Category: Teaching & Learning

Designing a University from Scratch (III)

If you’re just joining us, on Wednesday I briefly reviewed some of the key aspects of the Minerva model as detailed in the book yesterday’s entry, as detailed in the book Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education.  Then yesterday, I examined what lessons the Minerva had for the rest of academia in terms of building curricula.  Today I want to turn to pedagogy and assessment. Assessment, in particular, is ripe for a deep re-think and overhaul. On the face of

Read More »

Designing a University from Scratch (II)

Following on from yesterday’s discussion of the Minerva model (you might want to refresh your memory by re-reading yesterday’s entry, as detailed in the book Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education, I wanted to get into a bit more detail about whether the Minerva curriculum is a foretaste of things to come, a weird one-off, or an evolutionary dead-end. Short answer: I certainly hope Minerva represents a new trend in curricula, but I see one big

Read More »

Designing a University from Scratch (I)

I’ve recently been reading a fascinating book entitled Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education which essentially is an operating manual for the Minerva Schools (if you have never heard of, or have forgotten Minerva, I did a write-up of it back in 2013). What everyone remembers about Minerva is the sizzle – students move across seven cities in four years (San Francisco for a year, followed by one term in each of Seoul, Hyderabad, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Taipei and London) and all

Read More »

Robot-Proof

If you’re looking for a book that is not too heavy, analyzes how changing technologies impacts skills, and does a great job of sketching out some possible attractive responses from higher education institutions: have I got a book for you.  It’s called Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Joseph Aoun. You’re surprised, I can tell.  The book does have the kind of title that suggests it has a point of view that ordinarily would set me off on

Read More »

For Lifelong Learning, Time to Go Big

I have been thinking a lot lately about the need for greater adaptation to lifelong learning.  I am, as you all know, generally pretty skeptical of any “Fourth-Industrial-Revolution-sky-is-falling-right-this-instant” rationales for institutional change, but that’s not a reason not to think about big change.  First, because even in the absence of radical labour market change there are ways we can do a lot better at lifelong learning than we currently do, and second because given the length of time it takes

Read More »