachers, not computers.” Having a new laptop “is not my favorite idea,” said Sam Hunts, a sophomore in Ms. Rosenbaum’s English class who has a blond mohawk. “I’d rather learn from a teacher.”
    • David Warlick
      David Warlick on 05 Jan 12
       
      What can't we get past "Us vs Them."  Because it gets people elected.
Steve Ransom

Talentism: My Son Won't Do His Homework - 9 views

www.talentism.com/...my_son_wont_do_.html

homework talent creativity discipline gr8

shared by Steve Ransom on 03 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Every employer I know of (and I would assume that you are no exception Colin) wants engaged employees who are passionate about their jobs. Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
  • But I have to focus on what will get them work, even if that will hurt them, society, the companies that hire them and everyone around them.
  • "Why are you so convinced that my son is going to be an academic or an investment banker?" Because as far as I can tell, those are the only two things that schools prepare kids to be.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • and that the stuff that he loves (art and music and video games) will be a great future for him and the stuff he hates (math and science) is something he will never compete in, never have a chance at.
  • But school doesn’t care, because school does not have the objective of helping my son produce the maximum amount of value in the future that he will probably encounter. School cares about ensuring that he knows how to take tests, follow directions and can do math that he will never have to care about for the rest of his life.
  • Steve Ransom on 03 Jun 13
     
    Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
Vicki Davis

UK Team is focusing on online comment defamation - 1 views

www.birminghampost.net/...ment-defamation-65233-25030203

education digitalcitizenship edu_news

shared by Vicki Davis on 17 Nov 09 - Cached
  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • a new team to track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • a rising problem with people making anonymous statements that defamed companies, and people sharing confidential information online.
  • the new team would ensure there was “nowhere to hide in cyberspace”.
  • a story from six years earlier about United Airlines going bankrupt was voted up on a newspaper website. This was later picked up by Google News and eventually the Bloomberg news wire, which published it automatically as if it were a news story.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 17 Nov 09
       
      Could this be considered the new "insider trading" - hmmm. Surely there are issues if it is done maliciously but isn't there a line here?
  • rogue employees
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 17 Nov 09
       
      Uhm, how about rogue companies?
  • trying to get Internet Service Providers to give out details of customers who had made comments online
  • shares in American firm United Airlines fell by 99 per cent in just 15 minutes after an outdated story that the firm had filed for bankruptcy was forced back onto the headlines.
  • the numbers of disgruntled employees looking to get their own back on employers or former employers was also on the rise.
  • could stifle free speech, and the ability of people to act as whistle-blowers to expose actions by their employers.
  • an outlet for anonymous reporting.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 17 Nov 09
       
      Is it possible to have accountability AND anonymity? Must these be mutually exclusive?
  • This is known as the ‘Streisand effect’ online, after a case where singer Barbara Streisand tried to suppress photos of her California beachside home from a publicly-available archive of photos taken to document coastal erosion.
  • Nightjack. This was the guy who was blogging on the front line about police work and he was forced to stop this story because he was unmasked by The Times
  • If you allow a lot of anonymous debate by people who are not regulated, you can get it descending to the common denominator. If you allow people to register with an identity, even if it’s not their real one, you bring the level of debate up.”
  • There was one case a couple of years ago that we just keep referring back to where a defamatory comment was made and it wasn’t taken down for a period of time. Because of that the host of the website was held to be liable.”
  • the ‘Wild West’ era of the internet was in some ways coming to an end, with firms starting to crack down
  • I think companies are still grappling with whether it’s better to take it on the chin and hope people don’t see the comments, or on the other hand cracking down on everything that’s particularly damaging that’s said online. Maybe this is set to change.”
  • Vicki Davis on 17 Nov 09
     
    While this article starts out about a lawfirm in Birmingham UK that is going to "track down people who make anonymous comments about companies online" it becomes an amazingly poignant article on the very nature of the Internet today and the push pull between anonymous commenting and accountability of the commenter. Push pull between free speech and online identity and brand protection. One person in this article claims that this sort of thing is the sign that the "wild west" of the INternet is coming to an end. Oh dear, I hope someone invents a new one if somehow anonymous commenters are now going to risk such! Also love the article's discussion of the Streisand effect wherein Barbara protested the sharing of some photos of her eroding beachfront which caused a stir and more people looking at the photos than if she had left it alone. This article is going to be a must read for Flat Classroom students and would be great for college-level discussions as well.
David Wetzel

