About in the cloud

gwen mueller

#iam an IT Professional, Strategist, Creative Thinker, Gamer-girl, Geek in Secondary Education

#thisis a personal blog curating technology and education resources to inspire lifelong learning, with 1/4 cup of fun.

#opinions expressed here are my views, not my employer's.

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Most New Graduates Would Take a Pay Cut to Make a Difference Ask any new college graduate about her immediate goals, and chances are she’ll tell you she wants a job. But it turns out today’s students aren’t going to be satisfied with any job. According to the latest survey from Net Impact, making a difference through their work is essential to young people’s happiness. photo via flickr:CC | USAG-Humphreys

Most New Graduates Would Take a Pay Cut to Make a Difference

Ask any new college graduate about her immediate goals, and chances are she’ll tell you she wants a job. But it turns out today’s students aren’t going to be satisfied with any job. According to the latest survey from Net Impact, making a difference through their work is essential to young people’s happiness.

photo via flickr:CC | USAG-Humphreys

Tags education employment economics students college service survey link

 Source GOOD

More High School Students Are Going to College Than Ever Before Today’s high school students are taking more math and science courses and more are going straight to college after graduation than their peers from a generation ago. That’s the finding of “The Condition of Education 2012” a just-released report from the National Center of Educational Statistics, which covers all aspects of education, from preschool through through college. photo via flickr:CC | hharryus

More High School Students Are Going to College Than Ever Before

Today’s high school students are taking more math and science courses and more are going straight to college after graduation than their peers from a generation ago. That’s the finding of “The Condition of Education 2012” a just-released report from the National Center of Educational Statistics, which covers all aspects of education, from preschool through through college.

photo via flickr:CC | hharryus

Tags education students college

 Source GOOD

“IMHO, the biggest problem the economy has is the enormous student debt new college grads and those leaving college find themselves with. In the past leaving college meant getting a job and getting a used car and/or an apartment with some friends. Yes there was student debt, but it wasn’t any where near your car payment. You could still afford the car and the apartment. Now its the exact opposite. Today, the minute you graduate college you face the challenge of debt against a college education whose value is immediately ‘underwater’.”

Mark Cuban on the “College Bubble” (via Mr Loucks)

Tags education economics college quote

 Source freakonomics.com

“Today’s faculty need to understand young people, how they learn, what they value. Only then can we convince them they should get up out of their seats and express themselves, argue their points and refine their intellects and consciences. It’s called academic rigor, and it’s more difficult that imparting information so they can pass a test.”

The (college) kids are alright

Tags education college students quote link

 Source Washington Post

For Wealthy Chinese Students, Studying Abroad Becomes the Norm China spends a relatively small percentage of its budget on education, ranking 101st of 187 countries included in a recent United Nations Development Program report. That fact, combined with a reverence for the prestige of western nations’ elite schools, has prompted a growing number of wealthy Chinese parents to send their children abroad for high school and college.

For Wealthy Chinese Students, Studying Abroad Becomes the Norm

China spends a relatively small percentage of its budget on education, ranking 101st of 187 countries included in a recent United Nations Development Program report. That fact, combined with a reverence for the prestige of western nations’ elite schools, has prompted a growing number of wealthy Chinese parents to send their children abroad for high school and college.

Tags world education infographic college

 Source GOOD

What Really Matters to Working Students I decided to have a candid conversation with my students about why school just doesn’t seem that important to many of them.  For almost two hours, we discussed attitudes and expectations—theirs and mine. We had many moments of catharsis. I explained that faculty members do care, and that we create expectations so students will have continued success in college. The students stated that we (the faculty) seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be students, trying to balance our academic and personal lives. I asked the class to help us understand the life of today’s students, and to give us advice on how to help them succeed. What follows are anecdotes and suggestions in my students’ own words—including italicized comments from particular students—that focus on what the majority of them felt were the most important areas to discuss… photo via flickr:CC | PaulBlackPhotography.com

What Really Matters to Working Students

I decided to have a candid conversation with my students about why school just doesn’t seem that important to many of them. 

For almost two hours, we discussed attitudes and expectations—theirs and mine. We had many moments of catharsis. I explained that faculty members do care, and that we create expectations so students will have continued success in college. The students stated that we (the faculty) seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be students, trying to balance our academic and personal lives. I asked the class to help us understand the life of today’s students, and to give us advice on how to help them succeed.

What follows are anecdotes and suggestions in my students’ own words—including italicized comments from particular students—that focus on what the majority of them felt were the most important areas to discuss…

photo via flickr:CC | PaulBlackPhotography.com

Tags education faculty students motivation link college highered

 Source chronicle.com

More Students Receiving Accommodations During ACT, SAT Nationally, as the number of students taking the ACT has increased in the last four years, so has the number of students asking for, and getting, extra time or other accommodations when taking the exam, the testing agency told me. The numbers of requests have been rising among SAT takers, too, along with an increase in test takers overall. Once students are approved for an accommodation, they don’t have to reapply. Of new requests—almost 80,000 during the 2010-11 school year, compared with 10,000 fewer five years earlier—about 85 percent are approved, said Kathleen Steinberg, the spokeswoman for the College Board. The ACT said roughly 90 percent of requests made are granted. photo via flickr:CC | biologycorner

More Students Receiving Accommodations During ACT, SAT

Nationally, as the number of students taking the ACT has increased in the last four years, so has the number of students asking for, and getting, extra time or other accommodations when taking the exam, the testing agency told me.

