Thank you I agree with Kate’s comment about honesty. I think that professors are operating in a sort of fishbowl, often with 50 or 100 pairs of eyes constantly looking at their behavior. In this environment dishonesty is not hard to see. Whether a professor is pretending to talk about something he obviously has no experience with or act like someone he or she’s not; I think students intuitively pick up on this and there is a loss of trust. For me part of being honest is admitting if I have said something wrong or made a mistake.

I think this is a tough topic that higher ed. is grappling with now, but it has been around since the 1950’s at least. Are universities primarily to create brilliant and world changing research or are they there to educate students, who will hopefully come up with brilliant research in the future. Like Mr. Alda and you point out it does not have to be contradictory goals. There can be a balance between the two. I think that part of the answer lies in the plan to have some faculty specifically work on research and some whose primary goal is education. I also think that researchers need the training so that they can better communicate with students and the general public. This is a challenge that we live with in academia for at least the foreseeable future and there is probably no single answer or strategy for dealing with it. Each college will have to determine its own path.

I also thought a lot about personalization with this week’s subjects. A multiple choice scantron test is universal. You can give it to any person, anywhere, at anytime and measure the same things fairly consistently (in general). That is exactly why the government loves them! The type of learning we’ve been discussing in class however only happens when students get connected to their instructor and to other students in a personal way. One size does not fit all in “real” education.

I also really like the prius metaphor. I started my college career over a decade ago, and in that short time the dynamics within a classroom have changed so much. When I was a freshmen there were still some older professors that lectured at a podium straight from their notes, they did not ask questions because what would a student have to add to their great lectures. Things are different now, I think in some good ways and some bad ones. But I feel lucky to have all of the tools I’ve learned over time to bring to my own class.

P.S. I am old enough to think that pajamas and work out clothes are not appropriate for the classroom.

I really appreciated your post. I think that games are one of the best ways to get people interested in a subject. I think a little competition handled improperly can lead to students feeling like “winners” or “losers”; but competition handled properly can be a little push towards excellence for everyone. I think it can be a tough thing to do properly in certain group dynamics and that’s why I really believe games like any other teaching tool need to be tailored to the individual classroom. So I agree with you and the reading that games have a lot of potential in the classroom.

That’s really a thought provoking idea and I think is a good balance point to the readings. Assessments do have some value. In the humanities there are a balance too. Early on in the semester I test my students on factual information, like the arguments a particular theorist makes. However, I am always looking for “value added” in their work, and if simply have them repeat to me the information which I gave to them with accuracy, the student has not added any value to the subject. I agree with the early comment that different types of assessments have different values and it is simply finding the right balance for the learner, the class, and the subject.