Higher Ed/

Good post, Dave -- thank you. You starkly lay out...

2012-05-17T13:43:12.342-05:00

Good post, Dave -- thank you. You starkly lay out the disconnect between the learning we measure and the learning we care about.

At first I thought it was just using the x4 number...

2012-04-11T09:00:18.930-05:00

At first I thought it was just using the x4 number, which fits the first three squares. Ah, sigh, if life were ever so simple as to seek the horse instead of the zebra. 7 makes the math in me much happier, though.

2012-04-11T08:55:27.961-05:00

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Thank you!

2012-03-14T10:36:12.134-05:00

Thank you!

brillant piece of information, I had come to know ...

2012-03-14T10:27:13.283-05:00

brillant piece of information, I had come to know about your web-page from my friend hardkik, chennai,i have read atleast 9 posts of yours by now, and let me tell you, your webpage gives the best and the most interesting information. This is just the kind of information that i had been looking for, i'm already your rss reader now and i would regularly watch out for the new posts, once again hats off to you! Thanx a million once again

Good story! We have very many real-life examples ...

2012-03-13T04:08:43.262-05:00

Good story! We have very many real-life examples of number targets acting as toxic incentives.

An alternative is in Dimension Four® (see www.isochron.co.uk and Accelerating Business and IT Change, Fowler & Lock, 2006, Gower). In D4 you identify recognition events® of the future you want. You then derive the number targets that will be achieved (value flashpoints®) as a result of achieving the that future.

In our D4 case studies since 2002 we have consistently found that the number targets actually achieved exceed those sought. They do so because the process works from a company (or public sector) valuation point of view and so finds the extended benefits.

A good spin-off is that the targets are achieved as a result of intended and not unintended changes. We too have to warn CxOs "Be careful what you wish for, because with this process you will get it!"

Another moral could be "careful what you wish...

2012-03-11T13:21:02.717-05:00

Another moral could be "careful what you wish for." We can think of the problem in terms of optimization routines. How do we write a simple algorithm that converges to a desired answer by optimizing on some combination of variables? Understanding how the system works can help. The problem in the story is the same problem confronted every day by psychologists who write behavior management plans -- the behavior analysts of the Skinnerian variety. They are very familiar with the kinds of mistakes that lead to bad outcomes, exactly as described in the story. Looking at the big picture, as Skinner did in "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" you will see that "those who direct their activities" also are being rewarded for the choices they make in plan construction, and those who reward them are being rewarded for their choices, and so on. It is ultimately a tangled mess of circles of reward and punishment -- a complex collection of feedback loops -- with no ultimate controlling agent and no definite goal.

By the way, I found your blog post from a link here:

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/eubanks20120310

Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota

What a wonderful parable.

2012-03-11T09:02:33.962-05:00

What a wonderful parable.

Thanks! Email me if you want the code.

2012-03-08T14:03:42.153-05:00

Thanks! Email me if you want the code.

This is great work! I have been working in the hig...

2012-03-08T13:46:31.757-05:00

This is great work!
I have been working in the higher software industry for over 10 years and am very encouraged to see this level of intelligence and dedication applied to such an important activity.

This is great work! I have been working in the hig...

2012-03-08T13:46:14.085-05:00

Dave, my interpretation of Steve's comment wa...

2012-02-10T14:42:01.565-05:00

Dave, my interpretation of Steve's comment was that he was talking about the interpretation of data. I wrote down 'professional judgment is essential to process'. So, even where one has a reliable/valid test, interpretation of the results should be made by the faculty. What does the data tell us about our students?

Another nice post.......thanks for sharing.

2012-01-23T05:02:04.627-05:00

Another nice post.......thanks for sharing.

Great info here. Long time reader, first time post...

2012-01-02T00:47:19.295-05:00

Great info here. Long time reader, first time poster....keep it up please!

Hi, I was able to get the information that I had b...

2011-12-17T08:41:42.854-05:00

Hi,
I was able to get the information that I had been looking for.Thanks for a great blog.

Nice to see this post. I am enjoying your blog. <...