The numbers of requests have been rising among SAT takers, too, along with an increase in test takers overall. Once students are approved for an accommodation, they don’t have to reapply. Of new requests—almost 80,000 during the 2010-11 school year, compared with 10,000 fewer five years earlier—about 85 percent are approved, said Kathleen Steinberg, the spokeswoman for the College Board. The ACT said roughly 90 percent of requests made are granted.

photo via flickr:CC | biologycorner

Tags education students testing college link

 Source blogs.edweek.org

What Country Has the Best Higher Education System? Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, recently released its official rankings based on the results of a year-long study. The study’s authors examined education systems in 48 nations around the world, relying on four measures: resources (investment by government and private sector); output (the amount of research schools produce and their impact); connectivity (how well they collaborate with other nations); and environment (campus diversity and breadth of opportunities). The researchers then adjusted the data for population.

What Country Has the Best Higher Education System?

Universitas 21, a global network of research universities, recently released its official rankings based on the results of a year-long study. The study’s authors examined education systems in 48 nations around the world, relying on four measures: resources (investment by government and private sector); output (the amount of research schools produce and their impact); connectivity (how well they collaborate with other nations); and environment (campus diversity and breadth of opportunities). The researchers then adjusted the data for population.

Tags education college highered chart link

 Source GOOD

Move Over Harvard And MIT, Stanford Has The Real “Revolution In Education”

So, last week, two Stanford professors made a courageous proposal to ditch lectures in the medical school. “For most of the 20th century, lectures provided an efficient way to transfer knowledge, But in an era with a perfect video-delivery platform — one that serves up billions of YouTube views and millions of TED Talks on such things as technology, entertainment, and design — why would anyone waste precious class time on a lecture?,” write Associate Medical School dean, Charles Prober and business professor, Chip Heath, in The New England Journal of Medicine. Instead, they call for an embrace of the “flipped” classroom, where students review Khan Academy’s YouTube lectures at home and solve problems alongside professors in the classroom. Students seem to love the idea: when Stanford piloted the flipped classroom in a Biochemistry course, attendance ballooned from roughly 30% to 80%.

Tags education college flipped-classroom teaching idea

Next Time, Fail Better Humanities students should be more like computer-science students. A computer program that doesn’t run is a failure. A program that produces no usable data about the text it was set up to analyze is a failure. Why don’t those failures devastate the developers? Because each time their efforts fail, the developers learn something they can use to get closer to success the next time. That’s what we should be teaching humanities students—to look at what went wrong and figure out how to learn from it. photo via flickr:CC | hans.gerwitz

Next Time, Fail Better

Humanities students should be more like computer-science students.

A computer program that doesn’t run is a failure. A program that produces no usable data about the text it was set up to analyze is a failure. Why don’t those failures devastate the developers? Because each time their efforts fail, the developers learn something they can use to get closer to success the next time.

That’s what we should be teaching humanities students—to look at what went wrong and figure out how to learn from it.

photo via flickr:CC | hans.gerwitz

Tags education college teaching idea inspire link

 Source chronicle.com

Colleges Offer Incoming Freshmen a Summer 'Bridge'

Summer bridge programs can provide an important head start on college,” said Elisabeth Barnett, a senior research associate at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the Community College Research Center in New York. “They can increase the chances that students will enter college without needing remediation, and they can help students to gain comfort with the college environment and with themselves as college students.”

Such programs, which tend to run four to five weeks, offer intensive academic instruction. At-risk students are often recruited, and colleges generally pick up the tab as an enticement.

Recent research has found that the programs are a promising way to prepare students academically and socially for college.

Tags education college

Loyola to ban sale of bottled water on campus Loyola University Chicago began encouraging students to drink tap water by giving all freshmen reusable bottles last fall and installing more refill stations around campus throughout this past year. Now it’s planning to ban the sale of bottled water altogether. Starting next fall, the university will stop selling bottled water in its cafeterias and retail locations. Then in 2013, bottled water will be removed from campus vending machines. photo via flickr:CC | stevendepolo

Loyola to ban sale of bottled water on campus

Loyola University Chicago began encouraging students to drink tap water by giving all freshmen reusable bottles last fall and installing more refill stations around campus throughout this past year.

Now it’s planning to ban the sale of bottled water altogether.

Starting next fall, the university will stop selling bottled water in its cafeterias and retail locations. Then in 2013, bottled water will be removed from campus vending machines.

photo via flickr:CC | stevendepolo

Tags education college wellness health green

 Source chicagotribune.com