In Thomas Friedman’s article, “The New Untouchables,” he identifies the qualities of 21st century workers that are indispensable to our global marketplace. Schools, which focus traditionally on analytical skills, will also need to emphasize the skills which employers will both demand and reward. Analytical skills, according to Daniel Pink, can be outsourced, but other skills such as thinking critically and creatively to solve problems and produce new opportunities, work effectively with people from different backgrounds and cultures, and have vision for possibilities, cannot be outsourced. It’s time that educators and parents at all levels ask:
College Costs Keep Rising, Report Says
In a report released this week by the College Board, and cited in the article below, four-year public colleges raised tuition and fees by an average of 6.5 percent last year, while prices at private colleges rose 4.4 percent. With room and board, the average total cost of attendance at a public four-year college is now $15,213, the report found. At private nonprofit colleges, which enroll about one in five college students nationally, the average total cost of attendance is now $35,636.
Newest Professions, Growing Salaries
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Yahoo! hotjobs posted an article this week on new careers from the Occupational Information Network’s latest directory. Employment expert and author, Laurence Shatkin, stated “O*Net [Occupational Information Network] officially recognizes job titles once there is a critical mass of workers in those jobs and a clear road map for attaining the position.†According to the BLS, small companies have the highest percentage and large companies have the lowest percentage of new and emerging occupations. Small companies— those with fewer than 50 employees— often lead the economy in innovation. They can respond quickly to consumer trends and advances in technology. Professional associations and trade groups are good sources to identify jobs in emerging occupations. Some international careers open to new college graduates include global business credit risk analyst, trade relations coordinator, and import and export specialist. A software localization engineer translates and adapts programs to a foreign country, with sensitivity to customs and cultural values. Most international positions are held by employees with experience or graduate degrees.
Among the new jobs mentioned in the article below are wind farm engineers, business continuity planners and directors of social media. Many new occupations, especially those in the technical and scientific fields, require diverse skills. Multidisciplinary occupations may be a good match for the increasing number of students who choose to double or triple major. This trend was highlighted in “So, What’s Your Other Major?,†an article in the March issue of Counterpoint: The MIT-Wellesley Journal of Campus Life. Career advisers often see students with wide-ranging interests who choose multiple majors (or majors and minors) because of those broad interests
In order for students to effectively compete in a global marketplace amid today’s restricted economy students need 21st century skills, particularly problem-solving and critical and creative thinking abilities. That’s why each LifeBound book offers a corresponding curriculum that includes rigor and relevance activities, as well as powerful questions for discussion within a cross-disciplinary context.
Questions to consider:
As educators, how can we challenge and best prepare students to enter emerging career fields and acquire 21st Century Skills?
How do we engage students in meaningful lessons that build the necessary skills to compete in today’s global marketplace?
To learn more about LifeBound’s books and curricula, visit www.lifebound.com
ARTICLE:
Yahoo! hotjobs
Newest Professions, Growing Salaries
Larry Buhl, for Yahoo! HotJobs
The latest directory of job titles from Occupational Information Network (O*Net) features a variety of new entries that many people have never heard before.
Some of these jobs — at least the duties — have been around in some form for a while. What’s new is a “professional pathway” for these careers, according to employment expert and author Laurence Shatkin. “O*Net officially recognizes job titles once there is a critical mass of workers in those jobs and a clear road map for attaining the positions,” he says.
To view this entire article visit www.yahoo.com
Twitter Tool Could Help Educators
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
A new Twitter program called Need4Feed was introduced this week by web developers at Purdue University to rank posts— known as “tweets”—on the social networking site. Designed specifically for educators and students, Need4Feed aims to filter out the “noise†of unrelated tweets and help visitors weed out the junk mail, by highlighting popular tweets using an algorithm that analyzes how other Twitter users respond to a message by reposting it, replying to it, marking it as a favorite or whether the message starts a longer conversation.
