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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&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

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.
  • 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
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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.
  • 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.
Jeff Johnson

Copyright & Fair Use in Teaching Resources -- Center for Social Media at American Unive... - 0 views

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    The Center for Social Media in the School of Communication at American University, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property in American University Washington College of Law, and the Media Education Lab of Temple University are conducting a project 2007-2009 to clarify fair use in media education, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This project will help media literacy educators understand their rights under the doctrine of fair use in order to help them more effectively use media as an essential part of their teaching.
Martin Burrett

Group work can harm memory - 2 views

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    It's probably one of the most commonly used strategies evident in classrooms around the world, but researchers from the University of Liverpool have concluded that group work can actually harm memory. In a joint study, psychologists from the University of Liverpool and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) have revealed that collaborating in a group to remember information is harmful...
Vicki Davis

Esther Wojcicki: Give Yourself A Free University Education at University of the People - 1 views

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    University of the people, a site offering free degrees in business administration and computer science continues to gain momentum as leading the effort to "democratize education." Things are underfoot that will radically change the expensive landscape known as higher Ed. The bottom line is that universities without solid online platforms won't be ready for the changes they will need to made. Their greatest commodity will be excellent teachers who can now be beamed from one end of the planet to the other. This crazy upheaval in education is only beginning and the competition is no longer limited by geography.
Martin Burrett

The Scale of the Universe 2 - 8 views

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    An amazing sequel to Scale of the Universe. See the smallest and biggest objects in our universe. This version is animated and has lots more objects to view. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science
Vicki Davis

New Research: Spending DOES Make a Difference, Especially for the Poorest Children | Di... - 0 views

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    ", new research demonstrates that spending does matter. The authors-C. Kirabo Jackson, associate professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, Rucker C. Johnson, associate professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, and Claudia Persico, a doctoral candidate in human development and social policy at Northwestern University-show that "increased school spending is linked to improved outcomes for students, and for low-income students in particular…Increasing per-pupil spending yields large improvements in educational attainment, wages, and family income, and reductions in the annual incidence of adult poverty for children from low-income families. As they also show, it matters how the new money is spent-such as on instruction, hiring more teachers, increasing teacher pay, hiring guidance counselors and social workers. Money well-spent "can profoundly shape the life outcomes of economically disadvantaged children and thereby reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Money alone may not lift educational outcomes to desired levels, but our findings confirm that the provision of adequate funding may be critical.""
Claude Almansi

Retreat of Reno's Command - C. Szwedzicki: The North American Indian Works - 0 views

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    "Collection: C. Szwedzicki: The North American Indian Works Work Record ID: 219 Reproduction Record ID: 219 Work Class: depictions Work Type: print Title: Retreat of Reno's Commnand Title Type: constructed title Title: Sioux Indian painting Title Type: collective title Measurements: 11.40 x 19.05 in (28.96 x 48.39 cm) on sheet 15.30 x 19.50 in (38.86 x 49.53 cm) Measurement Type: dimensions Material: paper (fiber product) Material Type: support Inscription: Image Top Center: Custer Battle Field / June 25 and 26 1876 / Crazy Horse Inscription: Above Image Right: 8 [Plate Number] Creator: Bad Heart Bull, Amos, 1869-1913 Creator Dates: 1869-1913 Creator Nationality: Oglala Lakota Creator Name Variant: Bad Heart Buffalo (Tatanka Cante Sice) Creator Type: personal name Creator Role: painter Date: 1938 Location: Little Bighorn Battlefield (Mont.) Repository: Archives and Rare Books Library, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Repository Type: current repository ID Number: 8 ID Number Type: plate number ID Number: ARB RB Oversize E98.A7 S568 1938 Vol. 2 ID Number Type: call number Style Period: Plains Indian Style Period: Indian art--North America Culture: Native American Culture: Oglala Lakota Subject: Belts (Clothing) Subject: Breechcloths Subject: Face painting Subject: Feathers Subject: Fringe Subject: Leggings Subject: Moccasins Subject: Beadwork Subject: Body painting Subject: Shirts, Men's Subject: Breastplates Subject: Hair pipes Subject: Bridles Subject: Horseback riding Subject: Horses Subject: Chokers Subject: Arrows Subject: Metalwork Subject: Picture-writing Subject: Saddle blankets Subject: Indian warfare Subject: Rifles Subject: Military uniforms Subject: Sabers Subject: Bow lances Subject: Crazy Horse (Tashunca-Uitco), ca. 1842-1877 Subject: Fixed-stone-head clubs Subject: Hats Subject: Saddles Subject: Saddlebags Subject: War shirts Subject: Reno, Marcus A. (Marcus Albert), 1835-1889 Subject: Indians of North America--Wars Subj
Dennis OConnor

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - 4 views

  • Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
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    The Center for Social Media is a project of the School of Communication at the American University in Washington, D.C. The Center in conjunction with the Media Education Lab at Temple University in Philadelphia and The Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, a project of the Washington College of Law at the American University in Washington D.C. has developed a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. The National Council of Teachers of English is signatory to the document, along with various other legal and educational groups. The code was funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Ford Foundation through the Future of Public Media Project. (Annotation by Larry Michaud - UW-Stout E-Learning Practicum)
Martin Burrett

Early intervention is better for children overcoming reading difficulties - 0 views

