Monday, February 28, 2011

Links for 2/28/11

DAVID LEONHARDT
If policy makers began to tie funding to performance — both graduation rates and measures of actual learning — we might not drive down the cost of the good colleges. But I bet we’d stop wasting so much money on colleges that are doing their students a disservice. And I bet there are more of these colleges than we care to admit. With better data on learning, we could also figure out how to evaluate new kinds of schools that may indeed be cheaper than traditional colleges are…
Mark Smithers
there are a few dirty little secrets about online learning at traditional universities. Here are two: 1) Not many courses have any form of content online whatsoever (even when the university promotes a policy of minimum online presence). 2) When a course does have online content it is invariably rubbish…
Andrew J. Rotherham
In any organization that is serious about effectiveness quality-blind layoffs are nothing short of insane…
Marc Parry
WikiLeaks, scourge of governments worldwide, now has a copycat for academe. And the new group is itching to publish your university’s deepest secrets…
Theodore C. Wagenaar
most academics resist assessment in general and on principle. Some professors dislike the scrutiny. Others feel that assessment reflects corporate encroachment and a threat to academic freedom. Still others fear a homogenization of the educational experience…

Executed well, assessment encourages faculty members to articulate their course and assignment goals more clearly and to develop sound rubrics. That helps them think more broadly about overarching program goals, and how to measure students' success in reaching those goals. That, in turn, typically leads to greater faculty interest in how classroom activities connect with academic performance. Asking what is important leads us to ask about what works, and both contribute to good-quality assessment, better teaching, and greater learning…

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