Interesting article on another factor contributing to grade inflation.

Think open fellowship

Mooc

Future of HE, Social impact, public good

old dog, new tricks

Qui est surpris de voir que cette jeunesse a de l'espoir...

It's well known that men had an advantage of getting a proper education which explains Mr. Gardiner's intelligence. This paragraph shows that Mrs. Gardiner was "amiable, intelligent" which shows that she had some form of an education. For women, getting an education was different than men because not all females got an education. According to the article, "Life for Women in 18th Century", if women got an education, it is usually because they were wealthy and were able to go to boarding school. Some women, not everyone, of lower class learned basic reading and writing skills. Although this doesn't mention her background and what exactly it means by "intelligent", it makes me wonder which social class she was raised in and if she really did get education.

Test annotation dans Hypothes.is

Access to books increases children’s future prospects and has a significant influence on the level of education they will attain, their productivity, their health, and their quality of life.

If we want kids to read more, and be better readers and writers, we need to give them access to lots of books, starting with ones they are most interested in. (This short article is specific about ways to improve book access for all kids.)

What I notice is missing from here is open pedagogy which, as Tannis Morgan noted, has historical roots in the late 70's in Quebec. However, it may be that because this is a historical look at open education, and open pedagogy is a relatively recent (despite the work Tannis has discovered) area of interest for open educators, there may just be a lack of formalized research supporting the idea of open pedagogy.

In order for open education to be more than a movement, it feels like we should be consciously moving in this direction - to define a canonical set of resources that are foundational to the field in order to help orient others and further define ourselves as a field/discipline. Because, as we have seen with MOOC's, if we do not do it, then others will do it for us.

the options of this question are somewhat mediocre and cannot up to training standard

Also known as Kyōiku kanji (教育漢字, literally "education kanji"). see Wikipedia: Kyouiku Kanji

How widely known is this figure?

Want to explore what this might look like in an engineering course. Need to identify examples.

Yay for IDs! ;)

Website listing productivity MOOC's, geared towards freeing up more time in people's lives.

Mooc website I currently use myself. The selection of courses is triple those of other website offering free courses.

What is Open Education

We need to posit a reason why education as domination is a necessary good.

Complexity Theory replaces simple causality with an emphasis on networks, linkages, holism, feedback, relationships and interactivity in context, emergence, dynamical systems, self-organization and an open system, rather than the closed world of the experimental laboratory. Even if we could conduct an experiment, its applicability to ongiong, emerging, interactive, relational, changing, open situations, in practice, may be limited. It is misconceived to hold variables constant in a dynamical, evolving, fluid, open situation.

Why does it matter what it is called? Does the name change impact the literal definition of what digital humanities is at its core? Practitioners ought to focus more on the meat of the topic rather than the name. Exclusion is only a feeling that stems from a lack of information. Once explored, one will find that digital humanities is applicable for everyone.

In any kind of textbook, if there is an aspect to a concept which will cause confusion in the future, it should be covered, even if only in a footnote, so that the reader can study it on their own.

This flattening of a complex narrative of identity is what leads to dehumanization. So important for teachers, (and thereby teacher educators) to emphasize the nuances inherent in any cultural group—intra-group diversity as well as inter-group diversity.

Bonk on open education

Encouraging to know it's not an "all-or-nothing" situation!

Open Education A Study in Disruption

Distance Education Enrollment Growth—Major Differences Persist Among Sectors

Ouch

This is a test comment.

This relates to the Constitution Act, 1867, specifically re: education.

Good rationale for not enacting a blanket classroom tech ban

Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify, explains why he no longer believes in the "engineering model" of personalized learning.

Here's the problem: The map doesn't exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library.

Reasons for online growth

Perhaps with my background within Higher Education Administration-I see this type of discussion occur quite frequently with the discussion of the value of a liberal arts education. This is interesting to me to see that close to one hundred years later, this debate of the extrinsic vs instrinsic value of a liberal arts education still rages on within educational policy making...

I like the examples here. And the anxiety and frustration that goes with learning that you are not good at something (Britzman)

These three visions are also present in his book Democracy and Education. In which, Dewey intertwined both concepts arguing that a democracy is impossible if people remain ignorant to their civic and societal duties. He argues that the education field must favor collaboration and modeling a true democracy.

I know that boundary crossings have been important in the thinking of some colleagues working in teacher education at the University of Hong Kong.

I found this clause intriguing. The founders affirm their belief that physical education is of utmost importance and should be addressed by "every institution of youth." However, the founders chose not to include a formal provision of "gymnastics." More interesting are the reasons behind why the founders deemed physical education necessary; they attribute it to the importance physical health and strength play in warfare. Ironically, the University offers physical education centered classes now, when the likelihood of students being drafted into a war is extremely low.

