Higher Education Observer

I will be speaking on creative fiction writing and my own writing journey at the Catoosa County Library on Sunday, November 13, at 2:00.  I will also read from my work and sign books.

The article below is from Chuck Colson's organization, Breakpoint Ministry.  It is a totally different look at Millennials. I have sat through, and read, countless presentations on the Millennial generation, the good and bad.  Usually these presentations revolve around Millennials' use of (dependence on) technologies, their different views of knowledge and knowledge acquisition (learning), their different work ethic (not bad, just differently motivated), and other issues related to college classroom pedagogy.  It is important information, and I would encourage anyone unfamiliar with it to get cracking.   I have a Millennial at home, and some of what I hear is true of him, some of it is not, because he was raised by two old farts who didn't want him to be a product of his generation.  We didn't have cable till he was 17, and he was expected to work and pay his own bills, etc.  But what is below is true of him and his work situation, and it is causing h...

I think this word sums up what is wrong with a lot of people's thinking. The economy is not a zero sum game.  It is not one big pie that has to be cut up into more and more smaller pieces.  We create more pies; we can create more and more pies to feed more and more people. Now, I know the response--this is capitalism, and capitalism exploits the environment by using up resources.  But capitalism as a way of thinking can find ways not to use resources and still create wealth.  It happens all the time.  Capitalism frees people to use their creativity and innovation to create wealth and by doing so create jobs. Learning is not a zero sum game.  My students think their brains are only so big and that they must protect their brain capacity.   But neuroscience has proven that learning creates more synapses.  However, as capitalism creates wealth through hard work, learning creates more "brain capacity" for knowledge through hard wor...

Some colleagues and I got into a discussion about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation the other day.  We were in a discussion group about course redesign.  Most expressed a negative sense about grades and using them as motivators.  To be contrary, I disagree. Grades are good motivators.  Why should a student strive for the highest grade he/she can get in a class?  I am not even sure I consider a grade an extrinsic motivator, for a couple of reasons.  It doesn't always translate into money, a real extrinsic motivator (I'm not sure it ever did for me), and often the grade is earned because the student is engaged and also wants to please the instructor and himself/herself (all intrinsic).  To me, it is bad teaching if the student can earn the grade without the kind of deep, engaged, paradigm-changing-learning that we want for them.  Why are you giving good grades to students who haven't experienced this kind of engagement?  is the question I ...

I have not posted to this blog in a long time, but as my blogging is a ministry, I need to come to it with that attitude.  I received this email (article posted on website) from Faculty Focus this morning.  I hope it's ok to post this.  I found it just what I needed this morning.  It is from MaryEllen Weimer, who writes a lot about learner-centered teaching. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/listen-to-the-message-as-you-talk-about-your-students/