lecture fluency and learning

kind of interesting:

The researchers asked two groups of students to sit through the same lecture delivered in radically different styles. When asked afterward how much they felt they had learned, those who had experienced the more accomplished performance believed they had learned more than the second group. However, when tested, there was little difference found between them, with those attending the "better" lecture barely outperforming their poorly taught peers.


Inside HigherEd

teach for america

some links about Teach for America:

Why Minnesota Governor Vetoed Teach for America Funding
WaPo

Teach for America: Has it Betrayed its Mission to Save Poor, Struggling Schools?
HuffPo (Reuters)

It's Time for Teach for America to Fold
WaPo

Why Teach for America Can't Recruit in My Classroom
WaPo

Diane Ravitch blog

oh great

SUNY will join Brown, Stanford in offering free online courses
Press & Sun Bulletin

State Systems Go MOOC
Inside HigherEd

Universities Team with Online Course Provider
NY Times

there is apparently an Arendt movie

NYT review is: here
(they have some clips, too)

kind of interesting

In case you were wondering, ThinkProgress tells "The Inside Story of the Harvard Dissertation that Became Too Racist for Heritage"


also, from Gawker comments, a funny joke I hadn't heard before:

When I was in college, I remember a TA telling us the difference between a Masters and prison is "at least you know when you're getting out of prison".

ha ha, funny TA! But it would be better if it were "Ph.D." and prison.

Welcome Joel MacClellan

Welcome Prof. Joel MacClellan to our department as Visiting Assistant Professor for the 2013-14 academic year.

Joel earned his PhD in philosophy in 2012 from the University of Tennessee. He specializes in environmental ethics, and is particularly interested in the intersection between environmental ethics and animal ethics; Joel also has research interests in biomedical ethics, the philosophy of biology, and social and political philosophy.

During his year as a visitor at Binghamton Joel will be teaching a range of applied ethics courses including upper-division and graduate courses. I think he will make a great addition to SPEL's concentrations in applied ethics and will be an engaging conversation partner for faculty and grad students.

the SPEL welcoming committee

DEPARTMENT PICNIC THIS SATURDAY!

hope the weather's nice ...


starting at 1pm
in the usual place

Happy 200th Søren Kierkegaard!

the SJSU controversy

here in the Chronicle:

link

the open letter

Sandel's response


the NYT article: link
which adds the interesting point that the administration arranged to have the course taught by the English dept. after the Philosophy dept. refused to offer it