An expanded national service program can help address these problems. National service programs such as AmeriCorps, YouthBuild, and conservation corps put young people to work on a variety of socially useful activities: tutoring children, building affordable housing, assisting with disaster response, maintaining public infrastructure, and restoring the environment. In return, they earn a modest living allowance and a small educational scholarship. By working together on shared, concrete endeavors, young people from different backgrounds can build trust with one another in a way that more abstract calls for mutual understanding cannot accomplish.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Report: Fewer High School Students Went Straight to College - Madeline St. Amour, Inside Higher Ed
New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show that nearly 22 percent fewer students from the Class of 2020 went to college immediately after high school this fall compared to the Class of 2019, according to a news release from the center. The overall immediate college enrollment rate fell from 35.3 percent to 27.7 percent, a drop that is 10 times greater than the decline between 2018 and 2019. The data are preliminary and estimate immediate enrollment rates from more than 2,300 high schools reporting as of Sept. 18. “Based on preliminary data, there is little evidence that COVID-19 impacted high school graduation,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the center, in the release.
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
The Pandemic Will Leave More Students Unprepared For College - Mordecai I. Brownlee, EdSurge
According to the Community College Research Center, developmental education is essentially a “reteach” of high school and junior high school reading, writing, and math. Based on entry exams or multiple measures assessments, nearly two-thirds of entering community college students and more than a third of students entering less-selective four-year colleges are assessed as lacking the math and language skills necessary for college-level placement, according to research published in Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. These students are typically referred to one, two or even three courses of developmental education, which serve as a gateway to college-level courses and ultimately degree attainment.
Monday, December 28, 2020
More Colleges Are Offering Income-Share Agreements. Are Students Buying In? - Tony Wan, EdSurge
To date, about 60 U.S. colleges offer ISAs, estimates Tonio DeSorrento, CEO of Vemo Education, which designs and services such agreements for universities and vocational educational programs. More common among private vocational programs, income-share agreements are increasingly offered by colleges and universities. Yet with little data on outcomes from ISAs and with labor markets upended by a pandemic, the exercise remains very much an experiment in higher education.
Sunday, December 27, 2020
What is neuromorphic computing? Everything you need to know about how it is changing the future of computing - Jo Best, ZD Net
Most hardware today is based on the von Neumann architecture, which separates out memory and computing. Because von Neumann chips have to shuttle information back and forth between the memory and CPU, they waste time (computations are held back by the speed of the bus between the compute and memory) and energy -- a problem known as the von Neumann bottleneck. As time goes on, von Neumann architectures will make it harder and harder to deliver the increases in compute power that we need. To keep up, a new type of non-von Neumann architecture will be needed: a neuromorphic architecture. Quantum computing and neuromorphic systems have both been claimed as the solution, and it's neuromorphic computing, brain-inspired computing, that's likely to be commercialised sooner.
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Overcoming pandemic fatigue: How to reenergize organizations for the long run - Aaron De Smet, Laura Tegelberg, Rob Theunissen, and Tiffany Vogel, McKinsey
Pandemic fatigue: it’s plaguing organizations and employees right now. In 2020, we’ve endured a global pandemic, a massive economic crisis, and widespread social unrest. Layer on top of that forces that are fundamentally reshaping societies—technological innovation, business-model disruption, societal inequality, and workforce automation—and it’s clear that an epidemic of stress has been building, with the COVID-19 crisis as the tipping point. Perhaps most important, companies are waking up to the need for greater empathy and compassion to create a workplace that can unleash the full potential of their people even beyond the crisis. Global trends were already starting to turn the old rules of industrial-age management on their heads, introducing new, more human-centered principles that truly put talent and people at the heart of organizational success.
Friday, December 25, 2020
Getting the nation back to work means working together on education and training - Jamie Merisotis, Lumina
A Harris Poll commissioned by USA Today confirms that change, showing that 63 percent of workers who lost their jobs because of the outbreak will or plan to change industries. But starting over seems daunting to many workers, especially if they are older than 40, Carnevale pointed out. And even those who do switch careers can expect to receive a pay cut. I believe our nation needs to address these hard facts with a transformative program to provide more of our citizens with the broad skills that will allow them to adapt to the changes we’ve experienced in the past year and the changes we can’t predict in the future.
