By Barbara Fister. A friend raised the most fascinating question this morning, and I've been thinking about it all day. How do we explain journals to undergraduates? What is a journal, anyway? How do they work? Why do they matter?
I had just been running into this with some students in a second-year biology course. The biology department does a great job of building up students’ understanding of how science is communicated. Read more...
By Joshua Kim. A conference presenters’ haiku:By Joshua Kim. I’ve discovered the secret (sort of) for getting through a MOOC (mostly).
Don’t use a computer.
In my vast experimenting in the open online education field (an N of 1 - namely me), I’ve found that I significantly more likely to make it through a MOOC if I consume the course materials via my iPhone.
Why forgo the power of the keyboard and the pleasure of a large screen when accessing the latest and greatest in open online learning? Read more...
By Steven Berg. I ask my students, “If you were a gladiator, which technology would you prefer: a trident, a net, or a wooden sword?” It is a question I would like you to consider; a question to which I will return. Even before Verus and Priscus entered the Coliseum in AD 80, individuals realized that access to higher education combined with appropriate technologies was a pathway to social mobility. Although we often think of gladiators as slaves and criminals, many poor freemen chose to train to become gladiators. These men made the decision to enter a gladiatorial school because they considered obtaining a higher education as their best opportunity for social mobility. More...
By Louis Hyman. If, as the New York Times claimed, 2012 was the Year of the MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), then 2013 was the Year of Pushback Against the MOOC. The point versus counterpoint played out according to a predictable script. First right-wing entrepreneurs, who see American universities as a nest of inefficient yet arrogant tenured radicals, proclaimed that higher education was a "bubble." Traditional universities, they announced, would be rendered extinct by the MOOC-as-category-killer, which could deliver a free product to consumers around the world. Academics fired back, insisting that taped lectures, multiple-choice questions graded by algorithm, and troll-filled discussion threads were no substitute for actual human beings. As results from the road-testing of MOOCs started to trickle in over the second half of 2013, the critics proclaimed victory. Typically, less than ten percent of students who initially signed up for such "courses" completed them. More...
. After nearly two decades working for the University of Chicago's executive MBA program, associate dean Patty Keegan thought she had heard just about every question a prospective student could ask. Last month, however, she heard a new one: Why should I pay you for this program when I can just cobble together my own with MOOCs? More...
By Laura B. McGrath. I’m in the middle of comprehensive exam preparation, a process familiar to many graduate students. Day after day, I read in preparation for my exams. It’s been a months-long process, with an end only distantly in sight. I’ll be honest: after a long day reading, say, Derrida, it’s hard for me to stay motivated. I’ve tried lots of productivity methods: I love the Pomodoro method, and even more simply, turning my cell phone on Do Not Disturb to eliminate distractions. Read more...
By Liz Homan. I always wanted to be a sprinter. As a child, I thought I was very fast.
My middle school track coach helped me realize how wrong I was about that.
As it turned out, it’s a good thing I got over my need for speed early, because when it comes to the PhD it's a marathon – not a sprint. I ran my first marathon in November, and am currently training for marathons 2 and 3. The more I have trained for these races, and the farther I have come as a doctoral student, the more I have come to realize how many things marathon training and earning a PhD have in common. Read more...
By Matt Reed. A few months ago, The Girl’s teacher assigned the students to pick a writer they liked, and to write her/him a letter. The Girl picked Erin Hunter, the (pseudonymous, collective) author of the Warriors series, which is about a set of wild cats. Last week, Erin Hunter responded with a long and thoughtful letter -- an actual letter, on paper -- and The Girl was thrilled. Yesterday she told me that Erin Hunter is her favorite author. (“Except you, Dad…”). Read more...
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