2 August 2013

Ian Young on what he's doing to Humanities

| johnboy
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ANU Vice Chancellor Ian Young is so happy with how his interview this morning on the ABC went that he’s posted the transcript by way of explanation:

What you start to do is to combine the lecture and the tutorial into a single workshop. So, the lecturer comes along, they actually deliver a broad overview of the material, and then the students break up into small groups. They interact in those small groups with the lecturer present, with a number of tutors present, and then they come together again. They share the material that they’ve been talking about, they interact with the lecturer again.

So actually – rather than taking the lecture and the tutorial and splitting them in two, things which are not connected together at all – you try and bring all these together so that you get a real environment where our students actually get to interact with the research leader. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

This has been trialled in a number of places within our College of Arts and Social Sciences and now the College is starting to talk to students about rolling this out in a larger way in some of our second and third year courses. Not all the courses. Not in first year courses. It’s really about trying to find new educational ways to engage with our students.

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gasman said :

What did the Humanities graduate say to the Science graduate?

—– “Would you like fries with that?”

More like:

“Yes, I really do feel sorry for you that unfortunately your science degree is far too specialised for you to find any employment, but if you sign here on this form we can have you on the unemployment benefit within two weeks”.

gasman said :

What did the Humanities graduate say to the Science graduate?

—– “Would you like fries with that?”

Net public benefit of a humanities graduate is around $100,000 over a Year 12 leaver.

Net private benefit is around $200,000.

In fact the only, degree area where someone incurs a net private loss, and the taxpayer a next public loss, is male performing arts graduates.

Humanities should not be public funded at the ANU. If people want to study useless fluff they should pay their own way entirely.

What did the Humanities graduate say to the Science graduate?

—– “Would you like fries with that?”

c_c™ said :

Ian Young I suspect will go down as a tremendous failure.

Not before he’s wreaked his havoc on ANU first.

Ian Young I suspect will go down as a tremendous failure.

I don’t have anything against phasing out tutorials, they’re a waste of time where half don’t turn up, half of those who do stay silent and they bugger up schedules for people working/living/researching offsite.

I’ve experienced a couple of the alternatives and they’ve worked very well.

But I’ve also experienced this new combined tutorial/lecture format – it’s abysmal. Absolutely abysmal.

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