American RadioWorks Podcast

Knight News Challenge Round 3: Whisper - A platform to enable on-the ground intelligence gathering

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:34:21 -0500

Knight News Challenge Round 3: Whisper - A platform to enable on-the ground intelligence gathering:

The “Art” of Medical Education. By Suzanne Pekow for...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 23:20:05 -0500

The “Art” of Medical Education. By Suzanne Pekow for American RadioWorks.

Harvard Medical School’s “Training the Eye”...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:52:00 -0500

Harvard Medical School’s “Training the Eye” course. Photos taken at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, April 6, 2012. Special thanks to Michelle Grohe.

For more on this story, visit http://americanradioworks.org/podcast.html

For more on “Training the Eye,” and Visual Thinking Strategies-based education, visit http://alexarosemiller.com

"There’s a historic role for philanthropy that I believe continues to be important. And that is, to..."

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:45:20 -0500

“

There’s a historic role for philanthropy that I believe continues to be important. And that is, to be a source of innovation. Philanthropy is different than most of the rest of society, in that we have this great gift. The gift is the wealth that we have in our endowments, and we have the capacity to use that wealth to help society become better. So that gift also gives us the capacity to take risks – that is, we can take chances that are more difficult for policymakers to take, for example. So I like to say that if we make an investment and it doesn’t pay off, we’ve learned something and that can be applied to our future investments. If you’re a policymaker and you make an investment and it doesn’t pay off, you may lose your job as an elected official. Or for that matter if you’re a corporate leader and you make an investment and it doesn’t pay off, your shareholders may revolt. So we have the capacity for risk, and I think we need to continue to take that risk.

At the same time, I think we need to be more than simply sources of information and ideas. We’ve got to participate in the scaling – actually taking the best ideas and helping them move towards a much broader impact. And that’s where I think our ability to inform the policymaking process at both the state and federal level is really, really important. Government has a role to take the best ideas and bring them to scale. It has a responsibility in my view in ensuring that people have access to these same kinds of opportunities. We should never guarantee the same kind of results, but we should provide, to the greatest extent possible, access to the kinds of opportunities that make us all Americans. And I think that families and individuals have a responsibility to contribute to their own education, and I believe the employers, the workforce sector also has a responsibility – not only to the people within their own companies, or organizations or unions, but in fact, to society at large. Because after all, the quality of our workforce is very much going to dictate the success of those employers and their businesses going forward.

”

- Jamie Merisotis, President of Lumina Foundation*, speaking on the ARW podcast last December. He’ll be back on the podcast next week to respond to a recent paper critical of megafoundations’ role in higher education advocacy.

*Lumina is a funder of American RadioWorks but the do not influence our editorial content.

Podcast Friday: Are you gritty enough for college?

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:56:40 -0600

Why do some students drop out of college, while others persist? Researchers think it may have something to do with a person’s level of “grit” and are trying to figure out whether this trait can be taught to others.

Guest: Angela Duckworth, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology.

Podcast Friday: Lessons from India

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:19:44 -0600

India is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, and with about a third of its population under the age of 14, India will soon see a surge in working-age adults. That’s why the government there is leading an ambitious effort to expand higher education institutions both on-ground and online.

The Hechinger Report’s Sarah Garland joins us on the podcast to talk about what she learned on her recent trip to India. Here’s more on Hechinger’s series, “Lessons From Abroad.”

Podcast Friday: Manufacturing Jobs

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:00:35 -0600

The 2012 presidential candidates have all stressed the need to bring manufacturing jobs “back” to the United States from overseas. While it’s true that the United States has lost more than five million manufacturing jobs in the past decade due to foreign competition and productivity gains, there are also a lot of manufacturing jobs still here in America - and many of those jobs are going unfilled.

Podcast Friday: Hybrid Campuses

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:29:12 -0600

This week: reporting from Stephen Smith’s upcoming documentary on how technology is changing higher education. Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun discusses why the physical boundaries of the traditional college campus becoming less relevant to learning.

Podcast Friday: The For-Profits

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:17:04 -0600

For-profit universities have come under fire in recent years because of questionable practices at some institutions. But today, schools like the University of Phoenix, DeVry and others are working hard to transform their images. Correspondent Emily Hanford interviewed Kaplan University’s Peter Smith for an upcoming documentary that tracks the rise of the for-profit higher education industry.

