VOTRUBRIX™ now comes in chewable tablets that are no less easy to swallow. Newly discovered side effects include scurvy, loss of vision and constipation. Ask your doctor if VOTRUBRIX™ is right for you.
This year's Convocation speech is available online and below is the Wordle word cloud.
What I should like about this talk is the obvious emphasis on "students". Of course, word clouds are primarily about words and only indirectly about the things the words refer to. So, what about students? Votruba does acknowledge our mission to provide for "our students and their education" and the importance of enhancing the student experience. But it's mostly about numbers now: graduation rates, credit hour generation, pricing.
In this Convocation speech references to quantity far out-strip any references to quality. Part of that is a sign of dire economic stress. Part of it is exhaustion and a lack of new ideas.
I welcomed the reference to a "New Era," though it is really a look back to how bad things have gotten. Higher education is a mess. It looks be to an even worse mess in the new era. American higher education is not so much unrivaled as it is unraveling. Votruba's response I found to be completely uninspiring: lacking any new strategies for attack, we are retreating, though the retreat is not quite back to ideal or even safe ground.
Thirteen years ago we aspired to be "learner-centered." This went beyond the activity of learning to a broader concern for the individuals who engaged in education and its activities. It went beyond students to include faculty, staff and community members who were also learners engaged in multi-faceted, lifelong pursuits of improvement. It was always people engaged in learning who were foregrounded. You don't hear much about being learner-centered anymore. The unwelcome turn came about five years ago, IMHO, when the rhetoric shifted to "talent development," which can lead to only one driving, mission-critical question, "Who stole my cheese?"
Now what? We are back to a narrow reading of "learner" (though the word "learner" doesn't even appear in this Convocation speech) and, though students are presumed to have experiences we will hire consultants to care about, they're quantified. Faculty are back to being teachers, members of the production line, grant winners, managers, where professional development and the pursuit of new knowledge barely deserve mention. It's not about the life of the mind; it's about life in the mine.
Harsh realities. Yes. Sweet Dreams? Not so much.
This Convocation message is about an administration on its death bed. Even President Boothe is praying for them. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and we're down to counting the heartbeats. Votruba would like us to look ahead but all he can do is reminisce about the thirteen years that led him to be the university's longest serving president.
That learning is predominantly informal and social is something I need to keep in mind as I prepare courses and syllabi for the fall. I need to leave more time for play and discussion. Found this over at Jane Knight's web site.
The new tool, Anthologize, is a free, open-source WordPress plug-in that lets users organize and edit work from one blog or from many. Users can then export the content as a printer-friendly PDF or in other digital formats. The tool's creators have proposed several potential uses for Anthologize. For example, instructors might compile work from student blogs, or scholars could collect pieces on related topics and edit them into a digital publication similar to a journal.
From Tomorrow's Professor (Msg. #1023). Article by Michelle Beld, professor of political science and director of evaluation and assessment, St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. The article is from the Winter, 2010 issue of Peer Review, Volume 12, Number 1.
Assessment helps us figure out whether our students are learning what we think we're teaching.- Chemistry faculty member
Discussing how to go about assessing the intended learning outcomes of our major led to some of the best-and longest!-conversations we've ever had about pedagogy.-Romance languages faculty member
Assessment played a key role in being awarded an NSF grant for curriculum and pedagogical innovation, and now that the grant is completed, we're able to show convincingly that it had great results. -Psychology faculty member
Assessment can be useful in the classroom insofar as it helps make our expectations more transparent to our students. -Political science faculty member.
Assessment at the department level is a bit like living in Minnesota-it's not always easy, but in the long run, it's worth it. To be sure, gathering credible evidence of student learning in a major, minor, or concentration takes commitment, creativity, and, occasionally, some courage. But as a growing number of faculty are finding, there can be real payoffs to the work, particularly at the department level.
From Inside Higher Ed, a discussion with an author about a new book on the shift in higher education to corporate values and its impact on the professorship.
Two much-discussed trends in academe — the adoption of corporate values and the decline in the percentage of faculty jobs that are on the tenure track — are closely linked and require joint examination. That is the thesis of a new book, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, just published by Fordham University Press.
The trends expressed in the article are certainly reflected at my own university. We've even stopped talking about our vision for liberal education and now refer to the "business plan." We dropped the expression "learner-centered" and now strive to "develop talent." And non-tenured faculty dramatically outnumber tenured/tenure-track faculty.
