"Make IT New (Reinvent the Wheels)

 
                    Figure A: The 2 Economies.
                    Can you tell the difference?
                    The relationship?
 
Process Assessment and Encouragement
          versus Finished Product Assessment and Evaluation.

Rigor.

I continue to forget to remember that industrialized academia
is essentially Finished Product oriented,  its "process" servant
to finished product: finished product of past traditions, shoulders
of past giants & genius: and the finished product of individual
students --as evaluated and represented by their grade,and
grade-point-average.

Analysis of the Teacher/Course evaluations is like assessing
like-it-to-don't-like-it ratios given the purchase and use of
an automobile, say--a finished product inventory of
customer satisfaction.

Our Zoomerang polling evaluation of administrators, similarly,
approval-to-disapproval ratings based on achievement  and
effectiveness.  A  report card grade assessing the quality of
the finished product--measurable aims & goals & objectives.
.
Innovation.

Assess this: Measure & Assess & Evaluate the state and
the process of our innovation going on.  I turn this up
because, with rigor, innovation was named a key feature
honored in the academic section of our strategic plan.

Is "innovation" (state of, and process) measurable?
With the same instruments that measure, assess,
and evaluate Finished Product?  Is "innovation"
actually a shared institutional value here or basically
Strategic Planning dressing?  Innovative  & rigorous,
green, awesome, sustainable.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but strategies for Innovation
would seem to look and be  radically different from
(incommensurate with) strategies for Continuity.

The values (economies) of Making. Creating. Composing.
Inventing. Experimenting. Venturing margins for trial &
erroring & room for play  on the one hand.

The values (economies) of Give&Take, Information.,
Trade & Exchange. Commodity, Commerce, discrete
Finished Product Assessment & Accountability on the
other hand.

The two hands relate, sure, but my ongoing whine is that
we pay our efficient attention to Finished Product values
and relegate concern with Process Values to something
like institutional ADD. Bring out the ritalyn and adderal
and let's getRdone.

Do I overstate? Need we argue?  I can't figure out how
to get this  "2 economies" deal (figure A above) in play
across the curriculum, how to frame it so it provokes
sustainable conversation and maybe the spirit of
innovation we mean to honor strategically. .

Innovation (noun): a process and a product.
Innovative (adjective) : an attitude and environment
Innovate: (a verb): what we might could be said to
do along with & in support of the rigor of our
continuities and  sustainable traditions provided
we can differentiate its values from those of the
dominant paradiddle, separate and relate..

General Education  (not to be conflated, collapsed,
or confused with specialized: our majors and minors):
not what we know that counts so much any more as
it did in days of old prior to multi-tasking and our
brains across the digital universe,.but how we  put
it in play: our Ways of Innovating.

Same old Sam old: Make It new.

xxxooo, Amateur Standing

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