Here’s a nifty video summary of a doctoral dissertation by Derek Muller that a client pointed out to me: The basic gist is that students have pre-conceived notions that are wrong, and it is very hard to dislodge those mistaken notions. If you show them a video with an accurate explanation, the students will say […]
Data Envy
While we have occasionally written about college costs and budgets here at e-Literate, it mostly hasn’t been part of our brief as a site that focuses on technology-mediated education. That is changing, in large part because cost and budgets are increasingly becoming the drivers for change, in California and elsewhere. But I’ve been astonished at how […]
Smart
Governor Brown appears to be focusing his attention on “bottleneck courses”: As part of the additional $125.1 million in proposed state funds, $10 million has been directed in the Governor’s budget for online strategies to get more students through so-called “bottleneck” courses. These are courses across the system that cause many students to slow their […]
Re:Booting CA Higher Education: My First Thoughts
As expected, the 20 Million Minds-sponsored event was fascinating and information-packed. Kudos to the foundation for setting up such a rich and, I think, important meeting. In fact, I’m still digesting it, and may need to write several posts to lay out my thoughts once the dust settles. But I do want to get my […]
Announcing MindWires Consulting
Phil and I are both gearing up for the Rebooting CA Higher Education jamboree, but I wanted to take a moment to briefly (and proudly) announce that the two of us will be starting a new company called MindWires Consulting. As you may know, Phil has been working with Delta Initiative; we expect to continue partner with Delta […]
California Discusses Cost and Effectiveness in Higher Education
On the heels of the passage of a historic tax increase to cover deficits in the California higher education system, the UC system is apparently already warning that they may need to raise tuition again. In response, Governor Jerry Brown has called for action and discussion about rising tuition costs, and in particular, to discuss how […]
Where xMOOCs and Adaptive Analytics Both Fail (For Now)
No, this isn’t just an attempt to cram as many sexy keywords into one post title as possible. xMOOCs and adaptive analytics share an ambition: They both are at least partially motivated by a desire to teach at scale. With MOOCs, the goal is obvious. With adaptive analytics, less so, partly because there are multiple […]