Another "end of the textbook" article

This one’s a little different in that the university buys e-readers for students, downloads the texts, and then charges students a “course materials fee” instead of asking students to buy textbooks on their own. It’s sort of an electronic version of what we historically did with the Advance program (serving as the middleman to ensure textbook delivery). Then again, we just moved away from this “university delivered content” approach in Advance.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-the-Textbook-as-We/125044/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Review of "Influencers"

Another one of the social science books that I've been reading for the last few years. The key argument here is that we really can change individual and group behavior much more effectively than we might imagine because behaviors are really just skills that with enough "directed experiences" can be learned(going back to the "expertise" literature). Lots of examples follow, but I'll just summarize the key three things that I learned from the book.

1) Changing behavior requires a variety of influence strategies and you really need to harness multiple approaches at the same time in order to be effective.

2) But there is a heirarchy in terms of these approaches, and we typically start at the wrong end with punishments. We should start instead with personal motivation (back to Pink's "intrinsic motivation" ideas), especially by helping people understand that there is a real problem and that they can solve that problem (storytelling and directed experiences are particularly helpful). Social context comes next, and structural factors (transactional leadership in terms of rewards and punishments)are the least effective influence strategies. I personally probably spend too much time on structure and social context and not enough on the personal aspects of influencing people.

3) Within that "personal" context, focusing on "vital behaviors" is key. I've been trying to apply that concept in our retention discussions by emphasizing the use of our "Early Alert System" as the key behavior that we'd like to foster.

All in all a worthwhile book and certainly more helpful for people in leadership contexts than some of the others that I've read. At times, however, it did feel like it was written by a couple of consultants who were trying to tell me their tales and sell me on their services. Gladwell is definitely a better storyteller.

Why Colleges Cost So Much?

Good article picking apart some of the standard arguments and explanations. The authors point more to long-term trends in which a service industry relies on a highly trained workforce using highly sophisticated technology. All of those "external" elements (service sector, high levels of training, technological demands) drive college pricing above CPI much more so than the standard "internal" list of public financial aid, gold plated residence life, irrelevant research, and administrative bloat.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/10/19/feldman

The "virtual" future of engaged learning?

UoP seems to be experimenting with that "school of one" idea connected to an on-line environment. It probably won't be long before Blackboard is doing something similar.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/18/phoenix

Gaming and Education

As a lifelong game geek, the arguments presented here ring true to my own personal experience.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/15/games

Will technology kill the academic semester?

When I was in my first few years of school, I took a bunch of self-paced coursework, and suddenly I was two grades ahead. Then we moved, and the new school system wouldn’t allow me to be in a class of kids older than I was, so back I went for a couple years of redoing the same material I had just done. What a waste of time. Let’s just say that I’m personally sympathetic, therefore, to the new combination of “self-paced” coursework with “social learning networks.” Any possibilities for us to consider some of these ideas here at JBU?

http://chronicle.com/article/Will-Technology-Kill-the/124857/