ABC's 20/20 Says College is a Ripoff

I was flipping through the television channels last week and landed on the ABC show 20/20. Before I could continue my ritualistic channel surfing, I heard the phrase "college is a ripoff." This certainly caught my attention and I watched the story by John Stossel. His reports are usually provocative and this one was no exception. This report raises many questions and issues that are directly relevant to the future of higher education in terms of its role in providing students a liberal arts education and/or providing them the skills they need to directly enter the job market. It is no secret that our own institution is trying to increase enrollment and this report might make some high school students think twice about obtaining a college degree. If we feel that this report is misleading, how do we do a better job promoting the value of a college degree? What role should faculty and staff play in this process?

I invite you to view John Stossel's story on YouTube (or watch it above) and click COMMENT at the end of this post to give us your thoughts or reaction to any of the issues raised in this report.

Faculty Beliefs about Student Ratings

Dr. Maryellen Weimer, Editor of the Teaching Professor Newsletter, maintains an excellent blog that addresses many issues associated with teaching and learning. A post in April 2008 raised the issue of a potential disconnect between faculty beliefs and research on student ratings (end-of-semester student evaluations of faculty teaching). I think the most striking part of the blog post is a quote from a research paper on student ratings: "Teachers will not likely improve their evaluations from students by giving higher grades and less course work." (Centra, J., Research in Higher Education, 2003, 44(5), 495-519)

To many faculty members, this is certainly a "hot" topic as the value of student ratings of courses and teaching has been debated for many years. I invite you to read the blog post mentioned above and provide your comments on this blog (click comments below this post) about student evaluations of faculty teaching, a potential disconnect between faculty beliefs and research on student evaluations and/or the role student ratings should play in the evaluation of faculty performance (tenure, promotion, merit, etc.).

The Open Course Initiative

The Open Course initiatives at universities such as MIT, Yale, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon have gained a great deal of attention in the higher education community. I must admit that I have recently become a big fan of Professor Paul Bloom and his Introduction to Psychology course at the Yale Open Course site. Whether the topic was Freud, Skinner or happiness, I found myself completely engaged in his lectures and I felt like I learned a great deal by just "eavesdropping." The Chronicle of Higher Education has called Berkeley Professor Marian Diamond a YouTube star because her Integrative Biology lectures have been viewed well over 100,000 times. It seems she has quite a large fan base consisting of students from around the world.

The availability of these open courses raises numerous questions about who these courses were designed for, how they should be used by students at other universities and whether these courses are putting forth best practices in teaching. Indeed, for better or worse, it has made teaching more visible.

I hope you will click "comment" and provide your thoughts on the questions below or other issues concerning open course initiatives.

Questions:

1. What is your general impression of the open course movement and would you be willing to put one or more of your courses in a similar system?

2. Have you ever sent your students to open course sites to get additional information in one or more of your courses?

3. What is likely to be the future of open course initiatives and how does this align with the growth of online courses at many universities?

Welcome to Our New Blog

The Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology at Murray State University has established this blog to explore "hot" topics in teaching, learning and student success. Please join us as we highlight many issues important in higher education and the role technology can play in the lives of faculty, staff and students. We hope this blog will serve to inform readers of new and big ideas in teaching and learning and promote discussion and action. Please join us in this new adventure by posting your comments and sending us feedback.