Change: Now's our chance?

In a time such as this, when it's truly clear for once that things must change, you can't turn around without hearing loud calls for change and loud change-rakers.

Here are a couple thought-provoking "change we must" pieces from the week's higher ed news.

End the University as We Know It
Mark C. Taylor, chair of the department of religion at Columbia
April 27 New York Times

(and a reasonable response from Dean Dad at Inside Higher Ed)

In a Time of Crisis, Colleges Ought to Be Making History
Goldie Blumenstyk
May 1 Chronicle of Higher Education

Edutainment or Education?--Podcasting in Higher Education

Some educators wonder if we're lowering the bar by the use of podcasting, which is well known as a tool for listening to music by the Net Generation. I've wondered myself; but after trying it out and reading some of the current research, there are many reasons to pursue using podcasting in your course--online or onground.

Podcasting can make lessons in your course more relevant to today's student and thus promote more and better learning. Sharon Stoerger's Annoted Bibliography on Podcasting in Higher Education provides many examples, and she regularly updates it; the last update was October 9, 2006. To highlight the point about learning needing relevance, Stoerger quotes McDermott (in Murphy 1999:17)1:

"Learning is in the relationships between people. Learning is in the conditions that bring people together and organize a point of contact that allows for particular pieces of information to take on a relevance; without the points of contact, without the system of relevancies, there is not learning, and there is little memory."

If you need some resources to get you started or to expand your exploration of podcasting, the article in this link is it.

New Book on Student Plagiarism: Blum

Inside Higher Ed today posted an article, "It's Culture, Not Morality," about Susan D. Blum's new book on student plagiarism (My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture)"The book, about to appear from Cornell University Press, is sure to be controversial because it challenges the strategies used by colleges and professors nationwide. In many ways, Blum is arguing that the current approach of higher education to plagiarism is a shock and awe strategy — dazzle students with technology and make them afraid, very afraid, of what could happen to them."

As usual with Inside Higher Ed articles, the comments are as good as the piece itself. I side with those who say no matter what theoretical frame you bring to it, practically speaking, the only way around plagiarism is to create assignments that make it very, very difficult.

Teachers: Can't predict 'em, can't live without 'em

Malcolm Gladwell (Mr. Tipping Point) in the December 15, 2008 New Yorker, says, "Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree—and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before. That means that the profession has to be more rigorous in how it evaluates young teachers…"

Gladwell draws comparisons to the recruitment and training of pro quarterbacks and financial advisers, and points to this kind of research about teachers: "A group of researchers—Thomas J. Kane, an economist at Harvard’s school of education; Douglas Staiger, an economist at Dartmouth; and Robert Gordon, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress—have investigated whether it helps to have a teacher who has earned a teaching certification or a master’s degree. Both are expensive, time-consuming credentials that almost every district expects teachers to acquire; neither makes a difference in the classroom."

Compelling challenge. Of course, it's an idea that would only apply to K-12 teachers. Right?

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AAC&U Meeting in Minneapolis October, 2009

How's this for exciting? The Association of American Colleges and Universities is holding a national meeting on ethics and civic engagement here in town next fall. Call for proposals open through January 30, 2009. Let's make sure our public colleges and universities are well represented!

Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility: Deepening Student and Campus Commitments

Network for Academic Renewal Conference

October 1-3, 2009

Minneapolis, Minnesota

About the Conference

Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility: Deepening Student and Campus Commitments will bring together faculty, student affairs personnel, academic administrators, students, and others to explore how to move education for personal and social responsibility to the center
of institutional culture and academic practice. The program will feature promising practices that develop students’ civic engagement and social responsibility in both a local and global context; personal and academic integrity; ability to examine and understand differing (and often competing) perspectives; and ethical and moral reasoning.

The central premise of the conference is that personal integrity and ethics cannot be developed in isolation from a commitment to and engagement with others, and that students’ ethical, civic, and moral development must be addressed as part of their basic responsibilities as learners.

Educating for Personal and Social Responsibility | Conference Overview

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Face to Face with History

On a day that brings news from our neighboring state of new public swastikas at the University of North Dakota, here's also news of real possibility, of teaching for peace, not hate.

Bernard Reuter, director of St. Cloud State University's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education, is leading a tour of 200+ students from the St. Cloud area to Germany and France, where they will study directly the effects of the Nazi holocaust on the area of Alsace-Lorraine. They will also take part in performing a choral work (by Stephen Paulus and commissioned by Fr. Michael O'Connell when he was pastor at Minneapolis's Basilica of St. Mary), "To Be Certain of the Dawn."

One of the things that makes this trip so resonant, and so hopeful, is that St. Cloud State University is the institution most known in the news of the last few years for swastika graffiti and other evidence of anti-Semitic hate. I look forward to learning about the impact of this visit on these students and the faculty who accompany them. And I wish them all a wonderful trip, full of learning and deeply human interaction.

How long could you go without a computer?

Eight students in a film class at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota recently asked whether or not they could survive in college without their computers. Three of the eight students shut down, hid from view, duct taped and otherwise disconnected themselves from their computers for several weeks during the height of the term. The other five students followed these three in their struggles to conduct research, complete papers and get vital information from their instructors and fellow students without logging on.

I saw this film as it was screened during the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, and believe it indirectly addresses the issue of the technology divide on our campuses; who does and who doesn't have access to computers and broadband outside of class and off campus--and how that divide impacts student success rates. The documentary is very well-executed, professionally produced (by Carleton College faculty member Melody Gilbert and her students) and well-worth any college instructor's time in viewing. Future screenings are yet to be announced, but you can get a sneak preview and sign up to be alerted to screenings by staying connected.