Obama education chief Duncan to push schools reform

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY:
Inspired by the late Dr. Martin Luther King , U. S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in his speech yesterday to D.C. stakeholders called education â€œthe civil rights issue of our generation.â€ Speaking to more than 150 groups from education, business, civil rights and social services, Duncan challenged them to rewrite the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which was approved by Congress in 2001 and finalized by President Bush in 2002, a law that reauthorized and amended federal education programs established under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

While Duncan credits NCLB for highlighting the achievement gap in schools and for focusing on student outcomes, he said the law puts too much emphasis on standardized tests, unfairly labels many schools as failures, and doesn’t account for students’ academic growth in its accountability system. But Duncan says the biggest problem with NCLB is that â€œit doesn’t encourage high learning standards,â€ which contributes to our nation’s staggeringly high dropout rate. Duncan relayed a conversation he had with a 9th grader, Teton Magpie, on a Montana reservation who told Duncan that adults simple donâ€™t expect enough of him and his peers. Duncan said, â€œWhen kids aren’t challenged they are boredâ€”and when they are bored they quit.â€ Here are statistics Duncan cited to underscore the problems:

– 27% of America ‘s young people drop out of high school. That means 1.2 million teenagers are leaving our schools for the streets.
– Recent international tests in math and science show our students trail their peers in other countries. For 15-year-olds in math, the United States ranks 31st.
– 17-year olds today are performing at the exact same levels in math and reading as they were in the early 1970’s on the NAEP test.

– Just 40% of young people earn a two-year or four-year college degree.

– The US now ranks 10th in the world in the rate of college completion for 25- to 34-year-olds.

A generation ago, we were first in the world but we’re falling behind. The global achievement gap is growing. At LifeBound we are committed to education reforms that support success in college and careers. Solving global problems in the 21st Century requires innovative people who face life with curiosity and the desire to dig beneath the surface for answers and ideas. As educators, it is our responsibility to foster these critical and creative thinking skills in our students so that they are prepared to enter the global marketplace. Students donâ€™t get bored and quit when they are challenged to think deeply about themselves, their gifts and talents and their role in the world.

1) At the district and school levels, how can we place a bigger value on student success and transition programs that help students achieve their full potential?

2) What can we do to foster adaptable thinkers who are both self and world-smart?

3) How can we help ensure that all students are prepared for college, career and life success?

ARTICLE
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to challenge educators, civil rights groups and others to put aside “tired arguments” about education reform to help him craft a sweeping reauthorization of federal education legislation by early 2010.

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European Universities Look Overseas for New Partnerships

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY:

Last year Spain’s government created a foundation to recruit more international students. The Spanish Foundation is the newest addition to the European trend to expand their global presence. This week roughly 4,000 European educators will meet at the annual conference of the European Association for International Education in Madrid. The European Union, consisting of 27 nations, has said that it aims to make European higher education more attractive internationally. For the past decade Europe has been overhauling their higher-education systems in 46 countries to create greater consistency among degree programs and a more coherent degree-granting process. For example, fewer than 700 students from China enrolled at Spanish universities during the 2007-8 academic year. To bring in more Chinese students, Spain’s Ministry of Education agreed in 2007 to recognize Chinese university-entrance qualifications, a concession that had been reserved for European Union students.

While the European push for international students competes with U.S. efforts, these goals also provide opportunities for American colleges and universities looking for new partnerships overseas, particularly with Asia and the Middle East. John K. Hudzik, vice president for global engagement at Michigan State University and president of NAFSA: Association of International Educators is quoted in this article saying, “They’re making higher education more portable across national boundaries, and that is creating a very powerful force in the world. We’re talking about a population and a GDP greater than the U.S. What they’re doing is beginning to shape what we do.””

Much of the impetus for Europe’s aim to raise international profiles of their universities hinge on two demographics: Age and diversity. Their aging population has translated into lower enrollments, and their increasingly diverse population across the continent necessitates that the keep step with the changing base of prospective students. Hudzik says, “If we believe firmly in the virtues of internationalization and cross-border learning, and all the rest,” he says, “then we should be happy anytime we see somebody build the numbers up, regardless of who it is.” Here a considerations:

How can American and European institutions streamline their efforts to promote the globalization of learning?

How might these efforts help shape the global economy and the creation of future careers?

ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
by Aisha Labi

With its sunny climate, relaxed lifestyle, and relatively easy-to-learn language, Spain would seem to need little selling as a destination for foreign university students. Yet although it is a popular study-abroad option for Americans and draws a fair number of students from Latin America, the country is not a major player in the fast-growing international student market.

So last year the Spanish government created a foundation to promote Spanish higher education abroad. Starting with nearly $3-million from the ministries of education, science and innovation, and foreign affairs, the organization will tap into a global network of embassies and cultural institutions to create an international marketing campaign.

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What Traditional Academics Can Learn From a Futurist’s University

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY:

Singularity University, founded by futurists Ray Kurzweil and Peter H. Diamandis, forward-looking thinkers who share ideas about where technology is headed in the near future and in the long term, is designed to study technologies that are manifesting exponential change. The first ever nine-week session was held last summer and cost $25,000 per student. The course was divided into three parts: In the first three weeks, students attended lectures by experts from business and academe. Over the next three weeks, students each chose one of four areas to research. And the final three weeks, students worked in groups on global challenges that aimed to help at least a billion people around the world.

The article below cites that more than 1,200 students applied to fill the 40 slots, making the program more selective than Harvard University. James A. Dator, director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, at the University of Hawaii-Manoa says Singularity University is an example of the rise in interest in futurology with courses offered at Anne Arundel Community College (Arnold, Maryland), the University of Notre Dame and San Diego City College.

The article also mentions that higher education has experienced relatively small changes: “Compared to most other markets, higher education in particular really hasn’t felt the earthquake,” says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster who is a consulting professor at Stanford University, and chair of the futures-studies track of Singularity University. More â€œfutures studiesâ€ at the university level would require better preparation of high schools students. LifeBound’s new book, Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers sparks innovative thinking, is cross-disciplinary by examining critical and creative thinking through various lenses and promotes media and technology skills. Such a curriculum would equip todayâ€™s high school students with the skills necessary to brainstorm and tackle the worldâ€™s greatest problems. For more information about this resource visit www.lifebound.com.

What steps can higher education take to embrace the technological strides over the last 50 years?

How can we promote critical and creative thinking in the classroom via technologies?

How can â€œfutures studiesâ€ enhance 21st century skills among todayâ€™s students?

ARTICLE:

The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 14, 2009
What Traditional Academics Can Learn From a Futurist’s University
By Jeffrey R. Young
Moffett Field, Calif.

“We’re going to be unapologetically interdisciplinary,” said Neil Jacobstein, chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, during one of the first lectures at Singularity University. “That’s not because it’s fashionable, or because the faculty took a vote, but because nature has no departments.”

The students burst into applause.

That dig against traditional institutions was par for the course at the unusual new high-tech university, which wrapped up its first nine-week session at NASA’s Ames Research Center here last month. Students were asked to come up with technological projects that would help at least a billion people around the world, reflecting the techno-utopian vision of the institution’s founders.

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com

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Tech helps students adopt good study habits

While yesterdayâ€™s topic was about the hazards of cyberspace, below is an example that shows how technology can benefit students. Purdue University has launched a computer program called Signals for their 11,000 undergraduates that, unlike other academic warning systems, warns students when their grades are slipping before midterms roll around. Additionally, higher performing students receive positive messages when they are doing well. The results? Many of Purdue’s undergraduates are crediting Signals with keeping them on track academically, as well as helping them feel less intimidated to seek out help from their professors and campus tutoring center, and other campuses are contacting Purdue’s IT department to find out how they might be able to implement the same or something similar on their campus networks.

One of the most widely used mediums for Signals and programs like it is a Washington, D.C. based software company called Blackboard. In K-12, Blackboard operates in more than 2,200 schools where teachers primarily use it for listing homework assignments, announcements, interactive lessons and for discussion boards. According to James Kulik, who studies effectiveness of computers used for instruction, “students usually learn more in less time when receiving computer-based instruction, and they like classes more and develop more positive attitudes toward computers in computer-based classes.” Howard Gardner, Professor of Harvard University and author of Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1983) from Multimedia Book ITTE and pioneer in the field of multiple intelligences, wrote that:

“Multi-media can go along way to addressing these intelligences, much more than traditional teaching methods.”

As educators weigh technology’s impact on learning, perhaps schools should focus on the most obvious and compelling reason for implementing technology-namely, that students need strong technology skills to succeed in the world of work. Helping students interact with information technologies will be central in schools preparing K-12 students for full participation in 21st century society.

