"If the student hasn't learned, then the teacher hasn't taught." In Part 1 of this post, I said: "Formal root cause analysis would quickly reveal numerous causes for the observed effect ["the student hasn't learned"] - many of which will be of greater significance than how teachers teach." Doing … [Read more...] about Blame the Teachers – Part 2
Archives for July 2013
Blame the Teachers – Part 1
A trend has recently emerged among higher education policy-influencers and policy makers that is succinctly captured by the phrase: "If the student hasn't learned, then the teacher hasn't taught." The failure of students to learn is the teacher’s fault, so blame the teachers for this problem. It is … [Read more...] about Blame the Teachers – Part 1
Fixing Higher Education
Here is an example of a conventional approach to fixing higher education. This, along with most other articles proposing fixes to higher ed, focus on everything else but improving academic and administrative processes. It illustrates the supremacy of superficial analysis, herd mentality, and … [Read more...] about Fixing Higher Education
The MOOC Effect
For many different reasons, MOOCs have generated a lot of concern among faculty. Critics charge faculty care more about their jobs than they care about students. The prevailing view is zero-sum (win-lose) in that students gain at faculty's expense. Let's take a different view: How can MOOCs be … [Read more...] about The MOOC Effect
MOOCs: Teaching for the Short-Term
A common benefit cited for MOOCs is that short videos combined with frequent quizzes, synchronous with learning, emulates one-on-one tutoring or self-paced learning. This allows the student to gain "mastery" of one lesson before moving onto the next, and apparently leads to better exam scores and … [Read more...] about MOOCs: Teaching for the Short-Term
What I Worry About
In this time of great challenges for higher education, the thing that worries me is: Overconfident college and university leaders who do nothing, or do wrong things that result in bad outcomes for people (e.g. students, staff, faculty, etc.), due to guessing at the causes of problems, using … [Read more...] about What I Worry About
Dealing With Budget Problems
What higher education leaders know how to do: What higher education leaders need to learn: … [Read more...] about Dealing With Budget Problems
Into the Crisis
In early 2005, I wrote a short article titled, “Lean in Higher Education.” In it, I said: “The time is right for higher education administrators, faculty, and staff to begin applying Lean management to their business. The consequences of not doing so could be fatal… University administrators, … [Read more...] about Into the Crisis
Clarity of Purpose
What is the purpose of the Lean teaching pedagogy? Fundamentally, it is to improve teaching so that students learn the material, retain the material, and apply the material in practice. It will also improve student engagement, and, importantly, the value of higher education for students and … [Read more...] about Clarity of Purpose