Tag: Academia

Research Besmirched—When Practitioners Just Don’t Believe! Why Research is the Best Source of Information, Even When It has Limitations and Flaws! @WillWorkLearn

This article from Will Thalhimer, particularly in relation to the limitations of lab-based rather than practical reserach, is excellent. It encapsulates exactly why my own research is based on my actual work and not some contrived set of lab-based circumstances. It is let down only by its fondness for exclamation marks…

It also reminds me of my mantra, “Despite what they would have you believe, no one knows anything.”

In the learning field, research insights can help practitioners (trainers, teachers, instructional designers, elearning developers) build more effective learning interventions. Unfortunately, some practitioners look at the flaws and limitations in the research and reject research entirely. This article, by noted research-translator, Will Thalheimer, PhD, provides insights into balancing research limitations and benefits—by examining the workplace learning field.

Source: Research Besmirched—When Practitioners Just Don’t Believe! Why Research is the Best Source of Information, Even When It has Limitations and Flaws! | npj Science of Learning Community

Let’s stop the ‘hero worship’ when it comes to big name academics | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional

English: Noam Chomsky's signature. Français : ...
English: Noam Chomsky’s signature. Français : Signature autographe de Noam Chomsky. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PhD students and professors sometimes betray a certain infatuation with the “big names” of academia. It goes beyond admiration into the realm of hero worship, and it’s a bit silly. We’re getting too old for it.

Especially by the time the dissertation has been written. Shouldn’t we expect a measured nonchalance toward the whole notion of big names and so-called great ideas? Shouldn’t routine exposure to “greatness” have a demystifying effect on PhD students and professors?

Noam Chomsky and Harold Bloom, for example, are tacked on to conversations or asked to be the editors of an impossible number of books, either because people worship them or because people know that people worship them. They function like commercial adverts instead of scholars.

It’s not to say that Chomsky and Bloom don’t have interesting ideas or important things to say – but a large number of academics have interesting and important things to say. Brilliant insights should be collected and epiphanies compiled, of course. But by the very nature of those accumulations I would anticipate less, not more, captivation over a scholar or handful of thinkers.

via Let’s stop the ‘hero worship’ when it comes to big name academics | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional.