Kut » Higher Ed

Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger is obviously a pretty busy guy. But he does make time to teach a class each year. This fall, he’s teaching a class that’s centered on puzzles. Puzzlers. Teasers. Questions that really make students grapple for the solution. Why a class focused on that? In this episode of KUT’s […]

Technology allows us to access so much information so easily.  There are not many subjects we cannot learn at least a little something about. But does that knowledge make us all experts? What does it even mean to be an expert anymore? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss expertise in […]

Have you ever heard anyone talk about “getting through” a class or “knocking out” course requirements? What exactly is the point of a “formal” education – just to get a degree, or set a course for life long learning? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger sift through different definitions of a formal […]

What happens when you mix together liberal arts and democracy and then throw in a little media coverage? You get a fascinating discussion about the intersection of those three storied institutions. In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss how liberal arts learning habits can help us navigate our democracy – especially when […]

Have you ever heard of a “value study” in art? It’s a way to make a quick sketch of whatever you see and then fill it in with shades of gray. It leaves out detail in favor of broader strokes that capture the essence of the subject. Could this also be a way to tackle […]

“I was told there would be no math!” It’s a line people sometimes say in mock frustration when faced with a situation involving arithmetic.  For some people, the thought of doing addition or subtraction causes their hearts to race and their palms to sweat. Why is that? Why do so many of us fear numbers? […]

Once school is over for the summer, many students are tempted to put it as far out of their minds as possible and take a break from the rigors of the academic year.  And they certainly aren’t thinking about the school year ahead. In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and […]

A new haircut. Maybe some new clothes. What about gutting a house and rebuilding the whole thing? Those sound like pretty extreme makeovers. What about an extreme learning makeover? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss ways to transform how we teach and […]

Caffeine-fueled all-nighters to finish up that paper or cram for a final exam. For some students, that’s a regular part of their studying routine in higher education. They come to equate intense periods of hard work with more successful achievement and learning. But some research indicates slowing down that work flow might actually be the […]

Remember that early 1990’s television show Doogie Howser, M.D. about a brilliant teenage doctor? Doogie had graduated from college by the age of ten and had become a doctor at 14. Ok, that may be a little extreme, but is it possible that young people could learn that much that early in life? In this […]

No doubt you’ve seen that iconic representation of the moment when a new idea is born. You know – the whole “lightbulb pops up over somebody’s head” graphic. It’s eye-catching for sure, but it turns out that’s not actually how ideas come to us. In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and […]

What does it take to do heavy duty research and generate new ideas in an academic field? A pile of degrees and years and years spent closed off in a room with noses to the grindstone? Not necessarily! In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger […]

With smartphones in the hands of so many people these days, we should be a lot smarter, right? How does technology impact the way we learn? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger explore the relationship between technology and learning. We’ve come a long way […]

From pre-K and all the way through graduate studies in math, we learn about numbers. But think about it – what is a number, really? What does the concept of  “four” or a “million” of something actually mean? In this week’s episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed,  KUT’s Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed […]

Remember “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey,” that spoof of affirmations and pithy sayings?  They’re funny for sure, but the idea of understanding something deeply is a serious part of education during school and beyond. In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss how to understand […]

Learning…. it’s what we all go to school for, right? Well, have you ever thought about what we’re actually doing when we learn? Sometimes, it’s just memorizing names, dates, or facts that we can reproduce on a test. We might ace the test, but have we really learned anything? In this episode of KUT’s podcast […]

History, Biology, English, Calculus. Those are some of the more traditional subjects taught in classrooms. But what if happiness were taught in school? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss teaching happiness in school. What would that look like in a classroom? And if […]

“Takes one to know one.” Remember that phrase? It’s usually tossed around as an insult during an argument. But, could there be a grain of truth in that? What does it mean to be an expert in something? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger […]

3-D printing seems like a great deal. Need something? Print it up. Anything from food to clothing to houses can be printed and used. But just because we can print it, should we? And what about people who don’t have access to the technology? In this episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and […]

Think back to your early days of school – nursery school and kindergarten, even into first grade. Learning was full of fun and creative discovery. But as time goes by, that fun disappears from the scene, and so can our love of learning. In this Valentine’s episode of KUT’s podcast Higher Ed, Jennifer Stayton and […]