Learning from Our Students: Student Perspectives on Good Teaching — from everylearnereverywhere.org; with thanks to Beth McMurtrie for this resource

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Twenty-two students trusted us with their stories and their reflections on good teaching. We honor that trust and hope that instructors who read this document gain as much insight about teaching from the students as we did. While we often write of students in the plural, each one of these students had an individual experience with learning and therefore a unique story to tell about good teaching. The key takeaways from their stories are:

  1. Students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom.
  2. Students want real life in the classroom.
  3. Students want to be treated with respect and trust.

We hope readers will likewise ask their own students, “What do your best instructors do?” and use that feedback to continuously improve their craft as teachers.

Out of 22 students:

active learning and a sense of belonging were the most frequently mentioned items from these 22 students

 

What researchers learned about online higher education during the pandemic — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Its massive expansion created a worldwide laboratory to finally assess how well it works

Excerpts:

Now the results of this experiment are starting to come in. They suggest that online higher education may work better than pre-pandemic research showed, and that it is evolving decisively toward a combination of in-person and online, or “blended,” classes.

“Initially when we were doing that research it was always on the class or the course level and very rarely were you able to see how online education worked across programs and across institutions,” never mind across the world, said Michael Brown, assistant professor of higher education and student affairs at the Iowa State University School of Education.

By last year, more than half of all faculty said they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they wanted to combine online with face-to-face instruction, a Bay View Analytics survey found. A Harvard University task force found that 82 percent of faculty there were interested in adding digital tools they adopted while teaching remotely to their in-person classes.

“It’s going to take years for us to really be able to see, out of the things coming out of the pandemic, what works well, what works well in some settings and what works well for some students and not for others,” Hart said.


Also from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus, see:


 

Struggling small colleges are joining the ‘sharing economy’ — teaming up to share courses and majors — from by hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Faced with declining enrollment, colleges find ways to add in-demand courses and attract reluctant students

Excerpt:

“I couldn’t say no to getting the degree I wanted from a smaller school instead of at a big university where you’re looking at 200 students in a class,” said Smith, now an Adrian sophomore.

Adrian is among a fast-growing number of mostly small, liberal arts colleges that are adding explicitly career-focused programs through a little-noticed innovation called course sharing.

It’s a sort of Amazon Prime approach to higher education that lets majors in the humanities and other disciplines, without leaving their home campuses, “stream” classes, often taught by star faculty from top universities, in fields such as coding.

“You get an Adrian degree, you have an Adrian experience, you play your sport,” said Ryan Boyd, another Adrian student who through course sharing was able to add a minor in computer science to his business management major. “But you get to take courses from Michigan and Harvard.”

From DSC:
As a person who enjoys peering into the future, I often wondered what the place of consortiums would be within higher education. Would organizations share content with each other? This article is along those lines. I will continue to pulse-check that area.

 

Inclusive Education For Students With Hearing Impairment — from edtechreview.in by Priyanka Gupta

Excerpt:

The following may be difficult for a student with a hearing impairment:

  • The subjects of spelling, grammar, and vocabulary
  • Making notes while listening to lectures
  • Participate, engage or understand classroom discussions
  • Understand educational videos
  • Present oral reports
 

The real strength of weak ties — from news.stanford.edu; with thanks to Roberto Ferraro for this resource
A team of Stanford, MIT, and Harvard scientists finds “weaker ties” are more beneficial for job seekers on LinkedIn.

Excerpt:

A team of researchers from Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and LinkedIn recently conducted the largest experimental study to date on the impact of digital job sites on the labor market and found that weaker social connections have a greater beneficial effect on job mobility than stronger ties.

“A practical implication of the research is that it’s helpful to reach out to people beyond your immediate friends and colleagues when looking for a new job,” explained Erik Brynjolfsson, who is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor at Stanford University. “People with whom you have weaker ties are more likely to have information or connections that are useful and relevant.”

 

 

Tulsa study offers more evidence of pre-K’s benefits into adulthood — from hechingerreport.org by Ariel Gilreath
Attending preschool has a strong impact on traits such as self-regulation, according to a long-running study 

Excerpt:

Many people might think the main benefit of a high-quality preschool program is the academic boost it gives young children when they enter elementary school.

But the strongest positive effects may show up years, and even decades, later and have little to do with test scores and grades.

Researchers at Georgetown University have been studying the impact of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s program for two decades.

In a new set of working papers, the researchers found long-term positive outcomes for children who were enrolled in preschool in 2005: Compared to their peers, the children who attended preschool were more likely to take advanced courses and graduate high school on time, more likely to enroll in a higher education program and more likely to vote in elections after turning 18. Most of the new findings have not yet been officially published or peer reviewed.

 

Why aren’t people going to college? — from highereddive.com by Rick Seltzer
Many of those who didn’t enroll or complete degrees say college was too expensive — but they also cite stress and career uncertainty, new research finds.

Excerpts:

Researchers offered four main insights for higher education:

  • Who attends college isn’t just a demographic question
  • The education marketplace is fundamentally different today than it has been in the past
  • Higher education’s language is missing the mark, and so are educational pathways
  • Students are willing to pay for college if they know returns will follow

Also relevant/see:

Some High-School Grads Say No to College. Here’s Why — and What Might Change Their Minds. — from chronicle.com by Audrey Williams June

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The data also underscore how the education marketplace has shifted in recent years, said Adam Burns, chief operations officer and senior research analyst for Edge Research, during a media call. For instance, nearly 47 percent of the young adults surveyed said they had taken a class offered via YouTube or were currently doing so.

