One of the most stunning moments in the recent Ed Talks Wisconsin came towards the end of a Friday night discussion about MOOCs. The room was heavily populated with graduate students, many of whom were asking about the implications of these online courses for their employment prospects. With the decoupling of teaching from their future responsibilities, many were (rightly) worried about how they'd be trained, funded, and what they'd do post degree.
As one student put it,"What's the incentive for the next generation of scholars to pursue a PhD?"
In response to that question, the Chancellor of the UW Colleges, Ray Cross, responded this way:
"Is your goal to get a PhD, or is your goal to change education?"
Many in the room looked up, confused about whether he was serious.
Well, an email that just arrived from UW-Madison suggests he was. The newsletter it included contained the following key blurb:
"New program trains students to create online courses. With the advent of online courses and degrees, a new program will teach students how to provide online course support. Student Online Course Support (SOCS) will help students find campus tech-related jobs, expose them to new career paths, and save the University funds by hiring student support. Tell your students about this opportunity."
Got that? It's full-speed ahead in support of the Flex Degree and the MOOCs here at Madison; above I linked to the course description that explicitly references these programs. Want a campus job? Get on board. And be sure, of course, to save the university money!
Will this next become a mandated part of our graduate training? Or will we no longer need those folks, as our younger Badger are trained and ready to serve?
ps. The video of Cross starts around the 1:32 minute mark.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Advice for Chancellor Blank from a UW Employee
This afternoon I received the following email from a UW employee who, unlike myself, does not enjoy tenure and thus prefers to convey this advice to the incoming chancellor anonymously. I recognize and sympathize with that concern, and thus am simply reprinting it here in full. I believe this advice, coming from someone with plenty of experience at the institution, is worth full consideration. If you have your own words of advice to share, please send them along!
Dear Dr. Goldrick-Rab –
If Dr. Blank is willing to listen to you, and I hope she does, one thing you might want to suggest is that she does not start calling herself “Becky” but instead be referred to as Rebecca when she wants to go “casual.”
David Ward was never been referred to by anyone as “Dave,” and if John Wiley had a nickname or pet name as a child, he certainly did not use that on his official correspondence or when he was quoted in the press. This is, after all, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Excellence in teaching and research is how we convince people to give us their money or send us their children to educate.
Trying to be cute or folksy is not what the alumni, citizens, or corporate and foundation donors are looking for. Two of my children were enrolled at UW-Madison when “Biddy” was the Chancellor, and neither one of them understood where the widely reported “love” that all the students at Wisconsin supposedly had for Biddy came from.
Thank you.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Representative Carlos Trujillo doesn’t understand how democracy works, among other things
With an assist from the Stop Senate Bill 6 Facebook page
If you are interested in contacting him here is his number and e-mail address: (850) 717-5105, Carlos.trujillo@myfloridahouse.gov. Give him the facts about PTA and please explain to him how democracy works
Before insulting the Parent Teacher Association of Florida along with every other major parent and civil rights groups in Florida by implying they are run by the teacher’s union, he claimed the parent trigger bill would give parents a seat at the table, that it would expand democracy. Apparently the representative doesn’t understand how democracy works.
The parent trigger bill takes the power out of locally ELECTED school boards and hands it over to the APPOINTED State Board of Education, who will most likely then give it to a private corporation completely removed from the democratic process. What is democratic about that?
The representative is clueless, thinks we are or both. My bet is both.
If you are interested in contacting him here is his number and e-mail address: (850) 717-5105, Carlos.trujillo@myfloridahouse.gov. Give him the facts about PTA and please explain to him how democracy works
The Buck for the Atlanta cheating scandal should stop at the President’s desk
Everybody acknowledges the president is the commander in chief of the US Military but in a way he is also the nation’s top teacher too. He sets the direction the nation’s schools go in through his policies and friends he has done a very poor job.
When the president came into office he could have done a lot of different things, he could have called for career and technical training for the students who aren’t going to go to or aren't interested in college, he could have called for the arts to be taught to all students so they could have a well rounded education and or he could have demanded districts put into place policies that mitigate poverty which, not teacher quality, is the number one measurable item that determines success in school. He could have done any of those things and all would have a dramatic effect on our nation’s schools but he didn’t and instead he joined the blame the teacher/standardized tests/privatize public education bandwagon and because of this we get scandals in Atlanta and all across the nation and friends I guarantee you this is just the tip of the iceberg.
