Please do a bad job of putting your courses online

Online instruction | Higher Education | Distance learning

via Please do a bad job of putting your courses online

 

by Rebecca Barrett-Fox

March 12, 2020

I’m absolutely serious.

For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put some or all of the remainder of their semester online, now is a time to do a poor job of it. You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that’s the best way to help your students learn.

If you are getting sucked into the pedagogy of online learning or just now discovering that there are some pretty awesome tools out there to support student online, stop. Stop now. Ask yourself: Do I really care about this? (Probably not, or else you would have explored it earlier.) Or am I trying to prove that I’m a team player? (You are, and don’t let your university exploit that.) Or I am trying to soothe myself in the face of a pandemic by doing something that makes life feel normal? (If you are, stop and instead put your energy to better use, like by protesting in favor of eviction freezes or packing up sacks of groceries for kids who won’t get meals because public schools are closing.)

Remember the following as you move online:

 

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When graduates ask: “Why can’t I get a job?” Aaron Addison December 1, 2015

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“What are you planning to do when you graduate?”, is a question that I often ask undergraduate and graduate students.  Responses are as wide ranging as the student population itself.  There is the predictable “Good question”, the more resigned “I don’t know” and the more altruistic variants on “save the world — make a difference”.  Most though have a common goal, either continue on in their academic pursuits or…..get a job.  A recent article (published by BBC) on a study done at University of Westminster revealed many of the experiences I have had over the years are not unique, but rather data points in the much larger phenomenon  of recent graduates not being able to find a job. (article here)

Before coming to Washington University in St. Louis almost ten years ago, I spent 17 years in the private sector, working as a project manager in the civil engineering\architecture business.   Part of that time was as a self employed consultant, part working for a major engineering software provider, and part working directly for engineering companies.  I feel extremely fortunate to have had the real-world project experiences that have shaped my professional career.  All of these experiences had a common denominator.  You must bring value to the job.

Sharing these experiences have led students and recent graduates to my door to ask for my help in finding gainful employment after graduation.  They come with CV in hand and want to know what to change and how to modify content to get a job.  They are crushed to discover that almost no one cares which lab they worked in during college, what their GPA was, or who they were a TA for (and how many times).  They make the changes only to find that it’s still not enough to land their dream job….or any job.   The disconnect between resume and interview is real.  read more…

Student Success: Academic Librarianship’s New Holy Grail | From the Bell Tower

Student success | Academic libraries | Altmetrics | Leadership

by Steven Bell | Jan 09, 2019

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There is little debate in academic librarianship over our role in contributing to student success. The year ahead is likely to see more debate over what it should mean, how we demonstrate that contribution, and to what extent data is used to accomplish it.

For most of my academic library career the holy grail was collaboration with faculty. In addition to feeding a desire to gain some equal footing with faculty in contributing to student learning, those collaborative efforts brought a sense of purpose to my effort to help students learn. While connecting and building relationships with faculty is still critical to an individual liaison librarian’s success, my observation is that it is now somewhat secondary to the academic library’s collective ability to enable student success. Making that the focus of the academic library enterprise would certainly demonstrate support of what has emerged as the top priority of our institutions. In 2018, there was a clear sense of urgency around student retention and graduation—always a fundamental purpose of higher education, but heightened by an increase in at-promise student enrollment. If signs during the course of 2018 are an indicator, then the debate over how academic libraries do or do not contribute is sure to emerge as a major issue for 2019. Read article

Become a More Productive Learner [HBR]

Self Management | Lifelong Learning | Information

by Matt Plummer and Jo Wilson | June 05, 2018

 

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Bhandharangsri/Getty Images

Today we consume five times more information every day than we did in 1986, an incredible amount that’s equivalent to a 174 newspapers…a day. That probably includes a lot of Instagram posts, but it’s not only social media. The corporate e-learning space has grown by nine times over the last 16 years, such that almost 80% of U.S. companies offer online training for their employees, making more information accessible to them than ever before.

One would think that this would translate into increased knowledge. Yet, unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case. Scores of average American adults on tests of general civic knowledge — the type of information you’d assume people would pick up from scanning through all this information — has remained almost constant for the last 80 years. On the corporate side, working professionals apply only about 15% of what they learn in many corporate training and development programs in many cases.

We’re consuming more information but not learning more. In short, we have become less productive learners. Read more…

People who read books tend to be nicer than those who don’t – [Study]

Culture | Books | Reading

By Adam Boult 8 May 2017

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Reading: pretty good, apparently Credit: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Does reading books make you a nicer person? Or are nicer people more likely to be drawn to reading?

A recent study by researchers at Kingston University found that people who read works of fiction tend to be kinder and more empathetic.

“Exposure to fiction relates to a range of empathetic abilities,” said researchers, who addressed the British Psychological Society conference in Brighton last week. Read more…