This tool will be used for the first time at the HighEdWeb 2009 conference in Milwaukee to help attendees find tweets gaining the most attention. The goal of Need4Feed is to help facilitate faculty-student conversations and help educators and students more effectively locate information regarding education trends and homework help or tips. Technology is always evolving and Twitter’s growth is proof of this. For k-12 and higher education institutions to stay current, they will need to embrace these new technologies and Need4Feed just may help them do that.
Need4Feed developer Kyle Bowen, director of informatics at Purdue, said the idea for the tool came after using Twitter to communicate during the Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference at Purdue in April. “We made heavy use of Twitter during the conference, and what we noticed was that there was a lot of noise, people making general comments and having conversations unrelated to the topic,” Bowen said. “What we wanted to do was find a way to get the most out of these back channel conversations.”
To find out more about education trends, follow LifeBound on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lifebound and to learn more about preparing your students for the world of work, follow me at www.twitter.com/caroljcarter.
ARTICLE
Ecampusnews.com
The micro-blogging web site Twitter is often crowded with extraneous posts and comments that distract from the site’s meaningful content. To bring order to this chaos and help make Twitter a more useful tool for educators, web developers at Purdue University unveiled a tool this week that would help Twitter members find the most popular and relevant tweets.
The Twitter program, called Need4Feed, is being used for the first time at the HighEdWeb 2009 conference in Milwaukee, where attendees can sift through hundreds of posts to find the tweets grabbing the most attention.
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/32HOxk
America Falling: Longtime Dominance in Education Erodes
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Across the United States, higher education is tightening budgets while Singapore and many Asian countries are investing more money into their systems and into research. Experts consider the withdrawal of funds poor timing since 13 percent of European students and 20 percent of students in Asia major in engineering compared with only 4 percent of American students. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranks 10th in the number of 25 to 34-year-olds who hold at least an associate degree.
The “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report, produced by a national panel, warns that America is falling behind other countries in science and technology. Panelist, Mr. Vest, believes higher education stimulates the economy and worries that the United States won’t take action until it’s too late. “Look what happened in the manufacturing sector when the Japanese got serious,†he says. “We’ve only partially caught up.â€
According to the article below, the United States has benefited from the educational advances of other countries since half of all students who earn doctorates in major science and technology fields come from overseas and one quarter of the faculty members of American colleges today are foreign-born. But as other countries improve their education systems, more top performing international students may decide to remain in their native countries. Not to mention the decline in performance of American high-school students. In 2004, half of “highly qualified†in math low-income high-school seniors enrolled in a four-year institution, 20 percentage points lower than the Class of 1992.
Many experts believe the U.S. could benefit from adopting the mindset of foreign countries desperately trying to improve their educational systems as a way of sparking economic growth. And while the 50 individual state legislations governing education makes it difficult to assess the national impact of current educational standards, everyone seems to agree that an overarching ministry of education, like those seen in Asia, is not a good fit with Americans.
Note: Carol Carter gives keynote speeches and session presentations here in the US and overseas to gain insights on learning-based standards and to share her expertise. Here is Carol’s itinerary for this Fall:
October 14
The Tri-Association: Latin America and the Caribbean
Keynote: The New Global Competition for Talent
Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
October 29 and 30
Florida School Counselor Association
Keynote: Counselors as Leaders
Location: Orlando
November 4-7
American Business Communications
Three presentations on coaching and professional skills
Location: Portsmouth, VA
November 13
Utah School Counselor Association
Keynote: Counselors as Coaches
Location: Salt Lake City
November 19-21
European Council of International Schools
Due to scheduling conflicts, Carol’s co-author on the Critical and Creative Thinking book, Maureen Breeze, is presenting three presentations in her place on coaching and critical and creative thinking skills.
Location: Hamburg, Germany
ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
by Karen Fischer
Henry T. Yang, a prominent engineer, is one of a half-dozen American academics and entrepreneurs who sit on an international panel that advises Singapore’s government on its higher-education and research efforts. At its last meeting, the group reviewed plans for a new public university, the country’s fourth.
