tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post8626149955324804840..comments2024-03-22T01:06:23.845-07:00Comments on Confessions of a College Professor: The Culture of Fear in Higher EducationDoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-3402148076826604732014-03-10T07:19:22.228-07:002014-03-10T07:19:22.228-07:00Hey, I acknowledge that there is a small percentag...Hey, I acknowledge that there is a small percentage of people for whom online education makes sense. The reality, unfortunately, is that most online education is bogus, either through the fraud of the course having no content, or the fraud of cheating.<br /><br />For the people it helps, putting them into debt for the rest of their lives just isn't a good deal. Since ultimately, online education is self-directed to a considerable extent, you're better off figuring it out yourself, in which case, online education should be basically free, as opposed to every bit as stupid-expensive as in-class coursework.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-76091354198974152272014-03-10T07:10:17.755-07:002014-03-10T07:10:17.755-07:00I thoroughly enjoy your creative and novel takes o...I thoroughly enjoy your creative and novel takes on modern education. I do differ partially in the view that on-line education has limited value. On-line course's value is largely compromised by administrators; in their desire to inflate costs, build in a lack of practical results, and waste of the student's time with volumes of trivia. If you," Professor Doom", for instance, were to supervise on-line course creation, development, and improvements; the student would very likely gain benefit practical skills and intellectual development. Going on a tangent... Another aspect of education I need to address here, since I belong to the great majority of learners that learn better by being interactive in the learning process, is..... We do not get "it" very well by sitting for hours and being "talked at". A small minority of students DO learn extremely well by sitting for hours and being "talked at"... and they are the "A" students, the "High Achievers", and the "Studious!" I'm 64 and never got math at all until I was 62 and started to learn and apply math concepts in a real world and hands on physical way. At 63 I tutored kids who couldn't get math by using the same physical interactive approach. Funny how most then "got math." Kids that said they hated math really hated math when they sat for hours and had math "talked at them." So while the small minority should continue to benefit from their gift of learning by being "talked at", the great majority of us would benefit immensely by interactive hands on real world directly applicable math education. .... Thanks for reading and being "talked at while sitting".John Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02561616372001172569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-69516112930349557442014-02-20T18:04:14.142-08:002014-02-20T18:04:14.142-08:00Wow, thanks for that link...maybe I'll write a...Wow, thanks for that link...maybe I'll write a few essays on what I see there, that's pretty amazing stuff. I suspect there's been some serious looting going on there for a long time, I can't even conceive of faculty making 400k a year (top guy in my department at Tulane was closing in on 100k, I believe).<br /><br />Anyway, sorry to hear your school is to be plundered. There's no stopping it right now, since accreditation (the linchpin of the whole scam) is impotent.Doomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528555392898760692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491174673971804494.post-23134594892679161592014-02-20T17:32:34.788-08:002014-02-20T17:32:34.788-08:00My graduate alma mater is undergoing exactly what ...My graduate alma mater is undergoing exactly what you’ve been writing about in the course of your blog, and it is leaving me heartsick! http://www.thunderbird.edu/ If the current Board of Directors, BoD, has its way, not only will this superb institution suffer Death by Administration but it will then undergo the torments of hell as a for-profit institution.<br />To begin, I earned my Masters of International Management (MIM) from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, in 1986 and it was one of the most important and future-shaping events of my life. The MIM served as a highly specialized niche degree, essentially an MBA with language requirements and a healthy dose of international relations. The student body, faculty and staff were both too polyglot and polymath for the vast majority of graduate biz programs. <br />For years and years Forbes listed T-Bird as the Number 1 Rated international business degree worldwide. Likewise the Wall Street Journal and the Economist perennially gave this institution extraordinary props and love.<br />Now, with T-Bird mismanaged into the ground and deeply in debt, the Administration is trying to sell off the good name and physical campus (Phoenix, Arizona) to Laureate, formerly Sylvan Learning. T-Bird will then lease back its own campus and provide its name dodgy undergraduate programs, executive programs and on-line programs. The cynic in me asks, how much good name could be left to a graduate business school that has lost money in 8 of the last 12 years, but that is another story. Our alumni chapter in Singapore has openly called for T-Bird to close the doors and shut down to preserve the brand and retain the value to the degree to its currents holders rather than dilute everyone’s by carrying on into the future. <br />In the process of two short years, our global alumni have come to understand much of what you have been writing about and we stand to learn everything you’ve had to say about the execrable world of for-profit education. For a concise though painful explanation of what has transpired to a former educational leader and powerhouse, please have a look at how one concerned alumnus connected the dots in the tragedy: http://freethunderbird.org/ <br />KevPilothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16648052923868675240noreply@blogger.com