Blog Educpros de Jean-Michel Zakhartchouk. Dans la « torpeur de l’été » selon l’expression convenue et stéréotypée, on a des occasions de lire, de faire peut-être quelque randonnée pédestre ou visiter une expo. J’ai pour ma part du mal à laisser de côté lors de ces occasions mes préoccupations éducatives et je voudrais ici livrer quelques réflexions à propos de trois moments en référence à ces loisirs estivaux. Suite...
Blog Educpros de Jean-Michel Zakhartchouk. L’elixir d’amour du Docteur Dulcamara de Donizetti n’était que du charlatanisme, mais il était vanté avec tant de truculence ! Mais on sait bien que les remèdes magiques, ça n’existe pas. Et en matière de pédagogie, plutôt moins qu’ailleurs. Et pourtant, la tentation est grande, malgré les dénégations, de chercher le moyen infaillible de faire réussir les élèves et de résoudre tous les problèmes d’échec et toutes les difficultés scolaires. Suite...
Sur le blog "Histoires d'universités" de Pierre Dubois. Communiqué de la Conférence des présidents d’université (20 octobre 2017) : Premier cycle de l’enseignement supérieur : osons la réforme nécessaire à la réussite des étudiants. Un seul commentaire : la CPU ne devrait pas vouloir « tout et son contraire ». Plus...
By . Most people usually think of universities as being particularly stable, physically speaking. Sure, they grow a bit: if they are really ambitious they add a satellite campus here and there – maybe even set one up overseas. But by and large, the centre of the university itself stays put, right. More...
By . Everyone knows this story, or a variant of it, even if it never hits the papers and no one wants to name names. It goes like this: Professor X simply won’t retire. It’s not that he/she (though it’s mostly he) is staying on for themselves, you understand. It’s for the department. If he/she (mostly he) left, there simply wouldn’t be any guarantee that a new tenure line would go back to the department. That position might go to another department – or another faculty entirely. And that would never do – think of the department. More...
By . You can tell it’s pre-budget consultation time in Ottawa because university Presidents are writing op-eds about the importance of research and backing the Naylor Report. But man, are they ever unconvincing. More...
By . I’ve recently been dismissive of the notion that Canada is “falling behind” in higher education since everyone seems to insist on making ludicrous comparisons with places like China, Switzerland and Singapore. But upon a little bit of further digging, it turns out there is one of our very close competitors which is doing rather well these days, one we probably should be worried about despite the fact that we’ve mostly been ignoring it since the Financial Crisis of ’08. More...
By . Almost since the “world-class” university paradigm was established fifteen years ago, the concept has faced a backlash. The concept was too focussed on research production, it was unidimensional, it took no account of universities’ other missions, etc. etc. Basically the argument was that if people took the world class university concept seriously, we would have a university monoculture that ignored many important facets of higher education. More...
By . The federal government has been somewhat quiet on the subject of science funding since the release of the Fundamental Science Review (see previous blogs here here and here) back in April. Within much of the scientific community, which for the most part fell head over heels in love with the Report, this has given cause for concern; personally, I think this is pretty much par for the course, and we aren’t likely to see much in the way of hints about the size of any possible investment until October or so. More...
The number seven has many special properties. There are seven days of the week, seven colours of the rainbow, seven notes in a musical scale, seven ages of man, seven continents and seven seas. In 2014, a journalist asked people to pick their favourite number and, 44,000 votes later, the number 7 topped the poll (with 110, sadly, being deemed the least popular). More...
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