Great Article on the Real Value of College (and stop thinking of a business model)

Hunter Rawlings, College is not a commodity. Stop treating it like one. What truly makes an education valuable: the effort the student puts into it.

Very well said critique of the college "business" model and the entitlement of students to easy grades.

Competency-Based Education, a new fad, or a new search for standards?

Someone set to me a link to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (21 May 2015): New Graduates Test the Promise of Competency-Based Education.  My first thought was that a lot of people who are not instructors should get themselves out of the education field.  My second thought was what ever happened to the connection between course grades and competence.  Why do we need to have all this other stuff, SLOs, measurables, competencies, data?  Why aren't grades a good enough indicator?  Well, the answer to that is clear in the work of some of my colleagues who hand out passing grades as if they were candy.

NVCC's Faculty Ipad Program

NVCC has been distributing Ipads to faculty and staff in an effort to familiarize everyone with the technology with the assumption that the devices can be used eventually in ways to improve student learning and student success.  Not sure about that connection, but here are some details of the project.  There is also a project blog with comments from participants.