In lead author Ellen Greenberger’s study “Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting, and Motivational Factors†she explores the sense of entitlement students have toward their grades. Hard work is confused with quality work.
Adolescents Involved With Music Do Better In School
CAROL’S SUMMARY: Studies show that participation in music, such as music lessons or attending concerts, has a positive effect on academic performance in reading and mathematics.
Questions to consider:
1. Why do you think this is?
2. Is your child involved with music?
ARTICLE:
From Science Daily, February 11, 2009
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2009) — A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly reveals that music participation, defined as music lessons taken in or out of school and parents attending concerts with their children, has a positive effect on reading and mathematic achievement in early childhood and adolescence. Additionally, socioeconomic status and ethnicity affect music participation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Student Fights Record of ‘Cyberbullying’
CAROL’S SUMMARY: Katherine Evans is sueing her high school, wanting her three-day expulsion for bashing her English teacher online removed from her record. Her lawyer, Matthew Bavaro, says the suspension violated Evans’s right to free speech. But Pamela Brown, assistant director for the Broward County School District, says that inviting others to join in hating a teacher crosses the line.
Questions to consider:
1. What do you consider to be cyberbullying?
2. Do you know who to go to if someone is cyberbullying you?
ARTICLE:
By CARMEN GENTILE, Posted February 8, 2009 at www.nytimes.com
MIAMI — Katherine Evans said she was frustrated with her English teacher for ignoring her pleas for help with assignments and a brusque reproach when she missed class to attend a school blood drive.
So Ms. Evans, who was then a high school senior and honor student, logged onto the networking site Facebook and wrote a rant against the teacher, Sarah Phelps.
“To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred,†she wrote.
Visit www.nytimes.com for the entire article
Surprising Impact of Student Loan Crunch
CAROL’S SUMMARY: The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities released a survey suggesting that the student loan credit crunch has had a surprising and serious impact on the plans of students at private colleges. Many students were unable to obtain a private loan and were forced to turn to parents, credit cards, working more, switching to part-time students, and/or dropping out.
Questions to consider;
1. Do you know how you’re going to pay for college?
2. Do you know where to find scholarship information?
ARTICLE:
Cries of financial distress from students unable to find private student loans have been relatively few and far between this fall, despite lots of newspaper headlines about a lack of availability of such loans. Read the rest of this entry »
Late to Rise Seems to Make Students Wise
CAROL’S SUMMARY: The study “Course Scheduling and Academic Performance†by Angela K. Dills, an assistant professor of economics at Mercer University, and Rey Hernández-Julián, an assistant professor of economics at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, found a small increase in grades of students taking afternoon classes rather than early morning classes.
The most likely explanation is that teenagers tend to stay up late, therefore, to get their full amount of rest and be adequately awake, they need to get up later in the day than adults.
Questions to consider:
1. What time of day do you feel most productive?
2. What time of day do you feel least productive?
3. Why do you think that is?
ARTICLE:
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
By DAVID GLENN
Copyright © 2008 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
When college students refuse to sign up for early-morning classes, parents and faculty members sometimes give them sermons or stale quotations from Benjamin Franklin. But those students might actually have the right instincts, says a new study by two economists.
The study, whose results appear in the December issue of the Economics of Education Review, found that students earn higher grades in courses that are offered later in the day. The effect is small but unmistakable: For each hour after 8 a.m. that a class begins, students’ average grades are 0.024 points higher, on a 4-point grading scale.
The most likely reason, the authors say, is sheer exhaustion. Nineteen-year-olds find plenty of reasons not to go to bed before midnight. And even when they get adequate sleep, adolescents’ brains tend to fire up later in the morning than adults’ brains.
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Dreamers and Doers
Posted January 4, 2009 at www.nytimes.com
Nicolas Naranjo knocked on Evan Kimbrell’s door at midnight. At other colleges, this might have been a prelude to a fraternity prank or an invitation to help float the keg at the end of a party. But Mr. Naranjo, who had just arrived in the United States from his native Colombia some weeks before, wanted to talk about starting a business. He had an idea about a hop-on, hop-off bus service for college tours around the Boston area. Mr. Kimbrell had tried to start a bus company the previous year and knew the pitfalls — and was happy for the break from his studies to talk business. Read the rest of this entry »
Many Community-College Students Miss Out on Aid Because They Don’t Apply
From the Chronicle of Higher Education, October 7, 2008
Community colleges serve a large proportion of low-income students each year, but nearly 40 percent of their full-time students don’t even fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
By BECKIE SUPIANO
Community colleges serve a large proportion of low-income students each year, but nearly 40 percent of their full-time students don’t even fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Many of even the poorest students those with family incomes of $0 to $9,999=97do not apply for federal aid. For example, 29 percent of dependent students in that income range do not apply. Students offer a number of reasons for not making that effort, according to a http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/acsfa/applytosucceed.pdf”>re=port, Apply to Succeed: Ensuring Community College Students Benefit from Need-Based Financial Aid,” released Monday by the federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Some don’t think they are eligible, others say they have enough money to cover the cost of college, and a small percentage say the Fafsa was too complicated, according to data from the 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement cited in the report. Whatever the case, many of those students may be missing out on need-based aid.
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Alternative Measure of Success
Currently, graduation rates are measured by the U.S. government by the proportion of students who earn a degree within 150 percent of the expected time (six years for a bachelor’s degree and three years for an associate degree). The U.S. government only counts first-time, full-time students.
The University of Alaska at Anchorage has decided to create its own measure of success and include all types of students and extending to ten years, asking whether the student met their goal or at least made progress on a goal.
Questions to consider:
1. Which measure do you prefer?
2. Do you feel you’ve been successful in pursuing your educational goals?
3. If not, have you made progress?
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ARTICLE:
Copyright 2008 Inside Higher Ed
scott.jaschik@insidehighered.com Scott Jaschik
Get any group of college presidents, assessment experts or education researchers together, and it’s not hard to get a consensus that the federal graduation rate is seriously if not fatally flawed.
According to the U.S. government, graduation rates are measured by the proportion of students who earn a degree within 150 percent of the expected time six years for a bachelor’s degree and three years for an associate degree. The formula counts only one group of students: first-time, full-time students. Not surprisingly, elite, residential colleges that serve well-prepared students do amazingly well by this methodology, routinely having rates in the 90s. But for many other colleges, the graduation rate is both irrelevant (they may have very few first-time, full-time students) and infuriating (the institution that takes full-time, first-time students that other institutions pass over may well be working harder and more effectively, but looks lousy by comparison to the wealthy institution that serves the wealthy.)
Visit http://insidehighered.com for the entire article
In a Rocky Economy, 10 Steady Tips About Student Aid
CAROL’S SUMMARY: Although the current economic crisis has complicated student aid, these ten tips are still helpful. And don’t wait.
Questions to consider:
1. Have you filled out your FAFSA?
ARTICLE:
Friday, November 7, 2008
Financial aid was already complicated. In recent months, new federal regulations and a rocky economy have made it even more so. And there might be yet more change under a new Democratic administration.
Still, there are some financial-aid basics that aren’t likely to go
Anywhere and experts say it is important not to lose sight of them. Arlina DeNardo, director of financial aid at Lafayette College, and Carolyn Lindley, director of financial aid at Northwestern University, presented their list of “must know” information at a session of the College Board’s annual conference here. This is what they say everyone high-school counselors, parents, even professors working with future or current students should know:
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Create Your Own Internship
Internships are invaluable experiences that offer countless benefits. Not only do they prepare you for working in the real world, but they also teach career specific skills and look great on a resume.  Often, they can even lead to a job. Read the rest of this entry »