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Tony Richards

The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley - 14 views

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    "What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo
Caroline Bucky-Beaver

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - 1 views

  • Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances -- especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no specific authorization for the use in question -- as it does for certain narrowly defined classroom activities.
  • guide identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education community’s current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials
  • code of best practices does not tell you the limits of fair use rights. Instead, it describes how those rights should apply in certain recurrent situations.
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  • Media literacy education distinctively features the analytical attitude that teachers and learners, working together, adopt toward the media objects they study. The foundation of effective media analysis is the recognition that: All media messages are constructed.Each medium has different characteristics and strengths and a unique language of construction.Media messages are produced for particular purposes.All media messages contain embedded values and points of view.People use their individual skills, beliefs and experiences to construct their own meanings from media messages.Media and media messages can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and the democratic process. Making media and sharing it with listeners, readers, and viewers is essential to the development of critical thinking and communication skills. Feedback deepens reflection on one’s own editorial and creative choices and helps students grasp the power of communication.
  • Lack of clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools. Some educators close their classroom doors and hide what they fear is infringement; others hyper-comply with imagined rules that are far stricter than the law requires, limiting the effectiveness of their teaching and their students’ learning.
  • Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted materials that stand far outside the marketplace, for instance, in the classroom, at a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. Such uses, especially when they occur within a restricted-access network, do enjoy certain copyright advantages.
  • Law provides copyright protection to creative works in order to foster the creation of culture. Its best known feature is protection of owners’ rights. But copying, quoting, and generally re-using existing cultural material can be, under some circumstances, a critically important part of generating new culture.
  • In reviewing the history of fair use litigation, we find that judges return again and again to two key questions: Did the unlicensed use "transform" the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original? Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use? If the answers to these two questions are "yes," a court is likely to find a use fair. Because that is true, such a use is unlikely to be challenged in the first place.
  • Both key questions touch on, among other things, the question of whether the use will cause excessive economic harm to the copyright owner. Courts have told us that copyright owners aren’t entitled to an absolute monopoly over transformative uses of their works.
  • Another consideration underlies and influences the way in which these questions are analyzed: whether the user acted reasonably and in good faith, in light of general practice in his or her particular field.
  • Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
  • Through its five principles, this code of best practices identifies five sets of current practices in the use of copyrighted materials in media literacy education to which the doctrine of fair use clearly applies. These practices are associated with K–12 education, higher education, and in classes given by nonprofit organizations. When students or educators use copyrighted materials in their own creative work outside of an educational context, they can rely on fair use guidelines created by other creator groups, including documentary filmmakers and online video producers.
  • These principles apply to all forms of media.
  • The principles apply in institutional settings and to non-school-based programs. 
  • The principles concern the unlicensed fair use of copyrighted materials for education, not the way those materials were acquired. 
  • where a use is fair, it is irrelevant whether the source of the content in question was a recorded over-the-air broadcast, a teacher’s personal copy of a newspaper or a DVD, or a rented or borrowed piece of media. Labels on commercial media products proclaiming that they are “licensed for home [or private or educational or noncommercial] use only” do not affect in any way the educator’s ability to make fair use of the contents—in fact, such legends have no legal effect whatsoever. (If a teacher is using materials subject to a license agreement negotiated by the school or school system, however, she may bebound by the terms of that license.)
  • The principles are all subject to a “rule of proportionality.” 
  • fairness of a use depends, in part, on whether the user tookmore than was needed to accomplish his or her legitimate purpose.
  • PRINCIPLES
  • ONE:  Employing Copyrighted Material in Media Literacy Lessons
  • TWO:  Employing Copyrighted Materials in Preparing Curriculum Materials
  • THREE:  Sharing Media Literacy Curriculum Materials
  • In materials they wish to share, curriculum developers should beespecially careful to choose illustrations from copyrighted media that are necessaryto meet the educational objectives of the lesson, using only what furthers theeducational goal or purpose for which it is being made.
  • FOUR:  Student Use of Copyrighted Materials in Their Own Academic and Creative Work
  • Students should be able to understand and demonstrate, in a mannerappropriate to their developmental level, how their use of a copyrighted workrepurposes or transforms the original. For example, students may use copyrightedmusic for a variety of purposes, but cannot rely on fair use when their goal is simplyto establish a mood or convey an emotional tone, or when they employ popular songssimply to exploit their appeal and popularity.
  • FIVE:  Developing Audiences for Student Work
  • If student work that incorporates, modifies, and re-presents existingmedia content meets the transformativeness standard, it can be distributed to wideaudiences under the doctrine of fair use.
  • Educators and learners in media literacy often make uses of copyrighted works outside the marketplace, for instance in the classroom, a conference, or within a school-wide or district-wide festival. When sharing is confined to a delimited network, such uses are more likely to receive special consideration under the fair use doctrine.
  • Especially in situations where students wish to share their work more broadly (by distributing it to the public, for example, or including it as part of a personal portfolio), educators should take the opportunity to model the real-world permissions process, with explicit emphasis not only on how that process works, but also on how it affects media making.
  • The ethical obligation to provide proper attribution also should be examined.
  • This code of best practices, by contrast, is shaped by educators for educators and the learners they serve, with the help of legal advisors. As an important first step in reclaiming their fair use rights, educators should employ this document to inform their own practices in the classroom and beyond
  • MYTH:  Fair Use Is Just for Critiques, Commentaries, or Parodies. Truth:  Transformativeness, a key value in fair use law, can involve modifying material or putting material in a new context, or both. Fair use applies to a wide variety of purposes, not just critical ones. Using an appropriate excerpt from copyrighted material to illustrate a key idea in the course of teaching is likely to be a fair use, for example. Indeed, the Copyright Act itself makes it clear that educational uses will often be considered fair because they add important pedagogical value to referenced media objects.
  • So if work is going to be shared widely, it is good to be able to rely on transformativeness. As the cases show, a transformative new work can be highly commercial in intent and effect and qualify under the fair use doctrine.
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    Great article outlining copyright, fair use and explaning the 5 principles of fair use in education.
anonymous