What is the Value of a Community College Education? - 3 views

www.suite101.com/...nity-college-education-a318032

community college education value associate degree professional certification

shared by David Wetzel on 08 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • David Wetzel on 08 Dec 10
     
    A common question some adults ask when considering enrollment in a two-year college to continue their education is - What is the value of a community college education? The significance of earning an associate degree or professional certificate lies in the employment prospects. Attainment of a degree or certificate not only improves employment opportunities, it often improves the person's quality of life.
Shari Sheppard

Are Students College Prepared? - 4 views

www.hertzfurniture.com/...students-college-prepared

education college preparation

shared by Shari Sheppard on 30 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Shari Sheppard on 30 Aug 11
     
    In today's world of advanced technology, preparation for employment after completing High School often means pursuing an additional course of study for a minimum of one to two years. Be this in a Technical School, Junior College, College or University, the bottom line is that our students generally need to further their education in order to secure employment. Readiness for college therefore is an important issue facing our schools. College preparation takes foresight and planning and involves more than college preparatory courses. How can we insure that our students are college prepared?
  • Walter Antoniotti on 31 Aug 11
     
    The Department o Labor reports that Formal Education Beyond High School Is Not Required for 66% of the 2008-2018 Job Openings . See page 15 of http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2009/winter/art02.pdf . Who will fill these jobs? The report also states that 22% require a four-year degree or more. Won't the over supply just od degree holders continue to push down the real wages of college graduates as it has for over ten years?
Dave Truss

injenuity » Fire in the Kitchen! - 0 views

injenuity.com/285

admin newliteracy techintegrator web 2.0

shared by Dave Truss on 21 Aug 08 - Cached
  • If we go back to my cooking analogy, the implications are that providing teachers with a recipe, or a general overview of Web 2.0 tools, is not going to lead to success in the classroom or with administration.  Teachers need to understand the basic foundations of these tools, what they can do, why they are important, and how to locate the appropriate tool for individual learning scenarios.  I believe this basic premise is true regardless of the technological or pedagogical proficiency of the instructor.
  • Most importantly, I want to emphasize as much as I can, that we need to not promote Web 2.0 as the future of education or learning.  In fact, it is highly likely Web 2.0 will not even exist when today’s junior high students enter college or the work force.  There are many many web-based tools that can greatly enhance learning today, but need to be used with consideration of how that application affects learning.  When I see people state learners need to use these tools because they will experience them in the work place, I just cringe. They may use them in the work place, or they may not.  If they do, employers typically want to train them on their own systems.  An employer is much more interested in an employee able to communicate proficiently, locate and critically evaluate information, and build strong internal and external customer relationships.  Employers and universities don’t care if a student knows how to use a wiki or make a youtube video.  General literacy is much more important than knowledge of specific web platforms.  Some of the skills we promote as 21st century literacies will not exist five years from now.  There are some excellent frameworks for promoting literacy and I’m excited to see them promoted more fully.
  • Dave Truss on 21 Aug 08
     
    a general overview of Web 2.0 tools, is not going to lead to success in the classroom or with administration.
Aditi Singh

IT firms are back with a bang in the country's top engineering and B-School campuses to... - 1 views

www.educationmaster.org/...ck-techie-hunting-big-way.html

IT Firms Employment Campus Placement B-schools IIT Graduates

shared by Aditi Singh on 08 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Aditi Singh on 08 Feb 10
     
    Management students too seem to have shrugged off their recession-rooted aversion to the IT-based jobs. They are all ready to harvest their effort and thankfully the salary packages offered by the IT majors are of mind-blowing proportions. It has been reported that IBM has doubled the salary offered to IIT graduates who get selected under its 'Blue Scholar' programme from Rs 7-8 lakh a year to Rs 14-15 lakh.
Ed Webb

