Bloom's Sixth

By Doug Ward The future of colleges and universities is neither clear nor certain. The current model fails far too many students, and creating a better one will require sometimes painful change. As I’ve written before, though, many of us have approached change with a sense of urgency, providing ideas for the future…

By Doug Ward Colleges and universities in Kansas will receive more than $100 million this year from congressional earmarks in the federal budget, according to an analysis by Inside Higher Ed. That places Kansas second among states in the amount earmarked for higher education, according to Inside Higher Ed. Those statistics don't include $22 million for the Kansas…

By Doug Ward A short history lesson: April Fools’ Day originated in 1920, when Joseph C. McCanles (who was only vaguely related to the infamous 19th-century outlaw gang) ordered the KU marching band (then known as the Beak Brigade) to line up for practice on McCook Field (near the site of the current Great Dismantling). It was April 1, and McCanles…

By Doug Ward We need to talk. Yes, the conversation will make you uncomfortable. It’s important, though. Your students need your guidance, and if you avoid talking about this, they will act anyway – usually in unsafe ways that could have embarrassing and potentially harmful consequences. So yes, we need to talk about generative artificial intelligence. Consider the conversation analogous to a parent’s conversation with a teenager about sex. Susan Marshall, a teaching professor in psychology, made that wonderful analogy recently in the CTE Online Working Group, and it seems to perfectly…

Something has been happening with class attendance. Actually, there are several somethings, which I’ll get to shortly. First, though, consider, this: Since the start of the pandemic, many students have treated class attendance as optional, making discussion and group interaction difficult. Online classes tend to fill quickly, and students who enroll in physical classes often ask for an option to “attend” via a video connection. Many K-12 schools report record rates…

KU’s big jump in freshman enrollment this academic year ran counter to broader trends in higher education. Around the country, college enrollment has been trending downward (although there was a slight increase in 2023), many campuses have been closing or consolidating, and a lower birthrate after the 2008-09 recession looms in what has become known as the “enrollment cliff.” That is, with fewer births, there will soon be fewer students graduating from high school and thus fewer potential college applicants…

We don’t know the last time the first day of classes was canceled. We’re guessing it was January 1892, when the temperature fell to minus 23, the bottoms of thermometers shattered, and students started using the phrase “froze my bottom off” (or something approximating that). Of course, everyone was hardier back then, having to walk five miles to campus barefoot through the snow and fend off wolves with their bare, frostbitten hands and all. At least that’s what our elders told us. So everyone may have just shrugged off the lethally cold temperatures in 1892 and showed up for class as usual…

A year after the release of a know-it-all chatbot, educators have yet to find a satisfying answer to a nagging question: What are we supposed to do with generative artificial intelligence? One reason generative AI has been so perplexing to educators is that there is no single step that all instructors can take to make things easier. Here are a few things what we do know, though: The sudden rise of generative AI has felt like the opening of a Pandora’s box Students are using generative AI in far larger numbers than faculty, and some are using it to complete all or parts of assignments…

In addition to asking participants at the Teaching Summit how they created community in their classes, Peter Felten also asked what barriers instructors faced in creating connections with students. Felten shared this word cloud of the responses. Peter Felten’s keynote message about building relationships through teaching found a receptive audience at this year’s Teaching Summit. Felten, a professor of…

In a focus group before the pandemic, I heard some heart-wrenching stories from students. One was from a young, Black woman who felt isolated and lonely. She mostly blamed herself, but the problems went far beyond her. At one point, she said: Peter Felten explains a family picture he shared at the 2023 Teaching Summit. He uses the picture, which shows his father as a young boy, in his classes as a way to connect with students through family history. “There’s some small classes that I’m in and like, some of my teachers don’t know my name. I mean, they don’t know my name. And I just, I…