Education in Adult Education | Education Futures | Scoop.it - 3 views

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    Education in adult education programs can lead to interesting careers in education. This page provides information on what is studied and where you can study them.
Jonathan Tepper

Pioneering research shows 'Google Generation' is a myth - 0 views

  • All age groups revealed to share so-called ‘Google Generation' traits New study argues that libraries will have to adapt to the digital mindset Young people seemingly lacking in information skills; strong message to the government and society at large
  • “Libraries in general are not keeping up with the demands of students and researchers for services that are integrated and consistent with their wider internet experience”,
  • research into the information behaviour of young people and training programmes on information literacy skills in schools are desperately needed if the UK is to remain as a leading knowledge economy with a strongly-skilled next generation of researchers.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is needed for all countries, just few countries realize it!
    • Jonathan Tepper
       
      Multiliteracies approach seems to be the focus now in the education landscape. Paper sabout learning/teaching with technology are emmerging in this area and seem to address this.
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  • “Libraries have to accept that the future is now.
  • Turning the Pages 2.0 and the mass digitisation project to digitise 25 million of pages of 19th-century English literature are only two examples of the pioneering work we are doing.
  • the changing needs of our students and researchers and how libraries can meet their needs.
  • We hope it will also serve to remind us all that students and researchers will continue to need the appropriate skills and training to help navigate an increasingly diverse and complex information landscape.”
  • CIBER developed a methodology which has created a unique ‘virtual longitudinal study' based on the available literature and new primary data about the ways in which the British Library and JISC websites are used. This is the first time for the information seeking behaviour of the virtual scholar to have been profiled by age.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      They have created a new technique called a "virtual longitudinal study" that sounds fascinating.
    • Jonathan Tepper
       
      not sure if that is an established methodology... interesting.
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    This study breaks a lot of the stereotypes people may have about use of the Internet. It also presents important information for libraries and schools.
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    Wow -- this longitudinal study shows that all generations show "google generation" traits with over 65 year olds spending 4 more hours a week online than some of the younger ages. It argues that libraries must adapt to the digital mindset AND that young people are lacking in information skills! This is an important study for all educators, business leaders, AND students on the Horizon project. Another reason to remind ourselves that we base practice on RESEARCH not STEREOTYPES!
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    Wow -- this longitudinal study shows that all generations show "google generation" traits with over 65 year olds spending 4 more hours a week online than some of the younger ages. It argues that libraries must adapt to the digital mindset AND that young people are lacking in information skills! This is an important study for all educators, business leaders, AND students on the Horizon project. Another reason to remind ourselves that we base practice on RESEARCH not STEREOTYPES!
Vicki Davis