Stephen Downes defines "edupunk" as "student-centered, resourceful, teacher- or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance. ... Edupunk, it seems, takes old-school Progressive educational tactics--hands-on learning that starts with the learner's interests--and makes them relevant to today's digital age, sometimes by forgoing digital technologies entirely." I guess I'm one of the new "Edupunk" professors he's talking about. I'm getting pretty frustrated with vendor-centered learning, where the vendor controls what students see and how they interact with it. The situation spirals downward since institutions that buy into a proprietary software package or application tend not to explore alternatives. The discussion begins with Jim Grooms' blog post at bavatuesdays.
"Punk rock was a rebellion against the clean, predictable sound of popular music and it also encouraged a do-it-yourself attitude. Edupunk seems to be a reaction against the rise of course-managements systems, which offer cookie-cutter tools that can make every course Web site look the same." (Wired Campus)
I don't think my Philosophy of Mind class has quite the same reputation, though the Onion would find plenty to write about.
CHAPEL HILL, NC -- University of North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough told reporters yesterday that his decision to forgo the NBA Draft and return for his senior year stems from a desire to "take this one awesome philosophy class that is, like, only offered in the fall [semester], I think." The class, PHIL 740: Philosophy of the Mind, is reportedly taught by Professor David Hartz, who Hansbrough described as "like the coolest guy in the world especially because the only grade is just this one big paper at the end [of the term], and he doesn't even take attendance." "He's like super smart and he makes you think completely differently about your perspectives on stuff, which is awesome," said Hansbrough, adding that he is going to read all the books and everything. "And my girlfriend is taking it too, so it should be pretty sweet." Hansbrough denied allegations that he is staying in school because his socio-economic background allows himself the freedom to have fun and not worry about the welfare of his family.
Some professors threaten to confiscate students' cell phones if they go off during class. Laurence Thomas has his own approach to classroom distractions. If the philosopher at Syracuse University catches a student sending text messages or reading a newspaper in class, he'll end the class on the spot and walk out. It doesn't matter if there is but one texter in a large lecture of hundreds of students. If you text, he will leave.
W.W.S.D.? (What would Socrates do?)
I find myself sometimes treating a class as though it were a single agent, an individual learner who is ether getting it or not, engaged or not, attentive or not. Of course, what I'm doing is informally sampling the class. "The class" is doing well if enough are doing well, attending, learning. It's a nice heuristic, allowing me to move forward or attend to a problem as my informal measure dictates. It means, however, that I sometimes ignore individual achievement and particular problems. I need to use the heuristic carefully. I try to balance its use with specific attention to individuals who are especially quiet or who are not doing well. I try to call on individuals by name or look into the eyes of students who aren't active discussants.
Rarely have I punished a class on the basis of a single student's behavior. When a student was disruptive, I've occasionally ended class early. First, it's is sometimes impossible to make progress; second, the attention placed on the disruptive students can be a form of punishment; and third, the class can sometimes punish better than I can. On one occasion I made a few copies of a paper available for all to read (taking turns over a few weeks). When all of the copies failed to be returned (affecting members of the class who couldn't read the article in time for class), I punished the entire class. I didn't know who the culprit was, but the individuals did eventually return the paper.
Punishing the group for the behavior of individuals sometimes works to control behavior, but we're forced to violate our sense of fairness in the process. Larry Thomas values respect (for himself at least) over fairness in this incident. Indeed, he has very specific demands on how one shows respect--don't text while I'm talking. (He probably has other expectations, but they aren't revealed in this story.) I'd be curious to learn more of his pedagogical style. Does he make each person in a class of 400 feel like an individual learner? An autonomous agent who is both expected to deliver respect as well as receive respect from others. What does he do to show respect to each of these students as individuals in a classroom? And might they all walk out if he fails to show proper respect to even one of them?
Respect is a two-way street. I'd like to know more about how Larry handles that.
David Hawpe has written a very interesting article in the Louisville Courier-Journal about NKU's proposed business plan, which promotes NKU's role in facilitating regional economic growth and developing a talented workforce. He cynically comments:
So, NKU wants to be a combination vocational school and economic development office, staffed by PhDs?
The problem, however, is that we're not hiring PhDs to drive these initiatives. Though the plan calls for more tenurable faculty, we're instead paying top salaries to leaders with little or no experience in academia and who operate with little regard for educational mission of the university. Hawpes' fears that we are following a business plan at the expense of the integrity of a good liberal arts education are worth some serious attention. Look at the initiatives and how they are managed and you can see that the "talent-driven workforce" coming out of NKU in the future is unlikely to be either philosophical or poetic.
