Students waste about one-fifth of class time on laptops, smartphones and tablets, even though they admit such behavior can harm their grades, a new report [1] found.
The average student uses those devices for “nonclass purposes” -- in other words, texting, emailing and using social media -- 11.43 times in class during a typical day. Since the survey was first conducted in 2013 [2], the number of times students check their devices has increased from 10.93, according to the results.
The combination of work and study has been hailed as crucial to ensure that youth develop the skills required on the labour market so that transitions from school to work are shorter and smoother. This paper fills an important gap in availability of internationally-comparable data. Using the 2012 Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), it draws a comprehensive picture of work and study in 23 countries/regions. Crucially, it decomposes the total share of working students by the context in which they work (VET, apprenticeships or private arrangements) and assesses the link between field of study and students’ work. The paper also assesses how the skills of students are used in the workplace compared to other workers and identifies the socio-demographic factors and the labour market institutions that increase the likelihood of work and study. Finally, while it is not
possible to examine the relationship between work and study and future labour market outcomes at the individual level, some aggregate correlations are unveiled.
Americans are obsessed with narcissistic leaders, or at least they have an ambivalence between the ones they like and the ones they promote. A case in point is Real Estate baron and presidential candidate Donald Trump. Not that he is alone. At various times, similar attention and popularity have been heaped by the public and especially by the media for leaders such as Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca and Larry Ellison.
As the year 2015 has begun, a worldwide racialized conversation continues about the inability of police, judicial systems, and public policy to address what Derrick Bell (1992) has long framed as the “permanence of racism” (see also Knaus, 2011; Ladson-Billings, 1999). Race riots and police brutality in Ferguson and the Charlie Hebdo murders and their aftermath in Paris punctuate a constant backdrop of racialized policy-making, violence, and inequity. While small, short-lived protests sprang up in reaction to these events, systemic and long-term responses to the larger global context of racism are less common and largely not deemed media-worthy. Within the U.S. context of charges of sanctioned, racialized police brutality representing American racism being framed around the killing of individual Black men, larger arguments about the role of public education in challenging the very conditions that lead to such racism become silenced.
New thinking about course scheduling policies and practices makes student needs a top priority
In Germany, strong public and private investments in apprenticeship training have created a well-coordinated and functional apprenticeship system. Its success renders the German apprenticeship system a model that other countries look to for ideas and inspiration. Nevertheless, German governments, businesses, employee groups, researchers, and other stakeholders continue to seek ways to improve the system.
The key mechanism for apprenticeship reform in Germany is the Board of the Federal institute for Vocational Education and training (BiBB). the Board coordinates negotiations among employers, employee groups, the 16 federal states, and the federal government, who work toward a legally mandated consensus on new or revised apprenticeship legislation.
Critical thinking is no longer a strange concept in this world. It is being talked about all over, from university to the
workplace, from developed countries to poor ones. The importance of thinking critically has never really been
considered properly until recently. In fact, critical thinking is believed to be the new intellect of the modern era that
reflects a person’s ability to analyze daily problems and make the right decision.
As it’s not a specific talent that people are born with, critical thinking requires practice and effort. Ironically, while
critical thinking has become popular all over the world, not many people know how to develop their critical thinking
skills effectively. Therefore, we are about to show you how you can effectively develop these skills.
It is very lonely at the top and the road to the presidency is becoming less linear. The paths are also becoming more
varied for those seeking to lead at that level. The traditional roadmap of faculty to department chair, to dean, then provost, then president is becoming the road less and less traveled, as surveys of provosts reveal that fewer and fewer of those in such positions aspire to become presidents. Earlier this month, the American Council on Education (ACE) held its annual conference
that included a pre-conference focused on cultivating and advancing women leaders for leadership positions, not just the presidency. It was an invigorating convening that promoted, although not explicitly, Jon Wergin’s concept of leadership in place. Throughout the pre-conference and the main conference, there was a recognition that the world is also changing and our sector—the higher education sector—needs to be prepared to meet the needs of our students, but also to cultivate the leadership for this new and changing world.
Background/Context: Despite burgeoning racial and ethnic heterogeneity within the United States, many students grow up in racially homogeneous schools and neighborhoods. This lack of interracial interaction appears to play a substantial role in shaping students racial attitudes and world views upon entering college.
When it comes to assessment, there are enough perspectives, stakeholders, tools and methodologies to make your head spin. To be sure, despite the admirable goal of improving student learning by assessment, the trend toward greater accountability is often viewed as something that is imposed upon higher education institutions; infringing on an institution’s autonomy and stifling faculty members’ academic freedom without providing truly meaningful data to justify the additional workload it generates.