The academy's neoliberal response to COVID-19: Why faculty should be wary and... - 1 views

academicmatters.ca/eoliberal-response-to-covid-19

Canada education online neoliberalism capitalism opinion analysis pandemics

shared by Ed Webb on 29 May 20 - No Cached
  • In the neoliberal economy, workers are seen as commodities and are expected to be trained and “work-ready” before they are hired. The cost and responsibility for job-training fall predominantly on individual workers rather than on employers. This is evident in the expectation that work experience should be a condition of hiring. This is true of the academic hiring process, which no longer involves hiring those who show promise in their field and can be apprenticed on the tenure track, but rather those with the means, privilege, and grit to assemble a tenurable CV on their own dime and arrive to the tenure track work-ready.
  • The assumption that faculty are pre-trained, or able to train themselves without additional time and support, underpins university directives that faculty move classes online without investing in training to support faculty in this shift. For context, at the University of Waterloo, the normal supports for developing an online course include one to two course releases, 12-18 months of preparation time, and the help of three staff members—one of whom is an online learning consultant, and each of whom supports only about two other courses. Instead, at universities across Canada, the move online under COVID-19 is not called “online teaching” but “remote teaching”, which universities seem to think absolves them of the responsibility to give faculty sufficient technological training, pedagogical consultation, and preparation time.
  • faculty are encouraged to strip away the transformative pedagogical work that has long been part of their profession and to merely administer a course or deliver course material
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • remote teaching directives are rooted in the assumption that faculty are equally positioned to carry them out
  • The dual delivery model—in which some students in a course come to class and others work remotely using pre-recorded or other asynchronous course material—is already part of a number of university plans for the fall, even though it requires vastly more work than either in-person or remote courses alone. The failure to accommodate faculty who are not well positioned to transform their courses from in-person to remote teaching—or some combination of the two— will actively exacerbate existing inequalities, marking a step backward for equity.
  • Neoliberal democracy is characterized by competitive individualism and centres on the individual advocacy of ostensibly equal citizens through their vote with no common social or political goals. By extension, group identity and collective advocacy are delegitimized as undemocratic attempts to gain more of a say than those involved would otherwise have as individuals.
  • Portraying people as atomized individuals allows social problems to be framed as individual failures
  • faculty are increasingly encouraged to see themselves as competitors who must maintain a constant level of productivity and act as entrepreneurs to sell ideas to potential investors in the form of external funding agencies or private commercial interests. Rather than freedom of enquiry, faculty research is increasingly monitored through performance metrics. Academic governance is being replaced by corporate governance models while faculty and faculty associations are no longer being respected for the integral role they play in the governance process, but are instead considered to be a stakeholder akin to alumni associations or capital investors.
  • treats structural and pedagogical barriers as minor individual technical or administrative problems that the instructor can overcome simply by watching more Zoom webinars and practising better self-care.
  • In neoliberal thought, education is merely pursued by individuals who want to invest in skills and credentials that will increase their value in the labour market.
  • A guiding principle of neoliberal thought is that citizens should interact as formal equals, without regard for the substantive inequalities between us. This formal equality makes it difficult to articulate needs that arise from historical injustices, for instance, as marginalized groups are seen merely as stakeholders with views equally valuable to those of other stakeholders. In the neoliberal university, this notion of formal equality can be seen, among other things, in the use of standards and assessments, such as teaching evaluations, that have been shown to be biased against instructors from marginalized groups, and in the disproportionate amount of care and service work that falls to these faculty members.
  • Instead of discussing better Zoom learning techniques, we should collectively ask what teaching in the COVID-19 era would look like if universities valued education and research as essential public goods.
