Posts Tagged ‘college’

01
Sep

Audiobooks for College Students?: A Q&A With the Co-Founder of Libro.fm

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in Academic News

How should higher education approach audiobooks, and what are the alternatives to Audible / Amazon?

Inside Higher Ed | Blog U

19
Aug

COMMENTARY: DAVID COPPOLA AND SARAH KEATING Lifestyle, liberty … and

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in Career Planning

COMMENTARY: DAVID COPPOLA AND SARAH KEATING Life, liberty … and
Although it is difficult for those of us working in college admissions to imagine that a student would be accepted based solely on a non-academic factor, the increased level of scrutiny spurred by this decision may help clarify what colleges and …
Read more on Wilkes Barre Times-Leader

Sports briefs
A native of Lee's Summitt, Mo., Piepergerdes finished her playing career on the Pirate volleyball team in the fall of 2012 after three seasons with Armstrong. A three-time PBC Presidential Honor Roll member, the mathematics major played in 22 matches …
Read more on Savannah Morning News

Diploma Disaster?
Indeed, 60 percent of the increased college graduate population between 1992 and 2008 ended up in these lower skill jobs, raising real questions about the desirability of pushing to increase the proportion of Americans attending and graduating from …
Read more on The New American

19
Mar

“Not a College for People Like Them”

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in Academic News

Inside Higher Ed | Blog U

Blog: 
Confessions of a Community College Dean

Rising star of the Twitterverse Tressie McMillan Cottom has a must-read post about her observations as a sociologist and former admissions staffer at a for-profit college.  It’s about the interaction between the prestige hierarchy of higher education, economic class, and self-image.

The money quote:

When I teach my undergraduates at my elite, private school they all recognize the for-profit college ads I play to introduce the idea of higher education stratification. I ask them why they did not apply to Everest or Strayer when they were applying to college. They tell me that it’s not a school for people like them.

“Not a school for people like them.”  

When I worked at DeVry, we had conversations like these all the time.  DeVry used to blanket every cheesy daytime talk show with ads — Ricki Lake was a favorite — and its student body reflected that.  Whenever a big muckety-muck from Home Office came to campus to exhort us to higher success rates, we usually responded by asking that the advertising be redirected to places where likelier-to-succeed students might see them.  The usual answer was that the ads worked, and as long as they worked, there wasn’t much point in redirecting them.

This strikes me as the flip side of the “;undermatching” thesis addressed yesterday.  At some level, there’s a broad — and I would say, badly dysfunctional — understanding that certain kinds of colleges are for certain kinds of people.  That’s not restricted to the relatively unobjectionable cases of women’s colleges or colleges with specific religious affiliations, where the identities are worn on the sleeve.  The larger issue is the unwritten identity that each college assumes.

Economic and cultural capital are major components of those unwritten identities.  Those overlap with race, but they have force of their own.  The students who know the difference between engineers and engineering techs go to Purdue or MIT; the ones who don’t, go to DeVry.  

The for-profits are acutely aware of that sort of thing, and they organize themselves accordingly.  As Cottom puts it:

Can you imagine applying to your flagship state university by walking into the admissions office with $ 75 in cash? It is even difficult to do at the local community college I visited recently. And community colleges are, theoretically, designed to serve demographically similar students as those served by for-profit colleges. Waltzing in with cash money is not only a bureaucratic violation but a cultural one. It signals you do not know how “;real” college works.

Exactly.  And if community colleges are serious about helping the folks who don’t come in knowing that, we could learn some lessons from the for-profits.

To my reading, Cottom puts a little too much faith in the economic cycle to explain for-profits’ success, and probably too little on the regulatory climate.  And it’s reasonable to think that the for-profits should be even more nervous about MOOCs than the rest of us.  But those are quibbles.  Go and read her piece.  Give it some thought.  She’s on to something, and we’d best figure out just what it is.
 

Inside Higher Ed | Blog U

11
Mar

Bill Gates Has a Remedy for Larger Education: Yoda

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in Academic News

Inside Increased Ed | Site U

Weblog:&nbsp
Just Going to

Bill Gates has diagnosed what ails increased education, and the cure is all about technologies, and also Yoda.

Speaking at the SXSW engineering conference, as reported by CNN Income, “Gates&rsquo major theme was customized learning, which can be enhanced by new technological innovation.&rdquo

And Yoda.

Yet again according to CNN Funds, Gates maintains that, “Yoda was a excellent instructor since the Jedi master understood when Skywalker is dropping interest.&rdquo

In Gates&rsquo personal words, “With this wave of application that&#39s becoming designed that personalizes to the pupil … there&#39s genuine promise here that the youngsters can go back and engage in a way they couldn&#39t ahead of.&quot

So Bill Gates and I, and just about every person else I&rsquom mindful of, agree on two huge items: one. That massive lecture classes are non-perfect atmospheres to engender learning. two. The much better different is personalized studying supervised by a mentor capable of nurturing pupil curiosity.

Gates&rsquo reply to this dilemma is “personalized software.&rdquo

As I read this, I recognized this computer software presently exists, and in some cases (mine) it&rsquos a little as well soft, about the middle specifically.

I&rsquom talking about human beings, or in Yoda&rsquos case, an indeterminate species of three-foot tall green factors with oversized ears and gravelly Miss Piggy voices.

I like Gates&rsquo Yoda analogy. Yoda is without a doubt a fine instructor. When Luke is coaxed by Obi-Wan&rsquos ghost to the swamp planet Dagobah to understand beneath Yoda&rsquos tutelage, rather than lecturing Luke Skywalker on how to harness the Force, Yoda encourages youthful Luke to search within himself.

