To help you through the weekend, 5 links plus a video.
- McGraw-Hill hosts a discussion about “The Future of Digital Innovation in Higher Education“; somehow omits ProfHacker.com. Several interesting talks, though. Apparently the most important trend for higher ed is geotagging, with a shout-out to the Harvard/FourSquare teamup. Look for PleaseRobMyDorm.com to spin off from PleaseRobMe shortly.
- Pew released the fourth version of their report on “The Future of the Internet.” I’m actually slightly concerned that, in a survey of “900 internet stakeholders” only “three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and rendering of knowledge.”
- Kevin Haggerty claims “Teaching Statements Are Bunk,” mostly because they’re too general and institution-focused. He ends with the “hope . . . that we can reduce one such aggravation by transforming the empty “teaching philosophy” ritual into an evolving set of useful, nitty-gritty reflections on how to best teach university students.” I think that sounds swell.
- Cal Newport’s argument that college applicants and students should focus on being interesting, not on adding to an ever-increasing list of pseudo-accomplishments is a good one.
- At Adventures in Ethics and Science, Dr. Free-Ride argues that it’s time to say goodbye to two academic shibboleths: that there’s a meaningful non-economic distinction between tenure-track faculty and part-time faculty, and that tenure ought to require being super-awesome at all areas of teaching, research, and service.
It’s been a week like this, but the video I’ll offer you is more interesting:
BigThink has the transcript of Jason Fried’s interview, too.
Image by Flickr user Tony the Misfit (Taking It Slow) / Creative Commons licensed
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2 Responses to Weekend Reading, February Blues Edition
Jason B. Jones - February 21, 2010 at 10:02 am
Thanks for this, Derek! It’s all about the specifics. Of course, one problem is that many people compose these documents at a time when they don’t feel as though they have much experience to draw on. (For example, when they first start to apply for j-o-b-s.)
Derek Bruff - February 20, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I posted the following comment on the Chronicle site in response to the “Teaching Statements Are Bunk” essay, and I hope it’s okay if I replicate it here:
In their 2008 study, Meizlish and Kaplan surveyed hundreds of faculty hiring committees in six different disciplines. They found that teaching statements containing vague platitudes are not valued by hiring committees. Instead, committees value teaching statements that link teaching philosophies to specific teaching practices and experiences. Stories and anecdotes from the classroom–ones that illustrate one’s experience implementing one’s teaching philosophy–carry a lot of weight.
So the comments by whip2038 (#9 above) are spot on according to the research that has been done on this topic. I’ll add that I replicated the Meizlish & Kaplan study in mathematics and found very similar results. My study is available online through the American Mathematical Society.
Reference: Meizlish, D. and Kaplan, M. (2008). Valuing and evaluating teaching in academic hiring: A multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional study. Journal of Higher Education 79(5), 489-512.