The article below outlines several myths surrounding public service and volunteerism that institutions of higher education often unwittingly reinforce. President Barack Obama and his administration are seeking to debunk these myths by calling all Americans to serve their country. The call is not misguided because often the best motivator for a lifespan of educational and career success is helping students connect their abilities and values to a cause they care about.  When students can envision how their academic and personal interests, as well as their abilities, can make a difference in the real world, they are more likely to persist with their educational and career goals.
Dropouts Loom Large for Schools
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
As the article below verifies, almost half of the 3 million students who start their first year of college this month will drop out before they earn their degrees. While there are several culprits of the drop out crisis, one of the most pressing is inadequate preparation of students in high school to prepare them for college level work.
Thomas Freidman’s book, The World is Flat, describes how many countries around the world are doing top-rate jobs of educating their emerging “talent†in the students coming through their institutions. Many of those students live in underdeveloped countries like India , Russia and China , but they have overdeveloped minds compared to students right now in the United States . They are also hungrier to do work and to learn.
Because of technology and the ways in which people now learn and do business all over the world, we are more interdependent than ever. Jobs that use to exist for Americans solely in America are now outsourced to people in other countries. So, today’s students are competing for jobs with people from all over the world, not just people in the U.S . It has never been more critical to be a student who is committed, tenacious, has faith in their self and believes that they can continue to learn and grow.
In order for high schools to do their job of creating a college-bound culture, they need student success and transition programs in place for incoming 9th graders and subsequent programs for each grade level through 12th grade. The aim of LifeBound’s programs, and my life work, is to help students understand the realities of the world in which they live so that they will be able to command every advantage that life has to offer. We assume that every student can succeed, and they will succeed once they know what the world expects of them—where the bar is—so they can have the motivation to go over that bar with competence and self-assuredness. If teachers and students are both aware of this reality, they can work together to best prepare students for the world they will enter after college.
Many students struggle with the basic disciplines that help them face their challenges with a relentless dedication. There are strategies students can learn, however, if these qualities are not already innate within the student. We need to examine answers to these questions:
How can high schools do a better job of promoting 21st Century Skills for all types of learners?
What are some of the biggest challenges to implementing these programs starting in 9th grade?
How can we marshall resources to make sure every student has equal access to a quality education?
ARTICLE
U.S. News & World Report
by Mike Bowler
Higher education officials cheered this summer when President Barack Obama pledged to boost the U.S. college graduation rate to first in the world—after years of stagnation—and announced a $12 billion plan to produce 5 million more community college grads by 2020. Currently, community colleges enroll more than 6 million students in the United States.
It will be a huge challenge. Thirty percent of college and university students drop out after their first year. Half never graduate, and college completion rates in the United States have been stalled for more than three decades. “The overall record is quite bad, especially for African-Americans and other minorities,” says Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a nonprofit group in Washington that works to close achievement gaps. “The colleges want us to think everyone graduates, but in fact a huge number don’t, and many leave with significant loan debts and job skills totally inadequate in the 21st century.”
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/BQ7sq
Virtual 3-D lab aims to stimulate learning
CAROL’S SUMMARY: A three-dimensional Virtual Learning Environment developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) with the university’s Center for Technology Education will allow Baltimore County’s Chesapeake High School students to explore the area surrounding Mount St. Helens this fall without leaving their classroom. The area around Mount St. Helens was chosen because the ecosystem has changed dramatically over the past 30 years and begins to integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts into the virtual environment. The classroom and lab will be incorporated into the school’s environmental science and geometry curricula this school year, with plans to extend to social studies and English next year.
Today’s students are tech-savvy and most are avid video-gamers. Programs like this will help engage students within a medium they already show interest in and create cross-disciplinary courses and curricula. A giant step in the direction toward improving national graduate rates as recent surveys list boredom as the number one reason for high schoolers to drop out. That’s why my new book, Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers, co-authored by Maureen Breeze, includes innovators from the past and present to reinforces the skills discussed, as well as, incorporate academic subjects such as statistics and science.
Do you think the Virtual Learning program will succeed at raising student achievement?
Do you think these skills will make American students more competitive with global students?
It’s important for teachers to be interested in what they teach as well. Do you think programs like this would develop more effective and invested teachers?
The advantages to such a classroom seem obvious. What are the drawbacks and how could you solve them?
ARTICLE:
by Maya T. Prabhu
August 24, 2009
eSchoolNews
Students at a Baltimore County high school this fall will explore the area surrounding Mount St. Helens in a vehicle that can morph from an aircraft to a car to a boat to learn about how the environment has changed since the volcano’s 1980 eruption.
But they’ll do it all without ever leaving their Chesapeake High School classroom–they will be using a three-dimensional Virtual Learning Environment developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) with the university’s Center for Technology Education.
To view the entire article visit www.eschoolnews.com
Tech helps students adopt good study habits
While yesterday’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.
