December 2011
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Base Rate, Revisited
Reading Dan Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, and I can tell very early in it’s going to be excellent. The following Kahneman insight is an old saw of research on statistical intuition by now, but was revolutionary when he and Tversky came up with it in the early 70s. I thought I’d share it for Continue reading
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Moonwalking with Einstein
Just finished Joshua Foer’s book Moonwalking with Einstein, one of the most amusing books I’ve read in a while. I’d highly recommend it to anyone, just based on the style of his writing alone, which strikes me as Jonah Lehrer as written by Sarah Vowell (of The Wordy Shipmates period, not Assassination Vacation). But that Continue reading
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Higher Education is Already a Voucher System
Saw this about the K-12 online space today in NYT: Some teachers at K12 schools said they felt pressured to pass students who did little work. Teachers have also questioned why some students who did no class work were allowed to remain on school rosters, potentially allowing the company to continue receiving public money for Continue reading
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Badges
Yep. As Rowin points out that badges ‘draw upon widespread use of badges and achievements in gaming‘ and as somebody who has many badges and achievements in various game systems I can’t help but wonder if some of the problems that have cropped up in games might cross over into the Open Badge Initiative. David Continue reading
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The idea that you can just put stuff out there, and that it will magically be effective and used effectively — there’s just no evidence of that,” Twigg says. Collecting evidence requires integrating with college classrooms, which requires scale and support, which requires money, she says. Lots of it. “Sixteen million dollars is not chump change,” says Twigg, “but you need to be able to support and sustain it.” Nonprofit projects in higher education do not have a great track record on this, she points out, not even the most highly regarded ones.
The idea that you can just put stuff out there, and that it will magically be effective and used effectively — there’s just no evidence of that,” Twigg says. Collecting evidence requires integrating with college classrooms, which requires scale and support, which requires money, she says. Lots of it. “Sixteen million dollars is not chump Continue reading
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Openness as a Privilege Multiplier
…was the name of the presentation Jim Groom and I originally submitted to ELI 2011. It was going to investigate the tendency of “undirected and unregulated openness to exacerbate inequality both in and out of the classroom” and suggest that this tendency “undermined the social justice claims of openness”. Jim’s remedy was going to be corporate regulation Continue reading
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A Statistical Literacy Concept Inventory
Been thinking lots about concept inventories. The key to a good concept inventory is that it tests intuitions, not terminology or formulas. It’s far too easy to pre-test students on a test with unfamiliar vocabulary, spend a semester on vocabulary, then act surprised that students do better at the end of the semester when they Continue reading
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Active Learning Not Associated with Student Learning in a Random Sample of College Biology Courses
Active Learning Not Associated with Student Learning in a Random Sample of College Biology Courses I’ve been collecting these sorts research examples and making an effort to read them thoroughly, partially because I think we’ve become a bit too self-congratulatory on active learning, and partially because you learn more from these failures than yet another Continue reading
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Juliette Culver is a Freaking Genius
I just decided to give Evernote another try, found my old account active, and spent a couple hours going through my old bookmarks from 2009. One was to Juliette Culver’s blog, which I’d made a note to myself was brilliant. It is, but more importantly it’s just even-keeled and unpretentious in its brilliance. It cuts through hype Continue reading
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the briefing room: Canadian university considers radical change
the briefing room: Canadian university considers radical change thebriefingroom: Find out why some students are opposed …That problem could be eliminated for future students at tiny Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which is debating switching to a block plan where students would be taught one course at a time, rather than five at Continue reading
Hapgood 