How can technology enhance student achievement?
What does the evolution of new media mean for pre-college educators?
How can we best help students filter and synthesize a plethora of incoming information?
What needs to happen in high school to get students ready for the more sophisticated demands and opportunities of using technology in college, career and life?

ARTICLE
eCampus News.com
by Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor

Purdue University is using educational technology–and online “signals”–to warn some students that their grades are dropping, offer study-habit suggestions, and provide positive reinforcement to students who are acing quizzes and exams.

When students log into their Blackboard course management accounts this fall, they’ll see frequently updated feedback indicators similar to traffic lights indicating their standing in each class.

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The Health Care Debate and Your Students

Today’s blog post will follow a somewhat different format – instead of writing about an interesting article of the day, I would like to speak about a topic that has gained a tremendous amount of news coverage in recent weeks: the Obama administration’s health care proposal.

With all of the controversy swirling around this event, young students have doubtless been exposed to a flurry of stories, videos and opinions on their favorite social networking sites.Â With every news show come images of vehement pundits and protesters trying to attract public opinion to their point of view.Â Knowing that students are struggling to take in and process information picked up through these means, how can you help them make sense of such a hotly debated and politically charged issue?

To me, this is where critical thinking and problem solving skills become especially important.Â Teachers should encourage students to research the health care debate and produce relevent (and reputable!) news items and facts about the proposed plan and the current state of our health care system.Â Once students have gathered information and have a better understanding of the current state of affairs, ask them to make connections between the facts and ideas that they have gathered.

At this stage, it is especially important to ask students to let go of what they “already know” and form an opinion based on the facts that they have discovered.Â Encourage them to ask (and answer!) their own questions.Â How many people currently don’t have access to health care?Â What will the proposed system cost?Â What impact will it have on American citizens?Â How can such a plan be implemented? Are there other factors to consider?

Once students have brainstormed about the topic, ask them to each come up with a few ideas on how they, personally, would address the issues facing health care in our country.Â Let them collaborate with one another to come up with “alternative” proposals that they can then present to the class.Â Allow students to ask questions about the presentations – but only if these questions are respectful and add to the class understanding of the matter.Â You can even assign “roles” to students to help them come up with questions (ie doctor, government leader, someone who already has health insurance, someone who is ill, etc.).

By encouraging students to do their own research and interact with the facts at hand, you will allow them not only to build their critical thinking skills, but also to build an informed opinion with which to weigh in on the debate.

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Free Education Changes the Game for Students, Colleges

Rising tuition costs.Â Waiting lists at many community colleges.Â Dwindling savings.Â Shrinking availability of financial aid at many colleges.Â Fewer jobs available after graduation. Sound familiar?Â In these tough economic times, access to higher education has become increasingly challenging.Â Coupled with a tough job market, these grim realities have prevented many students from completing their college degree.

In the face of these realities, a wide array of institutions and governments are working to create free online courseware for students of all ages and stages.Â With efforts ranging from interactive, discussion based courses to ready-made study materials, organizations ranging from M.I.T.Â to the United Nations are joining the movement.Â As computer and web-literacy continue to spread across countries, generations and income levels, these online courses become ever more feasible and valuable.

As access to knowledge becomes increasingly open and low-cost, higher education institutions must examine ways in which they can adapt to this new reality.Â If free online courseware becomes widely accredited, what benefits can traditional universities offer to their students?Â As endowments shrink and more required courses are taught through a large, impersonal lecture hall format, the benefits become even harder to define.Â At this juncture, it is critical for colleges and universities to focus on the essentials: brand, reputation, classroom experience, extracurricular activities, social opportunities and that elusive must-have – the delivery of a transformational experience.

In the Future, the Cost of Education Will Be Zero

July 24th, 2009 | by Josh Catone

computer-learning The average cost of yearly tuition at a private, four-year college in the US this year was $25,143, and for public schools, students could expect to pay $6,585 on average for the 2008-09 school year, according to the College Board. That was up 5.9% and 6.4% respectively over the previous year, which is well ahead of the national average rate of inflation. What that means is that for many people, college is out of reach financially. But what if social media tools would allow the cost of an education to drop nearly all the way down to zero?

