Blogs

The other day, I was nonplussed to read a recap of a study here that found human and robot graders fared equally well in assessing the work of student writers. The robo-graders, according to the study, do as good a job as humans at assessing clarity, sentence structure, and sometimes (but not always) relevant content. While my initial reaction was “huh?” it’s important to note that this study only compared processes for scoring standardized tests. It has nothing at all to do with what happens in the classroom when students are learning to write. In fact, it really has nothing to do with teaching or learning, only testing, and testing the wrong things at that.

When I search for "social media guidelines," sans quotes on Google, there are 41,200,000 results. Corporate sites, blog posts, higher education institutions, and more provide a rich amount of social media guideline examples. When I'm out on the road working with schools or conference attendees, I am often asked to provide social media guideline resources.

One of the topics I teach in my Quantitative Reasoning class is the calculation of a retirement savings goal. It is always shocking to my students how much money they will need to save in order to live comfortably in their retirement. However, as daunting as the goal may seem, I emphasize that it is important to begin to put some of what we earn away into a safe fund so we can draw on it in the future, when we need it. I found myself thinking of this concept recently when I attended a track meet in which my daughter and her young friends competed. I had to laugh when she asked me after her meet "did you like to run when you were a kid, too, mom?"

Right now I am in the midst of the I-haven't-washed-my-hair-in-a-week, merciful-heavens-when-will-it-be-over, end-of-semester rush: a state to which I suspect a few Gradhacker readers can relate.

What the current round of the Mommy Wars could mean for higher education.

I've never really thought of Phoenix AZ as a sustainable city, for a whole lot of reasons like lack of water, phenomenal sprawl, constant need for air conditioning. If America is addicted to energy, Phoenix has traditionally had the biggest Jones of all. But things may be changing, perhaps in reaction to Andrew Ross's recent book Bird on Fire.

We had another great discussion in the Strategy and Competition in Higher Education class last night, along with a very special guest speaker.

The day before the "Pineapple-gate" story broke -- that is, the nonsensical questions on the New York state eighth grade reading assessment -- The New York Times' David Brooks called for more standardized testing in colleges. Some thoughts on a future of pineapples and robot-graders.