Steve Ersinghaus

Good models are a requirement in the development of habitable space. Jeremy Heibert is doing just this at his weblog in regards to learning spaces. He’s definitely delivering in larger ways than I am in my own efforts at a “flexible center” using wordpress as a tool that pulls information into a complex hypertext [...]

In a few Years Sixnut will be pretty heavy into software that tracks and maintains custom general education, course, and program outcomes (i.e., what people can actually do after completing a course of study, like “build a house”). We’re going to be hearing a lot of about outcomes assessment at a national scale in the [...]

The New York Times reports on this initiative
A higher education commission named by the Bush administration is examining whether standardized testing should be expanded into universities and colleges to prove that students are learning and to allow easier comparisons on quality.
Prove to whom?
We don’t need more tests. We need to open the space and let [...]

The design note post below is really about the notion of modularity and connections in new media. A sequence is, of course, a kind of module where A may lead to B or to A.2 if A and B are cogent enough. At Spinning, Susan Gibb is weaving in a circle of modular elements (I’m [...]

In another area, we’re thinking about conceptualizing different syetems for teaching using current and emergent tools. Here’s a summary. Let’s say that, hypothetically, students and faculty may enter a course in a weblog interface with tags adjusted in sidebars for a variety of things:
1. A list of courses
2. A list of course contents, readily [...]

Susan Gibb is now moving, moving into Boethius.

This project at The Valve sounds like an interesting series to follow. I don’t know Franco Moretti’s work, but I find the subject interesting.
Given events over the last few months at Tunxis, I find myself growing more and more concerned about literary studies or, more to the context, English Departments, the study of literature [...]

Excellently put by Jim Revillini
there’s no doubt about that - tagging is a novel approach to information organization. it’s one of the best systems that the web has adopted and until something better comes along, information systems should make use of it.
. . .
vista’s structure is rigid and hermetically sealed in a proprietary JSP/java [...]

Tis the season for grade complaints. A complaint can come in many forms, but they never come as self-complaint.
Student A might say: “Sorry about the C+. Next time I’ll really bear down on the course goals, take better notes, really study the journal criteria, and put my nose to the grindstone.”
If we must [...]

Christopher Coonce-Ewing, a cool dude, provides his personal education philosophy on his weblog. Here’s the final paragraph:
I believe in an educational system which takes the ideals of the Platonic system, the suggestions of Adler, and uses these to help students attain a broad range of knowledge. This same system would embrace the findings of [...]

One of my theses in this weblog is to connect higher education and education and learning (independent of institutional learning) to living standards and national health. To pursue that further, here we have a report of cuts in North Carolina and Massechussetts wondering what the hell is going on.

Looks like the next deficit reduction go-round will include further cuts to student loans. In the context of this article, such a decision won’t be good news for college students. Most of the students I work with plan on seeking bachelor’s degrees after completing the associates. After leaving with degrees or quicker tranfer they will, [...]

In this post I’d written: “Good teaching is about creating the opportunity for learning to happen.” Christopher responded with this in his comment:
Teaching is about telling the story. Yes, I agree that a teacher creates an opportunity for learning. A large part of that (especially for a history teacher) is telling the story in [...]

I don’t know how the subject came up, but the British Literature students have asked me to open discussion forums on the readings in the Vista system. They’re asking for more work. Are they nuts? Or do they want more time to engage? Does it matter. I’m glad to do it.

This semester I’m really leaning on specific articulations of where and how students meet course outcomes in evaluation and systematically expressing where a student needs to concentrate their pickups after an evaluation occurs. I will be doing a great deal of contact and in that contact specifying where a students needs to focus their energy.
For [...]