Thursday, December 24, 2020
How to Save Public Higher Ed: New Book Makes Case For Rethinking the Value of Colleges - Jeffrey R. Young interviews John Warner, author , EdSurge
Think of your local college or university. They are an employer. They are a cultural hub. They are a technology hub. They fulfill all of these roles simultaneously, just in their day-to-day operations. They're then also educating the populace of your state, community and locality. And in that way, they are creating these assets that the state, the locality, the community is going to be able to use on a continuous and ongoing basis. To me that's infrastructure—the same way that we look at our libraries and our K-12 schools as infrastructure or roads. The problem is we haven't been treating them that way. We've been treating them as the sort of private good.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Online peer learning: A growing trend sees 2 different approaches - Chelsea Waite, Christensen Institute
In his book called Peer Learning in Higher Education, David Boud describes peer teaching as when “advanced students…take on a limited instructional role.” Similarly, peer teaching products are built on the idea that the locus of expertise is found in individual students—one student a whiz in math; another the recipient of the highest grade in her comparative literature course. For example, Brainly lets students crowdsource homework help by “[tapping] into the brainpower of thousands of experts worldwide”—in the form of other students. Anyone can ask a question or submit an answer, and answers are moderated by students who are vetted by the company. Knack enables students with skills in a particular subject to earn money by tutoring their peers.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Rapid Professional Development - Robert Gibson, EDUCAUSE Review
Even though their traditional work rhythm has been disrupted, employees at higher education institutions still want professional development opportunities. A full 94 percent of employees indicated that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development.1 There is no reason to think this desire has changed during this turbulent period.
https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/11/rapid-professional-development
Monday, December 21, 2020
Burned Out: Stories of Compassion Fatigue - Patrice Prusko and Whitney Kilgore, EDUCAUSE Review
The unpredictable world that we currently inhabit has turned many lives upside-down, with everyone needing help, feeling stressed about what's been lost, and just needing someone to listen and care. On top of the already extensive list of job responsibilities that make us feel like a Swiss Army knife, we have now added to our emotional labor by becoming caregivers at a time when we most need care ourselves. For many of us, this has led to compassion fatigue.3 The instructional designers we spoke with mentioned the difficulties they have in balancing work and life. "It's hard to say no, because faculty are stressed and we care. How do you say no?" pondered Robert. An unexpected outcome of our current role is emotional labor.4
https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/12/burned-out-stories-of-compassion-fatigue
Sunday, December 20, 2020
How to Be an Inclusive Leader - Erika James, Corey Anthony & Stephanie Creary, Knowledge at Wharton
The renewed attention on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace has been enough to fill any manager’s agenda this year. But this is 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has heaped even more pressure on leaders tasked with keeping their employees healthy and safe, while also trying to keep DEI at the top of a growing list of priorities. “Both of them are exhausting, and we only have so much in our reserves to be able to continue down this path,” Wharton Dean Erika James said.
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-to-be-an-inclusive-leader/
Saturday, December 19, 2020
The Evolving Landscape of Data Privacy in Higher Education - Sean Burns, EDUCAUSE Review
Through a survey of privacy professionals and in-depth interviews with more than twenty privacy leaders from a variety of higher education institutions—including research institutions, smaller colleges, and community colleges—the research summarized in this report provides a comprehensive and in-depth view across the current landscape of data privacy and highlights opportunities for improved practices and policies that may be available to higher education, technology, and privacy leaders.
Friday, December 18, 2020
Aligning and Embedding Industry Certifications into Bachelor's Degrees - APLU, USU, Workcred, UPCEA
Improved career outcomes for students―including higher salaries, improved rates of hire, and faster promotion tracks―are the ultimate goal of this initiative. Along with its partners APLU, USU, and Workcred, UPCEA brought together universities and certification bodies from across the nation to identify opportunities to embed certifications into undergraduate degree programs in the growing fields of healthcare, cybersecurity, manufacturing, and the liberal arts.
https://upcea.edu/aligning-and-embedding-industry-certifications-with-bachelors-degrees/
Thursday, December 17, 2020
COVID Fatigue Resources - University of Minnesota Medical School
In August, Medical School faculty, staff, trainees and students were invited to provide suggestions about how best to support our academic community during the enduring pandemic. The listening sessions focused on caregivers and those parenting school-aged children, while also managing their professional duties. Major themes are addressed on this page, providing suggestions and resources as you move forward this fall and next spring. Every action we take is grounded in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
COVID-19 highlights public service role of universities - Alan Ruby and Wendy Fish, University World News
If colleges and universities are microcosms of our world, what do they do amid the largest global crisis since World War II ? What does the academic community do in a crisis like a pandemic? How do they serve? What is their value? This reminds us that, in a crisis, producing and disseminating wisdom, pointing to possibilities, is what a university does and does well. This is the essence of ‘service’ and service sometimes takes the form of counting and ranking, but always with the conviction of identifying and conveying wisdom.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
AI will take away lots of jobs. And we are nowhere near ready to replace them - Daphne Leprince-Ringuet, ZDNet
The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated the adoption of AI systems in industry: research carried out by the World Economic Forum (WEF) this year showed that 80% of decision-makers around the world are now planning on accelerating the automation of their work processes. The technology is expected to displace roles such as data entry clerks, accountants or factory workers. Michael Wooldridge, professor of computer science at the University of Oxford, said "Certainly some jobs will be lost, and many more will be created. The difficulty is that the jobs created are not necessarily in the same place as those lost." "It is not an AI-specific problem," he continues. "Technology evolves at a rapid pace, and this is about technology skills generally. Re-training and up-skilling are issues that will unwind over the next decades."
