Higher Education Observer

Reading this book because it was recommended by a higher up at the college who wanted to lead a book group on it, and the book group is this week.   I am slow to recommend books like this, but I found it helpful.   It took me a while to get into it, and it’s pretty anecdotal and of course, like all these books presents its ideas as the salvation of the organizational world.   Essentially, it posits five levels for organizations. Stage 1 – Members say, “Life sucks.” Stage 2 – Members say, “My life sucks.” Stage 3 – Some members say, “My life is great.”   Here we have people performing well but only for themselves. Stage 4 – Members say, “We are great,” which is an us-them mentality but is preferable to Stage 3, where everyone is about themselves and their own success.   At this stage the leaders have had epiphanies that show them the organization is bigger than individual members, etc.   Sort of a Jack Mezirow transformative le...

I take a very conservative view of Academic Freedom.  By that I mean that as far as free speech for the faculty member in the classroom, the less the better.  This is odd for me because I am libertarian in regard to free speech, but I also know the issues of power in the classroom and that the classroom has one goal, and that is not to allow the professor to spout off and pontificate. The goal of the classroom is student learning, not indocrination into a faculty member's viewpoints.   There is too much to do in a classroom to spend time on your own tangents.  Does this mean the faculty member is a blank slate, with not opportunities for self-expression?  Of course not.  We should be and are free to state our opinions, as long as we present them as such.  And we all know faculty who state their opinions as facts and as the sum total of the issue.  Admit it.  Just because you agree with someone's viewpoint doesn't mean it isn't their ...

--> The following is an excerpt from a guidebook I am co-authoring with colleagues on implementing High Impact Practices in a classroom.  I wrote this part so I think it's ok to post; our final book is going to be an open resource anyway and under Creative Commons.  This section is under the part on one of the quality matrices, "Periodic and structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning."  One of the examples of this essential element, provided by the AAC&U literature, is “A capstone course in which students submit a portfolio and explain the relative contributions of the artifacts contained therein that represent the knowledge and proficiencies attained at various points during their program of study.”   Although this is one way to use reflection in a significant way, there are many ways that reflection can be used.   Unfortunately, reflection is a word more talked about than understood and done, as Shakespeare would say, “a cu...

I was reading an interesting (although in need of proofreading) article called "Lecture is Not a Dirty Word."  One of the big reasons faculty don't like faculty or educational development is that they feel that lecturing is characterized as a horrible method in favor of "active learning strategies."  As a colleague says, it's a straw man because presenters often show the hilarious clips of Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off (it is quite funny, but in no means the reality of lecturing for most professors I know). One of the thoughts in this article is that students don't want to waste time in class on activities, discussions, etc. that do not help them learn directly and get a good grade.  Oh, woe is us, these writers say--the students should not be so extrinsic and should want to learn for the sake of learning, should be socially constructing knowledge and not just passing a test. To that I say, get real.  None of the faculty members wanted ...