#badacademia

This letter appeared in the Independent.  It raises several concerns about Gove's new curriculum

"We are writing to warn of the dangers posed by Michael Gove’s new National Curriculum which could severely erode educational standards. The proposed curriculum consists of endless lists of spellings, facts and rules. This mountain of data will not develop children’s ability to think, including problem-solving, critical understanding and creativity." 
It was also signed by over 100 academics from universities across the country many of whom are experts in education and have published multiple books and papers on education.  
The academics state that Gove did not take on board the advice of experts when designing his curriculum and as such is sacrificing a good education for rote learning which will severely affect educational standards.
Gove's response was this was to shout at the academics for living in their ivory towers and being an example of bad academia.  How ironic!  

@ThomsonPat: So Gove read my 12 books  140+ peer reviewed journal articles in 2 days as well as those of my 99 colleagues? - Pat Thompson - Professor in Education

This led to @timeshighered encouraging academics to take back the term by using  #badacademia on twitter to tweet about the good education that happens in spite of Gove.
Some great tweets below:

Hands on assessment

I was inspired by this article on how hands on science assessment are a much more accurate reflection of student comprehension. The computer based and physical tasks set for the students, involved much more than you would ever get out of a pen and paper exam, and the students got much more out of it. The study was conducted by the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress)

Other kinds of "impact" REF 2014

David Willetts speech-at UUK conference today was interesting for many reasons. The biggest 'impact' for me was where he was talking about what will be REF'able and how research will be assessed for the Research Excellence Framework 2014.
The most surprising thing was that you could include unpublished work and journal impact factors would have no relevance!

Sharing Practice 2012

We held the Sharing Practice conference in Livesey House at Uclan today. It was a great event with many more people than we were expecting. Really positive feedback from participants...

Teaching Exchange

We held the Teaching Exchange yesterday , and it was a very successful event, there was standing room only in the first session, so we had to move to a bigger room!

Innovations in Higher Education

The internet has been abuzz with all the innovations for teaching and learning, the free online learning platforms and different ways to teach students. Now it is research's turn to be overhauled...

Uclan Journal of Pedagogic Research

After the successful publication of our latest issue, the call is now open for further submissions to the Uclan Journal Of Pedagogic Research.   ..

Free universities?

In the age of increasing fees and sale of Higher Education , there has been another university set up that will offer courses for free as reported by the BBC ....

Teaching Exchange

Uclan  PRF and LDU  is hosting a Teaching Exchange, on Wed 13th June 12-3pm
The teaching exchange is open to anyone who teaches at Uclan or partner colleges and who is interested in developing their teaching skills...

PRF event on problem based learning and disability

We held a very interesting event on  problem based learning (PBL) and disability....

HEA guide to pedagogy for employability

The HEA (Higher Education Academy) has published a new revised guide to pedagogy for employability to help embed employability skills into the curriculum.....

Sharing Practice conference 2012

The call is out for posters around sharing practice around teaching and learning.  Deadline for abstracts 20th April 2012

Teaching in Higher Education: A beginners guide

It can be daunting starting off as a new lecturer in HE, there is so much to know and plan before you get near a classroom.
The key starting point for all lecturers  is...

Digital Literacy in Higher Education

What is digital literacy?  Do we need to expand our definitions to include new social media interactions? What are we talking about?.. What does digital literacy mean to you?

Teaching that matters new million+ report

Teaching That Matters new million+ report is released today on how the modern universities are leading a teaching revolution...

The REF 2014 Update

HEFCE now has an updated page with the final criteria and working methods that the Research Excellence Framework (REF) panels will use when assessing research. REF panel criteria....

social media and a community of co-learners

Writing for Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, Howard Rheingold suggests that academics should use social media to encorporate student feedback into lessons.  He also discussed group work and collaborative learning techniques and sets up a "community of co-learners" The article makes for an stimulating read!