NRU education edition

For so many years I have been hoping someone would say this about science and teaching ... and maybe millions have said it - but I hope someone was listening this time, too.  The headline is really misleading -- in essence what this report was saying is that science is critical thinking and being a scientist can open new worlds for students -- not just in science.  And, it's fun, by the way.

Perhaps all we had to do was give the MOOCs a long enough rope and they would hang themselves... but, it seems to me that it would be much better to do a postmortem on what did not work -- in that way this could be a learning experience.  However, perhaps the inability to take this as learning experience is at the heart of the problem.

As I read this story, my mind turned to my brother who would have loved this program -- and how it is changing the lives of the students involved.  When folks say that education can be powerful, this is what they mean. Love it!

On class size and math and teaching ... turns out, according to this article, that maybe teachers are more than robots who should read from a screen ... hmm...

This story on missions schools in Africa (and their legacies) intrigued me due to my research on Saint Katharine Drexel's schools (and their legacies).

I appreciate that some colleges (particularly the smaller ones) are figuring out that they are better off not trying to compete with other-ly configured colleges/universities on the same terms -- changing the fee structure is one way to demonstrate that you are offering something different than a big school or a big name.  There are other ways, too, and I hope that they will think about exercising some of those.

Finally, a piece on the CSU Chancellor's plan for increasing graduation rates.