Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Melonie Fullick. When I was about 20 I made the decision to quit pursuing a career doing the thing I’d been best at all my life. Some of you might be surprised to know that I was “supposed” to be an artist. I was better at art – drawing, building and sculpting, photography – than I was at anything else, and I was usually better at it than anyone around me. Of course that changed when I started my BFA, but I was still very good at it and would have been much better if I’d felt the motivation to perform in the way I was supposed to. But I didn’t feel it, and I didn’t like the performance (which was far more than just “artistic”), and it meant that I had to start questioning “why not?”. I knew I had to make a decision before I went too far down that track, narrowing my options to the point where it would be difficult to start something else, and investing a lot of time that could be better used elsewhere. Read more...

By Léo Charbonneau. The following is a guest post by Helen Murphy, assistant director, communications, for the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.
Canada was both present and missing at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Feb. 13-17. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and its annual meeting attracts thousands of leading scientists, engineers, educators, policymakers and journalists from around the world to discuss recent developments in science and technology. More...

By Steven Mintz. The idea is half a century old. But implementation has lagged far behind. During the early 1960s, the educational psychologist Jerome Bruner called for discovery learning, which he contrasted with the standard pedagogy of the day, knowledge transmission. An updated version of John Dewey’s vision of an education that is social and interactive, discovery learning emphasizes inquiry, problem solving, and team work, as opposed to the passive absorption of information. Read more...

By Margaret Andrews. Throughout the years I’ve taught a variety of courses and short programs and have collected a relatively short list of favorite films and videos that I use to illustrate certain lessons and behaviors.  Here are some of my favorites:
Milkshakes:  This four-minute video showcases Clay Christensen talking about how you get the most creative insights into a situation/problem by making sure you ask the right questions. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Nick Kristof, at the New York Times, set off an explosion on Twitter with his piece Sunday about the seeming disappearance of college faculty from larger political discussions.  Quoting famous people from Harvard, Princeton, and Harvard again, Kristof concluded that the marginalization of academic voices is a result of hyper-specialization and rampant liberalism. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Has anyone out there seen a reasonably elegant solution to the issue of mandating technology for part-time students?
My campus is starting to make actual, discernible headway towards more widespread use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in place of commercial textbooks. It’s still a small movement, but it’s growing quickly, and it has enthusiastic support across faculty, staff, administration, and students. Read more...