When conversations turn to reforming or transforming higher education, weighty tomes are written, groups of faculty & administrators assemble, and new plans are made and executed, often without consulting or involving a single student. In recent times, business has gotten better at listening to the "voice of the customer," and in higher ed the student is customer, product, process, and…
In the most recent episode of Big Beacon Radio: Transforming Higher Education, guest Jeff Shelton discussed his educational background and how it led him to become the host of the Engineering Commons Podcast. Jeff went back to school to receive his PhD later in life, decades after completing his initial degrees. By the time he returned to school, Jeff had years of professional…
Ep. 26 - Podcasting and Social Media as Continuing Higher Education: A Conversation with Jeff Shelton Technology has opened many doors to new kinds of educational media. Podcasts and live internet radio, such as Big Beacon Radio, are among these relatively new kinds of media, and in this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews Jeff Shelton, producer and co-host of The Engineering…
Technology has opened many doors to new kinds of educational media. Podcasts and live internet radio, such as Big Beacon Radio, are among these relatively new kinds of media, and in this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews Jeff Shelton, producer and co-host of The Engineering Commons, a regular podcast on topics of interest to engineers and technologists, to explore some…
Ep. 25 -Creativity and Innovation in Higher Education: A Conversation with Stu Walesh We live in a time of great bounty in the social sciences and neurosciences in which once mysteries of the mind are being revealed in greater detail in ways that can be acted upon in both practical and educational settings. In this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews…
We live in a time of great bounty in the social sciences and neurosciences in which once mysteries of the mind are being revealed in greater detail in ways that can be acted upon in both practical and educational settings. In this episode, host Dave Goldberg interviews consultant, engineer, author, and educator Stuart G. Walesh about his new book "Introduction…
Post contributed by Stuart G. Walesh, Ph.D., P.E. The human brain’s left and right hemispheres have markedly different capabilities. The left hemisphere exhibits valuable verbal, analytic, logical, and linear characteristics while the right hemisphere offers equally powerful nonverbal, emotional, intuitive, spatial, and holistic features. Betty Edwards, in her 1999 book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, says this…
Ep. 24 -Motivation, Rewards, and Education: A Conversation with Edward L. Deci The idea that we get more of a behavior when it is externally rewarded or reinforced is built into many organizational processes and educational institutions and is often treated as axiomatic, but studies going back to the early 1970s have firmly called this into question. Today, businesses and…
The idea that we get more of a behavior when it is externally rewarded or reinforced is built into many organizational processes and educational institutions and is often treated as axiomatic, but studies going back to the early 1970s have firmly called this into question. Today, businesses and schools are reassessing many of their routine practices in the light of…
Ep. 23 - Using Social Labs for Change In and Around Higher Education: A Case in Canada Social labs bring together stakeholders with different, even opposing, points of view in a practical effort to promote systemic change. Show host Dave Goldberg, recently witnessed one session of a social lab called the Engineering Change Lab in Toronto, Ontario that brought together…