Bay Backpack THE source for Chesapeake Bay education resources for teachers and watersh... - 1 views

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    If you live near the Chesapeake Bay in the USA< you'll want to look at this incredible resource! (Or if you're just studying about it!) From the founders: "Chesapeake Bay Education Website BayBackpack.com Launched Check out our new website Bay Backpack, www.baybackpack.com, which provides educators with the resources they need to engage students in hands-on learning about the Chesapeake Bay. This site is an online resource for teachers and environmental educators to engage students in hands-on learning about the Chesapeake Bay and its local waterways. Bay Backpack provides educators with the necessary resources to give their students a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE), which are extensive projects that allow students to gain a deep understanding of environmental issues in the Chesapeake Bay and its local streams and rivers. Bay Backpack houses over 380 teaching resources on issues like pollution, development, farming and many other environmental topics. To learn more about Bay Backpack, visit www.baybackpack.com. Interested educators can also follow Bay Backpack on Twitter @baybackpack or become a fan on Facebook. Please help us spread the word by forwarding this to anyone that may be interested."
Vicki Davis

Positive school climate boosts test scores, study says | EdSource Today - 8 views

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    If you want plants to grow add rain, sunshine and warmth. The same works with children. A warm, caring environment where students and teachers have positive relationships, where they feel safe and have supports to help them succeed improves test scores. This is no surprise to good teachers. Those who put inordinate stress on teachers in ways that causes stress and harshness are likely hurting test scores and having the opposite effect, if one is to interpret this. Take a read and take action - on my blog I and many commenters have been discussing getting along with colleagues and having warm relationships with students. It isn't fluff but rather, is the stuff that test scores are made of. "It's the million-dollar question or, given the size of the California education budget, the $50-billion-dollar question: What makes extraordinarily successful schools different from other schools? The answer: school climate, according to a new study from WestEd, a San Francisco-based research agency. In recent years, the concept of school climate has gained increasing currency in education reform circles and the California Department of Education has received federal grants to evaluate school climate in 170 schools, as well as Safe and Supportive Schools grants to fund programs that enhance school climate. As defined by the WestEd study, a positive school climate includes caring relationships between teachers and students, physical and emotional safety, and academic and emotional supports that help students succeed. The goal of a positive school climate is "a sense of belonging, competence and autonomy" for both students and staff, the report said."
Vicki Davis

Mobile Study: Tablets Make a Difference in Teaching and Learning -- THE Journal - 1 views

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    Two studies were released in an attempt to "quantify the benefits of mobile technology in education and the infrastructure needed..." In these students students had tablets and Internet access at home and at school. Of course, I'm not sure that it is tablet computers that give benefits, Internet access, cloud computing, or a combination, but I'm sure these studies will be touted by many far and wide. Of course, remember if they had strapped the tablets to the kid''s back and hadn't used them - they would have had lower scores. All improvement is all in how technology is being USED to teach. "The studies put Android tablets in the hands of students and their teachers in two schools - eighth-graders at Stone Middle School in Fairfax County Public Schools and fifth-graders at Falconer Elementary School in Chicago Public Schools - and provided wireless access to the students both in school and away from school. (The devices were HTC Evo tablets.) Researchers then followed the students' activities over the course of a year, with the aim of evaluating "how access to these devices for communication with teachers and classmates increases comfort with technology, extends the learning day, and allows students to develop digital citizenship skills within a safe and secure learning environment.""
Maureen Tumenas

Online Predators and Their Victims - 1 views

  • adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is an important point to make to parents! It is about RELATIONSHIPS not abduction, usually!
  • The publicity about online"predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate.
  • In the great majority of cases, victims are aware they are conversing online with adults. In the N-JOV Study, only 5% of offenders pretended to be teens when they met potential victims online. (112)
    • David Donica
       
