Academics Archives - Page 2 of 7

Some Colleges Let Students Be Teachers

Houston Chronicle: “Wearing a ‘Pursuit of Hoppiness’ T-shirt, Rebecca Lee begins a Wednesday night ‘Houston Microbreweries’ course at Rice University with a lesson on Indian Pale Ales … It isn’t your standard course at Rice. Not only because drinking beer is a major component, but because Lee and her co-teacher Alfonso Morera aren’t beer experts. They’re not even professors. Both are Rice undergraduates, and they’re teaching their peers. Rice’s ‘College Courses,’ which launched as a pilot around 2007, has become a fixture at the university. It allows students to teach one-credit classes on niche topics not offered by Rice lecturers and professors.”

“Princeton, Tufts University in Massachusetts, the University of California-Berkeley and other universities across the country offer similar teaching opportunities for undergraduate students … Mike Gustin, a professor of biosciences at Rice, proposed the courses in 2006 after learning that University of Virginia offered a similar program. Rice’s program has evolved over the past 12 years, with students quickly taking advantage of the opportunity to share, learn and congregate over their wide-ranging interests like knitting, counterculture movements in the 1960s, zombies and hip-hop.”

“Graded satisfactory and unsatisfactory, the courses can be taken or taught for credit up to three times, though Gustin said some students have gone on to teach for no credit at all … Students are required to take a six-week pedagogy course, or COLL 300, in which they learn the fundamentals of teaching, including the science behind successful, active learning, and how to frame their ideas in a scholarly way with the goal of providing students with a variety of perspectives and context … In the end, students craft a syllabus, prepare course content, submit a proposal to the dean of students’ office for approval and work with faculty mentors, who actively give them feedback.”

How to Measure ‘Performance’ for Admissions?

Education Week: “Imagine a high school where students skip standardized end-of-course tests. Instead, to pass a class or graduate, they show off the results of big projects they’ve done, such as analyzing why the United States lost the Vietnam War or how geometric patterns can be used to produce solar energy … The trouble is that most college admissions officers already must review tall stacks of applications quickly. Few can carve out more time to read long descriptions of students’ work or watch videos of their presentations … how can college admissions officers get a quick and accurate sense of what students from performance-based schools have accomplished? A few projects around the country are trying to answer that question.”

“One of those initiatives, Reimagining College Access, wants to lower a key barrier to considering performance assessments in students’ admission applications: colleges’ software systems … most colleges use software systems designed to process students’ grades and test scores, but they can’t accept videos, research papers, and other projects. Reimagining College Access … works to create or find online platforms that can accept those kinds of student work. With the resources to spend more time on each student’s application, the most selective private colleges are the ones most likely to be able to examine more complex forms of student work … The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, allows students to upload ‘creative portfolios’ that capture research, visual and performing arts, and maker projects.”

“A project based in New England has designed model profiles to help schools that use performance assessments convey their work clearly to colleges. They’ve also designed model transcripts to reflect the nature of students’ work in performance-based schools … The new model transcript provides more detailed information than ordinary transcripts. It uses a 1-4 grading scale for students’ courses. But it also provides grades for crosscutting skills, like problem-solving, and for mastery of specific standards within each subject. In English, for instance, students’ proficiency is graded separately in reading comprehension, reading interpretation, writing range, writing research, discussion, and presentation.”

Drexel’s New ‘Honors College’ Complex

Philadelphia Inquirer: “Joining a trend among universities across the country, Drexel University will develop a residential complex for its more than 1,500 Pennoni Honors College students, paying for part of the cost through a new $5 million donation, the school has announced … The money also will go toward a 10,800-square-foot, two-story glass and stone extension onto the building that will house three seminar rooms, study and social lounges, and honors college offices … So-called honors colleges, which have more stringent admission and academic requirements for students, have been proliferating around the country, along with programs to house those students.”

“The gift, which was announced Tuesday and is one of the larger ones the honors programs have received, will make Drexel ‘more appealing for students who might otherwise consider a liberal arts school,’ said Paula Marantz Cohen, dean of the honors college. ‘They can get the best of both worlds: the co-op and the interdisciplinary experience’ … The honors complex will create an ‘intellectual oasis’ where ‘students from all disciplines can gather to discuss ideas, take seminar-style, cross-disciplinary courses, and learn more about opportunities for research, fellowships and mentoring on campus,’ Marantz Cohen was quoted as saying in a news release.”

“Drexel’s Honors College houses five initiatives: the Honors Program, the Office of Undergraduate Research, the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry, the Center for Scholar Development and the Center for Marketing and Media. A new Center for Civil Discourse is also in the works and aims to bring together students, activists, and experts in analyzing today’s political climate.”

Code Language: AP & SAT Re-think Knowledge

Thomas Friedman: “A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills and knowledge that we test young people for that we know are correlated with success in college and in life, which is the most important? Their answer: the ability to master ‘two codes’ — computer science and the U.S. Constitution. Since then they’ve been adapting the SATs and the College Board’s Advanced Placement program to inspire and measure knowledge of both.”

“So rather than have SAT exams and Advanced Placement courses based on things that you cram for and forget, they are shifting them, where they can, to promote the ‘two codes.’ In 2016, the College Board completely revamped its approach to A.P. computer science courses and exams … starting with the question: What is it that you’d like to do in the world? Music? Art? Science? Business? Great! Then come build an app in the furtherance of that interest and learn the principles of computer science, not just coding … The new course debuted in 2016. Enrollment was the largest for a new course in the history of Advanced Placement, with just over 44,000 students nationwide.”