Joe Biden is President Elect – What Does that Mean for Higher Education Policy? - Jordan DiMaggio, UPCEA Policy Matters
Joe Biden is President Elect - What Does that Mean for Higher Education Policy? President-Elect Joe Biden will become the next President of the United States of America in January, so what does that mean for our field? For one, Jill Biden (who some of you will remember was a Keynote Speaker at the 2015 UPCEA Annual Conference) will be the most accomplished educator the Office of the First Lady has ever seen. Dr. Biden has said she plans to continue to teach, which would mark the only time a First Lady has continued full time work while serving in that role. Dr. Biden currently teaches at Northern Virginia Community College and wrote her dissertation on student retention at a community college.
Monday, December 14, 2020
To Weather The Storms of Higher Education, Remember Why You’re There -Cali Morrison, EdSurge
Higher education is heading into the eye of the tornado. Many of us are planning for academic continuity while the debris of the COVID-19 pandemic is swirling around us. There are regulatory matters to consider. The health and safety of our colleagues and our students to put at the forefront. A long-overdue spotlight on equity, diversity and inclusion shining on all of our operations. It can all feel overwhelming, like we’re all going to get swept away in the storm. Now, more than ever, as educators and institutions, we need to recenter ourselves on our why—not on how we get through this or when this storm will be over.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Harvard EdCast: The Amateur Enterprise of College Teaching - JILL ANDERSON, Harvard Graduate School of Education
How much has college teaching really changed in 150 years? Not very much, according to Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. In his latest book, The Amateur Hour, Zimmerman traces the history of undergraduate teaching practices in the United States and how it has yet to reach a level of professionalization. “There is some pretty good knowledge about what constitutes good teaching, but most college teachers aren't aware of that knowledge, and most of all, they're not required to master it and demonstrate their mastery of it,” he says. “That's why it's still an amateur enterprise, the teaching part.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
Hiring in Tech Today: The Role of Gender and Racial Bias in 2020 - Sharon Hurley Hall, WebSite Planet
If you’re a Caucasian male, you’ve won the lottery when it comes to getting hired in tech, or so it seems. According to tech diversity reports, in the biggest tech companies, men represent between 77% and 88% of the workforce, and Caucasians between 40% and 51%. Those figures seem to reveal a stark truth: if you’re a woman or a person of color, it’s much harder to get a tech job. In the past, recruiters have subtly discouraged women from applying to tech jobs. Plus, a LinkedIn study shows that even when women apply, recruiters are less likely to pick up their resumes or interview them. It’s a similar situation for people of color. But does that still apply if you’re going for a mid-level position at a tech firm? Here at Website Planet, we wanted to test this for ourselves. [see the link below for intriguing results]
https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/gender-racial-bias-hiring-in-tech/
Friday, December 11, 2020
Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You? - Kashmir Hill and Jeremy White, NY Times
These people may look familiar, like ones you’ve seen on Facebook or Twitter. Or people whose product reviews you’ve read on Amazon, or dating profiles you’ve seen on Tinder. They look stunningly real at first glance. But they do not exist. They were born from the mind of a computer. And the technology that makes them is improving at a startling pace.
Mental Health Epidemic: Dark Shadow of the COVID Pandemic - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
As we prepare to launch another semester mostly online, we are facing what may be the most severe mental health crisis in the history of American education. The next three months promise to bring the most dangerous and stressful period in American medicine. It will unfold in the cold, dark months of winter -- December, January, February and into March -- when the death toll mounts higher and higher before a hoped-for spring of vaccinated immunity begins to bring hope and some measure of mobility and in-person engagement. I am sounding the alarm now to alert readers that the next three months may bring struggle and harm to our faculty, staff and students.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Part IV: Wrapping Up Key Issues Related to Enrollment Declines - George Lorenzo, Educational Pathways
All the data related to enrollment declines at colleges and universities in the U.S. point to several key issues and challenges. Here’s an overview of where and why enrollment numbers are still showing a downward trendline.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Community college enrollment plummets - Ellie Ashford, Community College Daily
Community colleges have seen an alarming 9.4% drop in enrollment this fall compared to fall 2019, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “Community colleges are down steeply across the board,” Shapiro said. Enrollments dropped 9.5% to 10% at rural and urban campus and 8.2% at suburban campuses. Associate degree enrollments declined 8.7% this fall compared to fall 2019. That follows a 2.4% drop last year.
