Let us begin by being clear about what a start-up is.A start-up is generally a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. It may be a service company for seniors, a technology company or a company selling
a particular product. As a start- up, it does all the work needed to get to and stay in a market and learn what it will take to go from a small business to a medium-sized, fast growing business and then to a large business. A start-up is a temporary since the way it works will not be the way the medium and larger scale versions of the business work. Think of Apple, which began with two
young men building interesting machines and selling them via friends and their social networks, and look at Apple now! Think of Costco / Price Club, which began in 1976 with a single warehouse, and look it at now – a very different kind of global business.
A start-up of this kind is not the same as a small business offering a product in a single market – a one-off business. The strategic intention of a start-up of the kind we are describing here is to move from small to large, from local to national and then global, and from a single product to a range of related products.
Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to
student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and
contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching.
The ACHA-National College Health Assessment II (ACHA-NCHA II) is a national research survey organized by the American College Health Association (ACHA) to assist college health service providers, health educators, counselors, and administrators
in collecting data about their students' habits, behaviors, and perceptions on the most prevalent health topics.
ACHA initiated the original ACHA-NCHA in 2000 and the instrument was used nation wide through the spring 2008 data collection period. The ACHA-NCHA now provides the largest known comprehensive data set on the health of college students, providing
the college health and higher education fields with a vast spectrum of information on student health. A revised survey, the ACHA-NCHA-II, has been in use since the fall 2008 data collection period.
Whether we can actually teach students critical-thinking skills is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood issues in higher education today, argues John Schlueter.
Background/Context: In recent years, college attendance has become a universal aspiration. These rising ambitions have been attributed to the “college-for-all” norm, which encourages all students to aim for college attendance; however, not all students are prepared for the college application process or college-level work.
The ability to reach a variety of audiences in diverse environments has made distance learning a major form of education
and training in the 21st century. Though traditionally encountered in the educational and business communities, distance learning has proven an important resource for a variety of other constituencies. Terrorist groups have exploited the digital domain as a means of recruitment, propaganda and training, and other related activities, including the use of distance learning as a strategic resource and force multiplier. The distance learning strategies and tactics of jihadists are reviewed as we explore the dark side of distance learning.
“Efficient and effective learning starts with a proper mindset,” Stephen Chew writes in his short, readable, and very useful chapter, “Helping Students to Get the Most Out of Studying.” Chew continues, pointing out what most of us know firsthand, students harbor some fairly serious misconceptions that undermine their efforts to learn. He identifies four of them.
The student who says “I’m bad at languages” or “I don’t ‘get’ math” is approaching learning with a “fixed” mindset – believing that his or her competence is, and always will be, limited.
A student with a “growth” mindset, on the other hand, understands things differently. He or she believes that with diligence and smart work habits, improvement is not only possible, but inevitable.
The difference in mindset can make all the difference in performance.
Student Evaluations of Teaching (SET) have been the most consistently administered tool, and they are still extensively used in higher education institutions to assess teaching effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to explore how SET are used by administrators in the teaching evaluation process at a large, research-intensive Canadian university. A basic qualitative
research design was used in this project, and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain administrators’ experiences. The research question that guided this study was: How are SET (and other tools) used in the evaluation of teaching at this university? Findings showed that although participants mostly utilized a couple of SET statements as indicators of effective teaching,
they were certainly aware of the intrinsic issues concerning these tools, and that they are continually seeking to obtain more evidence if SET results are below their benchmarks.
In spring 2018, overall postsecondary enrollments decreased1.3 percent from the previous spring. Figure1 shows the
12-month percentage change (fall-to-fall and spring-to-spring) for each term over the last three years. Enrollments decreased
among four-year for-profit institutions (-6.8 percent), two-year public institutions (-2.0 percent), four-year private nonprofit
institutions (-0.4 percent), and four-year public institutions (-0.2 percent). Taken as a whole, public sector enrollments (twoyear
and four-year combined) declined by 0.9 percent this spring.
Current Term Enrollment Estimates, published every December and May by the National Student Clearinghouse Research
Center, include national enrollment estimates by institutional sector, state, enrollment intensity, age group, and gender.
