A certain deficiency in logic...

 

Circulating on social media:

Uh-huh.

Peter

The death of lecture-based universities?

 

That's what the Australian Courier-Mail foresees.  A tip o' the hat to our Australian reader Andrew for sending me the link to the article.

The future of face-to-face learning at Australia’s universities is in serious doubt as more institutions ditch old-school lectures in favour of full online or hybrid learning models.

While some students and staff are campaigning to save lectures from the chopping block, others in the sector say the train has already left the station and the future of universities is online as students “vote with their feet”.

The face-to-face debate reared its head again recently as Adelaide University students and staff protested what they claimed was a move away from in-person learning at Australia’s newest university – a claim the university continues to deny.

Meanwhile, Open University Australia helps potential students connect with more than 890 online degrees in response to changing student preferences.

University of South Queensland (USQ) Associate Professor Alice Brown has researched and written on the challenges and opportunities of online higher education learning, finding the ultimate determiner is the students themselves who routinely “vote with their feet”.

“There is a trend and phenomena of students becoming increasingly discerning about how they want to study and when they want to study,” Professor Brown said.

“If they are not offered an online option, then they will vote with their feet and go to courses that are fully online.”

. . .

The debate comes as a number of Victorian universities are now offering digital-only lectures, with most choosing not to reintroduce in-person models post-Covid.

RMIT environmental engineering student Ted Oldis, 24, said attending his university in-person was a toss-up decision he makes daily.

“If you’re trying to juggle work, friends and study you have to balance the convenience of the online lectures with attending in-person,” he said.

“If you don’t need the social aspect and you think the learning is the same, it honestly comes down to convenience, and more often than not it’s easier to do the online learning.”

Mr Oldis said he had toyed with attending as many lectures and tutorials as possible in-person this semester.

“This semester I made a conscious decision to attend every class and lecture I can in-person,” he said.

“I wanted to try to engage more and meet new people. But to be honest, I don’t feel it’s been worth it compared to doing the same stuff online.”

There's more at the link.

I have every sympathy with those students who are avoiding in-person classes and focusing instead on online and distance education.  I hold four university qualifications, two of which I obtained through distance education only (i.e. by post) and two by part-time evening classes plus distance education.  I can't say I felt in any way short-changed by not having the full "campus experience" of a full-time education.  In fact, the professors in my Masters degree often said to us students that they preferred working with us as opposed to full-time students, because we'd already learned to fend for ourselves and earn a living, and didn't expect the world to provide everything to us on a platter.  Comparing ourselves to the self-centered idle twits who infested that campus' post-graduate programs, it wasn't hard to see why they came to that conclusion.

Looking at the pro-Palestinian protests across many US universities over the past couple of years simply makes the contrast even starker.  The only reason those students could carry on so irresponsibly (not to mention violently) is that they had parents and trust funds and bursaries to pay for their existence while they did so.  The rest of us, who have to work for a living, may want to protest in favor of causes we support, but we can't afford to do so nearly as often or as long, because we know that our employers will kick us out and hire replacements who'll be willing to earn every dollar they pay us.  We've grown up.  Most of those students haven't.

I think American higher education would be a lot better off if we got rid of at least half the campuses in this country and fired all the professors who live in their academic cloud cuckoo land instead of in the real world.  I'd also suggest that we fire every student who doesn't pass at least half their courses every year.  No do-overs, no accommodations, no touchy-feely wishy-washy excuses.  Unless there are truly exceptional circumstances to excuse them, they can pass, or get out.  Why should my tax dollars be wasted on supporting them?

Grrr . . .

Peter

Don't just build the structure, pay attention to the foundations

 

I've been watching the outpouring of emotion over the murder of Charlie Kirk and the other blatant, in-your-face crimes that have shocked our nation in recent weeks.  I'm sure most of us agree that something needs to be done;  but what, precisely, should be done is fiercely debated.

I'd like to suggest that if we all "started small", we'd get a lot more done than if we all worried about the "big picture".  Each of us, as individuals, is too small and ineffectual a factor to get much attention on a state or national level.  However, at our local level, we can certainly organize ourselves into groups of like-minded people and put pressure on our town and city councils to fix the problems we encounter.  If a few dozen, or a few score, citizens were to insist that our local cops be given the authority, the budget and the free hand they need to control crime on our local streets, it would make all of our towns safer places to live.  If local towns were to come together and demonstrate that they can succeed in doing that, then our county executives might apply the same lesson on a larger scale.  If enough counties do likewise, then our state might begin to create the necessary conditions for change and improvement:  and if enough states do the same, then our entire nation might find a way forward.

However, it all starts locally, with the foundations rather than the superstructure.  We can't wave a magic wand and change our national government, or the Deep State bureaucracy, or so-called "blue state" policies.  However, we can affect the day-to-day lives of our communities at our own level.  If enough of us refuse to tolerate bigotry, extremism and dogmatism, we can take back our own environment.  If enough of us do that, we can inspire others to do likewise . . . but it all begins with the individual.

Therefore, let's not worry about founding new chapters of Turning Point USA, or joining the political party of our preference.  Let's join local churches, or make sure that local chapters of the Boy Scouts or Girl Guides are run in a balanced and sane manner, and do our best to see to it that local schools aren't infested with extremist views that make it a trial and a punishment for our children to attend them.  All that is within our power to do, if we're willing to exert ourselves for the good of our communities.

Have at it!

Peter

The writing life

 

I'm battling to complete a short story before the deadline for submissions later this week, so this cartoon made me laugh.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the Foxes In Love Web page.