      There tends to be a focus on the negative - no matter what percentage of the actual story is being discussed. Our news from "normal" channels follows the old "if it bleeds it leeds" mentality. The potential of the web towards "good" is highly underated - in my humble oppion
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  • Offenders rarely deceive victims about their sexual interests.
  • promises of love and romance
  • 99% of victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes in the N-JOV Study were 13 to 17 years old, and none were younger than 12. 48% were 13 or 14 years old. (115)
  • My (Liz B. Davis ) Summary of Key Points (All are quotes directly from the article): Online "Predators" and Their Victims. Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment. by: Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, and Kimberly J. Mitchell - University of New Hampshire and Michele L. Ybarra - Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Remember that we may start annotating articles and extracting this information together as well.
  • it was those 15-17 years of age who were most prone to take risks involving privacy and contact with unknown people. (115)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This tells us what we need to know about courses on digital citizenship and safety -- discuss these issues probably beginning around 11 -- before soliciation happens -- then have focused programs probably starting age 12-13 -- as with everything -- these ages tend to get lower over time -- what will happen w/ the Webkinz generation is anyone's guess.
    • Kristin Hokanson
       
      I see this more and more...as the parent of webkinz kids...in the past..you had the "don't talk to strangers" talk with them. Now the strangers are coming into our homes and at much younger ages.
    • David Donica
       
      I think we need to be aware that not all "unknown people" are wanting to commit crimes, fraud, etc. Talking to someone you don't know might be the introduction to your new best friend. The content of discussion is important. Not knowing someone, I would not give them personal information. Friendship is built over time.
    • Michelle Krill
       
      A nice way I've heard to describe this is that even though kids think they're tech savvy, they are not relationship savvy. It's this age group that doesn't recognize the complexity of relationships.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      @David - I think, however, that we should be very careful about teaching HOW to make friendships -- friend of a friend and building relationships OVER TIME is often how these things happen. Children want the romance and don't realize the "gentle" stranger they've met wants to harm them. This is a tricky one -- one of my dearest friends is Julie Lindsay who I met online. But that conversation was totally OK, as youwould guess. Teaching them about this is tricky. We'll have to think on this one AND look at the research.
  • take place in isolation and secrecy, outside of oversight by peers, family&nbsp; members, and others in the youth's face-to-face social networks (115)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Again, this reinforces my thoughts of NOT having computers in the bedroom! Period. Have family computers w/ screens viewable by everyone!
  • Most of the online child molesters described in the N-JOV Study met their victims in chatrooms. In a 2006 study, about one third of youths who received online sexual solicitation had received them in chatrooms. (116)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Safe IM practice -- that is a key element of an online safety program.
  • Youth internet users with histories of offline sexual or physical abuse appear to be considerably more likely to receive online aggressive sexual solicitations. (117)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      At risk teenagers are at risk online AND offline!
    • Kristin Hokanson
       
      But I think they are MORE at risk now that they have new outlets...THIS is what teachers / school faculty NEED to understand!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Yes, Kristin! -- what we saw in Florida this week tells us that -- these students have now found a new way to have life in prison! And it relates to YOutube!
  • ..Although Internet safety advocates worry that posting personal information exposes youths to online molesters, we have not found empirical evidence that supports this concern. It is interactive behaviors, such as conversing online with unknown people about sex, that more clearly create risk. (117)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Posting personal information is NOT what puts students at risk -- interactive BEHAVIORS! Do! This is one criticism we've had of online projects. At risk behaviors from AT RISK students cause things to happen!!! Listen up!
    • Kristin Hokanson
       
      and your students are lucky that they have you to guide them. Way too many schools are not involving their students in these activities so they don't have these "appropriate" models
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Exactly, kristin -- MORE SCHOOLS have got to do this. It is a travesty that these kids are being victimized when the schools can do something about it. Completely a travesty. I hope we can all get fired up again about this topic, especially with the good research coming out now!
  • Online molesters do not appear to be stalking unsuspecting victims but rather continuing to seek youths who are susceptible to seduction. (117)
  • maintaining online blogs or journals, which are similar to social networking sites in that they often include considerable amounts of personal information and pictures, is not related to receiving aggressive sexual solicitation unless youths also interact online with unknown people. (117)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Safety habits and teaching students how to interact safely. Learning to interact with people you KNOW in safe ways will keep our students safe. It is NOT about pulling the plug.
  • Boys constitute 25% of victims in Internet-initiated sex crimes, and virtually all of their offenders are male. (118
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Unfortunately, teaching boys to beware of men is something we have to do because that seems to be who is preying on the young boys.
  • Some gay boys turn to the internet to find answers to questions about sexuality or meet potential romantic partners, and there they may encounter adults who exploit them. (118)
  • ..child molesters are, in reality, a diverse group that cannot be accurately characterized with one-dimensional labels. (118)
  • Online child molesters are generally not pedophiles. (118)Online child molesters are rarely violent. (119)
  • Child pornography production is also an aspect of Internet-initiated sex crimes. One in five online child molesters in the N-JOV Study took sexually suggestive or explicit photographs of victims or convinced victims to take such photographs of themselves or friends. (120)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Again -- behaviors. Teaching children not to take pictures of themselves and post them w/out parental approval is important, particularly for younger kids.
  • Youths may be more willing to talk extensively and about more intimate matters with adults online than in face-to-face environments. (121
    • Vicki Davis
       