In “The Claim to Native Control of Education", Berger refers to the fundamental ideological differences between Aboriginal people and Euro-Canadian settlers. For Aboriginal peoples, learning was seen as a lived experience best absorbed through storytelling, group discussions, role modeling, personal reflection, peer tutoring, learning/talking circles, and hands-on experiences (Preston et al., 8). Family members taught children everything they needed to know within the context of purposeful, daily activities and adults expected the very best from each child. Adults knew each child’s unique strengths, interests, and learning needs and tailored that to all aspects of their development. This child-centered education, ensured that native people created “able human beings” who could survive and thrive in their environment (McGregor, 58).

From the late 1800s until the 1950s, Euro-Canadian settler missionaries drastically disrupted these Aboriginal ways of learning. The two primary objectives of residential school systems were to “remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture” (Paquette and Gérald, 3). Residential schools intentionally discounted for Aboriginal culture and values based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and beliefs were inferior. All instruction was taught in English and children were punished for speaking their native languages (McGregor, 58). Aboriginal pedagogy endorsed student control over the pace of classroom conversations, and allowed for student opportunities for self-determination. However, typical assessment mechanisms employed within Euro-Canadian public education included formative test-taking measures, standardized tests, written evaluations, teacher-centered feedback and the provision of formal grades/percentages. This type of curricular approach to assessment is ill-matched with Aboriginal ways of knowing and learning and Aboriginal children suffered as a result.

Those who designed residential school education did so with the unquestioning acceptance that its rightful goal was to ‘re-educate’ Aboriginal students to ‘encapsulate hierarchically’ First Nation people to not think or reach beyond the lowest position in the social system (Paquette and Gérald, 5). Aboriginal peoples were regarded as “intellectually inferior” and therefore “needed to be inducted into the knowledge base and lifestyle appropriate for the ‘working farmer’ or ‘mechanic’” (Paquette and Gérald, 5). This left Aboriginal people in a difficult position. On the one hand, native people have been told that education is the key to their future, and that such programs will better the social and environmental conditions in their communities. Yet on the other hand, the vast majority of these programs focused on the learning needs of Euro-Canadian students, ultimately leaving Aboriginal students with little understanding of how to apply what they have learned to the situations they face in their communities.

In the early 1970s, the emerging Northwest Territory government issued new curricular expectations for Aboriginal students (McGregor, 60). The purpose of this culturally responsive educational reform was to create education based approaches that resonated with the type of learning students received from their families and in their communities. Fundamental elements of this educational approach came from culturally relevant learning, which is described by Ladson Billings as helping “students accept and affirm their cultural identity, while developing critical perspectives that [enable them] to challenge inequities that schools…perpetuate” (McGregor, 60). It clearly departed from assimilationist federal schooling practices by expecting culturally responsive approaches that emphasized Aboriginal students’ languages and cultures and each student’s personal strengths (McGregor, 62).

Photo Credit: Culturally responsive schooling: students and community members prepare to leave for spring camp, Kugluktuk, NWT, circa 1975. (McGregor, 59).

Bibliography:

McGregor, Catherine A. 2015. "Creating Able Human Beings: Social Studies Curriculum in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, 1969 to the Present." Historical Studies in Education 27, no. 1: 57-79. 

Paquette, Jerald E., and Gérald, Fallon. 2010. First Nations Education Policy in Canada: Progress or Gridlock? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed November 27, 2017).

Preston, Jane P., Michael Cottrell, Terrance R. Pelletier, and Joseph V. Pearce. 2012. "Aboriginal early childhood education in Canada: Issues of context." Journal of Early Childhood Research 10, no. 1: 3-1.

I believe this metaphor to be very profound, as it challenges the statement within the previous sentences that, "man is fixed." The excerpt vividly depicts how a tree that yields sour and bitter fruit can be changed, through artistic processes, to produce a rather sweet fruit. These artistic processes serve to represent how man can be improved and changed through the role of education. Consequently, the Rockfish Gap Report discusses how education is crucial to the positive development of man, further illustrating Jefferson’s vision of the University of Virginia, where individuals will not only continue to grow as students, but also as cordial and honorable members of society. I believe that Jefferson’s vision has been fulfilled, as the University’s academic programs have enhanced the minds of those who have been, and are currently, students, while also providing them with a foundation of integrity and honor which will stay with them throughout their lives.

The selection of what to teach at a University is something I never really considered before now. Like anything else, there is sure to be a difference in opinion of the founders as to what fields of study are worth teaching. Fortunately, they seem to have struck a good balance. This relates to the idea of a "true liberal arts education," one which will produce not only scholars, but well-rounded individuals.

