Archive : June 2006
737. Preparing Future Faculty and Multiple Forms of
June 29, 2006
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"Will institutions support and reward multiple forms of scholarship if the new faculty come with such expectations and capacities? This, I fear, is the crux of the matter, and the jury is still deliberating. My impression is that there are crosscurrents but no clear trends. For example, I know of several research universities that point proudly to faculty members who gained tenure based not on their research but on their teaching or technological prowess, but those individuals are still few in number. On the other hand, some liberal arts colleges have raised the bar for research in order to get tenure. And leaders at a comprehensive university I visited that had recently done a great deal of new hiring were enthusiastic about their ability to recruit researchers from top-rated departments, but when they launched a review of their undergraduate general education program, they realized that the new faculty were neither prepared to help nor interested."
Posted by jbink on June 29, 2006
736. Keeping Discussion Going Though Questioning,
June 27, 2006
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"The question remains, what conditions inhibit dialogue and what measures can be taken to overcome them? This chapter and the next will focus on a variety of ways to make discussion a process of continuous discovery and mutual enlightenment. Getting students to view problems more critically and creatively helps keep discussion fresh. How teachers maintain the pace of the discussion, how they use questioning and listening to engage students in probing subject matter, and how they group students for instruction all affect how the discussion proceeds and how motivated the students are to participate in similar discussions in the future."
Posted by jbink on June 27, 2006
735. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Review)
June 22, 2006
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"Over time, he learned that raters really only needed to pay attention to one type of exchange to be able to predict with nearly perfect accuracy which couples were most likely to divorce or break up. The thin slice Gottman needed was that of contempt. If one or the other partner expresses contempt during their discussion, it is very probable that the relationship is doomed. If Gottman hears contempt, then "blink", he knows what is likely to happen."
Posted by markep on June 22, 2006
734. A Whole New Mind for a Flat World
June 20, 2006
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"So far we've gotten away with it, although sharply declining engineering enrollments in recent years should be a red flag. We can't count on getting away with it much longer, however. The relentless movement of industry to computer-based design and operation and offshoring of skilled functions and entire manufacturing operations is not about to go away. On the contrary, as computer chips get faster and developing countries acquire greater expertise and better infrastructure, the movement will inevitably accelerate. "
Posted by markep on June 20, 2006
733. Personal Philosophies of Teaching: A False Promise?
June 15, 2006
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"While many institutions use the requirement of a personal philosophy of teaching statement to good and fair purpose, there are some (my own included) that offer more of a false promise than fair purpose in requiring such a statement as part of the periodic review process. The purpose of this article is to examine those false promises and disentangle the assumptions that lie behind them."
Posted by markep on June 15, 2006
732. Whatever Happened To Undergraduate Reform?
June 13, 2006
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What's at stake? Does this matter? Does it matter that university completion rates are 44 percent and slipping? That just 10 percent from the lowest economic quartile attain a degree? That figures released this past winter show huge chunks of our graduates who cannot comprehend a New York Times editorial or their own checkbook? That frustrated public officials edge closer and closer to imposing a standardized test of college outcomes? Does it matter that we look to our publics like an enterprise more eager for status and funding than self-inquiry and improvement?
Posted by markep on June 13, 2006
731. Challenges to the Academy - New Colleges, New Students, New Challenges
June 08, 2006
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"As higher education has expanded, the student body has become much larger and more diverse in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, and cultural background (Marcy, 2002; Newton, 2000). Now only 16 percent of the student population may be described as "traditional"-that is, ages eighteen to twenty-two, attending college full-time, and living on campus. Many now attend college part-time. More that 70 percent work, and 41 percent are over the age twenty-five (Marcy, 2002). Many of these new students are the first generation in their family to attend college. The majority of the new students are women."
Posted by markep on June 8, 2006
730. How to Win a Graduate Fellowship
June 06, 2006
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Don't be afraid to start writing the proposal before you feel ready. Rewriting again and again will tighten your prose, clarify your ideas, and polish your proposal. It will also help you ferret out typos. I found four in my final proposal when I reread it the other day. I got lucky in spite of that. You might not.
Posted by markep on June 6, 2006
729 Playing as Pedagogy
June 01, 2006
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Despite student enthusiasm for such assignments-and her view of her Mills years as "magical"-Corn put such playful experimentation behind her when she began teaching at Stanford in 1980. The times had changed, she said. "I wasn't at Berkeley anymore. We had gotten past what people called the sixties-which was really the 1970s."
Posted by markep on June 1, 2006