Shaun Johnson of The Chalk Face, a website dedicated to questions of public education (particularly to the struggle against the so-called “reformers” who are attempting to eradicate it), has a post at Good which, though it is aimed at demonstrating why the current “reforms” should be viewed with suspicion, also shows why we should be a…
with Katelin Kaiser In past blogs, I’ve argued academics, particularly tenured faculty, should consider self-publishing their pedagogical materials. Today I wish to further explore the benefits of open textbook publishing. For this blog I’m joined by Katelin Kaiser, a graduate student in Ethics and Medical Humanities at the University of South Florida College of Medicine…
This is a guest post by Virginia Kuhn, associate director of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy in the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. Her article, “Embrace and Ambivalence,” appears in the newest issue of Academe. Digital dissertations are sometimes said to be commonplace; however such talk usually refers to an artifact that is digital but…
Marjorie Heins, founder of The Free Expression Policy Project, is the author of the new book Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge (NYU Press, February 2013). In her book (watch video interviews with her), Heins examines the critical Supreme Court cases of the 1950s and 1960s that first…
Just what is the right thing to do, the right thing to do morally? That is not always so easy a question to answer, maybe hardly ever is it such an easy question. In higher education there are many situations that pose just that sort of question. Moral issues, questions and dilemmas have existed and…
Last week, I attended a presentation by William Doyle, a professor at Vanderbilt University, about his proposals to change the way student aid works in America. His analysis was sponsored by the Committee for Economic Development, who also hosted the presentation. You can read the report on CED’s website. Professor Doyle’s ideas center around one…
The leadership in America’s colleges and universities spends a great deal of time making the case for the kind of education that reflects the people, programs and facilities already in place. It is an understandable position; indeed, on most levels many of us often wish that the argument had more legs. Much of the defense…
As Aaron has noted, he and a group of other professors will be taking and writing about Coursera’s “E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC.” I will not be one of them – not because I wouldn’t find it interesting, but because I’ve already been down the road, having taken a World History course last semester (and…
In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes: I can see a day soon where you’ll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world. The column, which seems to be more PR for Coursera than legitimate commentary on education, comes a day before a group…
In 2010, Republicans won the governorships and control of the legislatures in states across the Rust Belt. Because it was a census year, the GOP engaged in extreme gerrymandering that, at least at first glance, seemingly insured their control of those states for at least the next decade. In a previous post, I suggested that…