The beauty of inclusive pedagogy is that, rather than making special accommodations that would decrease equity, it actually benefits all students, not just those at whose needs it was originally aimed

Am I having my students read a bunch of monographs, all authored by white males, for example? And if I am, what am I telling students about how knowledge is produced in my field, and more important, about who is producing it?

MOOCs are not a “solution” to the problem of rising costs at American universities today.

The Coursera data indicate the primary audience of MOOCs isn’t the traditional college-bound student. The typical MOOC participant is a 30-year-old with a college or even a postbaccalaureate degree. Two-thirds live outside the United States.

Nor are MOOCs the cause of all problems facing American universities today

To transform higher education for the next generation, we need to better blend game-changing innovations with one another, and with traditional methods. Imagine an approach, for example, that allows traditional undergraduates to mix and match a competency-based degree program with a traditional time-based credit system. The students would move seamlessly through courses in which they knew the material and would focus their time on the ones in which they didn't.

Quality assurance suggests a goal that can be evaluated and distinguished from comparable applications.

Those in the academic world know full well that agreement on what constitutes quality in almost any discipline is virtually impossible

The concept of accountability for performance is often viewed as a threat to academic freedom

The U.S. Education Department must experiment with alternative models, such as stackable credentials and competency-based programs, as part of broader reforms of the nation’s postsecondary-education system, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Center for American Progress

It calls for the development of standards and measures—based on job placement, earnings, and other factors—to assess the productivity of such alternative models. It also advocates engaging employers in order to better align higher education with workplace needs

The call for reform comes two weeks after the Education Department announced it would accept proposals for experiments to test alternative ways of administering student-aid programs, with special interest in ideas that would allow “students to advance through educational courses and programs at their own pace by demonstrating academic achievement.”