Blogs

What impact has all the hype and interest in MOOCs had on open courseware initiatives, specifically those at MIT?

This year's ACPA Annual Convention was in Las Vegas. Let's not do that ever again. Smoke-filled casino floors were like unhealthy moats that had to be crossed in order to get to sessions. Fortunately, as with every ACPA Annual Convention, opportunities for learning and connecting with fellow student affairs abounded. A unique aspect of this year's convention was the addition of a partnership with the NIRSA Annual Conference. Sharing the opening extravaganza and exhibit hall space was a nice touch.

Get a Job or Your Tuition is Free! The App Academy, in San Francisco, offers a 9 week, 90 hour per week boot camp to train people as programmers. In return, the students pay 15 percent of the salaries they land for the first year. The contrast between the App Academy, which appears to be thriving, and the City College of San Francisco, which is fighting closure, is tempting, if unfair. The App Academy is narrowly focused and, by virtue of the 90 hour per week requirement, pretty selective. But the idea of the trainers having a stake in the success of the students has something to be said for it.

I have a friend who has been teaching and training for more than twenty years. He has a website where he’s a prolific writer on his area, is a frequent participant in online forums and debates, and is considered a valuable resource by his client list, which includes national organizations and various police/military personnel. We are both involved in the SlutWalk movement and he’s been instrumental in helping me understand social attitudes around rape culture, victim-blaming, self defence and the legal system. His influence has resulted in papers I’ve written, media interviews I’ve done around SlutWalk and my doctoral application research proposals.

Our students are leveraging the the web and mobile apps to collaborate, share information, and study together. They are sharing online resources such as videos and learning objects Khan Academy, digital textbook resources, YouTube, iTunesU, and other open online education resources. Students are actively sharing information about study strategies and techniques designed to help each other learn the material and do well on quizzes, tests, and papers.

My kids are always coming home with candy as a reward for meeting the minimum expectations. I want it to stop.

The dreaded written comprehensive exam. Many graduate students will have to pass some form of comprehensive exam at some point in their program. This can often include putting together a multi-page grant-style project proposal. Putting one of these together can be a daunting process if you are unprepared. But have no fear, there are ways to make crafting a solid document far less painful.

There is a concept in math called “one to one correspondence”, in which members of one set may be matched with members of another set, so that each member of one set is matched with exactly one member from the other set. I thought of this concept lately when I found myself working one-on-one with several of my students as they struggled to master some difficult concepts from the class they were taking.