A Different Kind of Difficult Conversation
By Matt Reed. I read IHE’s account of the recent meeting of the Council of Independent Colleges with a bit of jealousy. The CIC, which represents private colleges, has started sponsoring discussions of realistic ways to deal with persistent financial issues. More...
Thoughts on “The 21st Century Academic”
By Matt Reed. When Ford suffered sales declines in the 70’s, it wasn’t because its workforce forgot how to make cars. It was because it was allocating resources according to the rules of the previous decade. The workers wound up paying for the mistake, but for the most part, they weren’t the ones who made the wrong call. More...
Tuning Your Pedagogical Practice: Incorporate Digital and Social Technology
Teaching with digital and social technologies often produces stress and tension for teachers and students alike, but I suspect much of that comes from an unclear explanation of why a particular tool is being used and comfort, or lack thereof, with its use. Digital and social technologies are attractive in many ways and we can get excited about working with them, especially in this era where students are dubbed "digital natives." But these tools require we think about their purpose, method, and audience just as carefully as when we design an essay prompt, a problem set, or any other assessment exercise. More...
www.MoreOnlineClassesPlease.edu
About halfway through my second stint as a graduate student, I registered to take an online course. I dreaded it. The class focused on an extremely dry, extremely technical topic (albeit also an extremely critical one which I would go on to use frequently after graduating) and I had already heard and internalized all of the usual knocks about online classes and their perceived stigma. But, in spite of my uncertainty about the whole idea of online classes, I decided to give it a shot. More...
Reading for the New Year
Like many of us, I started January setting goals for the year. Although New Year’s resolutions can take hundreds of different forms, like Laura’s Three E’s or Heather’s Three Words, I like to link my resolutions to my favorite books. More...
How Students Pay for Graduate Study
By Paul Fain. Students who were enrolled in graduate programs last year reported that they paid for 77 percent of their education with money they earned, saved or borrowed, according to a new study from Sallie Mae, the student loan company. In contrast, undergraduates pay for 30 percent of their educations with those sources. More...
Purdue Names Its Kaplan Acquisition
By Paul Fain. Purdue University announced Wednesday that the new online university it is seeking to create with Kaplan University will be called Purdue University Global, or Purdue Global for short. More...