I can almost hear the simultaneous groan from my writing and publishing buddies as they see it . . .

Peter

A very heartfelt "Thank you!!!" to my readers and friends

 

Last week on Monday my wife and I launched a fundraiser for my medical expenses.  I explained at the time that they're expected to total well over $100,000, possibly twice that.  We've been saving as best we can, and have taken out a second mortgage on our home, but we were still facing a big shortfall.  We set a fundraising target of $50,000.

To our surprise and great relief, you've responded very generously indeed.  As I write these words, the fundraiser stands at $49,236.  I expect we'll reach our target today or tomorrow, if this keeps up.  After the IRS takes its share and other expenses are met, we should get about $35,000 out of this campaign.  This is a huge relief to us, and gives us greater confidence that we can cope with the bills to come.

It's been suggested to us that we should raise the target to a higher figure, but that seems a bit cheesy somehow.  Yes, the total bills may be quite a bit higher, but we don't know that for sure yet (it'll take months to have any certainty), and we don't want to appear greedy.  We're more than grateful for what we've already received.  We'll probably leave the fundraiser open until the end of September to give late responders a chance to join in, and then close it down at whatever the level is then.  Meanwhile, if you would please continue to mention the fundraiser now and again to your friends and contacts on social media, we'll appreciate that very much.

We thank God for all of you, and for your great generosity.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 278

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

The tragic murder of Charlie Kirk a few days ago has swept across our nation like a wave.  Some celebrate his death;  others mourn it.  Some reject all he was and stood for;  others proclaim it with pride and promise to continue his legacy.  I rather think that his assassination might turn into one of the pivotal moments in US political history, on a level with the murder of JFK.  I, for one, will honor his memory, and do what little I can to make America all that he believed we could be.

To mark his passing, I wanted a piece of music that would speak to all Americans, whether men and women of faith or not.  Yes, I know Mr. Kirk was a man of strong, intense faith (as am I), and he should be remembered as such:  but his message is one that reached beyond sectarian divides, and I wanted music that reflects that universal appeal.  I found it in Samuel Barber's well-known Adagio for Strings.  Here's Leonard Slatkin conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2016.  Turn up your volume, because the recording is relatively soft.

May Charlie Kirk rest in God's peace.  May his widow and children be comforted in their loss.  May their witness continue to spread his message;  and may we who remember him do likewise.

Peter

There are times I've agreed with him...

 

Stephan Pastis reminds us that there are ways to cope, and then there are ways...  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

There's also beer, of course...  At present, harder liquor is not a good idea for me, thanks to opioid painkillers washing around in my system.

Peter

The vicious circle of AI and the employment market

 

The Atlantic points out that while artificial intelligence is being applied to the job market by both applicants and employers, fewer people are being hired.

Corporate profits are strong, the jobless rate is 4.3 percent, and wages are climbing in turn. But payrolls have been essentially frozen for the past four months. The hiring rate has declined to its lowest point since the jobless recovery following the Great Recession. Four years ago, employers were adding four or five workers for every 100 they had on the books, month in and month out. Now they are adding three.

At the same time, the process of getting a job has become a late-capitalist nightmare. Online hiring platforms have made it easier to find an opening but harder to secure one: Applicants send out thousands of AI-crafted résumés, and businesses use AI to sift through them. What Bumble and Hinge did to the dating market, contemporary human-resources practices have done to the job market. People are swiping like crazy and getting nothing back.

. . .

For employers, the job market is working differently too. Businesses receive countless ill-fitting applications, along with a few good ones, for each open position. Rather than poring over the submissions by hand, they use machines. In a recent survey, chief HR officers told the Boston Consulting Group that they are using AI to write job descriptions, assess candidates, schedule introductory meetings, and evaluate applications. In some cases, firms are using chatbots to interview candidates, too. Prospective hires log in to a Zoom-like system and field questions from an avatar. Their performance is taped, and an algorithm searches for keywords and evaluates their tone.

. . .

The impossibility of getting to the interview stage spurs jobless workers to submit more applications, which pushes them to rely on ChatGPT to build their résumés and respond to screening prompts ... And so the cycle continues: The surge in same-same AI-authored applications prompts employers to use robot filters to manage the flow. Everyone ends up in Tinderized job-search hell.

There's more at the link.

It's a conundrum.  All those who claim that new technologies may displace older jobs, but also open up new ones, are finding that the old explanation no longer applies.  Technology is providing more and more information on both sides of the equation, and (supposedly) speeding up the handling of applications:  but it's also focusing in on small details and exact matches to such an extent that people who might have been considered for a job in the past, no longer meet the much stricter criteria being applied.

I can't see this as healthy.  When I worked in the corporate world, in supervisory and middle management, I always looked at an applicant's work record first, to see what they'd actually achieved in previous jobs.  That was far more important to me than their academic credentials or other factors.  If their employment history showed increasing levels of responsibility as they progressed, and they could point to measurable yardsticks like completed projects or industry recognition, they were the kind of people I wanted to hire.  However, AI doesn't look at that in an overall sense:  instead, it has lists of key words, and if an applicant's work history doesn't include enough of them, they're unlikely to ever get to the interview stage.  I regard that as a cop-out.  Managers are using it to avoid having to do too much research into applicants, and don't want to take the trouble to dig deep to find new staff with the greatest potential.  By relying on "the system", they evade personal responsibility.

I have to admit, I'm glad I'm not looking for a job in today's market.  It sounds increasingly like a no-win situation for far too many people.

Peter