...Failed Simulations & the Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness: "Accomplishments that are hard to explain can be much more impressive than accomplishments that are simply hard to do", posits Cal Newport of Study Hacks ("Decoding Patterns of Success" - at work, at school). (via AskMeFi)
Also from the blog: The Passion Trap ("How the Search for Your Life’s Work is Making Your Working Life Miserable") and Beyond Passion ("The Science of Loving What You Do"). [more inside]
posted by flex on Jan 21, 2012 - 15 comments

The reality of For Profit Educatation in Infographic form. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk on Apr 11, 2011 - 60 comments

With the institution of No Child Left Behind, educational testing in the US boomed. Now, some of the low paid temp workers hired to score these tests are speaking out about the behind the scenes manipulation that goes on to ensure test scores are in line with "customer expectations".
posted by reenum on Mar 7, 2011 - 142 comments

openculture.com is offering hundreds of links to free online courses from the top universities in the United States (and Oxford).
posted by gman on Jan 12, 2011 - 16 comments

The autodidact course catalog. Twenty-two professors at Johns Hopkins propose reading lists for courses of self-study, from "Society Can Be Dangerous To Your Health" to "Higher Mathematics in Nouns and Verbs" to "Biochemistry and Human Evolution (with Rather a Lot about Mitochondria.)" If you're not going back to school this week, why not take on one of these syllabi instead?
posted by escabeche on Sep 4, 2009 - 42 comments

KnowHow2Go wants you to take on the tough classes - such as Biology, Foreign Languages, and Algebra II - to prepare yourself for college.
posted by divabat on May 26, 2008 - 31 comments

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube" features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.
posted by Soup on Dec 27, 2007 - 21 comments

"I hate grades.... [But] I am obliged to follow the rules set forth by my employer and the larger education industry in general. Consequently, I assign grades."
posted by grumblebee on Sep 28, 2006 - 97 comments

What would you do with $100 million? OK, scratch that. What would you do if you were the head of a top US university with an anonymous gift of $100 million? Well, if you're Richard C. Levin, you'd take a cue from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and decide to let music students in for free.
posted by emelenjr on Nov 7, 2005 - 31 comments

Princeton admissions officers broke into Yale's admissions system using prospective students' birth dates and Social Security numbers. They "viewed Yale admissions decisions" of 11 students; Princeton's dean of admissions says "[i]t was really an innocent way for us to check out the security." The FBI is "assessing the information to see if there is a federal violation."
posted by realityblurred on Jul 25, 2002 - 27 comments

Schools conspire against boys: educator I really don't know what to make of this. Nobody complained that schools were "anti-boy" before girls started to do better and outpace male enrollment in college. Boys were always the ones getting in trouble when I was a student too.
posted by Salmonberry on Jun 29, 2002 - 47 comments

Bob Jones 2? Mr. DUI makes another misstep. Regardless of the outcome, the past 24 hours have been satisfying for Democrats
posted by owillis on Nov 2, 2000 - 0 comments