Thomas Jefferson had an appreciation for French language, as can be seen in his words to Dugald Stewart, "the French language is unquestionably an important object of education." Jefferson had been in France during the first portion of the French Revolution and when serving as U.S. Secretary of State became the leader of the pro-French Democratic-Republican Party. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/french-rev https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/french-language

This quote seems to be extremely Jeffersonian with its emphasis on education and reminds me of one of the goals of UVA which is to develop citizens of our nation. Furthermore, the fact that education has the most vital role in creating happiness in our nation connects to my engagement class, Poverty Counts. Education plays a key role in poverty because people often times do receive enough education in order to get higher paying jobs. As a result, they either work trivial, low-paying jobs or do not work at all. Truly, education plays an important part in the happiness and well-being of an American citizen.

The writers of this document seem to view education not only as a means of expanding one's knowledge but as a means of improving one's inherent nature from one of evil and corruption to one of goodness and virtue. I find this notion classist and fallacious, as it seems to suggest that those who are not educated (including those who cannot afford education) are inherently worse as people than those who are educated and also that education can fundamentally change who a person is.

I appreciate this statement because the founders were right in putting their observations of education on these aspects. They included math, science, and health, and these aspects cover much of what the world needs to have solved. They focused on which subjects would be the most beneficial to human life, and I appreciate their thought process with this.

The main goal of a higher institution or university is to educate students and the youth to make a future brighter. In addition, they want the future generation to build a better place for everyone. I agreed with this statement because it illustrates that even though education is significant having morals and order as or more equal to being intelligent. I personally think it is important for a person to be kind and smart. Because if we have only smart people but indifferent people then no one will help each and no one will agree with each other. -Alexander An

I completely missed this phrase and the connotation behind it the first time I read through this report. It is possible I missed it because I was distracted by the racism near the front of the report on the importance of the university’s proximity to white people. At first, I thought this sentence was just as inconsiderate and reflective of the time period in which the Rockfish Gap Report was written and in which our university was founded. However, upon further analysis of the question I realized that it seems as though the writers of the report are insulting themselves, in a way, with this choice of language. While I personally do not believe comparing oneself or others to indigenous neighbors is insulting, at the time it was not a common thing to do and would not have been taken as a positive comparison. However, in this sentence, the report’s authors seem to be saying that the only thing separating them from the Native Americans or “indigenous neighbors” is education. I find it very intriguing that the founders would write this, especially because of the connotation it would bring at the time. However, perhaps it is purposeful and a way to stress the importance of higher education and furthering oneself to remain advanced. Education can be tied to the many differences between the white man and the natives such as guns, housing differences, and clothing. I can’t forget to mention though that the education of the Native Americans on how to grow crops in North America is what allowed the early settlers to survive. Education was important in this area too. Maybe education does not differentiate these two groups as much as they may think. I think education in different areas of expertise is what mainly separates the men in this report from their indigenous neighbours. While they choose education in school and on more worldly matters, their neighbours are more education in the ways of the land and survival and both are important for each group's’ way of life

I think this an interesting point considering how casually some may view education to be. Once we learn new information, especially that which sparks our interests we begin embedding it into our everyday actions and/or thoughts. And not only does it change our personal lives, but it contributes to how we treat those around us. - Kayla Thomas

It is interesting to see the acknowledgement of those who would oppose the creation of a public university. It is a gesture that displays the maturity and certainty of the founders. They know that their goals for their university wouldn't settle well for many people. However, they still called them "good men" with "respectable information" suggesting they are surprised that intelligent men can still disagree with their plans, yet they are respectful of their opinions. Instead of trying to persuade them to side with their plans, they cleverly resolve to allow them privately and individually abide by their opinions. Education is difficult to define for many people and the founders were well aware of that. -Yuki Zheng

Here are some very strong views advocating the importance of knowledge and education. It is amazing to see such emotional and energetic argument for public education at that time, when illiteracy was pervasive and education was only for the elite. Education was often out of public reach, unlike what it is now. As advocates for university, these people were clear and aware of the importance of education, and the result of the lack of education. Education is the key to empower humanity. Just as sated here, although the tone is quite cynical when its writer makes comparison with the native uneducated people and the educated white people, education inspires people, liberates people, fosters people with knowledge and norm, and develops people from pray to predator and finally to the supervisor of the earth. Education as well as knowledge is the best gift and legacy that our ancestors leave to us. And it is knowledge which distinguish humanity and everything else. -- Haoyu Li

Which is where a different type of unbundling can happen. “Courses” may limit our thinking.

