—
Stephen Downes on Do-It-Yourself Education and MOOCs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-downes/a-world-to-change_b_762738.html
Everything old is new again.
“COLLEGE- The Gift That Keeps On Taking “ Newsweek April 26, 1976
Their 2013 version: “Is College A Lousy Investment?
(Source: nwkarchivist)
As some say that all students should be required to “speak up” in class, I say “let them type.” If you run a backchannel, that should count as classroom contribution. I’ve found that quieter students will float an idea in the classroom and are willing to express it verbally if the teacher notices and speaks about the topic. Sometimes students want a low-threat way to suggest and interject, and I’ve personally found the backchannel to be a powerful way to do this.
NY Times
(Source: coolcatteacher)
—
-Henri Amiel
(Amongst other things…)
(Source: quotedojo)
— Flannery O’Connor
from Open Culture
We took our collection of 550 Free Online Courses from Great Universities and did a back-of-the-envelope estimate of the total number of hours of free audio/video lectures it offers. A conservative estimate puts it north of 15,000 hours. Pretty staggering, especially considering that these lectures come from world-class institutions like Stanford, MIT, Yale, UC Berkeley, and Oxford. And, what’s more, they’re free. Yes, there is such a thing as a free lunch … and dinner.
PLUS
175 Free Online Certificate Courses & MOOCs from Great Universities
450 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free
375 Free eBooks: Download to Kindle, iPad/iPhone & Nook
500 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc.
Stephen’s Web ~ OLDaily
MOOCs make the front cover of Time College Is Dead. Long Live College! There’s zero coverage of anything that’s not Ivy League. But I don’t care. MOOCs will be the end of them. The elite universities are about money and privilege. MOOCs represent the opposite of that. “several forces have aligned to revive the hope that the Internet (or rather, humans using the Internet from Lahore to Palo Alto, Calif.) may finally disrupt higher education — not by simply replacing the distribution method but by reinventing the actual product.
— John Dewey
From the Republican Party of Texas election platform (p.12) comes this classic bit of education madness:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification, and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
A recent Georgetown University study estimates that by 2018, 63 percent of all U.S. jobs will require some sort of postsecondary education. Studies have shown for quite a while that a credential, whether a degree or certificate, can lead to higher wages and greater long-term sustainability.
That reality—and the changing nature of today’s workforce—has sent adult learners back to campus in record numbers. Some studies estimate the traditional college student—a full-time, residential undergraduate supported by their parents—may only account for 25 percent of the college-going population.
Inequality is growing in the United States, and social mobility is slowing. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62 percent of Americans raised in the top one-fifth of the income scale stay in the top two-fifths; 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.
Education, long praised as the great equalizer, no longer seems to be performing as advertised. A study by Stanford University shows that the gap in standardized-test scores between low-income and high-income students has widened about 40 percent since the 1960s—now double that between black and white students. A study from the University of Michigan found that the disparity in college-completion rates between rich and poor students has grown by about 50 percent since the 1980s.
What role has higher education played in society’s stratification? Are colleges and universities contributing to economic inequality and the decline of social mobility?
more at chronicle.com/article/Has-Higher-Education-Become-an/132619/
New Jersey ranks in the top 5 states for K-12 education funding. For higher education, it ranks in the bottom 5.
A few gems from a recent batch of Western Civilization papers:
“Humanity has no place for humility when the fact is that we know we supersede one another.”
“America is the strongest country in the world and we know this. We knew it generations before it was.”
“Soldiers were broken and caught to be tickets for the Roman’s greedy rewards.”
— Albert Einstein
Via http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/open-door-policies-at-2-year-colleges-face-threat-report-says/
The nation’s college-completion agenda may be threatening open-door admissions policies at two-year institutions, says a report released today by the American Association of Community Colleges. The organization is concerned that colleges may become more selective in admissions in an attempt to meet graduation goals, and will therefore limit college access for disadvantaged students. Community colleges are known for their open-door policies, which allow all types of students to enroll.