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/1TMgu
Empathy in the Virtual World
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Within a philosophical context, the writer below explores the hazards of cyberspace on empathy, and the illustration that accompanies the text reveals the crux of Dr. Gorry’s essay: Is digital technology taking the heart right out of us? Â
Author of Born to Learn, Rita Smilkerstein, found in her research that all learning is linked to emotion, and among the digital generation we need to find ways to impart not only academic but social and emotional skills so that we engage both the mind and the heart of students. This is the precise aim of LifeBound’s books, particularly our text, People Smarts for Teenagers: Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, which has data-proven results to increase scholastic achievement while promoting qualities like empathy and motivation.
Dr. Gorry postulates that the virtual world has so permeated our conscious and unconscious selves that it might be making us numb to the “real suffering of others.”  The bombardment of so many problems worldwide can diffuse a sense of responsibility to actually do something about the plight of what we see and hear.Â
The concept of friendship, for example, has enjoyed a renewed prominence via social networks that have emerged in the last few years, namely Facebook and MySpace. This is born out of a universal human desire to connect to other people and is perhaps one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as human beings. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of genuine friendship. It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation. Almost any parent of a teenager can give an account of the difficulty students have tuning out their iPods and cell phones and tuning in to their parents or siblings. If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development. Even more troubling, social sites have become a breeding ground for cyberbullying and have made it easier for pedophiles to access vulnerable adolescents.Â
The digital world demands our attention in part by speeding up the pace of life, and the addictive nature of media multitasking takes away time and energy from something of far more value: human interaction. It’s the trap of emergency living, paying attention to the immediate rather than thinking more deeply about things like goals and the quality of our relationships and acting on those impulses to do something bigger than busyness.
Researchers at Stanford University released a report this summer regarding multitaskers of media activities like watching YouTube, writing e-mail and talking on the phone. What they found is that they are not very good at any of their tasks. After testing about 100 Stanford students, the scientists concluded that chronic media multitaskers have difficulty focusing and are not able to ignore irrelevant information.
At their best, teaching and learning aren’t purely academic pursuits; they are methods that promote a better planet. New technologies have tremendous power for good in the world and can be put at the service of humanity to promote tolerance and understanding among communities, especially for those who are exploited. Here then are serious questions to ponder:
How can we harness the power of technology to foster human interaction rather than compete with it?
What potential of the new technologies can be used to promote human understanding and solidarity, especially for those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our world?
What can educators do to transfer technology in such a way that it fosters empathy rather than detracts from it?
ARTICLE
We live increasingly “on the screen,” deeply engaged with the patterns of light and energy upon which so much of modern life depends. At work we turn our backs to our coworkers, immersing ourselves in the flood of information engendered by countless computers. At the end of the workday, computers tag along with us in cellphones and music players. Still others, embedded in video displays, wait at home. They are all parts of an enormous electronic web woven on wires or only air.
To view the entire article visit
A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like
As the article below iterates, some schools nationwide are forming reading workshops which allow students the freedom to select their own books rather than the traditional approach of assigning a classic that the entire class reads together. Critics of this approach are concerned that children won’t be exposed to classic literature because they’ll gravitate toward books that are trendy or popular.
This debate begs the question: What is the goal of reading in school and for that matter what is the goal of educating our children? Educational reformer John Dewey said, “The most important attitude that can be formed is that of a desire to learn and go learning.” As most educators agree, a passion for learning isn’t something you have to inspire kids to have; most children are innately curious. Author Alfie Kohn writes, “Anyone who cares about this passion will want to be sure that all decisions about what and how children are taught, every school-related activity and policy is informed by the question: “How will this affect children’s interest in learning, and promote their desire to keep reading, and thinking and exploring?”
Several months into the experiment, the English teacher at Jonesboro Middle School in a south Atlanta suburb says, “I feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that they’re actually interacting with. Whereas when I do ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,†I know that I have some kids that just don’t get into it.â€
Perhaps a middle-road approach could be implemented where children are allowed to choose books, and so is the teacher. It’s best to teach reading in a way that mixes free choices with great literature. We want to trust students enough to give them some leeway in making decisions at school, which might help promote a lifelong love of reading while also exposing them to some of the reading “greats†from throughout time.
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ARTICLE:
A New Assignement: Pick Books You Like
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: August 29, 2009
The New York Times
JONESBORO, Ga. — For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,†the Harper Lee classic that many Americans regard as a literary rite of passage.
But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, did not assign “Mockingbird†— or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
SAT scores show disparities by race, gender, family income
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Average scores on the SAT college entrance exam dipped slightly for the high school class of 2009, while gender, race, and income gaps widened, according to figures released August 25th by the College Board. While College Board stresses that “students who had completed a core curriculum, taken their school’s most rigorous courses and familiarized themselves with the test were among the strongest performers,” they don’t address why some groups consistently outperform others on standardized tests.