When people’s jobs are on the line or money is dangled in front of them many will make choices they otherwise wouldn’t. Beverly Hall Atlanta's retired school superintendent is one such person. Her system's turnaround won her national fame, awards, and more than $500,000 in performance bonuses. One of the awards came from Secretary of Education (who was never a teacher by the way) Arne Duncan himself. She however couldn’t do it alone and so she used her position to cajole and threaten some and to encourage others to get on the cheating bandwagon, a bandwagon which was the inevitable consequence of the President’s policies.
The president has created a system where teachers constantly have to look over their shoulders, where they have been blamed for society’s ills. With his race to the top initiative he has transformed education into a game where there are both winners and losers. He gives lip service to teachers telling they are valuable and important but then promotes high stakes testing and evaluation measures that don't have evidence that says they work and hurt both student and teachers alike.
So President Obama, when cheating occurs because of your policies the buck stops with you and what you have wrought which will be a generation of kids who can’t think, who can only bubble and marginalized, scapegoated teachers, a profession on the ropes.
None of this is the change what we were hoping for.
When the president came into office he could have done a lot of different things, he could have called for career and technical training for the students who aren’t going to go to or aren't interested in college, he could have called for the arts to be taught to all students so they could have a well rounded education and or he could have demanded districts put into place policies that mitigate poverty which, not teacher quality, is the number one measurable item that determines success in school. He could have done any of those things and all would have a dramatic effect on our nation’s schools but he didn’t and instead he joined the blame the teacher/standardized tests/privatize public education bandwagon and because of this we get scandals in Atlanta and all across the nation and friends I guarantee you this is just the tip of the iceberg.
When people’s jobs are on the line or money is dangled in front of them many will make choices they otherwise wouldn’t. Beverly Hall Atlanta's retired school superintendent is one such person. Her system's turnaround won her national fame, awards, and more than $500,000 in performance bonuses. One of the awards came from Secretary of Education (who was never a teacher by the way) Arne Duncan himself. She however couldn’t do it alone and so she used her position to cajole and threaten some and to encourage others to get on the cheating bandwagon, a bandwagon which was the inevitable consequence of the President’s policies.
The president has created a system where teachers constantly have to look over their shoulders, where they have been blamed for society’s ills. With his race to the top initiative he has transformed education into a game where there are both winners and losers. He gives lip service to teachers telling they are valuable and important but then promotes high stakes testing and evaluation measures that don't have evidence that says they work and hurt both student and teachers alike.
So President Obama, when cheating occurs because of your policies the buck stops with you and what you have wrought which will be a generation of kids who can’t think, who can only bubble and marginalized, scapegoated teachers, a profession on the ropes.
None of this is the change what we were hoping for.
Should students be tested or taught and other important questions.
Bob Peterson in Rethiking Schools asks a couple of great questions in relation to the Atlanta cheating scandal:
• Should our children be subjected to endless test prep and hours of narrow skill-driven curriculum? Or instead should they get a well rounded education like what President Obama’s daughters receive at the Sidwell Friends School or what Arne Duncan received as a child at the Chicago Lab School?
• Should students of color and those from economically disenfranchised families be subjected to narrow, test-driven schooling while children in the most affluent communities receive well-resourced, well-rounded education with much less testing?
• Why should transnational textbook/testing companies and corporate-backed philanthropic organizations determine the curriculum for our schools?
He then adds, While some policy makers and test-obsessed school “reformers” may dismiss such cheating scandals as exceptions, these scandals should serve as a wake up call to anyone concerned about the future of our schools.
http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/lessons-from-the-atlanta-testing-scandal/
• Should our children be subjected to endless test prep and hours of narrow skill-driven curriculum? Or instead should they get a well rounded education like what President Obama’s daughters receive at the Sidwell Friends School or what Arne Duncan received as a child at the Chicago Lab School?
• Should students of color and those from economically disenfranchised families be subjected to narrow, test-driven schooling while children in the most affluent communities receive well-resourced, well-rounded education with much less testing?
• Why should transnational textbook/testing companies and corporate-backed philanthropic organizations determine the curriculum for our schools?
He then adds, While some policy makers and test-obsessed school “reformers” may dismiss such cheating scandals as exceptions, these scandals should serve as a wake up call to anyone concerned about the future of our schools.
http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/lessons-from-the-atlanta-testing-scandal/
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