'Introduction to Ancient Rome,' the Flipped Version - Commentary. By Jennifer Ebbeler I spent last year "flipping" my 400-student "Introduction to Ancient Rome" course. For those unfamiliar with the term, "flipping a class" means that students watch lectures online outside of class and then spend class time participating in discussions and working on problems. It's a concept that has gotten an undeservedly bad name because supporters of so-called disruptive education have tied it to the controversial massive-open-online-course movement, which says students are served just as well, if not better, by an absent "star" professor than by faculty members employed by their university. That's a pretty serious misunderstanding of what a well-run, successful flipped class looks like. It takes a lot of effort to make one work, but the rewards can be great, as I have learned. For me it all started last August, when I naïvely assumed that the students would be delighted to listen to short lectures at their own pace and away from an uncomfortable and noisy auditorium.
Bloom's Taxonomy. The False Promise of the Education Revolution - College, Reinvented. By Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk Last year, leading lights in for-profit and nonprofit higher education convened in Washington for a conference on private-sector innovation in the industry. The national conversation about dysfunction and disruption in higher education was just heating up, and panelists from start-ups, banking, government, and education waxed enthusiastic about the ways that a traditional college education could be torn down and rebuilt—and about how lots of money could be made along the way. During a break, one panelist—a banker who lines up financing for education companies, and who had talked about meeting consumer demands in the market—made chitchat.
The banker had a daughter who wanted a master's in education and was deciding between a traditional college and a start-up that offered a program she would attend mostly online—exactly the kind of thing everyone at the conference was touting. Read beneath the headlines a bit. A 'Mass Psychosis' Unfortunately, Mr. Reach-students.jpg (JPEG Image, 571 × 3520 pixels) Size Isn't Everything - The Chronicle Review. By Cathy N. Davidson James Yang for The Chronicle Review My reading material to and from London recently for the annual open-source programming event known as Mozfest, or the Mozilla Festival, included two glossy magazines focusing on the future of education: the November 19 cover story in Forbes and the entire November issue of Wired UK, an offshoot of the American magazine. Education is rarely seen as sexy or lucrative enough to take over business and technology magazines. Should educators be delighted by this unexpected attention—or very, very worried?
A little of both. Wired UK raises the possibility that the university may have to restructure itself. Let's look at Wired UK first. Featured are both Negroponte 1.0, the editorial that launched Wired in 1993, and the new Negroponte 2.0. Given that such 20/20 foresight is rare, it is worth paying attention to Negroponte 2.0. He also still maintains a position he stated long ago: "Computers are not about computing, but everyday life. " Www.boardingschoolhealingproject.org/files/bshpreport.pdf. College, Reinvented: The Finalists - College, Reinvented. I model my proposed college after a law firm. Just as senior lawyers own the firm and delegate various administrative responsibilities, I would have a college where faculty own the institution, and administrators work for faculty, rather than vice versa. Like Costco stores, my Costco University would keep costs down by stinting on everything other than what matters: delivery of relevant services to the end user.
(No, students aren't customers, even if they are paying the bills.) Thus, institutional infrastructure is to be avoided, with savings passed along to the students. If 10 students take each course, each needs to pay $2,000 a course. Students might have to pay, say, a $4,000 administrative fee, bringing their tuition to $20,000 a year. A major strength of the existing model of higher education is its combination of research and teaching. However, Costco U. humanities professors will also be encouraged to generate revenue by creating, for example, MOOC course content. Blended/Hybrid courses | The Sloan Consortium Commons.