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Monthly Archives: July 2012
Learning Outside the Classroom
Despite mission statements, learning objectives, and other verbiage that faculty expend much time and effort creating, many of our students still regard learning as something that only occurs in the classroom, with an older authority figure telling them what and … Continue reading
Posted in Chad Raymond
Tagged collaborative learning, community, lifelong learning, non-profit, peer
1 Comment
Exercise: Evaluating Sources
In my last post, I bemoaned the Methods Silo Effect and how we should not assume that students are proficient at all the skills required to write a research paper without practice or guidance. I also promised to post some … Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Amanda Rosen, Exercises, Information Literacy, Research Methods
Tagged evidence, Information literacy, methods course, teaching
1 Comment
Hybrid Pedagogy
Courtesy of an (online) acquaintance, I discovered a neat (again, online) open access journal called Hybrid Pedagogy: A Digital Journal of Teaching & Technology. The journal has a lot of interesting and useful information, such as Theorizing Google Docs: 10 Tips for … Continue reading
Posted in Chad Raymond, Information Literacy, Online Classes
Tagged discussion, Google Docs, hybrid, pedagogy
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Curiouser and curiouser
What do we, university professors who are employed to teach others, know about learning? If your graduate training was like mine, it’s very little. We are a self-selected group of people, good at memorizing and synthesizing information from a very … Continue reading
The Methods Silo Effect and Fixing Poor Research Skills
Today I want to discuss the Methods Silo Effect: the belief that a single methods class or sequence is sufficient to teach our students the skills of a political scientist. Following this course, no more instruction in research skills should … Continue reading
Posted in Amanda Rosen, Information Literacy, Research Methods
Tagged methods course, methods silo effect, Reflection, research, teaching
5 Comments
Jumping On the MOOC Train
A brief update to what I’ve written recently (here and here) about the sweeping changes that massive open-source online courses (MOOCs) are bringing to higher education: Coursera has announced partnership agreements with twelve more universities, including Caltech, Johns Hopkins, the … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Chad Raymond, Online Classes, Problem solving
Tagged Caltech, Canada, Coursera, Illinois, Johns Hopkins, MOOC, Scotland, Seattle, Switzerland, Washington
1 Comment
Challenging Opportunity Costs in Learning & Teaching
As befits a country that’s about to welcome the world, the weather has been particularly dismal here in England. With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about economics, and particularly about the notion of opportunity cost. At one level, this … Continue reading
Posted in Activities, Simon Usherwood
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The eBay of Education
In my post on the end of the university as we know it, I outlined the financially unsustainable system of higher education in the USA and how organizations like edX (the soon-to-launch amalgamation of MITx and Harvardx), Coursera, and Udacity offer low- to no-cost education to … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Assessment, Chad Raymond, Online Classes
Tagged Alison, Coursera, edX, Homer Simpson, Khan Academy, massive open online course, MITx, Udacity, Udemy
1 Comment
Hunger Games v. Battle Royale
In the pedagogical battle between The Hunger Games, a book (and now film) by Suzanne Collins, and the Japanese film Battle Royale, the former is the clear winner. Spoilers for both follow, so fair warning! Background: I teach a course … Continue reading
Posted in Amanda Rosen, Films and Fiction, Getting Them to Read
Tagged battle royale, fiction, film, hunger games
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Lest auld acquaintance…
One of the very best things about contributing to this blog is the way that it has let me maintain contact with a great group of people who – in other times – I would have probably not heard from … Continue reading