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    "A University of Alberta education researcher who achieved dramatic results with early assessment and intervention to help Grade 1 and 2 students with reading difficulties says there's still a chance to help these students in Grade 3. George Georgiou, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, along with his collaborators Rauno Parrila at Macquarie University and Robert Savage from the University College of London, started working with 290 Grade 1 students from 11 Edmonton public schools in 2015-16."
Martin Burrett

Gold, silver and bronze - A new rating system for university courses proposed - 0 views

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    "Universities Minister Sam Gyimah has launched a new tool that will rate universities either gold, silver or bronze by subject - holding them to account for the quality of their teaching, learning environment and graduate outcomes."
Martin Burrett

LGBQ adolescents at much greater risk of suicide than heterosexual counterparts - 0 views

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    "Adolescents who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning are much more likely to consider, plan or attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Specifically, of a nationally representative sample of 15,624 high-school age participants, 40 percent of sexual-minority adolescents seriously considered suicide compared to 15 percent of their heterosexual counterparts. Nearly a quarter attempted suicide compared to approximately 6 percent of those in the sexual majority."
Martin Burrett

Magnifying the Universe - 3 views

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    A great resource for viewing the very biggest and very smallest things in the universe, ranging from galaxies to insects, nebulae and stars to molecules and atoms. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science
Claude Almansi

College-Made Device Helps Visually Impaired Students See and Take Notes - Wired Campus ... - 0 views

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    "August 1, 2011, 5:51 pm By Rachel Wiseman College students with very poor vision have had to struggle to see a blackboard and take notes-basic tasks that can hold some back. Now a team of four students from Arizona State University has designed a system, called Note-Taker, that couples a tablet PC and a video camera, and could be a major advance over the small eyeglass-mounted telescopes that many students have had to rely on. It recently won second place in Microsoft's Imagine Cup technology competition. (...) The result was Note-Taker, which connects a tablet PC (a laptop with a screen you can write on) to a high-resolution video camera. Screen commands get the camera to pan and zoom. The video footage, along with audio, can be played in real time on the tablet and are also saved for later reference. Alongside the video is a space for typed or handwritten notes, which students can jot down using a stylus. That should be helpful in math and science courses, says Mr. Hayden, where students need to copy down graphs, charts, and symbols not readily available on a keyboard. (...) But no tool can replace institutional support, says Chris S. Danielsen, director of public relations for the [NFB]. "The university is always going to have to make sure that whatever technology it uses is accessible to blind and low-vision students," he says. (Arizona State U. has gotten in hot water in the past in just this area.) (...) This entry was posted in Gadgets."
Martin Burrett

Oldest in class do better, even into university, study finds - 1 views

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    "It's been known for years that the oldest children in class perform better in school than their youngest classmates. But according to a new study co-authored by University of Toronto Scarborough economist Elizabeth Dhuey, that gap can persist, with older children more likely to attend post-secondary school and graduate from an elite university."
Ed Webb

An unseen disadvantage : The focus on independence at American universities can undermi... - 5 views

  • For middle-class students, college is “the ultimate symbol of independence” and also allows students to “distinguish themselves from their parents and realize their individual potential.” By contrast, students from working-class backgrounds are likely to have been socialized with different “rules of the game” —rules that emphasize interdependence with others (i.e., being part of a community).
  • “Many students from working-class families are influenced by limited financial resources and lack an economic safety net, and thus must rely on family and friends for support. Thus, these students’ expectations for college center around interdependent motives such as working together, connecting to others, and giving back,” said Stephens. “Given the largely independent college culture and the ways in which students’ social class backgrounds shape their motives for attending college, we questioned whether universities provide students from these different backgrounds with an equal chance of success.”
  • Admissions materials and university mission statements could be revised to reflect the importance of interdependent norms  In the classroom, professors could emphasize the importance of collaboration, require more group work, and seek to develop ongoing relationships with their students. Universities could provide students with more structured opportunities that encourage ongoing connections with peers and faculty.
Vicki Davis

Research Consent form for Research - 0 views

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    This is an example of a consent form for research for a research student done at the University of Georgia. If you are a researcher, you'll want to check with your university as to the proper way to format and secure permissions, however, as students become researchers, I have questions about securing permission for research. This is an area we need to discuss and understand because students can now be viable, authentic researchers and perhaps may have links to more accurate data collection techniques than researchers. What happens when researchers partner with students to collect data? A whole new world of research is opening up, so research forms are worth collecting.
Martin Burrett

'Singapore' approach to teaching maths can work in UK classrooms - 0 views

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    "Mastery - an approach to teaching maths commonly used in East Asian countries - can significantly benefit children in UK schools, a University of Exeter academic has found. The independent research, conducted by the Oxford University Department of Education, is the first academic study to show this teaching method, now supported by the UK Government, can be effective."
Claire Brooks

Testing the Feasibility of OER-Course Certification | OERtest - 2 views

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    Aims Aims One of the OERtest project aims is to provide support for future OER-related initiatives by European HEIs. One way to do it so is by the establishment of a European network to promote and follow the development of OER and Open Educational Practices within the EHEA. The project partnership will act as a vivid example of a consortium of European universities that offer credit certification under a self-developed framework of learning based on study using OERs, which is shared among several universities and proves to be feasible. Formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding, the OER Europe Network is intended to initially consist of an agreement between the project partners to continue the sustainability objectives of the project beyond its lifetime. As a framework agreement for cooperation on the topic, the agreement will also however admit for other institutions to join, and for the network to take on its own life.
Julie Shy

Coursera - 6 views

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    We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in. Our Courses Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you'll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you.
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