Academics

My mantra for our academics is, 'Delivered.  Done.  Documented.'', which I have framed pretty specifically in the tab "way more reasons", including my passive aggressive opinion about industry practices.

Top of page, credits are really hours, I understand how many hours should be assigned, I have a personal strategy to at least attempt to account for hours, and the hours are delivered rationally to the candidates.  They have to do the hours.  A complete portfolio of the candidates performance and growth in each subject and assignments therein, will be on a thumb drive as a complete representation of the candidate's understanding, growth, and journey, when they seek an advanced degree or join the workforce.

Some of the courses are cookie cutter 40-3 credit courses, partly because of the ease of starting the program, and partly to research the reality of the credits/hours.  Subjects and expected proof of mastery for a subject like "biology for growing" may only be ascribed 30 hours, while the "America the Beautiful" and "Around the world in way more than 80 days" subjects will be more than 200 hours.

An undergraduate degree should represent 4,800 hours of educational activity.

The federal government prescribes one piece of the pie in the 2008 higher education bill.  They offer examples of how much time should be spent, paraphrasing "in class".  A professor should deliver 2.5 hours per week, for 15 weeks, for a total of 37.5 hours.  Using the Carnegie Unit this means that 82.5 hours of "out of class time" should be assigned.

The percentage of "in class" time is approximately 32% of the 120 hours.

Our subjects will start with that percentage as the foundation of building out the rest of the learning utilities and practices in a given subject.  The remaining build out of the subject has a suggested guide of percentages to include other types of learning.  These types of learning include reading, research, writing, communication, experiential, video, solo/partner/group, flex time, and quizzes or testing.

While the rationale for the degree days and hours is a guide, candidates may actually have more days off, like corporate "comp" time, as they will have many days that include more academic activity than the standard of a 7.5 workday.

For example, candidates will have "30-day challenges", where they are doing 7.5 hours of work for 30 days straight, and includes "blackout" time from engaging with family, friends, and social media.

Time out for passive aggressive inquiry.  Do you ever remember doing 5.5 hours of work per week/per subject, for 15 weeks?

"In class" time is not defined.  It is at the discretion of the professor because of the intellectual freedom and faculty autonomy afforded to them.  There is no prescription, no real oversight, and no real restrictions.  Good or bad, I don't know,  I am not fully locked on a side because time should be justified most definitely, but restricting the approach or content that a professor chooses is really a coin-flip to me.

In class experiences can include, lecture, group discussion, testing, watching a movie, visiting somewhere off campus, etc..

The cohorts will have four leaders each chosen with a variety of majors/minors, and/or advanced degrees in something different or simply more advanced. 

For example, undergrad Business Management and an MBA, or undergrad Liberal Arts and Masters in Education.  Additionally, it will be prudent to enjoin a leader with "x" Phd..

The advanced degrees are centered around how to learn and enhance the academic focus.  I think this is most important to what I am aiming for - how to learn what you learn - and these skills are transferable to instructing, grading, leading groups, etc.  

The information is the information, often the class might be months to years behind what is actually going on in the industry.

Many professors are adjuncts, often with a Masters Degree.  Many large classes or ones with popular professors can often be lead and judged by teaching assistants.

In areas I would find it appropriate to up the "game", we will contract with higher-level professors, or leaders in the industry to lecture, lead discussions, answer questions, and guide the candidates.

I don't subscribe to limiting educational topics to a 3-credit philosophy.

However, I have chosen a series of 3-credit courses from services that produce a full course with all it's required elements as an easier way to get up and running more swiftly, and strive to research the courses for accountability (internally).

These courses are accepted by thousands of colleges, including top-tier institutions.

I want our cohort leaders and candidates to be tracking the actual hours based on a series of standards I have chosen to quantify learning hours.

In situations where the collective has determined that the work assigned is not comparable to the hours that should be done, they will use the constructivist pedagogy to add more resources or activities to meet that standard.

Additionally, candidates will be researching, and eventually investing with real money, using our membership in Motley Fool.

I will laud the improvements in advising across the higher education sector.

The institutional need to focus intensely on advising is due to decades of poor or nearly non-existent advising.  Institutions typically helped pick courses, monitor progress toward the student's degree choice, and maybe checked in one or maybe two times beyond class selection and major issues.  This led to longitudinal occurrences of 68% student graduation rate over SIX YEARS.

Today institutions are much more active in engaging with students with the advent and finally adoption of very helpful technology.

As I've written in other areas of the site, our cohort leaders wear many hats.  One of them is advising.  They are not in an office, they are with their charges on a daily basis.  On the occasions that students are home and working, the cohort leaders will continue to monitor and play an active role in the candidates' progress.

If you can't tell by now, I like to brag about some of our significant differences between the MAC and other institutions.

Not only do our advisors have regular intimate contact and supervision, our advisor to student ratio is 1:16 - enough said.