I have to say, I at times come to feel like Yoda in my job, every student a various youthful Jedi in require of the right words of encouragement.

Most of the time I&rsquom communicating two factors, that what I am asking them to do matters, and that they are certainly capable of undertaking it.

Or, as Yoda puts it, “Do or do not&hellipthere is no attempt.&rdquo

Apparently, Gates&rsquo concept is to place Yoda on pc screens as component of the school of tomorrow, “in which college students observe lessons on the web, delivered by the brightest minds in the field.&rdquo

As Gates says, &quotIf you want the extremely greatest lectures, if you want the value efficiency, you have to break down and say, you know, allow&#39s get someone else&#39s materials.&quot&nbsp

I feel about this, and I wonder, provided a Jedi-master&rsquos capacity to undertaking his thoughts across galaxies and star techniques in an instant, why did Obi-Wan encourage Luke to look for out Yoda in person?

Possibly since software and humans are the same issue, not.&nbsp Yes, hmmm.

The assumptions that Gates and other folks like him deliver to these discussions is that education, as is, is as well costly. Soon after all, tuition is rising more quickly than inflation and university is threatening to turn into a bad investment. Technology, Gates argues, has the likely to make college cheaper, for instance by not needing as numerous professors given that, what the heck, we&rsquove received Yoda on tape!

Like Gates, I&rsquom distressed by growing tuition and the strain it puts on my students. Many more of them are taking on shocking amounts of debt, or trying to operate total-time jobs even though also getting full-time students.

But I get distressed when the discussion turns immediately towards the corporate buzzwords of “efficiency&rdquo and “productivity.&rdquo In the 90&rsquos, when unemployment was four% and we have been all acquiring wealthy on our shares of Pets.com, I don&rsquot keep in mind people falling in excess of themselves criticizing our system of larger education.

Not that we can&rsquot get greater, but the truth is, we&rsquore in fact quite great at it. The educating/learning model is not particularly mysterious. College students benefit from becoming in the presence of their Jedi-masters. Occasionally a hologram is okay, but it isn&rsquot a substitute for the real, little green factor.

Surely, universities share some of the blame for increasing tuition as they&rsquove chased amenities, increased the amount of administration, and yes, pursued the most recent technologies, but the deep economic downturn and state government reductions in funding have completed far more to improve tuition rates than any other factor.

When the Bantha dung hit the fan in the 2008 monetary crisis, the government responded by recapitalizing the banks, bailing out the auto industry, and acquiring toxic assets, probably conserving us from a devastating economic meltdown. As of March 4th, the government has been paid back $ 461 billion of the $ 605 billion it handed out, with a very good opportunity more than time to at least break even or flip a profit.

Why can&rsquot we do one thing related with colleges? Do we doubt that there will be economic (and other benefits) to enhancing education, as opposed to creating it a lot more “efficient?&rdquo

And it doesn&rsquot even have to be the government alone that does it.

Because 2008, funding to greater education in Louisiana has been cut by $ 425 million dollars.

In 2011 alone, the Gates Basis spent $ 426 million offering grants to education-relevant organizations.

Virtually all of that funds went to groups operating on integrating engineering into the classroom. They argue the technology helps teachers better do their jobs by freeing them to engage more personally with the students. That feels like the Dark Side to me, as we preserve throwing cash at technologies attempting to produce a substitute for one thing we previously have in abundance, prepared and devoted teachers.

Why can&rsquot we just have a lot more teachers educating? Smaller sized courses, much more personalized instruction, much better studying.

Not one particular Yoda on display, an army of them in the flesh.

To me this helps make sense. Hmmmmmm.

Good for spreading the word, twitter is.&nbsp Herh herh herh.

&nbsp

Stick to @biblioracle
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Inside Greater Ed | Site U

01
Feb

Simsbury Library announces February packages

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in General

Simsbury Library announces February applications
Marcia LaReau, PhD, will examine exploration findings on occupation negotiations and current employing practices. In this plan, you will: Analysis investigate statistics Unearth out what is negotiable and when to negotiate Study how to evaluate salary questions Unearth …
Read more on Foothills Media Group

Educating youngsters the history and humanity of science
&quotI went to public college right here in Manila, I went to UP Diliman, and when you&#39re rising up you [suppose], &#39I want to be a scientist&#39 and what do you do, you have to get state-of-the-art degrees but now there&#39s a great deal of possibilities. We have PhD programs by now …
Study more on GMA Information

13
Sep

Promoting the PhD lifestyle to college students – and supporting people who choose it

Written by Blog Editor. Posted in General

Promoting the PhD life to students – and supporting those who choose it
Said fund provides full support to faculty members getting into PhD programmes in the Philippines and abroad. … Others, content in their tenured job (tenure here only requires a Masters and one peer-reviewed publication) just do not have the drive.
Read more on The Guardian (blog)

How Can I Get This Horrible Song Out of My Head?
How Can I Get This Horrible Song Out of My Head? We know that some people are more susceptible to earworms than others, but according to research from James J Kellaris, PhD at the University of Cincinnatti, nearly all of us (about 98%) have had a song …
Read more on Lifehacker

Grabbing the initiative to kick-start your career in scientific research
A PhD in particular is a significant commitment, and the decision to study for one should not be taken lightly. When a potential applicant asks me about applying for a PhD programme, the advice I give them is to get some research experience. The day-to …
Read more on The Guardian (blog)