Bloom's Sixth

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…

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The humanities have gone through much soul-searching over the past few years. So asking instructors in the humanities to take on hard questions about the way they teach seems like a natural step. For instance, what do they value in their teaching? Is that truly reflected in their teaching and assignments? Why do they teach the humanities? What is humanities teaching and learning good for? Those are some of the questions that arose in opening sessions…

By Doug Ward A recent study about reading on mobile phones surprised even the researchers. The study, by the digital consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, found that reading comprehension on mobile phones matched that of reading on larger computer screens. The results were the same with shorter, easier articles (400 words at an eighth-grade level) and longer, more difficult articles (990 words at a 12-grade level). A similar study six years earlier found lower comprehension when…

By Doug Ward Let’s call it pride. That’s probably the best way to describe the look of Sandra Gautt as she wandered among the 45 posters and the dozens of people at The Commons in Spooner Hall. Xianglin Li and Moein Moradi from mechanical engineering discuss the work that went into their posters. Gautt, former vice provost for faculty development, returned to KU for CTE’s third annual end-of-semester poster session on teaching. More than 40 instructors from more than 30 departments contributed posters, demonstrating the work they had done over the past year transforming classes to…

By Doug Ward At a meeting to provide highlights of KU’s latest climate survey, Emil Cunningham of Rankin & Associates asked audience members a question: What is the point of higher education? “Students,” someone in the audience said. “That’s right,” he said. “Our purpose for being here is students.” Cunningham is right, but the answer is more complicated than that. A university is an intellectual community with many different interests and goals that compete for the time of faculty members, staff members and students. Those include research, and service to the community, the…

By Doug Ward Rajiv Jhangiani makes a case for free and open course materials in very personal terms. As a student at the University of British Columbia, he and his cash-strapped roommates fashioned “pretend furniture” from sheet-covered cardboard boxes. When his roommates wanted to add a second phone line for dedicated dial-up Internet access, Jhangiani couldn’t afford the extra $8 a month. His grandfather, who had taken in Jhangiani in Bombay after his father died and his family lost their home, was paying for his schooling. There was no room for frivolous expenses. Rajiv Jhangiani…

By Doug Ward Matthew Ohland talks confidently about the best ways to form student teams. In a gregarious baritone punctuated by frequent, genuine laughs, he freely shares the wisdom he has gained from leading development of a team creation tool called CATME and from studying the dynamics of teams for more than two decades. Ohland, a professor of engineering education at Purdue, visited KU recently and spoke with faculty…