“As we all know,” Burns said, “there are more educational options at people’s disposal than ever before.”

MIT Professors Propose a New Kind of University for Post-COVID Era — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpt:

Five professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have some answers.

They released a white paper yesterday called “Ideas For Designing An Affordable New Educational Institution,” where they lay out a framework for essentially a new class of university that would take advantage of various trends that have emerged in the past few years.

 

VIRTUAL CAREER EXPLORATION SERIES — from kentisd.org (emphasis DSC)

Kent ISD’s Career Chats are designed to provide 7-12 grade students a virtual opportunity to meet real professionals employed in real jobs.  This series of 30-40 minute sessions will highlight professions in a variety of career pathways, giving students the opportunity to learn more about a career of interest, or to explore new options.  Professionals will share their own career path, along with valuable industry insights that support student career exploration.  Students will have an opportunity to ask their own questions through the platform’s chat function.

 

The New Learning Economy: It’s Time To Build in Education — from a16z.com by Anne Lee Skates and Connie Chan

Excerpt:

As we enter the third school year of the Covid era, a disturbing new normal is settling over the country. Students continue to be chronically absent; nearly 50,000 Los Angeles public school students failed to show up on the first day of school. Nine-year-olds’ math and reading levels have dropped to 20-year lows, and the dip in reading scores is the steepest decline in more than 30 years. Teacher vacancies are reaching crisis levels. Schools are even resorting to bringing back retirees and loosening basic teaching requirements to fill gaps.

Why is this so important? Education is a $1.8 trillion-dollar industry in the U.S. More importantly, our education system shapes who our future leaders and builders will be—more than 1 in 5 people in the U.S. are current K–12 and college students.

 

Stanford Law School tries out income-share financing — from highereddive.com by eremy Bauer-Wolf

Excerpt:

  • Stanford Law School will allow some students to fund their law degrees with an income-share agreement, in which they will pay back tuition costs through a portion of their salaries over 12 years.
  • The law school is working with a nonprofit, Flywheel Fund for Career Choice, on the pilot program, which will initially be open to 20 students. The law school attendees will be able to have up to $170,000 of their tuition covered upfront in exchange for paying back 10% of their salaries.
 

The sale of student lists exacerbates inequity in the admissions process, reports say — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak

Excerpt:

  • Student lists from providers like the College Board and the ACT systematically exclude underrepresented students, according to a series of reports released Wednesday by The Institute for College Access & Success.
  • Researchers found list search filters, which allow colleges to select which demographics of students they buy information on, disproportionately exclude students from low-income and rural communities, as well as communities of color.
 

How to Build Better Small-Group Reading Instruction — from edweek.org by Sarah D. Sparks

Excerpt:

As educators look for ways to help students gain ground academically, research suggests refining traditional classroom reading groups could help.

As part of an Education Week webinar with educators Thursday, special education professor Matthew Burns talked about how to improve the effectiveness of small-group instruction. Burns, the director of the University of Missouri Center for Collaborative Solutions for Kids, Practice, and Policy, said effective small-group reading instruction can cut across different grades and subject areas, but students should be arranged based on the specific skills they need to hone in comprehension, fluency, phonics, and phonemic awareness—rather than overall reading levels.


And at the higher ed level:

Recoding for Learning: Reading Comprehension Strategies for Online Discussions — from scholarlyteacher.com by Maria I Ortiz, University of Cincinnati

Key Statement: This article focuses on innovative, engaging, and effective recoding for learning strategies to aid critical thinking for students discussing and interpreting second language texts within an online classroom experience.

 

New Directory of Innovative School Models Aims to Encourage Experimentation — from edsurge.com by Daniel Mollenkamp

Excerpt:

A new online library called the “Innovative Models Exchange,” unveiled Monday, hopes to give educators an easy place to quickly consider some possibilities. The exchange—developed by the nonprofit Transcend Education with funding from the Gates Foundation—allows schools to search through a database of “innovative” models that Transcend says are ready to be adopted by schools.

The nonprofit hopes that the database will shake up the education system.

 

Boosting High School Students’ Sense of Agency and Motivation — from edutopia.org by Mary Davenport
Providing students with greater voice and choice in the classroom can build their desire to learn and do well academically.

Excerpt:

This year, instead of repeating essay after essay, we included project-based, performative, and creative assessments. The variety allowed for every student to shine at some point in a way unique to themselves.

More than anything, creating opportunities for autonomy has necessitated a shift in my perspective. Our field likes to talk about everything standards-based, but there are dangers to that: When the standard becomes more important than the student in front of us, we have lost the true meaning of education.

I offer students choice by giving them options regarding

    • learning content (which texts to read, videos to watch, podcasts to listen to);
    • communication and processing (written, verbal, or visual);
    • assessments (choosing topics, choosing texts, choosing supports, choosing structures); and
    • work time (independent, collaborative, location).

Learners need: More voice. More choice. More control. -- this image was created by Daniel Christian


 
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