Enrollment estimates are adjusted for Clearinghouse data coverage rates by institutional sector, state, and year. As of
spring 2018, postsecondary institutions actively submitting enrollment data to the Clearinghouse account for 97 percent of
enrollments at U.S. Title IV, degree-granting institutions. Most institutions submit enrollment data to the Clearinghouse several
times per term, resulting in highly current data. Moreover, since the Clearinghouse collects data at the student level, it is
possible to report an unduplicated headcount, which avoids double-counting students who are simultaneously enrolled at
multiple institutions
Last spring semester, I began experimenting with polling as a way to improve student participation in my classroom. Persuaded by the work of Eric Mazur and others, I started polling my students — using multiple-choice or short-
answer questions — to collect a quick overview of their opinions on whatever we were discussing.
There’s only one first day of class. Here are some ideas for taking advantage of opportunities that are not available in the same way on any other day of the course.
“We need to be having more substantive conversations about teaching and learning in our department meetings. We talk about course content, schedules, and what we’re offering next semester but rarely about our teaching and its impact on student learning. What do you think about circulating a short article or article excerpt before some of our meetings and then spending 30
minutes talking about it? Could you recommend some readings?”
Some are stocking naloxone kits, while others are pushing increased public awareness.
On April 14 last year, British Columbia’s chief health officer declared a public health emergency due to the high number of opioid overdose deaths in the province – and the death toll has continued to rise since then. In December, Vancouver police reported up to nine opioid overdose deaths in a single night. At a conference on the opioid crisis held in Ottawa in November, Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said that, in his province, opioid overdose is now the third leading cause of accidental deaths, accounting for about 700 deaths a year.
For me, as for many others at Cardiff University, the recent news coverage of Malcolm Anderson’s suicide has been a real blow. I did not know the accounting lecturer personally. The thing that was so shocking about reading the articles was just how familiar many of the details felt. I have heard numerous stories from colleagues who feel like they are barely holding on. People are struggling with unmanageable workloads and feel as though they are constantly failing.
We have an assessment system that is designed for our convenience as instructors and administrators, rather than for the learning needs of our students.
Currently, 41 percent of exam accommodation requests at the University of Alberta involve some form of extra time and are related to mental health. In an opinion piece last August in the National Post, as well as in an academic article in the Education and Law Journal in 2016, Queen’s University law professor Bruce Pardy argues that extra-time
accommodations are not legitimate and should not be granted because they tilt the playing field against the best students. He compares tests and exams to sprint races, in which it would be absurd to allow extra time or give a head start to some competitors on the basis of disability. He identifies an important problem, but his solution is the wrong one. Extra time is not the only solution to accommodating mental illness in exams, but for reasons that are
very different from those he quotes. In a very effective response published by the Huffington Post, Ontario Human Rights chief commissioner Renu Mandhane covers most of the essentials. Let me add an academic perspective.
Zac Wendler needed a new syllabus. An assistant professor of English, literature, and world literatures at Ferris State University, he was tired of the same routine at the beginning of every semester: He would hand out his syllabus — five or so pages of text — and students would glance at it and wait for him to walk them through it. Then for the rest of the semester, they would ask him questions that could be easily answered if they had read the syllabus.
Does that sound familiar? It rang a bell for me. As I listened to Wendler’s presentation at this year's Conference on College Composition and Communication in Portland, Ore., I thought about my own syllabus. It has swelled to 11 pages of single-spaced text, even after I changed the departmental policies section to a nine-point font.
We examined the level and prevalence of mental health functioning (MHF) in intercollegiate student-athletes from 30 Canadian universities, and the impact of time of year, gender, alcohol use, living situation, year of study, and type of sport on MHF. An online survey completed in November 2015 (N = 388) and March 2016 (n = 110) revealed that overall, MHF levels were moderate to
high, and more student-athletes were flourishing than languishing. MHF levels did not significantly differ across time based on gender, alcohol use, living situation, year of study, and type of sport. Eighteen percent reported a previous mental illness diagnosis and yet maintained moderate MHF across time. These findings support Keyes’ (2002) dual-continua model, suggesting that the presence of mental illness does not automatically imply low levels of wellbeing and languishing. Nonetheless, those without a previous diagnosis were 3.18 times more likely to be flourishing at Time 1 (November 2015).
Punctuation is really an elementary and intuitive idea. Sentences are written down as a linear sequence of characters that (mostly) represent speech sounds. Punctuation marks are inserted in the sequence to signal certain aspects of the structure of their covert grammatical structure; they do what those little musical interludes do in NPR’s Morning Edition program.
Students Will Rise When Colleges Challenge Them to Read Good Books