Bloom's Sixth

Learning matters. That may seem like a truism in the world of education – at least it should be – but it isn’t. All too often, schools and teachers, colleges and professors worry more about covering the right material than helping students learn. They put information above application. They emphasize the what rather than the why and the how. In an essay in Inside Higher Ed, Stephen Crew of Samford University makes an excellent case for…

I’ll be blunt: Blackboard Learn has all the visual appeal of a 1950s warehouse. In terms of usability, it’s like trying to navigate an aircraft carrier when you really need a speedboat. To Blackboard’s credit, it’s not that different from other learning management systems, which emphasize security and consistency from class to class as selling points. The company has been listening to user complaints, though, as upstarts like Canvas, Desire2Learn, and Moodle (in which…

The online training site Lynda.com announced this week that it was canceling its lyndaClassroom program. The classroom program allowed instructors to choose up to five online tutorials for students in a designated class to use during a semester. Students then signed up through Lynda.com and paid $10 a month, or about $35 for a semester. It was an excellent, cost-effective way to help students gain technology skills. The cost was less than most textbooks, making it a useful tool for instructors in many fields. Lynda…

The School of Engineering at KU will open several new active learning classrooms this fall. I’ve been involved in planning some of the summer training sessions for the rooms, so I’ve had a chance to explore them and see how they will work. I’ve written before about the ways that room design can transform learning. Well-designed rooms reduce or eliminate the anonymity of a…

Most Americans still see a four-year degree as important, but it is not at the top of the list of things that will help someone achieve a successful career, a recent Heartland Monitor poll suggests. In the poll, respondents ranked technology skills, an ability to work with diverse groups of people, keeping skills current, and having family connections above a four-year college degree. They certainly didn’t dismiss a college education. More than half said a…

True learning has little to do with memorization. Benjamin Bloom explained that with enduring clarity 60-plus years ago. His six-tiered taxonomy places rote recall of facts at the bottom of a hierarchical order, with real learning taking place on higher tiers when students apply, analyze, synthesize, and create. Deep learning, project-based learning and a host of other high-impact approaches have provided evidence to back up Bloom’s…

Higher education has an image problem. And a trust problem. That should come as no surprise, given the drubbing that public colleges and universities have taken from state legislatures over the past few years. They have also taken criticism from federal policy makers – along with parents and students – about costs and transparency. The latest sign of flagging trust comes from a national poll from the Robert Morris University Polling Institute (There was a link, but the page no longer exists) in Pittsburgh. More than half of parents polled said colleges and universities weren’t…

Kerry Ann Rockquemore offers excellent advice about what she calls “the teaching trap.” (There was a link, but the page no longer exists). By that, she means putting so much of yourself into your teaching that you have no time or energy for research, writing or life outside the office. She writes: “If you find yourself coming to campus early and staying late, if you’re spending every weekend grading and preparing for the next week’s classes, if you’re answering student’s text messages into the wee hours of the night, if you’re sacrificing sleep and/or pulling all-nighters in order to…

No one disputes that college tuition has risen substantially over the past 20 years. Ask why, though, and you’ll get vastly different answers. Writing in The New York Times, Paul Campos, a professor at the University of Colorado, dismisses the idea that declining state subsidies have led to rising tuition. Instead, he writes, “the astonishing rise in college tuition correlates closely with a huge increase in public subsidies for higher education.” Vox…

Chris Brown and Bob Hagen accepted the university degree-level assessment award for work that they and others have done in the environmental studies program. Chris Fischer, right, accepted the Chris Haufler Core Innovation Award on behalf of the physics department. Joining them at the Student Learning Symposium on Saturday were Provost Jeff Vitter, left, and Haufler, second from right. (Photo by Lu Wang) Chris Brown sees assessment as a way to build community. It brings together faculty members for much-needed discussions about learning. It helps departments explain to colleagues,…