The new employment statistics are out and, not surprisingly, they weigh in favor of those with college degrees especially in this economy:
6 Lessons One Campus Learned About
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Northwest Missouri State piloted the entire curriculum on-line last year using the Sony Reader, the article below states. While there were many growing pains, the university should be given credit for pioneering in an area which is most certainly the future of learning and project-based study. If publishers want to prevent their industry from being the next automotive example, they need to do these things:
 1) Buy or partner with Kindle, Sony and makers of these machines. Publishers will need some stake in the hardware business so that they can develop the necessary learning platforms.
 2) Work with the gaming theorists. Students today have grown up on games, and we have a lot to learn about meaningful, dynamic ways to retain information from the gaming companies and people who produce these programs.
 3) Live and breathe with students– talented students, struggling students, learning disabled students, returning adults and everything in between. Technology allows us to moderate content for these learners to truly produce individuated instruction.
 4) Work with your authors. Training, as the article below indicates, is a huge area for both students and faculty. “Star” authors can help negotiate this divide and teach people on-line, in-person and through sessions like Web X.
 5) Don’t think book. Think learning experience and realize that technology opens the door for students to have experience as well as knowledge–two things they desperately need to be competitive in the global
world. In the future, publishers will look more like producers of television shows than creators of static books that need revisions every two or three years, as both students and professors will participate in this dynamic process. We need to consider how learning and teaching will be different because of the opportunities that technology affords.
ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
Northwest Missouri State University nearly became the first public university to deliver all of its textbooks electronically. Last year the institution’s tech-happy president, Dean L. Hubbard, bought a Kindle, Amazon’s e-book reading device, and liked it so much that he wanted to give every incoming student one. The university already runs an unusual textbook-rental program that buys thousands of printed books for students who pay a flat, per-credit fee. Mr. Hubbard saw in the gadget a way to drastically cut the rental program’s annual $800,000 price tag, since e-books generally cost half the price of printed textbooks.
To view the entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=HrghYKYs4hspNRWQYd6YzpqydhgtTXZs
Colleges Face Challenges in Helping Foreign Students Adjust to Life in U.S.
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
As more and more students add an international component to their education, it is critical to understand how to engage and support students during a time when they are susceptible to culture shock, isolation and academic stress. As the article below indicates, many colleges fall short of their goals in helping foreign students adapt to American culture. The coaching required to help international students with academic, financial and emotional issues can be extensive and challenging, as advisors discover that tactics that work for American college students often don’t work for their foreign counterparts.
Socially, international students often stick together because they can be uncomfortable trying to mesh with our culture. However, survey results taken from undergraduates at several private liberal arts colleges reveal that many international students would like to have more American friends. As perhaps the most important challenge for international students is forming relationships with individuals different from them, the support networks and mentoring programs mentioned in this article are crucial to student success.
Some internationals students arrive on campus with more complex and weighty issues than homesickness or culture shock. They may come from war-torn or politcally unstable countries, such as the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which traumatically affected students attending universities in this country who knew their family members were either in hiding or being killed. In those kinds of cases, colleges must ramp up their crisis intervention programs. This article’s primary charge is for colleges and universities to commit to training advisers, who often are the first person on campus that international students seek out when they need help.
This article also raises a critical issue in coaching: how do we help engage at-risk populations who often aren’t asking for help? This article provides several suggestions, from partnerships between foreign and domestic students to professional counseling to presemester courses on writing, culture, and acclimating to the United States. The importance of providing the right resources, practicing active listening skills and asking the right questions simply cannot be understated, especially when dealing with cultures different from our own.
ARTICLE:
Chronicle of Higher Education
By BETH MCMURTRIE
American colleges pride themselves on welcoming students from around the world. But how effectively are they helping foreign students adapt to and thrive in an American setting?
That is a subject of increasing debate among educators, some of whom question the support systems their institutions have in place.
To view the entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=vGkW9myprTw9WByRPDS2wrgSyxCCR9nc
Introducing a Remedial Program That Actually Works
While our nation is at-risk for financial and real-estate debacles, we are also at-risk for our economy of the future in underprepared college graduates who are swelling our Higher Educational institutions in numbers two-thirds strong in community colleges and almost one-third strong in four year schools as the article below indicates.
New Push Seeks to End Need for Pre-College Remedial Classes
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
More than 60% of students at community colleges need remediation for math or English or both and 30% need remediation at 4 year colleges. Many are clamoring for colleges to hold high schools to much greater accountability so that they don’t need to do “clean-up†work at the college level.
High schools across the country should offer student success classes for freshmen in high school, setting the bar high for academic skills which can help them throughout high school and beyond. In addition to this academic preparation, students need emotional and social skills which will allow them to seek and appreciate challenges in college, career and life. LifeBound resources provide these opportunities.
ARTICLE
New York Times
By SAM DILLON
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — After Bethany Martin graduated from high school here last June, she was surprised when the local community college told her that she had to retake classes like basic composition, for no college credit. Each remedial course costs her $350, more than a week’s pay from her job at a Chick-fil-A restaurant.
To view entire article visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/education/28remedial.html
Teaching Online: 2 Perspectives
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
In the article below, Gina Greco, a professor of English at Hudson Valley Community College, explains why on-line learning has opened up her true passion for teaching and what you need to do as a faculty member to be
effective at teaching in this environment. One big difference is how you communicate to students through writing with a pithy, positive style. Most of her students are older, returning and have lacked success in their other academic endeavors. This is a fresh start to change habits and lives through education. This medium has tremendous power to transform learning around the world.
Right now, I am in the cab riding to the airport. My cab driver, Tom, is enrolled in all on-line classes through the University of Phoenix. As a returning adult student, he says that the fluid nature of his classes keeps his mind mentally sharp all day long as he considers class assignments and issues while driving his cab. Tom makes use of his downtime waiting for clients while he uses his Broadband Access card.   He is a marketing major and has creatively developed an internship, which accommodates his schedule, his classes and his family. In addition to being hard-working and creative, he showed up to pick me up this morning fifteen minutes early. This type of industriousness is just what our graduates need to create every advantage for themselves in any economy.
 ARTICLE:
By GINA GRECO
A Reaffirmation of Why I Became an Educator
“Impersonal, disconnected, and unfulfilling.” That is how I would have answered if you asked me 10 years ago what I thought of online teaching. As a teacher, I feed off the energy of the crowd and thrive on exciting and entertaining my students to the point of drawing even the most resistant into attending class. When the economy and my growing family necessitated that I teach online as well as in the classroom, I couldn’t have been more surprised by the satisfaction and joy that could come from a distance-learning program.
To view entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=qCrbjqTGncnqhhXHJfFNTKshnHCz4rxk
Internationally, the Business of Education is Booming
International education is here to stay and colleges are figuring out how to provide these opportunities to students as a way to stay competitive themselves. Indeed, as the article below indicates, students today will graduate into a global world so understanding how the world works will be key beyond studying in London or Australia. Going to places like China, The United Arab Emirates, India and Spanish speaking nations will serve students better for the long run.
AP poll: Most students stressed, some depressed
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Students today have stress levels which are at an all time high. Some high school students are stressed about the college that they did or didn’t get into and the standard fears all students have about beginning college. Other students are stressed who aren’t going to college because they will be trying to find a job in one of the most difficult markets in twenty-five years. College students are worried about student loans, class size and the pressure to get jobs and internships this summer.
Whether students are in high school or college, many are absorbing stress from parents who have been laid off, suffered financial hardship or have been given double doses of workloads for jobs which still may be in jeopardy. Many students can feel this stress in their families, as well as the typical stressors which entering young adult life brings.
There are some very specific ways that students can deal with stress and depression:
1) Get help. Students with strong self-advocacy skills do better in school and in life than lone-ranger students who “go it alone†with their problems. There are many professionals available to help you. Access them.
2) Write down your stressors. When problems are defined, they can be solved. Free floating anxiety creates more problems and seems to balloon situations which can be broken down and dealt with.
3) Ask questions about alternate ways to view your problems. Perspective is one of the best ways to see your challenges from the 20,000 foot level. Often, you can find alternatives which can help you greatly.
4) Give yourself some time. Take the time to do one or two things that give you energy and help you feel calm—like running, writing in your journal or sitting quietly as you listen to music.
These are challenging times, yes, but they are also an opportunity to discover what you are made of and what you can withstand. These are life qualities which will serve you well throughout your personal and professional life. As Mary Chapin Carpenter said, “Keep the faith, don’t give it away.â€
ARTICLE:
By NANCY BENAC and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Stress over grades. Financial worries. Trouble sleeping. Feeling hopeless.
So much for those carefree college days.
The vast majority of college students are feeling stressed these days, and significant numbers are at risk of depression, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll
Eighty-five percent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits.
To read the entire article visit
A Year of College for All: What the President’s Plan Would Mean for the Country
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
President Obama is calling for every American high school student to have at least one year of college, technical training or apprenticeship. Forty-five percent of Americans (101.5 million adults) have never attended college, and the stakes may be higher for advanced education in the coming years. Each year of additional college, as the article below indicates, can significantly increase lifetime earnings.
In the current down economy, those without a college degree have been the hardest hit. In April, people without college were two times as likely to be unemployed as people who had “some” college, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to Obama, this is an era where you, “earn what you learn” and Americans need to shore up the current drop-out rate to produce a strong economy in the future. Turning around these trends are absolutely related to quality of life for most boomers in the next twenty
years.
ARTICLE:
Chronicle of Higher Education
By KELLY FIELD
President Obama hasn’t met Serena Baker, but she may be just who he had in mind when he challenged every American to commit to a “year or more” of higher education or training.
To view the entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=hGZXSmDbxv6n5stM23j9zvcRCVpbq8zw
Test Preparation May Help High Scorers Most, Report Says
Test preparation and coaching, such as the services that Kaplan and Princeton Review provide, can raise student test scores by 30%. However, those families who need it most, as the article below indicates, are often excluded from this type of service since they can’t afford it.