As we approach Thanksgiving, I am reminded that this will be the first time in seventeen years that ‘the boy’ (our Chinese Shar Pei) will not be with us. While it has been an adjustment, it is also a reminder that everything is ephemeral. That is what inspired me to craft this post: Five Things I Learned From […]
I am not sure if it was because my mother worked at IBM for 26 years and there were ‘Think’ signs, emblems, t-shirts, and all kinds of other swag around me but I am maniacal about carving out time to think. Just to think. I highly recommend it. Today I am thinking about the massive […]
Initial results are in. And they look pretty good. In December of 2012 The Charles A. Dana Center, Complete College America, Inc., Education Commission of the States, and Jobs for the Future published a white paper on the Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education. It was an impactful piece of work and laid the groundwork for […]
For two decades, many in the education world have danced with “Big Data”, taken by the appealing idea of educators and institutions transforming the learning environment through scalable, meaningful insights into individual and aggregate data that can impact the performance of their students. As well-intentioned and important as this concept has been in driving educational […]
This post is the first of a mini-series on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the latest phenomenon to hit higher education here in the US and internationally. MOOCs are the most exciting thing to hit higher education since the personal computer became ubiquitous. Not everyone will agree, as the ongoing MOOC debate seems to have […]
A recent Inside Higher Ed article dives into the challenges facing institutions following the rise of competency based learning (CBL). With the realization that seat time is less indicative of student success and as practical knowledge-attained takes the center-stage, the question arises: what happens to commonly held ideals about accreditation and the sacred credit-hour? While […]
A departure this week from my traditional blog – trying something new with a video blog. If you like it tweet it (with @toddahitchcock) and I will use this format again. Click Here to view.
When I was younger I lived and breathed cycling. During the summer I raced twice a week in two different circuit races. I was obsessed – obsessed to the point of replacing every component on my bikes with the lightest possible materials – right down to every single bolt (titanium was may fav.). Today, while […]
Liberating. Unique. Different. Interesting. Individualized. Worthwhile. Relevant. It is amazing how descriptive seven simple words can be. These words are the answers that a student panel gave Susan Patrick, President and CEO of the International Associate for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) when she asked the questions ‘what one word would you use to describe your […]
This week, millions of student’s will head back to school. While our education system is under tremendous fire, it is the time of year for all of us to remember the saying ‘if you can read this [blog], thank a teacher’. For ten months of the year, our children spend almost 60% of their waking […]