"If you've heard me speak in the last several months, you've probably heard me rail against "disposable assignments." These are assignments that students complain about doing and faculty complain about grading. They're assignments that add no value to the world - after a student spends three hours creating it, a teacher spends 30 minutes grading it, and then the student throws it away. Not only do these assignments add no value to the world, they actually suck value out of the world. Talk about an incredible waste of time and brain power (an a potentially huge source of cognitive surplus)!"

Well, except enrollments *are* down slightly at VCU...

FWIW, I think Mike Caulfield is one of the brightest and most thoughtful people in higher ed. I like this post very much.

Yes, I just bookmarked my own blog post...

"When we say students are customers I hope you know that we mean we have a responsibility to them not because they pay us but because they trust us with something they come to us not even quite knowing how to define but knowing they need. And as all of you have been witness to over the time we have been here our endeavors here are most certainly not simply about revenue. Nor is success simply defined by whether a student got a good grade.  Everything, the emphasis on academic quality and outcomes, the funds dedicated to making sure you have the resources you need, your personal and professional development, contradicts the naysayers."

SNHU President Paul Leblanc's response to the Slate piece.

How Tiny, Struggling Southern New Hampshire University has become the Amazon of Higher Education http://t.co/a8WbHl8n3K via @slate

I'm using Diigo to bookmark someone's Diigo bookmarks. This might break the Internet...

Fun little mashup activity...

THIS is how we ought to be thinking about assessment!

"To repeat: I do not see the queen sacrifice as a desirable move for American higher education.  I do not relish the reduction of programs, nor the devastation inflicted on the lives of faculty.  But this seems to be a strategy colleges and universities can choose in our current climate, and we must discuss it openly."

With a link to a useful primer on competency-based education

Apparently, "confrontation" is the sole province of f-2-f teaching. I say, "hogwash!"

"It seems disruption is hard when poor people insist on existing. Thrun has the right to fail. That's just business. But he shouldn't have the right to fail students like those at San Jose State and the public universities that serve them for the sake of doing business."

""We were initially torn between collaborating with universities and working outside the world of college," Thrun tells me. The San Jose State pilot offered the answer. "These were students from difficult neighborhoods, without good access to computers, and with all kinds of challenges in their lives," he says. "It's a group for which this medium is not a good fit.""