HE Explained: Independent Learning

One of the goals of Higher Education, so it seems, is to develop skills of "Independent Learning" in students.  Critical thinking, it is said, emerges from an ability to organise ideas, discover, sort, analyse and evaluate evidence and to communicate conclusions in a persuasive and relevant way.

Many Universities do this by filling student contact time with subject specific material, we'll call it STUFF, and then sending students away to the library, pub, McDonalds, Accommodation block, re-painted "social area" or even "Learning Pod" to undertake Independent Learning.

PICTURE BY SIRA ANAMWONG AT FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

The academic staff then, in time honoured fashion, guage the level to which students can learn independently by setting an exam or assignment which must be submitted or completed at a decent period after the end of the lecture schedule (STUFF SHOVELLING PERIOD).

Immediately I wonder:

• Are exams the best way to test STUFF RETENTION or Independent Learning?
• Is independent work, on an assignment, submitted electronically to match text with all known works in civilisation in order to catch CHEATS, really the same as Independent Learning?
• Is 80% of nominal hours of student effort on a module enough to foster Independent Learning?
• Can Independent Learning ever be compatible with Group or Collaborative Learning?
• Is the Independent Learner really what industry wants to employ?

Just asking....

HE Finance Explained: Just where did my money go?

In all institutions, whether they are charities, Government Departments or Universities there are simple accounting concepts that pervade.  In this post I hope to provide some easily understood explanations for oh so complex accounting issues that help explain finances in Higher Education:

Remember: Balance sheets always balance; Universities are not corporates and so should not be compared with them in financial terms; Profit is a dirty word and efficiency is "an interesting concept Professor Carruthers, but not one that is too relevant to today's Higher Education economics."

HE explained: The Student Moan Scheme

We love to whinge and, although His Holiness the Pope has warned against it, we do like to blame someone else for our own shortcomings.

PICTURE BY VECTOROLIE AT FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

Even as consumers we want to pay less but then blame the shop when the cheap lawnmower / TV / shoes / ...you get the drift?...fails to last long past the end of its warranty period.

So it is no surprise that student consumers (we'll just call them students) ignore His Holiness and develop advanced skills in moaning, complaining, appealing and overall critical thinking.

And its very supportive of the government to enact the Higher Education Act to give statutory rights to students to complain and for Universities to grovel at their feet.

It gives such a warm glow when all is so right with the world.

HE Finance explained: Graduate Futures - Theory and Practice

THEORY:

Futures are financial contracts obligating the buyer to purchase an asset , or the seller to sell an asset, such as a debt obligation, at a predetermined future date and price. Futures contracts detail the quality and quantity of the underlying asset; they are standardized to facilitate trading on a futures exchange. Futures contracts are settled in cash.

PICTURE BY AECHAN AT FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

PRACTICE:
Graduate Futures are financial nightmares, enticing the bank / hedge fund / asset manager to buy the debt obligation (asset), at an arbitrary future date, determined by the then current giovernment and with a price heavily influenced by legislation, tax regulation, economic growth and whim.  OR obligating the seller / graduate to reflect on the inequity of being born at the wrong time, questioning the actual value of the debt compiled, bemoaning the burden of perpetual insolvency, relieved only by the warm glow that burning your degree certificate brings when the electricity is cut off.  Graduate Futures contracts are never settled.

Happy New Year

No, its not January 1st.  In academia the new year starts in the autumn - of course!  it makes so much sense to start the year at the end of it.

But, I hear you say, academics are our cleverest citizens and so there must be more to it than a simple chronology or calendar - and of course there is.

The academic year starts in September or October to allow the peasants to gather in the harvest before attending school in the less busy winter months.  For many years, however, peasants (that's most of us) didn't go to University, so that cannot be the reason why academics choose it.

Ah, I've got it...as with the "moving feast" of Easter there's a complex mechanism for establishing the start of the academic year:

So, that's all clear then.