  • while there are still some advocates for the democratic potential of online teaching, there are strong criticisms that pedagogies rooted in well-established understandings of education as a collective, immersive, and empowering experience, through which students learn how to deliberate, collaborate, and interrogate established norms, cannot simply be transferred online
  • Humans learn through narrative, context, empathy, debate, and shared experiences. We are able to open ourselves up enough to ask difficult questions and allow ourselves to be challenged only when we are able to see the humanity in others and when our own humanity is recognized by others. This kind of active learning (as opposed to the passive reception of information) requires the trust, collectivity, and understanding of divergent experiences built through regular synchronous meetings in a shared physical space. This is hindered when classroom interaction is mediated through disembodied video images and temporally delayed chat functions.
  • When teaching is reduced to content delivery, faculty become interchangeable, which raises additional questions about academic freedom. Suggestions have already been made that the workload problem brought on by remote teaching would be mitigated if faculty simply taught existing online courses designed by others. It does not take complex modelling to imagine a new normal in which an undergraduate degree consists solely of downloading and memorizing cookie-cutter course material uploaded by people with no expertise in the area who are administering ten other courses simultaneously. 
  • when teaching is reduced to content delivery, intellectual property takes on additional importance. It is illegal to record and distribute lectures or other course material without the instructor’s permission, but universities seem reluctant to confirm that they will not have the right to use the content faculty post online. For instance, if a contract faculty member spends countless hours designing a remote course for the summer semester and then is laid off in the fall, can the university still use their recorded lectures and other material in the fall? Can the university use this recorded lecture material to continue teaching these courses if faculty are on strike (as happened in the UK in 2018)? What precedents are being set? 
  • Students’ exposure to a range of rigorous thought is also endangered, since it is much easier for students to record and distribute course content when faculty post it online. Some websites are already using the move to remote teaching as an opportunity to urge students to call out and shame faculty they deem to be “liberal” or “left” by reposting their course material. To avoid this, faculty are likely to self-censor, choosing material they feel is safer. Course material will become more generic, which will diminish the quality of students’ education.
  • In neoliberal thought, the public sphere is severely diminished, and the role of the university in the public sphere—and as a public sphere unto itself—is treated as unnecessary. The principle that enquiry and debate are public goods in and of themselves, regardless of their outcome or impact, is devalued, as is the notion that a society’s self-knowledge and self-criticism are crucial to democracy, societal improvement, and the pursuit of the good life. Expert opinion is devalued, and research is desirable only when it translates into gains for the private sector, essentially treating universities as vehicles to channel public funding into private research and development. 
  • The free and broad pursuit—and critique—of knowledge is arguably even more important in times of crisis and rapid social change.
  • Policies that advance neoliberal ideals have long been justified—and opposition to them discredited—using Margaret Thatcher’s famous line that “there is no alternative.” This notion is reproduced in universities framing their responses to COVID-19 as a fait accompli—the inevitable result of unfortunate circumstances. Yet the neoliberal assumptions that underpin these responses illustrate that choices are being made and force us to ask whether the emergency we face necessitates this exact response.
  • The notion that faculty can simply move their courses online—or teach them simultaneously online and in person—is rooted in the assumption that educating involves merely delivering information to students, which can be done just as easily online as it can be in person. There are many well-developed online courses, yet all but the most ardent enthusiasts concede that the format works better for some subjects and some students
  • Emergencies matter. Far from occasions that justify suspending our principles, the way that we handle the extra-ordinary, the unexpected, sends a message about what we truly value. While COVID-19 may seem exceptional, university responses to this crisis are hardly a departure from the neoliberal norm, and university administrations are already making plans to extend online teaching after it dissipates. We must be careful not to send the message that the neoliberal university and the worldview that underpins it are acceptable.
Vicki Davis

