CTL's Weblogs

Change happens!

As we move forward and grow as individuals, teams, and organizations, change happens! Change is a challenge for many people. It's easy to resist change at times because of the challenge, and Maurer and Associates provide some interesting resources that address their motto: "change without migraines".
The articles and assessment tools linked to this website focus on change management and resistance to change. These tools are provided to help you support new initiatives. They encourage you to make copies and use them in your organization. These resources can be found at: http://www.beyondresistance.com/change_migraines/leading/articles.html

A Degree or an Education?

Those who attended Thomas Jones's CTL Weekend Seminar last Saturday got deeply involved in conversation on issues having to do with helping students in "Making Sense of College."

For you, and for all concerned with that challenge, John Merrow's current podcast will be of interest. Merrow is the education correspondent for the McNeil-Lehrer news hour (and producer of the fall 2005 program, "Declining by Degrees"). He describes his interview with Richard Hersh in the email below.

>>> John Merrow 4/24/2006 8:43:09 AM >>>
Friends,

This week's podcast is a conversation with someone who believes that, deep down, college students actually WANT to be challenged, no matter what they may say. However, he's found that it has become increasingly easy to get a college degree without getting a college education.

Suppose he's right? What does that mean for America's future? Richard Hersh, former president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Trinity College and now co-director of a project that's trying to measure how much students actually learn in college, is my guest on this provocative podcast.

Click on A Degree or an Education? Merrow Podcast #29. That will get you to a place where you can listen now, download for later listening, transfer to your iPod or MP3 player, AND look over all our other podcasts. This is what educators call 'asynchronous learning,' meaning you decide when to dig in and when to stop.
Thanks,
John Merrow
Learning Matters Incorporated
http://www.pbs.org/merrow

Whatever you do, figure out if you did it!

The calls for assessment get louder and fiercer. The latest one to cross my desk is this report from the

Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment

Trading Research for Teaching

With what ambivalence do I read this news, about Nobel-winner Carl Wieman leaving research in physics to focus on science education (hurrah!!), but to do it in Canada, because only there could he get substantial funding for such an endeavor (sigh):

"At flagship universities, where research is worth its citations in gold, and teaching is worth a few altruistic pennies, it’s not unusual for faculty members to sacrifice quality instruction for quality lab time.

So it’s more than a bit novel that Carl Wieman, a physics professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a 2001 Nobel Prize winner, is leaving Colorado, and giving up his physics research for (gasp) a teaching initiative.

Not only is Wieman leaving his lab, but he’s leaving the United States, where his efforts to get funding for teaching projects have brought more frustration than dough. Next fall, Wieman will join the University of British Columbia, which has promised him $12 million over five years for a science education project. Wieman will retain a partial appointment at Boulder, and said he’ll visit once a month to work on Colorado’s science education project, for which the university has designated $5 million over five years."

Full story at...
Inside Higher Ed :: Trading Research for Teaching

The Chronicle covered the story, too, but buried it in the second half of a column on "The Faculty" in the March 31, 2006 issue:
Nobelist Will Lead Multimillion-Dollar Effort to Revamp Science Education