Katerina Baitinger: Education Overhaul

Katerina Baitinger holds a BA in Classics, an MA in English and Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in American Literature, Culture and Ideology. Katerina Baitinger had a Programs in International Educational Resources (PIER) Fellowship at Yale University, and a Leadership Fellowship at The Leadership Institute at Connecticut Colleges. She is a member of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences.

With these credentials, the views of Katerina Baitinger carry a lot of weight. She says the American system of education is in need of an overhaul. “Many students today assume that it is the teacher’s job to educate them, tell them what they need to know or give them the answers,” Katerina Baitinter has written. “Moreover, because they have been taught to be passive learners, they think that their job is to listen without resistance and to try to learn as best as they can, and, in some cases, verbatim what they are taught.”

The goal of education, however, is to make students life-long learners who seek out and internalize new information willingly and on their own. To achieve this end, Katerina Baitinger says, teachers must change the way they influence their students.

Katerina Baitinger has written extensively on the issue, and presented her findings at national and international academic conferences. She is the author of Multiple Intelligences and Curriculum Development: Shifting the Teaching and Learning Paradigm in Higher Education Through Humor and Technology (Tate Publishing, 2012). Katerina Baitinger is developing an Assessment Consulting Company called Assessment Plus, Higher Education Consulting Services, based in New York.