2011-12-01T06:35:50.513-05:00

Nice to see this post. I am enjoying your blog.

Assessment forms

Karl, If I understand correctly, this is a questio...

2011-11-14T13:01:10.329-05:00

Karl, If I understand correctly, this is a question of the balance of what's good for an individual versus what's good for the average taxpayer. For the individual, acceptance into any state-supported school is nice, but I think one could argue that the whole system becomes less efficient that way, which affects taxpayers in the aggregate. Also, I think that within any state system there are 'open admit' entry points, e.g. in the two year colleges at least. So the added benefit to the individual is not an entry point into higher ed--that already exists--it's the customized choice he/she wishes. But imagine that everyone in the state decided to go to the best school, and could? It would likely mean that the 'best' school ceases to exist as such. Would you argue that the taxpaying student should be allowed to play on the state college football team if he wants to?

This is an interesting question. I'd be curious to know what others thought of it.

My brother, a college professor, has lived a total...

2011-11-14T12:34:51.766-05:00

My brother, a college professor, has lived a totally academic life while I have spent an entire career in business. We completely disagree on the notion that any tax-supported institution of higher learning has the right to refuse admittance to any person seeking a college education. He argues that there must be some recognition, or process of identifying, those who will not succeed in advanced institutions to allow room for those who will succeed. Sounds logical but very elitist. I argue simple that American freedom includes the right to fail. Why should anyone be denied their “shot” at their dream of an education by a bunch of university eggheads. What say you??

Lenders of guaranteed payday loans within the United States are trying to always aid out borrowers by coming up with new loan schemes. Since they are running with this goal, they try to increase the features of the loans so that they are extra attractive to borrowers.

When I was thinking of culture, I was thinking of ...

2011-11-06T15:50:06.568-05:00

When I was thinking of culture, I was thinking of something more discern -- say, Chinese culture (to choose the longest lived) or English culture or American culture. Some get wiped out by contact with other cultures (e.g., the Aztecs) and others mutate (e.g., American being primarily derived from British culture). The odd bit are the relics of older cultures (astrology, to take one you mention) that survive after the culture that spawned them died.

Thanks for the comment, Matt. It does get more com...

2011-11-06T08:10:40.522-05:00

Thanks for the comment, Matt. It does get more complicated when we start defining what a system is and what survival for that system actually means. The "I" in SIS means whatever it is (government, culture, etc.) has to actively be parsing the environmental data to try to survive. Otherwise, it's surviving by accident, not intelligence. So if we take a manageable chunk of a culture--say the language--and look at it, it might or might not have "intelligence" behind it. I think you could argue that French does. It would be interesting to look at the most long-lived religions and see what makes them tick. Do you suppose there are remnants of a stone-age mystical belief still around? I don't know.

Culture sort of gets a free ride on the ecology of humans, like bird nests 'survive' as long as there are birds. As long as we are around, there will be some sort of culture descended from the past. In order to say that could survive for long periods, we'd have to argue that humanity will survive for a long time to come. So we're really talking about the survival of civilization as a whole, I think.

(That should have read system rather than society,...

2011-11-06T07:42:43.556-05:00

(That should have read system rather than society, to avoid introducing those pesky language issues you mention above.)

I'm not sure what to do with this thought but ...

2011-11-06T07:41:56.067-05:00

I'm not sure what to do with this thought but I thought I would offer it, in case it helped:

No government has survived for thousands and thousands of years due to intentional mutation but cultures regularly do. Governments have to change intentionally while culture change through a kind of collective or subconscious agreement. Now, I don't know if that becomes the ecosystem a government operates in or a competing method of survival.

To take one example, there are people still out there happily reading and translating The Iliad -- long after the heroic society it is based on has crumbled to dust.

If this was not so true and depressing, it would b...

2011-11-05T09:39:49.674-05:00

If this was not so true and depressing, it would be very funny.

If you like this, you should see the new version. ...

2011-10-06T19:24:13.781-05:00

If you like this, you should see the new version. It's really incredible