Of course, quality education will always have costs involved â€” professors and other experts need to be compensated for their time and efforts, for example, and certain disciplines require expensive, specialized equipment to train students (i.e., you canâ€™t learn to be a surgeon without access to an operating theater). However, social media can drastically reduce much of the overhead involved with higher education â€” such as administrative costs and even the campus itself â€” and open source or reusable and adaptive learning materials can drive costs down even further.

The University of the People

One vision for the school of the future comes from the United Nations. Founded this year by the UNâ€™s Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID), the University of the People is a not-for-profit institution that aims to offer higher education opportunities to people who generally couldnâ€™t afford it by leveraging social media technologies and ideas.The school is a one hundred percent online institution, and utilizes open source courseware and peer-to-peer learning to deliver information to students without charging tuition. There are some costs, however. Students must pay an application fee (though the idea is to accept everyone who applies that has a high school diploma and speaks English), and when theyâ€™re ready, students must pay to take tests, which they are required to pass in order to continue their education. All fees are set on a sliding scale based on the studentâ€™s country of origin, and never exceed $100.Read more…

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For Uganda’s Poor, a Cellular Connection

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Todayâ€™s article focuses on an initiative spearheaded by the Grameen Foundation and Google to provide easy access to information in rural Uganda. Founded by Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Foundation is leading the way in the fight against global poverty through microfinance and technology-based initiatives. In Uganda , where there are likely more cell phones than there are light bulbs, this initiative has found a unique way to disseminate information on health, agriculture, trade, and the like: text-message based search and query services.

What makes Grameen and Googleâ€™s initiative different is the execution: they canvassed citizens to see what information was most needed and stationed more than 10,000 â€œhelpersâ€ in the form of local â€œvillage phone operatorsâ€ who can teach their neighbors how to use the service. This entrepreneurial, innovative approach to bridging Uganda â€™s information may have deep impacts far beyond mere snippets of information: it can be used for education, business, improved agriculture and personal empowerment.
If this model can be applied as successfully to educating people in third-world countries what might be possible for the globe? How many more diseases and deaths could be prevented? How many more people could know about their medical and family choices?

Forty years ago today, the United States sent a man to the moon. Today, the world is reminded of the remarkable achievements that are possible when people stretch their imaginations to their fullest capacity to solve problems: including eliminating poverty in our lifetime. The small steps toward educating impoverished people mentioned in this article are a giant opening toward a new possibility: a world where all people have access to education and thereby can contribute their gifts and talents to the world in positive, sustainable ways.

ARTICLE
CNET News
by Dara Kerr

In many parts of the world, electricity is a luxury. People spend hours gathering firewood to cook their dinners or warm their homes. In Uganda, only 10 percent of the population has electricity, the vast majority doesn’t have microwave ovens, computers, or televisions. People don’t have access to the latest information on disease outbreaks, weather forecasts, or soccer championships. But this may soon change.

More than a third of Uganda’s population, about 10 million people, own a cell phone, and many more have access to these phones through family members and neighbors. Cell phones can be found in every desolate corner of the countryside, where 85 percent of the country’s residents live. With the dire need to be connected, people go to great lengths to use cell phones, charging them with car batteries or solar chargers.

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Cell Phones Used to Deliver Course Content

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Cell phones are playing a role in how some college students learn and in the future they may impact how we all learn. Starting back in November of 2007, Japanâ€™s Cyber University has experimented successfully with on-line cell phone content. The university offered the classes for free as long as students signed up for the Smart Bank 3G phones, which delivered the electronic course material. Ball State University in the U.S. has worked with 800 undergraduate and graduate students with cell-enabled texts. Students purchase the text for $250 and then receive downloads for study outside of class, as well as some projects in class.

Many students in foreign countriesâ€”both developing and developed– are learning through cell phones as well. In some poorer countries where students lack access to brick and mortar buildings, they can take on-line classes and get their material downloaded through their phones. This concept may have great traction in countries like India and China where the number of students may outpace the physical locations available and the costs which are required from traditional universities.

To what extent will publishers need to partner with the makers of cell phones which have web-enabled capabilities?

How can contentâ€”especially out-of-class-materialâ€”in little bites help students to study and learn?

What other creative ways can students capture and interact with information in the areas where they areâ€”on the phone, on FaceBook, on Twitter?

How will teachers and professors adapt to these new opportunities for learning and teaching?

ARTICLE
Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor
Ecampusnews.com
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says schools and colleges should deliver course content to the cell phones that students use to talk and text every day. Some campus officials are listening, and classes via web-enabled cell phones could be mobile learning’s next evolution.

