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1. Education Behind Bars: The Co-Production of Knowledge by Inmates and University Students

   Entry #396

   16 Apr 2016

   9:31 pm

   Michael Canning

   99 comments

   In the arena of diversity and equity, people that seem to receive scant attention are those behind bars. The prisoner population is a marginal if not invisible one. Their needs are many; among them is the need for education, to help them reenter life outside prison with greater opportunity. But...

2. The Latent Challenges Concerning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the STEM Classroom: Revelations from a Faculty Study

   Entry #385

   29 Feb 2016

   7:11 pm

   Michael Canning

   92 comments

   On February 12, 2016, Dr. Alford A. Young, Jr. spoke to a group of Purdue faculty, staff, and students on “The Latent Challenges Concerning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the STEM Classroom: Revelations from a Faculty Study.” Dr. Young is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Chair of...

3. Will 2016 be the year Higher Education takes the Leap?

   Entry #382

   24 Feb 2016

   6:12 pm

   Fatma Mili

   110 comments

   How would I like to see higher education evolve in 2016? Well, wishing, planning, and executing in quiescent calm waters under blue skies is a qualitatively different activity from wishing, planning, and executing in agitated waters under stormy skies. The former has a leisurely quality with...

4. The Consciousness that Equitable Teaching Requires in STEM Classrooms

   Entry #375

   05 Feb 2016

   2:43 pm

   Ann Bessenbacher

   45 comments

   Dr. Dorinda Carter Andrews talk at Purdue DLRC on Friday, January 29, 2016 Posted by Mike Canning   Key takeaways Society’s depictions of a scientist and of an engineer are too narrow. Help students to reach far beyond these depictions. Build students’ self-concept and...

5. Towards a Wholehearted Education

   Entry #371

   22 Jan 2016

   9:50 am

   Fatma Mili

   37 comments

   Late in December International Innovation published the following interview and article about the work we are doing at the TransSTEM center. The feature is included here and can also be found at http://www.internationalinnovation.com/towards-wholehearted-education/ and is also included...

6. Promoting competency based education through trade-off thinking

   Entry #369

   14 Jan 2016

   5:14 pm

   Sorin Adam Matei

   41 comments

   Teaching creative and critical thinking by contingent evaluation of implicit choices made through technological communication infrastructures   We live in a world of things. Those who make the things define the way we live our lives.  Their decisions impact not only our trivial needs,...

7. Balancing Deep Expertise with Broad Social Responsibility

   Entry #347

   15 Nov 2015

   2:36 pm

   Fatma Mili

   33 comments

   US and world events of the past two weeks painfully brought to our consciousness the urgency of making higher education scholarship and curricula much more directly relevant to our lives and concerns, and more importantly to the lives and concerns of our students. This year, we crossed the one...

8. The Wicked Problem of Higher Education

   Entry #348

   03 Apr 2015

   2:28 pm

   Fatma Mili

   29 comments

   We have all read, heard, and expressed our own views about the growing misalignment between the current resilient (STEM) Higher Education system and the contemporary needs. We have also all undertaken initiatives to reform, innovate, and adapt. Yet, the problem proved deep-seated, persistent, and...

9. Purdue Polytechnic Educational Research and Development: Highlights of 2014 & Ambitions for 2015

   Entry #364

   09 Jan 2015

   3:25 pm

   Fatma Mili

   32 comments

   Introduction …I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in...

10. The Multifaceted Potential of Competency-Based Education

    Entry #349

    29 Nov 2014

    2:35 pm

    Fatma Mili

    46 comments

    In a recent Lumina-organized workshop on competency-based education (CBE), it was remarked that CBE will succeed where massive open online courses (MOOCs) have not to truly revolutionize higher education. In one of his Inside Higher Education blogs, Paul Fain called CBE the next big thing. The...

11. Welcome to our New Group of Faculty

    Entry #350

    17 Oct 2014

    2:38 pm

    Fatma Mili

    54 comments

    A new First-Year Experience Team has been formed. This is the team of faculty identified by their department heads to lead the effort of examining the first year of all Technology majors and to redesign it using the Polytechnic Incubator experience as a springboard. This group will be meeting...

12. Roadblocks to Creating a Competency-Based Program

    Entry #351

    10 Sep 2014

    2:49 pm

    Fatma Mili

    61 comments

    Competency-based education is such an intuitive and appealing concept that once we consider it, we start wondering, “Why did we wait so long?” In competency-based education, students earn a degree upon demonstrating competency in their chosen field of study rather than upon spending...

13. Badges of Competence

    Entry #352

    09 Sep 2014

    2:56 pm

    Fatma Mili

    27 comments

    D.School professor Tina Seelig1 touts the power of seemingly trivial questions in opening our horizons and bringing to light unquestioned assumptions. Educational reformer Grant Wiggins2 illustrates this when he asks “What is the goal of education?” Is the aim really knowledge,...

14. Open Minds to the Education of the Future

    Entry #354

    27 Aug 2014

    3:00 pm

    Fatma Mili

    55 comments

    “Though we often lose sight of this basic fact, the point of learning is not just to know things but to be a different person – more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense. Knowledge is an indicator of educational success,...

15. When 15 Fellows Decide to Take a Different Road

    Entry #353

    20 Aug 2014

    2:58 pm

    Fatma Mili

    24 comments

      Most faculty chose their academic career because they thrive in the intellectual stimulus of scholarly endeavors, the challenges and rewards of working with young minds, and the academic freedom to pursue their own research agenda and share their findings with the public at large. The...

16. Polytechnic Incubator as an Entrepreneurial Endeavor with Strategic Partnerships

    Entry #355

    05 Aug 2014

    3:04 pm

    Fatma Mili

    29 comments

      The Polytechnic Incubator's vision is to create a gravity-free space to question all assumptions, scrutinize all practices, and create the best possible learning environment for the students of today and the future. The potential disruptive nature of the endeavor called for an...

17. Why we Polytech

    Entry #356

    21 Jul 2014

    3:06 pm

    Fatma Mili

    29 comments

      The Purdue Polytechnic Institute has been introduced and described using many different qualifiers and metaphors. It was designed as the zero-gravity space for faculty to unleash their creativity, to dream big, and to implement their most daring and promising educational ideas. It's...

18. President Daniels Writes to President Obama introducing the Purdue Polytechnic Institute

    Entry #358

    20 Jun 2014

    3:11 pm

    Fatma Mili

    26 comments

      The Purdue Polytechnic Incubator aims to graduate thoughtful Makers and Thinkers who will shape their future and ours. Important habits of mind that our students acquire through their studies are problem-based learning, learning in context, learning just in time, and lifelong learning....

19. We're taking our own medicine and feeling great

    Entry #357

    20 Jun 2014

    3:08 pm

    Fatma Mili

    46 comments

      Our graduates will be thoughtful thinkers and makers who remain curious, create iteratively and collaboratively, and seek constructive thoughtful feedback. This is what the faculty fellows have been practicing while designing the Purdue Polytechnic Incubator's curriculum. They are...

20. Competency-based credentialing: Coming soon to a degree near you

    Entry #359

    19 Jun 2014

    3:13 pm

    Fatma Mili

    25 comments

      Much of the recent soul-searching (Lewis, 2007) in higher education can be framed in terms of the seeming disconnect between the things being measured, billed, and credited on the one hand and students’ learning and competence on the other hand. There is a sense that learning, the...