general education
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Elitism is not innovation
via GIPHY Like a few of you I exercised my eye rolling technique at this Guardian feature on Minerva, breathlessly titled: “The future of education or just hype? The rise of Minerva, the world’s most selective university“. I’m not going to talk about their model (it looks ok, but isn’t nearly as innovative as they think), but rather the futility of any model that is based in exclusivity. The article states that: This year Minerva received 25,000 applications from 180 countries for undergraduate entry in 2020 and admitted just 2% of them, making it the most selective degree programme in the developed world. This is portrayed as good thing. But…
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What I learnt from being a student
Yesterday I submitted the thesis for my MA in Art History at the Open University. I completed the MA in History a couple of years ago also, so I’ve had about four years of experience of being a part time student. At the risk of being like one of those ‘woke’ pieces where proper students will scream “yes, we’ve been saying that for years!’, here are some of the things I’ve (re)learnt, from the perspective of being an educator while also studying: Everyone should do it – I don’t mean study a subject for career development (although that’s nice), the content isn’t the important part. Do it for the experience…
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The role of institutional memory
A couple of news stories recently made me reflect on the role of institutional memory. The first was the piece in the Guardian bemoaning that ‘unsackable’ staff may be making the roles of others more precarious (Aside: which universities still have unsackable staff?). The second was a news item that people are shifting jobs more frequently now, and that three years is optimal to stay in a post. I should state up front that I’ve been at the Open University for 22 years now, so this post is in effect is an exercise in self-validation. Particularly at the senior levels, I’ve seen a mixed approach in my time (“I remember…
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The US academic boycott
The travel ban on many people travelling to the US is, of course, against all normal codes of decency. In addition it is antithetical to the basic tenets of research (the free sharing of knowledge) and open education (removal of barriers). Like many others therefore I’ve decided not to travel to the US for any reason, including conferences, or even getting connecting flights. There are researchers I know who are banned from going. I’m not going to pretend academia under ‘normal’ circumstances is an entirely egalitarian system. There are many cultural and economic reasons why people end up excluded. But for a deliberate dual system to be instigated at the…
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Stories and models
I like the posts Sheila and Audrey do which are a round up of their weeks. I’m not sure I’ll do it every week but I thought I’d give it a go, and try to weave together some of the personal and professional things I’ve done this week. I’m actually on leave this week, but have spent most of it working. This raises the whole work-life balance issue of course, but I don’t mind it. I have a generous leave allowance, and being what I suppose is called a knowledge worker, it’s often difficult to exactly allocate work. Also, if I’m honest, there are days when I am officially working,…
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Let’s think inside the box
I’m interested in the way language influences our behaviour (without getting into linguistic determinism), and one aspect I think we’re witnessing is the seepage of Silicon Valley language and values into society. In the software world terms such as ‘radical’, ‘disruptive’ and ‘revolutionary’ are all used freely, and always with positive connotations. However, the same terms have now been taken up across society, and particularly in politics. Both Brexit and Trump could match those adjectives, but I would argue they are not positive forces. These are larger examples of a smaller phenomenon that values a radical new solution over an improvement to an existing one. Competence is a much undervalued…
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Open education and the Unenlightenment
Generally I don’t go in for a romantic view of the past, and a sense of displeasure with the present. We forget just how grim the past was for most people, for most of history. But lately, I’ve become disillusioned with what we might call “the Unenlightenment”. Now, the Enlightenment is not an unproblematic historical concept (it’s decidedly Euro-centric for a start), but as a general principle it saw a culture that sought to understand the world, through science and art. This desire for knowledge, the very belief that acquiring knowledge was a worthwhile pursuit, underpinned much of cultural development through to the 20th century. And although it started out…
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Being lost as staff development
In my last post I mentioned that I am studying an MA in Art History. This is not an area I know much about, not one I can even slide into easily. I don’t have much of the vocabulary, the skills of artistic analysis, the basic knowledge of art. So, I feel a bit lost much of the time. But it’s a well structured course, and I’m enjoying it. This sense of being a bit out of my depth reminded me of George Siemens statement that learning is a vulnerable process. I think much of the learning experience is about negotiating that vulnerability. The problem is that by the time…
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I like assessment, Goddammit!
I’m studying an Art History Masters with the OU at the moment, so I’m going to do a couple of quick posts related to that. I’ll talk about it in general terms in the next post, but wanted to focus on one aspect at then moment, which is assessment. Assessment has a bad press these days. If you want to be a hipster in the ed tech world, and get lost of cool keynote invites where you say ‘out of the box’ things, then a pretty good line to take is “we should do away with all assessment”. The general feeling is that as soon as you start to assess…