      "If you wouldn't say it face to face, you shouldn't say it anyplace," should be our new saying to our students. (Yes, I coined it but it iwhat I will teach to my children.)
  • it may not be clear to many adolescents and adults that relationships between adults and underage adolescents are criminal. (122)
  • Simply urging parents and guardians to control, watch, or educate their children may not be effective in many situations. The adolescents who tend to be the victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes many not themselves be very receptive to the advice and supervision of parents. (122)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      The fact that the victims don't have a great relationship with their parents mean that we must have other outlets for teenagers such as with teachers, counselors, and others who are involved in these discussions!
  • We recommend educating youths frankly about the dynamics of Internet-initiated and other nonforcible sex crimes. Youths need candid, direct discussions about seduction and how some adults deliberately evoke and then exploit the compelling feelings that sexual arousal can induce. (122)
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This recommendation is VERY important!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Yes, this is a gross mischaracterization. We are afraid of the unknown scary boogeman who isn't who we think he is, when it is the person who is up front that we must worry about. We want someone to blame instead of realizing it is the behavior of kids.
  • Youths need candid, direct discussions about seduction
    • Diane Hammond
       
      The hard part is finding comfortable places to have these discussions. Where is the best place?
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I believe that the Http://digiteen.wikispaces.com project is the best thing I've got going in my classroom with 9th graders in Qatar & Austria. We're having great conversations -- third person looking at things happening and working through what they think is a good way to do it, I believe. I truly think that everyone working with students should be educated to watch for the "signs" -- and we should also have individual programs.
    • Maureen Tumenas
       
      Is this an accurate statistic?
    • Vicki Davis
       
      We can look back at the reference in this study -- the hyperlink is at the top of the page -- I'm not sure of the sample size for this but it looks like this is what the New Jersey study found.
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    Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
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    Great article!
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    Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
  •  
    Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
  •  
    Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
  •  
    Cool summary of an article by Liz B. Davis -- Liz took the article and extracted the most valuable bits to her using google Docs. This methodology is fascinating, but even moreso the fact we may all begin doing this together with Diigo.
Ed Webb