Back at home, where Mr. Yang has been chancellor of the University of California at Santa Barbara since 1994, the situation is one of contraction, not expansion. Facing the deepest state-budget cuts in decades, public-university officials in California have slashed salaries, furloughed employees, and reduced enrollments.
To view entire article visit
http://bit.ly/35ie3G
An Internship From Your Couch
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Every college student needs at least two internships under their belt in order to show prospective employers their potential for future jobs. In light of today’s global competition for talent, where U.S. students not only compete with American graduates but with their counterparts in other countries, internships allow job seekers to show a proven track record of results and to model tenacity in a fiercely competitive market. Another upside to internships is that many employers consider this experience in the hiring process, and often look to their own interns as the best potential candidates for full-time positions. Employers look for analytical, creative and practical intelligence in potential hires, and internships give students the playing field to demonstrate and grow these skills.
Particularly in a recessive economy, virtual internships offer an affordable and creative way for college students to gain real-world experience about a career field. Virtual or remote internships allow students to develop professional skills and get a bird’s eye view of a career they may want to pursue without having to relocate and often with more time flexibility than traditional office hours require, as the article below iterates. And similar to traditional internships, students typically receive school credit for their work.
One of the keys to a successful remote internship is frequent and consistent communication between the intern and company or organization’s manager or supervisor. Conversely, internships give students the opportunity to receive feedback on completed assignments and mentoring from a supervisor or manager. You can read more about how to make the most of an internship in LifeBound’s book, Majoring in the Rest of Your Life: Career Secrets for College Students. Additionally, LifeBound offers a variety of internships both live and virtual throughout the academic year and in the summer. For more information, visit http://www.lifebound.com/interns.html.Â
 ARTICLE
Wall Street Journal
By Jonnelle Marte
Natalie Ann Roig completed a marketing internship last spring—while riding the bus, sitting on her parents’ couch and lounging at home in pajamas.
The internship, in which she worked 15 hours a week researching and blogging about corporate workplace benefits, was virtual—she needed only a computer and Internet access. Ms. Roig, a senior at the
“I didn’t have to dress up. I didn’t have to sit at a cubicle for hours,” says Ms. Roig, a senior studying graphic design. “It was more like work at your own pace and get the work done.”
To view the entire article visit
Obama education chief Duncan to push schools reform
CAROL’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 “the civil rights issue of our generation.†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 “it doesn’t encourage high learning standards,†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 don’t expect enough of him and his peers. Duncan said, “When kids aren’t challenged they are bored—and when they are bored they quit.†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 don’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.
To view entire article visit
Schools Official in New Jersey Orders Plan to Combat Hazing
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Bullying can take many forms (verbal, psychological and physical), and administrators for a district in New Jersey will participate in sensitivity training and devise a plan within the next two months to combat hazing at Millburn High School. These actions were ordered by the president of the Board of Education after a board meeting revealed that another school year started off with hazing of freshman girls by seniors that included being pushed into lockers, having whistles blown in their faces and the release of a “slut list.â€
In the past, some seniors have been expelled, but Principal William Miron said that no student will be disciplined without proof. Board member Debra Fox remembers being hazed as a freshman and suggested punishing the entire female population of the senior class in order to get the names, saying “because no one is going to take the rap for someone else.†One parent was applauded when she said parents must also take responsibility when their children acted like bullies.
Tragically, every day thousands of students wake up afraid to go to school. As educators, we have an inherent responsibility to make our schools safe, bully-free cultures because every child and teenager has the civil right to learn unhindered. Because parents, teachers, and other adults don’t always see it, they may not understand how extreme bullying can get. According to the web site, www.kidshealth.org, two of the main reasons people are bullied are because of appearance and social status. Bullies pick on the people they think don’t fit in, maybe because of how they look, how they act (for example, kids who are shy and withdrawn), their race or religion, or because the bullies think their target may be gay or lesbian.