The liberal academic elite, what with their multiculturalism, environmentalism, feminism, atheism, and political correctness, are ruining everything! This is the subtle analysis of Todd J. Zywicki, the Dartmouth trustee and a law professor at George Mason University, captured on YouTube. The academic left in the modern university is compared to the Spanish Inquisition, an orthodoxy that stifled opposing (in this case right-wing) opinion. Zwicki's speech rant displays some pretty angry, hateful and yes, vicious stuff. According to an Inside Higher Ed report, he says some of his comments were taken out of context, he was speaking from notes, and he was unduly casual and informal. Perhaps, but then what does he really think?
And the Spanish Inquisition? Didn't they introduce waterboarding?
Welcome to Technologies for Teaching and Learning. The links below will take you to further discussions of new software, tutorials, strategies and issues of interest to those who want to use technology to enhance teaching effectiveness and facilitate learning.
I'm updating the site almost daily, so check in regularly---or better yet, add the feed to your newsreader.
The local paper places me on the vanguard. I'd rather be in the vanguard and on the cutting edge, but I'm pleased to see the article turn out so well.
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - Universities across the country tout themselves as leaders in technology. At Northern Kentucky University, philosophy professor Rudy Garns is on the vanguard. Garns has allowed three of his classes to submit the three required papers in the form of a podcast. A podcast is an oral presentation that is recorded digitally. It is posted on a Web site where people can download the files and listen to them from their computers or transfer them to their digital media players - such as an iPod - for listening later. "These are mostly honors students, so it is not surprising they are creative and adventurous," Garns said.
Of course, we're not really podcasting until we can produce a regular series of episodes and syndicate the feeds. Stay tuned....
I've been ranting a lot around the office lately about our IT decision not to support mysql server and their failure to explore, encourage, and support the use of open source software applications in the classroom and office. The essay "What Business Can Learn from Open Source" nicely touches on some of my concerns.
Lately companies have been paying more attention to open source.
Ten years ago there seemed a real danger Microsoft would extend its monopoly to servers. It seems safe to say now that open source has prevented that. A recent survey found 52% of companies are replacing Windows servers with Linux servers.
More significant, I think, is which 52% they are. At this point, anyone proposing to run Windows on servers should be prepared to explain what they know about servers that Google, Yahoo, and Amazon don't.
But the biggest thing business has to learn from open source is not about Linux or Firefox, but about the forces that produced them. Ultimately these will affect a lot more than what software you use.
We may be able to get a fix on these underlying forces by triangulating from open source and blogging. As you've probably noticed, they have a lot in common.
The author goes on to highlight three "big lessons open source and blogging have to teach business":
(1) that people work harder on stuff they like,
(2) that the standard office environment is very unproductive, and
(3) that bottom-up often works better than top-down.
I would agree with all three. My own recent frustrations are played out in this last point.
Many employees would like to build great things for the companies they work for, but more often than not management won't let them. How many of us have heard stories of employees going to management and saying, please let us build this thing to make money for you-- and the company saying no? The most famous example is probably Steve Wozniak, who originally wanted to build microcomputers for his then-employer, HP. And they turned him down. On the blunderometer, this episode ranks with IBM accepting a non-exclusive license for DOS. But I think this happens all the time.
Why does it happen all the time? My observation has been that our IT unit, like many we find in universities around the countrry, is so carefully geared to handle potential threats, that it is ill-prepared to capitalize on new opportunities. At its worst, opportunties are even portrayed as no more than new points of vulnerability. Surely, there must be a careful balance between resistance to threat and openness to opportunity. Yet, probably with the best of intentions, strategic planning and investment usually favors the former. Productivity, progress, and quality suffer as a result.
At Eide Neurolearning Blog there's an interesting comparison of the Da Vinci and Cornell note taking styles.
Note taking is a complicated process that requires listening, seeing, writing, and abstraction. When a lot of information is being presented, it's impossible to take everything down, so you must select and prioritize - and that is the essence of good note taking.
Some prefer words and some prefer pictures, but Da Vinci and inventors prefer both. ...
Some people naturally know how to extract the most essential details in a lecture, but many need to be taught. ...
Taking notes with words and pictures is not only for remembering what others have told you. Many people use Cornell approaches for think their way through problems, reviewing the data 'in hand' and then generating alternative perspectives.
Drawing to help you think through your own problems and drawing to communicate with others are two different skills. ... By doodling and turning around the pictures on paper, he became more aware of different visual characteristics, visual spatial relationships, and perceptual assumptions.
"...rules and particular inferences alike are justified by being brought into agreement with each other. A rule is ammended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend. The process of justification is the delicate one of making mutual adjustments between rules and accepted inferences...." (Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast)
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