A bit surprised by this “recent”. By that time, much of what has been lumped under the “Web 2.0” umbrella had already shifted a few times. In fact, the “Web 3.0” hype cycle was probably in the “Trough of Disillusionment” if not the Gartner-called “Slope of Enlightenment”.

In context, these other dimensions of “online presence” in Higher Education take a special meaning. Reminds me of WPcampus. One might have thought that it was about using WordPress to enhance learning. While there are some presentations on leveraging WP as a kind of “Learning Management System”, much of it is about Higher Education as a sector for webwork (-development, -design, etc.).

In some ways, the strongest indictment of the MOOC hype.

What’s fascinating here is that the province might be cutting a major part of the funding for the Ontario Centres of Excellence, particularly the part which has to do with Entrepreneurship Programs. (My current work is associated with Lead To Win, a Campus-Linked Accelerator out of Carleton University.)

Sounds like part of the problem Vitrine technologie-éducation has been tackling with Ceres, a Learning Object Repository with a Semantic core.

Oh? Credentials going Semantic? CBE going TBL?

Might be worth a deeper discussion with @jeffgrann, at some point.

Interesting that they explicitly talk about tasks which may not be aligned to competencies. Leaves room for co-curricular activities and microcredentials.

Thanks to @jeffgrann for the heads-up! Clearly, people have been waiting for this. We’ll have to wait for the concrete results (not all IMS Global activities make as big of a splash as the others). But it’s very interesting. And needed. For instance, Quebec uses a competencies model all the way to higher education (its Cégeps are post-secondary institutions for vocational training and pre-university education). Thing is, they lack consistent frameworks. CASE won’t make these magically appear, but at least it gives them room for impact.

As Uri Treisman said, “The most common use of algebra in the adult world is helping their kids with algebra.”

CUNY found that more students went on to graduate when they were allowed to take statistics instead of remedial algebra. And the results were the same regardless of race or ethnicity.

Interesting list of clients.

This from a university which had dropped Blackboard for iTunes U.

A bit of context.

There was an interesting example of this during a short conference on digital textbooks, back in late 2014. Cindy Ives interim VP Academic at Athabasca (!) presented the etext pilot project in partnership with publishers. Ives’s approach was quite pragmatic and there’s nothing wrong with doing a pilot project on something like this. By that time, Ives was already involved in OER projects. It still struck a chord with those of us who care about OER, including Éric Francoeur who took an active part in the event and did work to create a free textbook through international and interlinguistic collaboration.

To me, a key notion from the ‘r’ in “OER” is the distinction with those content bundles we still call “textbooks”. Sure, it’s already in the 5-R model. But the “Remix” idea in music is to a large extent about unbundling.

Sounds a bit like what Clay Shirky was trying to say about the Napster moment coming to Higher Education, five years ago. Skimmed the critique of Shirky’s piece and was mostly nodding in agreement with it. But there might be a discussion about industries having learnt from the Napster moment. After all, the recording industry has been able to withstand this pressure for close to twenty years. Also sounds like this could be a corollary to Chris Anderson’s (in)famous promotion of the “free” (as in profit) model for businesses, almost ten years ago. In other words, we might live another reshaping of “free” in the next 9-10 years.

While I've experimented with many alternatives to traditional assessment, I have primarily relied on self-assessment. I turn in final grades at the end of the term, but those grades usually match the grades students have given themselves. (I do tell students 'I reserve the right to change grades,' but this is rare and I mostly have to raise them, because students are often their own harshest critics.)

Jesse Stommel

Why is all the focus on teaching lay people how to code, and not teaching computer scientists and people who work in tech companies to center empathy and humanity in their work?

. . .

I think there should be an element of infusing discussions of ethics, humanity and social consequences into computer science curricula, and I believe that even human-centered design does not go far enough; I suggest that designers of tech consider more “empathetic and participatory design” where there is some degree of involving people who are not in the tech company as autonomous persons in product design decisions, and not just using them as research/testing subjects.

This section reminded me of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes who believed the nature of man is inherently bad and the purpose of government and education is to control man's selfish desires. In my opinion, I side more with John Locke's philosophy that the nature of man is inherently good but society is corrupted by certain negative people. Education's purpose should be to remind people of their virtuous nature and not become distracted by the inequalities and failures of society.

