Bloom's Sixth

Financing public higher education has grown increasingly challenging, with state funding for research universities declining by an average of 28 percent since 2003. What were once state-supported institutions have in many cases become quasi-private institutions to which states provide some money but still want full control. To shore up their budgets, state colleges and universities have increased the proportion of out-of-state and international…

By Doug Ward In one of my favorite poems, Taylor Mali mocks sloppy writing, juvenile articulation, and the general inability to put together words in a meaningful way. That poem, “Totally like whatever, you know?,” was brought to life by Ronnie Bruce’s  animation (below), providing even more punch to Mali’s magnificent ending: Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have…

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 college degree was very important…

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 in Pittsburgh. More than half of parents polled said colleges and…

Kerry Ann Rockquemore offers excellent advice about what she calls “the teaching trap.” 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…

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…

I often roll my eyes at articles that take millennials to task for not measuring up to the standard of the day. All too often, baby boomers and those in generations before seem to wag their fingers at young people and spew out curmudgeonly laments that inevitably start with, “When I was your age …” Sample questions, above and below, from the international survey of millennials’ skills As I dug into a new report by the Educational Testing Service, though, I began to buy into the concerns it raises about…

Earlier this week, I wrote about the unlikelihood of competition and cultural forces pushing higher education to “unbundle” its degrees and services. Jeff Young of The Chronicle of Higher Education provides yet another take on that notion. Young says that providers of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have pledged to democratize education, allowing anyone to become an educator and a learner. He describes platforms like Udemy, edX and MOOC.org collectively as the “sharing economy meets…

A new study suggests that all students gain when a lecture moves to an active learning format but that black students show even larger gains than white students, Ainissa Ramirez explains in an article for Edutopia. Photo by Doug Ward The study examined results from a 400-person biology class at the University of North Carolina over six semesters. It found that black students scored better on tests after working in the active learning format. It also found that they were more…