“Kids are on their cell phones the 14 hours a day they are not in school,” Duncan said in a recent interview with eCampus News at Education Department (ED) headquarters in Washington, D.C. With teenagers and young adults using cell phones constantly, Duncan said, technology officials should find ways to send homework, video lectures, and other classroom material so students can study wherever they are.

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Korean School Preps Students for Ivy League

The article below discusses an elite and rigorous Korean preparatory school that sends many of its graduates to Ivy League universities here in the United States.Â This story is far from unusual: many elite colleges and graduate schools have an international population topping 30% of their total class size.

With increased global competition for these already-coveted spots at Ivy League schools, what can American students do to stand out?Â Test scores and grades are clearly important, but are not the answer in and of themselves.Â As the article notes, the South Korean students are not merely academic “robots” – they have a wide array of interests outside of the classroom.

LifeBound’s Director of Business Strategy, Kelly Carson, is currently completing her MBA summer internship at our offices while enrolled at Harvard Business School.Â She describes the admission process this way:

“You definitely need to do your best to get great test scores and have an impressive academic record.Â Unfortunately, as many schools note, these metrics are what can keep you out, rather than what will guarantee you a spot.Â Once you’ve surpassed a basic level, it’s your job to distinguish yourself from the rest.”

“Use your admissions essays to tell a compelling story about yourself – who you are, what you’re passionate about, and why, specifically, this school is the one for you. If you can tell a story that demonstrates a clear history of leaderhsip and makes the admissions panel connect with you and want to know more about you, you’re head and shoulders above many other applicants.”

As Kelly notes, you need to be in touch with what you are passionate about to tell a compelling story on your admissions essay.Â As our Gifts and Talents for Teenagers text emphasizes, being in touch with your strengths, weaknesses and passions can make you a compelling candidate – no matter what school you may apply to.

ORIGiNAL ARTICLE:

Korean School Preps Students For Ivy League

by Anthony Kuhn

All Things Considered, July 2, 2009 Â· With admissions getting more competitive every year, spots at top American colleges are becoming a globally coveted commodity. In Seoul, one elite South Korean prep school has become the envy of many upper-crust U.S. prep schools with its success at getting its students into Ivy League colleges.

The Korean school’s formula is simple: Select the country’s brightest and most ambitious students and work them extremely hard.

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Top-Scoring Nations Share Strategies on Teachers

CAROL’S SUMMARY
Yesterday at the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, American officials explored what they could learn from the best-practices of the highest performing countries from around the world. Two examples, from Singapore and Finland, top the list. While these nations achieve their high performing status in different ways, as the article below indicates, both have very high standards for teachers. In both cases, teachers need masterâ€™s degree, are part of a professional and societal â€œeliteâ€, and receive many hours of professional development and career track challenge.

What if we start to look closely at why so many new teachers drop out in the first five years of teaching? What if we had much more of a rigorous filter for students who want to become teachers in the U.S? What if we emphasized overall critical thinking and problem-solving strategies and cultivated a culture of future teachers who embrace rigor and challenge? What if we rebuilt the curriculum emphasized in most schools of education, which is arguably not meeting the needs of todayâ€™s students or young teachers? What if we imported some of the teachers from the worldâ€™s highest performing nations to help us make these kinds of changes on the ground level?

In addition to the educational performance success of countries like Finland and the city-state of Singapore, it is important to also ask:

1) what is the unemployment rate in these countries?

2) How many citizens have health care?

3) What is the crime rate?

4) How many citizens are in prison?

5) What are the taxes?

6) What emphasis does the society as a whole place on education?

Surely, for the United States to radically change educational outcomes and compete for the 21st century, some of these other societal areas will need to be dealt with and improved simultaneously. A healthy, vital nation has a far greater chance of having strong teachers with world-class graduates than a nation that is tapped out, unhealthy, uninsured and in many areas, impoverished. We can and should work on each of these fronts for long term gain.

ARTICLE
Education Week
By Sean Cavanagh
American education officials trying to learn from the policies and practices of top-performing nations seem to have two exemplary models in Singapore and Finland.

Yet in some respects, those two nations have risen to the top in very different ways.

That was one of the lessons that emerged yesterday at what was billed as the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, which brought state officials and business leaders together here to discuss lessons from high-achieving countries that could be applied to U.S. school systemsâ€”an omnipresent theme in American education circles these days.

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