Within this paragraph, the authors and early founders of UVA made several points on why education was necessary by countering some of the current one-sided beliefs of society, with some key words. Man was not stagnant and his improvements did not need to be a chimaera, or a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve. The other definition of chimaera is a fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology, which I think can be an interpretation that improvements to one’s morality and state of mind did not need to feel like some huge obstacle that we needed to face, but rather were very possible through knowledge. Then later, they speak about how the effects of education are not some far-fetched, optimistic, or “sanguine” hope, and marketing strategy, but a reality that is backed by proof. I found this all very interesting because, back then, education was still a point of debate, whereas now it’s one the most easily agreed solutions for a various of world problems.

While it is interesting to see that Anglo-Saxon is considered an important language at the founding of the school, it is also interesting to see what is not considered to be important. Most of these languages are either Western or Antiquity; a microcosm showing how small the world was to the educators of 1818.

I am very curious as to why studies are separated into specifics; practically all of physics has been sequestered into many sub categories. I personally think that it might be because at this point and time physics isn't complete yet. Physics as a study/field is pretty new, and more and more discoveries are being added to list as it grows (for instance, electricity). The document is an interesting window into the education material of a bygone age and I honestly wonder if the cutting edge science we have now will become as mundane as physics in the next one hundred years.

p. 75 Two interesting points about mismatch between university and students:

(1) Many of the students who are being processed have little inclination or capacity for the rigours of a liberal education. Fine. But I object to the game of pretending that they would be able to achieve liberal goals within the system we offer, if only they tried harder. That is simply not true, and it does bad things to their psyches to encourage them to believe it. It would be far more honest, and I should think more fruitful, to accept most university education as having different aims from the liberal. Once drop that pretence, in both rhetoric and practice, and you could begin meeting the great bulk of students where they actually are.

(2) Some students at least would be capable of an education far superior to the one the system enforces. They are being positively harmed by their university education, since they have to meet its demands before their liberal (and usually private) pursuit begins. (And before you ask, "Why can't the two coincide?" ask a good student how much of the university's instruction moves him toward the first-hand apprehension of his discipline's coherence and beauty.)

Using inclusive approaches to ensure all students have access to quality teaching and learning and why it shouldn't be limited to the mobile few. I find it interesting since a lot of research focuses on the gain for international students only.

ed

Hypothesis can be part of this support system: peer to peer support; teacher intervention.

Acceleration v remediation?

I found this particular quotation particularly interesting because of the amount of irony and hypocrisy that it is riddled with. It speaks of the importance of education to create "a new man", however we know that this new man is of only a light skin color and most likely a slave-owner, not to mention the exclusion of women. Moreover, in my engagement Making the Invisible Visible, a key focal point is that what is unwritten is often just as important as what's written. Here, in the mentioning of the fact that education is better for the "well-being of mankind", it is implied that solely educating the white male slave owners will be progressive to civilization because of newfound knowledge that will be entrusted with them. As such, in mentioning that education is meant to be passed down to successive generations, the unwritten irony is in the fact that increasingly only a smaller amount of the entire population will be educated because of the ratio to the enslaved people population to the non-enslaved people population. This quotation shows the naive yet justified mindset of the elite class in education administration and society as a whole in the early 19th century America.

• Muhammad Amjad

informal digital education

ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development

Kuhn on lack of training science students receive on how knowledge is constructed.

for teachers as "citizen scientists"

not surprising: everything is heavily mediated by contextual factors like culture

I wish this article had also looked at how much a given underrepresented group's graduation rate has changed as well (for the same group of schools). Even if a group's enrollment in top colleges has gone down, the data could show that a given group's graduation rate from those same colleges has increased over the same time period. Info on changes in enrollment and graduation rate would be so much more informative than studying each statistic alone.

MIT is running a master's program in data, economics, and development policy with unique admission requirements. Anyone can apply after completing five online courses through edX with in-person exams.

https://micromasters.mit.edu/dedp/

Or supplement with technology?

Alberta Geological Survey information page on the Alberta Oil Sands.

What a crass analysis.

Does it really have to do anything with state regulation? Didn't the cost of education increased because of the increased demand?

I have a hard time knowing where digital literacy falls in terms of priority for students with disabilities. While it is no doubt just as important for them to grasp in order to better interact with our rapidly changing world, it is difficult to integrate the use of technology when trying to help students grasp certain skills.

This is something I might want to fold in.

families and education

families are a unit of consumption that accept the quo and reproduce inequality – children of the rich grow rich, while the children of the poor remain poor.

education supports the existing distribution of power and wealth. maintains order, control and ensures dominant culture is passed on. reflects organization of production

Key Institution. Site of the normalization of discreet groupings of information and production, unequal social relations and powerlessness of the subordinate, production for profit - through learning for grades vs learning to learn, and undermining of the original act (learning or production).

Could this be the fall of the world's largest education company? I sense the urgency to innovate harder. This is crucial now than at any other time