Podcast Friday: Getting Through College

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:03:05 -0600

Our correspondent Emily Hanford produced a documentary last fall called “Some College, No Degree” about the challenges people face getting back to college once they quit. Now she’s working on a new documentary that looks at the college completion question from a different angle.

Podcast Friday: Teaching Online

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:01:06 -0600

This week we go inside the world of virtual education. Kristin Kipp was voted 2011 National Online Teacher of the Year and she tells us what it’s like to teach high school English from her living room.

Podcast Friday: King's Last March encore

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:29:41 -0600

As a belated tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the podcast this week is an encore presentation of our 2008 documentary, “King’s Last March” by Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis. Over 40 years after Dr. King’s assassination, he remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that’s not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life. For more on this doc, visit http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/king/

Podcast Friday: The State of Online Education

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:37:08 -0600

Online coursework was once considered an experimental alternative to on-ground classes, but it’s quickly becoming a part of the mainstream. Online courses make it possible for colleges and universities to stay within their shrinking budgets, and for busy working adults to go to school anywhere, anytime. As of last fall, about a third of all American college students were enrolled in at least one course online.

Guest: John Bourne, Executive Director, The Sloan Consortium.

Podcast: The Education Year in Review

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:20:06 -0600

What were the top education stories of 2011? The Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Banchero joins us to discuss the stories she thinks had the biggest impact this year.

Guest: Stephanie Banchero, National Education Reporter, Wall Steet Journal and President, Education Writers Association.

Podcast Friday: Excellent Community Colleges

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:43:33 -0600

In the coming decade, most new jobs will require a college education. Community colleges are expected to play a big role in helping Americans get those jobs. Nearly half of all college students go to community colleges but only a third of them graduate.

Guest: Josh Wyner, Executive Director, Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.

Podcast: Organizing Schools to Help Students

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:01:00 -0600

When it comes to education reform, the most controversial ideas usually generate the most attention, but these flashy efforts are often hard to measure and expensive to do. The authors of a new report argue that there are less glamorous, more common-sense school reforms that benefit students by changing the way schools are organized.

Guest: Jonah Rockoff, Sidney Taurel Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School.

More on the report, “Organizing Schools to Improve Student Achievement: Start Times, Grade Configurations, and Teacher Assignments”

Podcast Friday: Saving Cooper Union

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:24:08 -0600

Going to college for free may sound like a fantasy, but Cooper Union in New York City has offered free tuition to its students since its founding in 1859. Now Cooper Union is facing a serious budget deficit and its trustees are considering charging tuition to keep the institution solvent.

Guest: Jamshed Bharucha, President, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Podcast Friday: Kindergarten Tech

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:06:00 -0600

The kindergarten classroom is traditionally a place where youngsters get to experiment with hands-on learning tools like finger paints and building blocks. But with budget-cutting at public schools forcing teachers to take on larger class sizes, more schools are experimenting with adding computer-enhanced lessons for early learners.

American RadioWorks host Stephen Smith talks to the Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay, who recently visited a charter school in Los Angeles that’s piloting a blended-learning approach in its kindergarten and first-grade classrooms.

Podcast Friday: Importing Chinese Students to American Colleges

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:27:25 -0600

In contrast to the United States and Europe, China’s economy is thriving. As the competition gets tougher for entrance into China’s universities, more middle-class families are sending their children to college out of the country, which has led to a booming college placement industry in China. Recent investigations revealed a pattern of fraud and financial kickbacks at one such agency.

Guest: Amy Scott, Education Correspondent, Marketplace.

Guest: Rob Schmitz, China Bureau Chief, Marketplace.

Podcast Friday: Occupy Wall Street & Student Debt

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:16:08 -0600

The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading to college campuses, where students are protesting rising tuition costs and poor job prospects in today’s economy. One expert suggests cutting costs and streamlining college course offerings might produce graduates with more earning potential in the long term.

Guest: Anne Neal, President, American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Visit WhatWillTheyLearn.com for more on the college ranking system Anne discusses in this podcast.