New insights about teaching, publishing and intellectual history. Source: What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us – The New York Times This Times Op-Ed contains a link to a website with informative data on syllabuses. The piece explains the data. I will just add that I believe that you can use the website to make […]
What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us – The New York Times (And What Experience Cautions Us)
January 25, 2016 by
Puts His Finger on the K-12 Problem, Just Needs to Realize Cause.
September 8, 2015 by
Is This an Invitation For Professors to Pass Everyone?
April 23, 2015 by
“…students will not have to pay until they pass the courses…” from Promising Full College Credit, Arizona State University Offers Online Freshman Program – NYTimes.com. How about not paying till there is evidence of learning? like getting a good job? or, getting into grad school? or doing well on some standardized test in the subject?… […]
Math’s Enigma’s? Great, But Some People Want to Keep Them a Secret.
March 14, 2015 by
On Pi Day, Celebrate Math’s Enigmas – NYTimes.com. I had to comment. True, oh so true: “…it’s only when we try to stretch our minds around mathematics’ enigmas that true understanding can set in.” (The Op-Ed’s last line.) But, far too true, too: “…stretch[ing] our minds around mathematics…” is what so many unscrupulous college administrators […]
Penn Professor Tells It Like It Is
February 18, 2015 by
I highly recommend reading this. College, Poetry and Purpose – NYTimes.com. Though I made a comment, it is so similar to others, that, for regular readers, I just recommend the NY Times piece. Here is my comment. Prof. Hall is correct about students as “customers”; though the problem is not with them. It is with […]
Content Deflation III – Does Wash. U. Physics Prof. Adopt It With Zeal? And Does the University Boast About It? Read This
April 3, 2014 by
This is from my story ATaleOutofSchool but it is self-contained. I think it is helpful in understanding how much “content deflation” has entered the academy as a marketing tool that caters to student “wants”, while leaving students on their own to acquire their “needs”. Of course, it is even worse that just leaving them on […]
New York Times Conflates Teaching with Marketing and Then Notes Students Could Do Better?
April 1, 2014 by
Here are links to two articles in today’s The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/education/using-the-arts-to-teach-how-to-prepare-for-climate-crisis.html?rref=us&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&pgtype=article and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/us/us-students-strong-at-problem-solving-but-trail-other-nations.html?ref=us (only online for now) The first article seems to be about how a professor, one of many, is using a creative new approach to teaching about climate change issues. I looked at ratemyprofessor.com for her. Here is what I found. She is tremendously […]
William Deresiewicz’s Incisive Observation Taken to Its Logical Conclusion
How college sold its soul to the market Source: [Essay] | The Neoliberal Arts, by William Deresiewicz | Harper’s Magazine I commented. To truly change higher education, the critical observation that college is neoliberal, needs to be followed to its logical conclusion. What has damned higher education in America is the neoliberalist view of colleges […]