Meanwhile, others accept the fact that assessment is here to stay and strategies that, with careful planning, it’s entirely possible to design exactly the type of assessment systems you need to get precisely the type of information required for an accurate picture of learning outcomes.
Author of a new book on how family matters for college women's success argues that four-year public institutions are increasingly dependent on active -- and wealthy -- parents, and that can harm students with less-involved parents.
This is a "best practices" article focused on sharing six new academic scheduling strategies recently employed by the BYU Salt Lake Center to optimize course offerings and increase enrollments. These strategies are generalizable to other academic programs that help extend academic programs at a distance, including online courses. The Center is an extended campus in Salt Lake City, Utah situated 46 miles to the north of the main campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The distance between the flagship university and its Center pose unique challenges in relation to course and enrollment optimization. Some of these strategies are made possible with the help of new software tools recently licensed by the university to help mine "big course and enrollment data" (current and historical) of a large university with 30,000 students.
Numerous articles and op-eds encourage academics to be more active online. They generally argue that being on social media offers many benefits, including enabling scholars to network with colleagues, share their research and conduct public scholarship.
Often such advice is good. But such hypothetical opportunities stand in stark contrast to experiences of harassment that some academics report when they go online. One public scholar for example, recently told us that she received a Facebook message following a TV appearance.
For decades, research and public discourse about gender and science have often assumed that women are more likely than men to “leak” from the science pipeline at multiple points after entering college. We used retrospective longitudinal methods to investigate how accurately this “leaky pipeline” metaphor has described the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the U.S. since the 1970s. Among STEM bachelor’s degree earners in the 1970s and 1980s, women were less likely than men to later earn a STEM Ph.D. However, this gender difference closed in the 1990s. Qualitatively similar trends were found across STEM disciplines. The leaky pipeline metaphor therefore partially explains historical gender differences in the U.S., but no longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years.
The Cloud Goes to School
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and ally (LGBTQQIAA) students are not commonly discussed in teacher education programs. Issues related to LGBTQQIAA learners need to be addressed in schools and in teacher education programs. Extant research shows that LGBTQQIAA students often face hostile school climates, with few resources and little support, which can lead to higher levels of absence and truancy, lower levels of academic achievement, and numerous negative health outcomes. This article uses autoethnographic methods to examine the experiences of an activist group working with preservice teachers, teacher educators, and other social justice advocates on a long-term service project for undergraduate teacher candidates aimed at increasing recognition of and giving voice to K–12 LGBTQQIAA students’ experiences. Issues related to agency and resistance are addressed, and implications for teacher preparation programs are discussed.
This report is part of a wider three-year program of research, Vocations: the link between post-compulsory education and the labour market, which is investigating the educational and occupational paths that people take and determining how their study relates to their work. Previously the authors theorised that vocational streams, whereby people study for a field of practice rather than a specific job, could support occupational progression; for example, a ‘care’ vocation could include workers within aged care, mental health, child care and disability care.
This report looks specifically at mid-level qualifications, such as diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees, and how they assist entry to and progression in the labour market. In order to explore these issues, the authors analyse data from the Student Outcomes Survey and the Survey of Education and Work. In addition, they undertake case studies of mid-level qualifications in engineering and finance and also examine the roles of physician assistants in health, and veterinary technologists in agriculture, to see how mid-level qualifications can be strengthened.
The more open universities are about where their PhDs are getting jobs, the better equipped current students are to
forge their own career paths.
If we believe in the active-learning classroom — that the only way to bring about real learning is to engage students in ways that help them revise and broaden their thinking — then student participation is a nonnegotiable part of the equation. Learning does not happen without the student actively taking part.
Oddly, however, given its importance, our own definition of “student participation” is often quite limited. In the scholarship on teaching and learning, that term is almost always defined narrowly as the degree to which students take part in class discussions. And while discussion is obviously an important component of an active-learning classroom, it’s not the only component. There are many other ways in which students participate in class: writing, researching, and contributing to small group activities are just a few. If we want to accurately assess and reward participation in our courses, we need to expand our definition to include more than just the amount of times that students raise their hands.
Research and experience have demonstrated that early childhood development (ECD) is integral to future outcomes. Quality ECD programming contributes to healthy growth and development, as well as school readiness and success. Given the legacy of colonialism in Canada, access to culturally relevant ECD programs can play a key role in bridging gaps in life-chances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children.