A venture capitalist searches for the purpose of school. Here's what he found. - The Wa... - 7 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...-of-school-heres-what-he-found

edreform

shared by Vicki Davis on 07 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Vicki Davis on 07 Nov 15
     
    "The most innovative country on the planet is blowing it. As we move full swing into an era of innovation, the United States should be educating to our creative strengths, but instead we're eroding the very characteristics that will enable our kids to thrive. We're setting kids up for a life without passion, purpose, or meaningful employment. Absent profound change, our country is a decade away from having 50 million chronically-unemployed young adults, adrift in life and awash in debt."
Martin Burrett

Why teachers must update their CVs at once by @susanwalter99 - UKEdChat.com - 2 views

ukedchat.com/...update-cvs

CV job resumé

shared by Martin Burrett on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 10 Sep 17
     
    "As I am reading probably my one hundredth CV and letter of application, all for one teaching position, I am reminded of how it is so often the smallest of things, the attention paid to the most obvious of details, that can influence the greatest decisions we make in our lives. I make no bones about how much I love my job. I love the variability, constant challenge and excitement working with children every day offers, and I am thankful that I have had colleagues and employers who have taken a chance and given me the opportunity to pursue my dream job."
Martin Burrett

Teachers: Is AI Coming to Take Your Job? by @AIConf2018 - 1 views

ukedchat.com/...teachers-ai-jobs

AI edtech

shared by Martin Burrett on 23 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 23 Jan 18
     
    "Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic at the moment, with estimates varying wildly about how many jobs will be replaced by machine learning algorithms. Whatever the outcome, in reality, it is clear that schools will need to change, in order to prepare their students for the resulting impact on society and the skills needed for future employment."
Nspire IT Jobs

Blackberry Engineer (3-6mths Contract, Immediate start) ACT $90-$100 per hour + - 0 views

nspirerecruitment.com.au/index.php

ICT IT career IT consultant IT employment IT experts IT job seeker it jobs IT jobs in Australia

shared by Nspire IT Jobs on 25 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Nspire IT Jobs on 25 Oct 11
     
    Our client specializes in Security and Gateway services. A newly created contract position is available for a Blackberry Engineer. As the successful Blackberry Engineer, you will be working with the best of best and part of a team of highly skilled professionals. The project is high profile and part of a highly secured Federal Government portfolio. This is a 6 months contract. You will be required to have both design and implementation of the BlackBerry infrastructure experience across a Federal Government enterprise level. The following mandatory requirements include: *Demonstrated knowledge and experience in designing a BlackBerry Server Infrastructure to support a large Federal Government customer. *Security Clearance Essential (Restricted or Baseline).
Nspire IT Jobs

CRM Solution Architect - ACT Permanent, $120,000 - $150,000 - 0 views

www.nspirerecruitment.com.au/index.php

Nspire Recruitment ICT IT career IT consultant IT employment IT experts IT job seeker IT jobs in Australia

shared by Nspire IT Jobs on 05 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Nspire IT Jobs on 05 Oct 11
     
    * High profile Consulting firm * Work life balance & team focused, professional work culture * Leading edge technology * Excellent remuneration package and training opportunities
Nspire IT Jobs

Team Leader (Windows Server) Permanent ACT $95,000 - $120,000 + super - 2 views

nspirerecruitment.com.au/index.php

Nspire Recruitment ICT IT career IT consultant IT employment IT experts IT recruitment agency

shared by Nspire IT Jobs on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Nspire IT Jobs on 06 Oct 11
     
    What's the catch you ask? Well it's simply, all you need is the skill set/experience and in return we have this golden job opportunity. Salary is open and our client will offer an attractive package to suit. What we need from you: 1. 3-5 years experience working as a Technical Lead/Consultant within Federal Government or Consulting - Windows Server environment 2. Highly Protect or above Clearance - mandatory 3. Consulting experience and staff/team management 4. Ability to lead a small team and drive project milestones from inception to completion 5. available to commence work immediately or within 4-5 weeks 6. Support and/or engineer background 7. Technical industry certifications Note: only suitable applicants will be contacted. Thank you for your interest.
  • Carl Bogardu on 07 Oct 11
     
    Spammer, what are you doing on an education list?
Fabian Aguilar

What Do School Tests Measure? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com - 1 views

roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/...what-do-school-tests-measure