The threat to our universities | Books | The Guardian - 0 views

  • It is worth emphasising, in the face of routine dismissals by snobbish commentators, that many of these courses may be intellectually fruitful as well as practical: media studies are often singled out as being the most egregiously valueless, yet there can be few forces in modern societies so obviously in need of more systematic and disinterested understanding than the media themselves
  • Nearly two-thirds of the roughly 130 university-level institutions in Britain today did not exist as universities as recently as 20 years ago.
  • Mass education, vocational training and big science are among the dominant realities, and are here to stay.
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  • it is noticeable, and surely regrettable, how little the public debate about universities in contemporary Britain makes any kind of appeal to this widespread appreciation on the part of ordinary intelligent citizens that there should be places where these kinds of inquiries are being pursued at their highest level. Part of the problem may be that while universities are spectacularly good at producing new forms of understanding, they are not always very good at explaining what they are doing when they do this.
  • talking to audiences outside universities (some of whom may be graduates), I am struck by the level of curiosity about, and enthusiasm for, ideas and the quest for greater understanding, whether in history and literature, or physics and biology, or any number of other fields. Some members of these audiences may not have had the chance to study these things themselves, but they very much want their children to have the opportunity to do so; others may have enjoyed only limited and perhaps not altogether happy experience of higher education in their own lives, but have now in their adulthood discovered a keen amateur reading interest in these subjects; others still may have retired from occupations that largely frustrated their intellectual or aesthetic inclinations and are now hungry for stimulation.
  • the American social critic Thorstein Veblen published a book entitled The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Businessmen, in which he declared: "Ideally, and in the popular apprehension, the university is, as it has always been, a corporation for the cultivation and care of the community's highest aspirations and ideals." Given that Veblen's larger purpose, as indicated by his book's subtitle, involved a vigorous critique of current tendencies in American higher education, the confidence and downrightness of this declaration are striking. And I particularly like his passing insistence that this elevated conception of the university and the "popular apprehension" of it coincide, about which he was surely right.
  • If we are only trustees for our generation of the peculiar cultural achievement that is the university, then those of us whose lives have been shaped by the immeasurable privilege of teaching and working in a university are not entitled to give up on the attempt to make the case for its best purposes and to make that case tell in the public domain, however discouraging the immediate circumstances. After all, no previous generation entirely surrendered this ideal of the university to those fantasists who think they represent the real world. Asking ourselves "What are universities for?" may help remind us, amid distracting circumstances, that we – all of us, inside universities or out – are indeed merely custodians for the present generation of a complex intellectual inheritance which we did not create, and which is not ours to destroy.
  • University economics departments are failing. While science and engineering have developed reliable and informed understanding of the world, so they can advise politicians and others wisely, economics in academia has singularly failed to move beyond flat-Earth insistence that ancient dogma is correct, in the face of resounding evidence that it is not.
  • I studied at a U.K. university for 4 years and much later taught at one for 12 years. My last role was as head of the R&amp;D group of a large company in India. My corporate role confirmed for me the belief that it is quite wrong for companies to expect universities to train the graduates they will hire. Universities are for educating minds (usually young and impressionable, but not necessarily) in ways that companies are totally incapable of. On the other hand, companies are or should be excellent at training people for the specific skills that they require: if they are not, there are plenty of other agencies that will provide such training. I remember many inclusive discussions with some of my university colleagues when they insisted we should provide the kind of targeted education that companies expected, which did not include anything fundamental or theoretical. In contrast, the companies I know of are looking for educated minds capable of adapting to the present and the relatively uncertain future business environment. They have much more to gain from a person whose education includes basic subjects that may not be of practical use today, than in someone trained in, say, word and spreadsheet processing who is unable to work effectively when the nature of business changes. The ideal employee would be one best equipped to participate in making those changes, not one who needs to be trained again in new skills.
  • Individual lecturers may be great but the system is against the few whose primary interest is education and students.
Ed Webb

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - 3 views

  • instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing. “We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”
  • The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.
  • Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out. “With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
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  • cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
  • “The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”
  • An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.
  • “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.
  • “Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
  • The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,”
Fred Delventhal

Cramberry: Studying Made Easy - 0 views

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    How Cramberry Works Using Cramberry to study is simple. First, you create a blank "set" of flashcards. Cramberry will prompt you to give your set a name. All of your flashcards are stored in sets. Once you've created a blank set, Cramberry will help you add cards to the set. Adding cards with Cramberry is as simple as it is with traditional flashcards: just type in the text you want on the front and back of the card, and click on "add another card" to add another card to the set. Once you're satisfied with the amount of cards you have in your new set, click "finish". Once you've set up one or more sets with the cards you want to study, actually learning them is simple. Click the title of the set from the home screen, and you're off! Cramberry will present you with the front of a random card. Try to guess what is on the back of that card, and then click on the button to find out if your guess was correct. If it was, click "correct". If not, click "incorrect". As you continue studying, Cramberry will keep track of which cards you know, and help you learn the ones you don't.
Martin Burrett

Gender myths dispelled by major new maths study - 1 views

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    "A major study into maths attainment has found that boys and girls perform equally in the subject, dispelling long-held myths around gender and education. The first UK-wide research of its kind for 13 years was carried out by Keith Topping, Professor of Educational and Social Research at the University of Dundee, and education assessment company Renaissance found differences in maths attainment between girls and boys to be almost negligible. The study also found that regular and high-quality maths practice improves outcomes across the board and that primary pupils outperformed secondary students, with better attainment scores."
Vicki Davis

Why online education is mostly a fantasy - 9 views

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    NOTE: The linked article is NSFW - it has a word of profanity where the author quotes Good Will Hunting. But the points are right. Some teachers worry they will be outdated or not needed with the online education movement. This article has some great points that I agree with. I do think online learning is part of our future but perhaps not the savior some make it out to be. "The online education utopians ignore the fact that free learning has existed for decades in the form of the public library and despite that availability, every kid within bicycling distance to his local branch didn't turn into a self taught entrepreneur. Suggesting that online courses are the cure-all for our educational needs is like saying all you have to do to teach kids in the ghetto is give away textbooks on the corner. Recent studies have shown there is a significant gap between the completion rates of online students compared to classroom based students. When you consider that online learning is often promoted as a cost effective solution for at-risk learners who don't have the financial resources for face-to-face instruction, it becomes clear that the online movement is offering a product that makes it easier to drop out to students who are already more prone to quitting in the first place."
Tina Steele