Hazing is a form of bullying and often the result of underdeveloped emotional intelligence, or people smarts, such as empathy and compassion. LifeBound’s book, People Smarts for Teenagers: Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, helps students develop these skills by boosting self-awareness and empathy. Every chapter includes a real-life story about another teenager who overcame their own obstacles to emotional well-being. This past spring, a progressive district in Colorado Springs used this book with all of their sixth graders and observed a spike in test scores, which they attribute to this program. Learning is linked to emotions and when we teach children and teens emotional and social skills we give them another advantage in the learning process. For more information about this and other student success and transition resources, visit www.lifebound.com
ARTICLE:
The New York Times
September 22, 2009
Schools Official in New Jersey Orders Plan to Combat Hazing
By TINA KELLEY
MILLBURN, N.J. — The president of the Millburn Board of Education said on Monday night that district administrators would have to undergo sensitivity training and ordered them to come up with a plan within the next two months to address the longstanding tradition of hazing at Millburn High School.
The action came at a board meeting that drew about 50 parents and lasted more than three hours.
“This is not acceptable behavior; it will not be tolerated,†the board president, Noreen Brunini, said of the most recent hazing, which included the distribution of an annual “slut list†of incoming freshman girls. “This is the end of this.â€
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
Panel Urges Attention to Adolescent Literacy
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
In the article below, Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy experts gathered to discuss their final report in which they spent five years examining the need for better reading and writing skills among students in grades 4 through 12. The experts stressed the importance of action at each state level, suggesting reading and writing standards be set high and state tests be set to the levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Statewide data systems for all literacy, as well as, including adolescent-literacy training in state teacher-certification programs were considered of high importance.
Catherine Snow, a Harvard University education professor who chaired the Carnegie panel, said an important tenement of the report is to have the nation’s entire education system recognize that the traditional literacy approach (focusing on building skills at a young age) doesn’t help students with “complex vocabulary, composition, and concepts they encounter in high school.†Another panelist, Michael Kamil, a Stanford University education professor, said that the sole responsibility for teaching adolescent literacy cannot rest on the shoulders of English teachers. Literacy needs to be taught across the disciplines in each subject of middle and high school, because at these higher levels, literacy comprehension, and therefore instruction, is grounded within the content.
Students learn best when they can draw comparisons and connections between information they already know and the new knowledge presented to them. That is why in Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers, the basics of problem solving are presented to high schoolers within profiles about innovators in medicine, science, math, finance, art, music and English to relate their previous knowledge of the core subject to the new critical and creative thinking skills taught within the book. There is no reason why adolescent literacy cannot also be strengthened if it were taught within the core subjects.
How can literacy instruction be integrated into the curriculum of other subjects?
What can districts do to ban together and mastermind effective statewide standards and data systems to measure and track outcomes?
What role does emotional intelligence play in students’ ability to build a strong literacy foundation for cross-curriculum learning?
ARTICLE:
EducationWeek
Published Online: September 15, 2009
Panel Urges Attention to Adolescent Literacy
By Catherine Gewertz
Washington
Leading figures in education policy, academia, and philanthropy called today for a “re-engineering†of the nation’s approach to adolescent literacy, saying nothing short of a “literacy revolution†is needed to keep students in school and ensure that they are able to learn the complex material that college and careers will demand of them.
The experts gathered to discuss and draw attention to the release of the final report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, which has spent five years examining the need for better reading and writing skills among students in grades 4 through 12. Vartan Gregorian, the president of the foundation, urged audience members to “be good ancestors†to future generations by pushing for sound adolescent-literacy policy and practice, given the pivotal role such skills play in young people’s lives, and the low level of skill students have shown on national tests.
To view this entire article visit www.edweek.org
European Universities Look Overseas for New Partnerships
CAROL’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.
To view entire article visit
http://bit.ly/gC30w