https://www.ccdaily.com/2020/10/community-college-enrollment-plummets/
Digital divide ‘catastrophic’ for many students – World Bank - Brendan O’Malley, University World News
The digital divide off campus has been “catastrophic” for large groups of students around the world, but the return to campuses has also been “hit and miss” in different contexts, even in rich countries, according to Roberta Malee Bassett, the global tertiary lead and senior education specialist for the World Bank. “Persistence rates are likely to diminish,” Barrett said, “and will be disproportionate for at-risk and low-advantage students. The digital divide has been one of economic distribution as much as anything else.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201121084401266
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Where next for universities and micro-credentials? - Elena Cirlan and Tia Loukkola, University World News
There are many different definitions for micro-credentials. However, the majority state that a micro-credential is a small volume of learning certified by a credential. For instance, certificates, badges and some MOOCs (massive open online courses) are sometimes referred to as examples of micro-credentials. This is not a new phenomenon in our societies nor in the academic environment. But due to changing societal needs, globalisation and technology, micro-credentials have become more popular. As the need for upskilling and reskilling the labour force has gained importance, especially in the context of the recovery plans surrounding COVID-19, attention to micro-credentials has intensified.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201118105242280
Monday, December 7, 2020
Project-Based Learning Works: Here are 5 Reasons Why - Udacity
Now more than ever before, employers favor skills over degrees, and the skills learned through project-based learning mirror what employers are looking for. As we posted in our last blog, the 4th Industrial Revolution is reshaping technology, and 42% of the core skills needed to perform existing jobs will change. A massive upskill effort will be needed to reskill more than 1 billion people by 2030 to get them ready for the new world of work. Project-based learning can help provide training that is focused on teaching critical thinking — figuring out all the steps needed to create a solution. As far as teaching modalities go, it offers numerous benefits to the students taking part.
https://blog.udacity.com/2020/11/project-based-learning-works-here-are-5-reasons-why.html
Sunday, December 6, 2020
Ten Observations on COVID-19 and Higher Ed - John Kroger, Inside Higher Ed
College policies on COVID-19 -- whether students should study on campus or in distance modes, when they should go home for vacation, and how they are regulated while present on campus -- have a potentially immense impact on host communities. As a New York Times study recently revealed, “since the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with a large college population, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation. Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community.”
First professor: Jill Biden to make history as a first lady with a day job - Nicole Gaudiano, Politico
Jill Biden would scramble into cocktail dresses in a bathroom at Northern Virginia Community College before rushing to White House receptions when her husband was vice president. She graded papers at night in a tiny nook on Air Force Two. Her Secret Service agents dressed like college students and carried backpacks to blend in when she was on campus. Now “Dr. B,” as her students call her, plans to continue teaching English and writing at the college when she moves into the White House in January. She will be the first president’s wife to continue her professional career as first lady, after becoming the first second lady to do so. She will also be part of a small group of union members to hold the title, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Nancy Reagan.
Saturday, December 5, 2020
3 Ways to Serve Students in a Completely Virtual Environment - Alison Bell, Campus Technology
For colleges and universities that have pivoted to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the evolution is not over. In order to better meet student needs both today and in the future, here are three key considerations. To truly succeed in a virtual environment, higher ed institutions will need to evolve in 2021 and the years to follow. They will need to embrace emerging tech; combat the digital divide; and become more student-centered.
Friday, December 4, 2020
Teaching Online in the COVID Crisis: What We Have Learned - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
As we prepare to launch another semester mostly online, we are better informed than we were in the spring and fall semesters. From experiences with rapidly applied pedagogies to better understanding of how our students’ radically altered lives impact their learning, we must adapt. First and foremost, we learned that we must be prepared for future pandemics, natural disasters or other breakdowns that disrupt our educational institutions and systems. We know now that faculty and staff members are not immune from the impact of the pandemic. We are poised on a tidal wave of burnout.
Thursday, December 3, 2020
Creating a New Model for MOOCS - Sherry Negrea, Unbound
The rise in popularity of MOOCs comes as the model in this online space has shifted to credit-bearing courses and degrees, with at least 50 MOOC-based degrees now offered by universities globally. As more students and adult learners turn to MOOCs, the online courses and degrees are accelerating the adoption of online learning in higher education. “The pandemic has been transformative for many institutions,” said Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois Springfield, who organized a MOOC in 2011. “They have awakened to online learning. It could take years to tame a mutating virus, all the while universities will have to cope with periodic campus outbreaks. Online learning will become a mainstay of learning delivery among the institutions that survive.”
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Survey: Interactive, In-Class Engagement Makes a Difference to Students - Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Even though first-year college students are more likely than students in later years to say they intended to return to school in the spring (73 percent versus 68 percent), they're less confident they'll see the value of the investment in higher education (45 percent compared to 51 percent), according to a recent survey done by education technology company Top Hat. The students in higher grades reported that they're having a tougher time adjusting to online learning.
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