Edutopia Media | Edutopia - 0 views

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    Hundreds of articles, expert interviews, research, and resources highlighting success stories in K-12 education. Short videos provide case studies in technology integration, project-based learning, emotional intelligence, teacher preparation, assessment and more." /> metatext/html; charset=utf-8
Vicki Davis

Book News: Happiness Study Says Library Trips Are As Good As A Pay Raise : The Two-Way ... - 7 views

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    "Going to the library gives people the same kick as getting a raise does - a £1,359 ($ 2,282) raise, to be exact - according to a study commissioned by the U.K.'s Department for Culture, Media & Sport. The study, which looks at the ways "cultural engagement" affects overall wellbeing, concluded that a significant association was found between frequent library use and reported wellbeing. The same was true of dancing, swimming and going to plays. The study notes that "causal direction needs to be considered further" - that is, it's hard to tell whether happy people go to the library, or going to the library makes people happy. But either way, the immortal words of Arthur the Aardvark ring true: "Having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card!""
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    And going to the public library is free!
Ed Webb

Do universities liberalise students? Why education should be taken seriously in politic... - 0 views

  • data at the individual level has repeatedly shown that having a degree level qualification is the strongest predictor of a Remain vote
  • UKIP’s support was concentrated among those with education levels below degree level, gaining 16% of the votes of this group in 2015. The Liberal Democrats, in contrast, have historically been better at securing the votes of the degree-educated section of the electorate. In 2010, the party secured one in three votes among this group and were the most popular choice of party for voters in this group.
  • Between 2010 and 2015 the Labour share of the vote among the degree educated rose while its share of those without degrees fell. A result was the move of (some of the) ‘not degree’ group to UKIP while the degree educated deserted the Liberal Democrats after the formation of the coalition government. It is important to stress this happened while Ed Miliband was Labour party leader and before the EU Referendum – this is neither a Corbyn nor a Brexit effect.
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  • the relationship between political values and voting behaviour. While the traditional ‘left-right’ value dimension which focuses on economic justice and power barely distinguishes Leave and Remain voters, there are much larger differences according to ‘cultural’ values which relate to issues of authority, tolerance, and the rule of law.
  • This suggests that there is something specific about the experience of higher education which produces more liberal values. This appears to be something which is independent of the subject of study
  • A more fruitful line of enquiry is to seek a deeper understanding of the connections between education and values: to understand how education liberalises
Ed Webb

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

  • 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.
  • 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.&nbsp;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.
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  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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.&nbsp;
  • 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?&nbsp;
  • 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.&nbsp;
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
anonymous

Adult Education Masters Online - 1 views

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    An online adult education masters degree offers plenty of career options in teaching and training. This page provides information on what is studied and where you can study it.
Maggie Verster

A Framework to Articulate the Impact of ICT on Learning in Schools (PDF) - 9 views

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    The literature review unequivocally found that it is not possible to provide a meaningful framework to describe or measure the direct impact of ICT on student learning per se. Most educational researchers view media comparison studies as of little value, misleading, and not generalisable. Where such studies have been conducted it has not been possible to identify a purely ICT effect disentangled from other elements of the learning environment. Most educational researchers would view such disentangling as counterproductive. Further, it has become increasingly difficult to measure student learning as more is understood of the complexities of learning. However, this review has identified significant impacts of the use of ICT on students, learning environments, teachers and pedagogy, schools provision of ICT capacity, and school and system organization, policy and practice. These are presented here as five dimensions
Martin Burrett

Climate education for kids increases climate concerns for parents, research finds - 0 views

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    "A new study from North Carolina State University finds that educating children about climate change increases their parents' concerns about climate change. "There's a robust body of work showing that kids can influence their parents' behavior and positions on environmental and social issues, but this is the first experimental study demonstrating that climate education for children promotes parental concern about climate change," says Danielle Lawson, lead author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at NC State."
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