Timed emails through Blackboard announcements and Polleverywhere
Two tips for the savvy instructor from the clueless professor: 1) Timed emails. I just came across one redeeming feature of Blackboard (the "learning management system" that my university uses): I can use the announcements feature to time an email to students in a course. At least at USF, faculty can send a copy of […]
Turf defenders will love degree-by-competency
So it looks like the practical barriers for college students moving between institutions are back in the news with CUNY credit transfer debate. Since Kevin Carey argued in favor of open educational credentials recently, perhaps I should explain why I think acquisition of credentials through Mozilla’s open badges or some other competency-based system is neither […]
LIFO inconsistency
Just a brief note this morning while I'm juggling other things: anyone else note that when conservatives advocate the end of seniority rules for layoffs on the basis of justice towards younger, lower-paid teachers, that bumps up just a bit against conservative arguments against higher taxes for millionaires? In one case we see class warfare […]
Invisible contributions, acadministrivia version
Before 9 am, I was ready to write an absolutely unique entry about higher ed policy, credit transfer, CUNY, and Kevin Carey's paean to the Open Badge manifesto (or whatever you want to call the Mozilla apparatus). And then reality hit, and now it's 3 pm and I'm still not done with a bunch of […]
What type and level of failure can we tolerate in evaluation systems?
Bruce Baker points out the flaws in the Brookings white paper on evaluation, "Passing Muster" but I think there needs to be a broader take on this. Baker properly sees the circular-reasoning aspects of the Brookings approach (everything but value-added measures is judged by value-added measures, which are judged by … how well they are internally […]