• May 23, 2013
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Tag Archives: teaching

November 29, 2012, 2:20 pm

Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College

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The One World SchoolhouseSalman Khan’s dream college looks very different from the typical four-year institution.

The founder of Khan Academy, a popular site that offers free online video lectures about a variety of subjects, lays out his thoughts on the future of education in his book, The One World School House: Education Reimagined, released last month. Though most of the work describes Mr. Khan’s experiences with Khan Academy and his suggestions for changing elementary- and secondary-school systems, he does devote a few chapters to higher education.

In a chapter titled “What College Could Be Like,” Mr. Khan conjures an image of a new campus in Silicon Valley where students would spend their days working on internships and projects with mentors, and would continue their education with self-paced learning similar to that of Khan Academy. The students would attend ungraded seminars at night on art…

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November 16, 2012, 4:33 pm

In Classroom Experiment, All Discussion Happened via Twitter

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Fairfax, Va. — Students at George Mason University shifted their feet and chatted outside a classroom here on Tuesday morning, waiting for Stephen Groening’s class on cellphone cultures to begin. On tap was not an ordinary classroom discussion about the assigned readings. Instead, the entire conversation would take place by Twitter, and students were nervous.

Some had created Twitter accounts just for the class, while others were not sure how the discussion would go. “I am completely overwhelmed by this concept,” said Emily Clough, a senior history major, as Mr. Groening began setting up three projectors to beam Twitter streams on the classroom’s walls.

Mr. Groening, an assistant professor of film and media studies, offered the course for the first time this semester to encourage students to think about cultural issues associated with mobile phones. The Twitter discussion …

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October 26, 2012, 3:13 pm

Pa. Faculty Union Pushes Back Against Plan to Cut Extra Pay for Online Teaching

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A proposal to phase out incentive pay for teaching online courses has become a sticking point in contract negotiations between the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and the system’s faculty union.

The system has provided professors with financial incentives to develop and teach online courses since 1999, shelling out about $5-million annually, said Kenneth D. Marshall, a spokesman for the 14-campus system. But system leaders have proposed cutting those incentives in negotiations for a new contract, and the professors’ dissatisfaction over that plan and other issues may lead them to strike.

The professors receive $800 per credit for each online course, as well as $25 per student taking the course, to cover the time they spent developing the materials or learning new technology tools. They also receive extra payments if the course is reused in following years, said…

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