Yale professor Robert Sternberg’s concept of Successful Intelligence, which looks at broadening the definition of intelligence and creating new tools to measure it, considers more than verbal and mathematical abilities by examining creativity, initiative and leadership skills. Some of the students who score lower on tests like the SAT may exhibit high levels of emotional and social intelligence in their every day activities, but these abilities aren’t as easy to measure from a paper and pencil exam even though they are predictor’s of success in college, career and life. Sternberg’s concern is for students who don’t test well: “[they] never get the chance to show what they really could do in important jobs,” Sternberg said last year in an interview with PBS. Here are questions to consider:
How can we reliably measure aptitudes like social and emotional skills?
Why are Asian-Americans scoring higher than other students on the SAT?
What can we do on a school by school level to close these gaps between gender, race and income?
ARTICLE
USA Today
By Mary Beth Marklein
Average national SAT scores for the high school class of 2009 dropped two points compared with last year, a report out today says. And while the population of test takers was the most diverse ever, average scores vary widely by race and ethnicity.
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/G4kC1
Md. Accelerator Schools To Speed Pupils To Diploma
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
In Baltimore, Maryland, three new accelerator schools have opened this year to helping struggling high school students graduate on time. As the article below reports, the school system has hired a consulting firm, One Bright Ray, which has also successfully established two other alternative schools based in Philadelphia. According to the Alternative Schools Project, funded in 2001 by the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education, there are more than 20,000 alternative schools in operation in the United States.
The ASCD, a national membership organization devoted to school reform, reports the national drop out rate at 1 out of 3 students and almost half for minorities. This means in a classroom of 30 freshmen, 9 will drop out, typically between their freshman and sophomore years. By the time they are 18 years old, only 10 will have the skills necessary to succeed in a job or master college-level work; 4 will be unemployed; 3 will end up on government assistance; and 2 will have no health insurance. Even more dismally, drops outs are eight times more likely to go to jail. When students are asked why they quit school, the majority say “boredom.”
What can educators do to inspire students and help them create a vision for their future?
What else can we do to not only place these students on a trajectory for success but motivate them to persist with their educational and career goals?
What can policy makers and school leaders do to establish student success and transition programs in every school so that students get off to the best start possible?
How can we best prepare students so they’re ready for the world beyond formal education?
We all pay when students don’t learn and achieve at their highest potentials. As educators and parents, we must teach students that they are important and unique and that their impact on the world is priceless.
ARTICLE
AARON MORRISON, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) ― Shane Smith is already two years behind in school. But as he started classes Monday at a new high school, he planned to speed through his freshman and sophomore years in nine months.
That’s a tough order for a 16-year-old who should be in the 11th grade but has struggled academically, in part due to the death of his father when he was a boy.
However, organizers of one of Baltimore’s three new accelerator schools say frequent testing, extracurricular activities and high expectations will get students such as Smith on track and keep them there.
To view entire article visit
http://bit.ly/3iJ4O
Site Spurs Debate Over Required Courses
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Coinciding with the recent release of “America’s Best Colleges” from US NEWS & WORLD REPORT comes another ranking system, this one based on course requirements at 100 leading colleges and universities nationwide. Sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, you can view assessments at www.WhatWillTheyLearn.com, where their home page reads: “A guide to what college rankings don’t tell you.” Anyone seeking a well-rounded way of viewing the admissions and selections process would do well to read this.
The web site assesses curriculum requirements coordinated to 21st Century Skills in these seven areas of competencies: Composition, Mathematics, Science, Economics, Foreign Language, Literature, and American Government or History. Whether this is an accurate barometer of the quality of education at various institutions one thing is for sure: To compete in today’s global world students must acquire and implement the requisite critical and creative thinking skills, which employers often bemoan today’s graduates lack.
High school principals need to ask: Where and how are these core competencies relayed, cross-referenced and reinforced? In what ways do students connect the learning in these areas to other key areas of their lives—what they have experienced and what they can imagine experiencing? How interesting are teachers in the ways in which they engage students on these issues through learn-by-doing exercises, discussions and exploration?
LifeBound’s new book, Critical and Creative Thinking, features these competencies in ways that are reinforced in college, career and life. To order a review copy, go on line to www.lifebound.com.
ARTICLE
Ecampus News
Should American colleges and universities require students to take courses in certain core subjects considered important to a 21st-century education, such as science, economics, history, and foreign languages? It’s a question that has taken on added significance in light of a new web site that grades higher-education institutions according to whether they require these core courses in their general-education curricula.
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/17CJZC
Money Management to be Taught at Some Massachusetts Schools
As the article below indicates, our nation’s recession is pressing schools to include personal finance in their curriculum. The aim is to help students learn valuable lessons about finance and credit before they get into debt. According to the Richmond Credit Abuse Resistant Education Program, the number of 18- to 24-year- olds who declare bankruptcy has increased 96 percent over the past decade. Seventy percent of employers look at the credit histories of job candidates. In some fields, like law enforcement, bad credit means you cannot get a job.