Bloom's Sixth

By Doug Ward If you’ve noticed that your students still don’t have required course materials, you have lots of company. That’s because more students are delaying purchase of course materials, if they buy them at all, and paying more attention to price when making decisions, according to a report by the National Association of College Stores. That’s not surprising, as students have said for several…

By Doug Ward Students aren’t always sure what to make of a flipped class. Some resist and complain. Others take to the format immediately and recognize how it helps them learn. Most are somewhere in between. A class in film and media studies that Anne Gilbert helped transform provides a good example of student reaction. “The students who are in the class, they’re learning a lot,” she said. “…

By Doug Ward Research universities generally say one thing and do another when it comes to supporting effective teaching. That is, they say they value and reward high-quality teaching, but fail to back up public proclamations when it comes to promotion and tenure. They say they value evidence in making decisions about the quality of instruction but then admit that only a small percentage of the material faculty submit for evaluation of teaching is of high quality. That’s one finding from …

By Doug Ward Randy Bass sees a struggle taking place in higher education. On one side are those who see the future as “unbundled,” a model in which students pursue discrete skills at their own pace and mostly under their own direction. On the other side are those who see the future as bundled, much as a university is now with classes and programs and a physical environment that draws everything together. Randy Bass during a breakout session at the 2017 Teaching Summit This is not a clash of right vs. wrong or good vs. evil, Bass, a professor and administrator at Georgetown…

By Doug Ward Monday’s solar eclipse provided many great opportunities for teaching and learning. Here are a few examples from a viewing event at the Shenk Sports Complex at 23rd and Iowa streets. The event was organized by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, with assistance from the Spencer Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, and the Lawrence Public Library. Perhaps 2,000 people gathered at the Shenk playing fields to watch the eclipse. Layers of gray clouds blocked the view, but…

By Doug Ward Concealed carry laws in Colorado, Idaho and Texas generated considerable anxiety among faculty members and students when they took effect over the past few years. Many feared for their safety. Others worried about whether they could teach controversial topics in the same way. “It felt like the end of the world here,” a professor in Idaho said. Many faculty members at the University of Kansas have had much the same response to the Kansas concealed carry law, which allows anyone 21 or older to carry a concealed weapon in most areas of the university. That law took…

By Doug Ward BOULDER, Colo. – Noah Finkelstein rarely minces words, and the words he offers to public universities carry a lofty challenge. Society can make no better investment in its future than by promoting higher education, he said. It is perhaps the most fundamental form of infrastructure we have – institutions designed to influence the lives of students and build the core components of society. Pressures on these institutions have pushed them toward priorities that run counter to their founding missions, though, and overlook the very aspect that makes them special: in-…

By Doug Ward and Mary Deane Sorcinelli BOULDER, Colo. – Symbolism sometimes makes more of a difference than money in bringing about change in higher education. That’s what Emily Miller, associate vice president for policy at the Association of American Universities, has found in her work with the AAU’s Undergraduate STEM Initiative. It’s also a strategy she…

By Doug Ward and Mary Deane Sorcinelli BOULDER, Colo. – Symbolism sometimes makes more of a difference than money in bringing about change in higher education. That’s what Emily Miller, associate vice president for policy at the Association of American Universities, has found in her work with the AAU’s Undergraduate STEM Initiative. It’s also a strategy she…

The recent (Re)imagining Humanities Teaching conference (PDF) offered a template for the future of teaching in higher education. With its emphasis on teaching as a scholarly activity, the conference challenged participants to find effective ways to document student learning, to build and maintain strong communities around teaching, and to approach courses as perpetual works in progress that adapt to the needs of students. Pat Hutchings speaks during a plenary session at the (Re)imagining Humanities…