nytimes all_teachers math science

shared by Fabian Aguilar on 12 Aug 09 - Cached
  • According to a New York Times analysis, New York City students have steadily improved their performance on statewide tests since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took control of the public schools seven years ago.
  • Critics say the results are proof only that it is possible to “teach to the test.” What do the results mean? Are tests a good way to prepare students for future success?
  • Tests covering what students were expected to learn (guided by an agreed-upon curriculum) serve a useful purpose — to provide evidence of student effort, of student learning, of what teachers taught, and of what teachers may have failed to teach.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • More serious questions arise about “teaching to the test.” If the test requires students to do something academically valuable — to demonstrate comprehension of high quality reading passages at an appropriate level of complexity and difficulty for the students’ grade, for example — then, of course, “teaching to the test” is appropriate.
  • Reading is the crucial subject in the curriculum, affecting all the others, as we know.
  • An almost exclusive focus on raising test scores usually leads to teaching to the test, denies rich academic content and fails to promote the pleasure in learning, and to motivate students to take responsibility for their own learning, behavior, discipline and perseverance to succeed in school and in life.
  • Test driven, or force-fed, learning can not enrich and promote the traits necessary for life success. Indeed, it is dangerous to focus on raising test scores without reducing school drop out, crime and dependency rates, or improving the quality of the workforce and community life.
  • Students, families and groups that have been marginalized in the past are hurt most when the true purposes of education are not addressed.
  • lein. Mayor Bloomberg claims that more than two-thirds of the city’s students are now proficient readers. But, according to federal education officials, only 25 percent cleared the proficient-achievement hurdle after taking the National Assessment of Education Progress, a more reliable and secure test in 2007.
  • The major lesson is that officials in all states — from New York to Mississippi — have succumbed to heavy political pressure to somehow show progress. They lower the proficiency bar, dumb down tests and distribute curricular guides to teachers filled with study questions that mirror state exams.
  • This is why the Obama administration has nudged 47 states to come around the table to define what a proficient student truly knows.
  • Test score gains among New York City students are important because research finds that how well one performs on cognitive tests matters more to one’s life chances than ever before. Mastery of reading and math, in particular, are significant because they provide the gateway to higher learning and critical thinking.
  • First, just because students are trained to do well on a particular test doesn’t mean they’ve mastered certain skills.
  • Second, whatever the test score results, children in high poverty schools like the Promise Academy are still cut off from networks of students, and students’ parents, who can ease access to employment.
  • Reliable and valid standardized tests can be one way to measure what some students have learned. Although they may be indicators of future academic success, they don’t “prepare” students for future success.
  • Since standardized testing can accurately assess the “whole” student, low test scores can be a real indicator of student knowledge and deficiencies.
  • Many teachers at high-performing, high-poverty schools have said they use student test scores as diagnostic tools to address student weaknesses and raise achievement.
  • The bigger problem with standardized tests is their emphasis on the achievement of only minimal proficiency.
  • While it is imperative that even the least accomplished students have sufficient reading and calculating skills to become self-supporting, these are nonetheless the students with, overall, the fewest opportunities in the working world.
  • Regardless of how high or low we choose to set the proficiency bar, standardized test scores are the most objective and best way of measuring it.
  • The gap between proficiency and true comprehension would be especially wide in the case of the brightest students. These would be the ones least well-served by high-stakes testing.
David Wetzel

The Real Value of Continuing Education - 0 views

continuingeducation.suite101.com/...-value-of-continuing-education

value of continuing education cost college and employment pays career step changing jobs return on investment

shared by David Wetzel on 01 Jul 10 - Cached
  • David Wetzel on 01 Jul 10
     
    Anyone continuing their education encounter opened doors to new adventures and opportunities which are closed to those without the same benefits. The value of continuing education increases every year. Without a college degree, including a degree from two-year program, the prospects of finding a high-quality job with excellent earnings is difficult at best. The level education for the average person in the United States is increasing, making it essential to complete additional education beyond a high school degree.
David Wetzel

5 Ways to Increase a Professional Network Using LinkedIn - 8 views

careeradvice.suite101.com/...ssional-network-using-linkedin

linkedin online marketing career advice networking professional network web presence underutilized recommendations connections

shared by David Wetzel on 13 Apr 10 - Cached
  • David Wetzel on 13 Apr 10
     
    Strategies are provided for taking advantage of often under-utilized tools and techniques offered by this online tool for building a professional network.
Ed Webb

Brainstorm: Junk Analysis of Higher Ed by the 'Times' - Chronicle.com - 0 views

chronicle.com/...article

chronicle.com academic labor

shared by Ed Webb on 10 Mar 09 - Cached
  • This isn’t good for anyone’s education: The only virtue of the arrangement is its cheapness, and that cheapness hasn’t lowered tuition; it’s simply served to provide money pots for high-rolling administrators to spend on favored projects and the expansion of the business curriculum. It’s also created a need to expand the ranks of management to train and supervise the constantly-churning mass of student and other casual workers.
  • journalists are living the same permatemping as the faculty, under the same quality management gutting the public sphere under both Republicans and Democrats
  • four decades of student casualization
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • What about Joel Westheimer, who they illegally fired for supporting the grad student union, despite having the support of his entire discipline? Or any of the grad students themselves, who are doing better analysis of their employment than Stimpson.
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