“The A.P. U.S. Government and Politics course also was reworked” based on the premise that “it was essential that every student entering college actually have command of the First Amendment, which enshrines five freedoms, not just freedom of speech” but also of “assembly, petition, press and religion … So the new A.P. government course is built on an in-depth look at 15 Supreme Court cases as well as nine foundational documents that every young American should know. It shows how the words of the Constitution give rise to the structures of our government … That said to students and teachers something the SAT had never dared say before: Some content is disproportionately more powerful and important, and if you prepare for it you will be rewarded on the SAT.”

I Am Williams: Voices of the Undergrads

Williams College math major Ariana Ross ’17 discusses the symmetry between diving and mathematics and the importance of respect and friendship.

College Board Changes AP Offering

USA Today: “The College Board will soon offer AP teachers new practice questions, instructional videos and automated assessments that can give students feedback online. The testing and college-prep giant has invested $80 million into helping more students successfully prepare for the annual May exams, leaders said. But the changes coming Aug. 1 include a controversial exam registration deadline in November instead of March, and new $40 penalties for each late registrant or canceled exam.”

“Some skeptics say the new deadline could actually deter skittish students — especially those already overwhelmed in the fall by college applications or by the rigor of AP material … More than 2,700 people have signed an online petition asking the company to drop the earlier exam registration deadline and fees. They also want students to access the new exam-prep materials without having to share their personal data.”

“Trevor Packer, a former English major who’s led the AP program at the College Board since 2003, said … the fees are designed as an incentive for students to commit to taking the exams earlier in the year. Data from schools trying out the early deadline do not suggest many will sign up late and incur fees, he said. He also stressed that the company would not gain any marketable student data from the 2019 fall AP exam registration or generate any revenue from it.”

St. Olaf College: A Holistic Health Curriculum

St. Olaf Magazine: “From 2011 to 2016, 75 percent of St. Olaf students who applied to medical school with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.60 were accepted, compared to the overall national average acceptance rate of 47 percent among students with comparable grade point averages during the same time period … Students interested in the health professions earn majors across the liberal arts, including science and non-science disciplines. Those who are considering medical school can pursue pre-med (or pre-health) studies in tandem with their major.”

“Among those who do head to medical school, the Association of American Medical Colleges notes that, nationally, only 51 percent of medical school enrollees in 2012 majored in biological sciences. The remaining matriculants majored in the humanities, mathematics or statistics, the physical sciences, the social sciences, or specialized health sciences … St. Olaf’s philosophy is to help students think past the title of ‘doctor’ to examine how they can best use their skills to improve the lives of others.”

“While nursing students earn a bachelor of arts degree in nursing, they also partake of St. Olaf’s liberal arts curriculum by completing the general graduation requirements, such as courses in a foreign language, oral and written communication, and abstract and quantitative reasoning …pre-health students can also study abroad … Many choose St. Olaf’s service learning–focused Peruvian Medical Experience, during which students assist alumni health professionals who are serving the dental and medical needs of Andean communities in and around Cusco, Peru.”

Harvard & Berklee: Dual-Degree Harmony

Harvard Gazette: A “five-year program, launched in 2016, allows students to pursue a bachelor of arts (A.B.) degree at Harvard and a master of music (M.M.) or master of arts (M.A.) at Berklee at the same time. During their first three years, students pursue a degree in the concentration of their choice at Harvard and take private instruction at Berklee. At the end of their third year, students complete an audition and interview to confirm their readiness for the Berklee master’s program. The fourth year focuses on completing all Harvard requirements, and the fifth year on the requirements for the M.M. or M.A.”

“Avanti Nagral, a junior psychology and global health concentrator … is a singer-songwriter whose most recent single, ‘The Other Side,’ draws on her experience of living between two worlds: Boston and her hometown of Mumbai, and now Harvard Square and Back Bay. ‘I remember sitting and reading a neuroscience textbook while I waited for a private lesson at Berklee,’ she says with a laugh. ‘People didn’t know why I was looking at pictures of a brain. But I’m interested in all of it.'”

“Nagral also finds ways to make her Harvard coursework applicable to her music. In the negotiation and conflict-management course she took this fall, she tailored some assignments to deal with contractual and legal issues in the music industry. She also convinced her professor in a gender studies seminar to accept an original song for her final class project.”

Special Programs Help Prepare Freshmen

The Washington Post: The Educational Opportunity Program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, “designed to prepare students for their first year in college, subjects them to 15-hour days full of classes and study sessions … Its requirements were a shock to most of the 18-year-olds in the program. Many received their high school diploma less than a week before the session started. Before students really knew what they agreed to, they surrendered their cellphones and were followed when they went to the bathroom during class.”

“But most agree it’s worth it. Educational Opportunity Programs, a feature of university systems in several states, have shown that a carefully structured combination of demanding academics and intensive support can launch vulnerable students to success during their first year in college. Students then often go on to graduate at higher rates than their peers.”

“New Jersey’s Educational Opportunity Program is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It’s a positive vestige of the riots that roiled Newark in 1967. In the aftermath, state legislators allocated money to help urban students who weren’t getting a good enough K-12 education attend and succeed at the state’s colleges. Similar programs popped up nationwide around the same time, but not all remain. The largest programs are in California, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington state.”

Planetarium is ‘High Point’ at HPU

Greensboro: At High Point University, “The Wanek School of Undergraduate Sciences is more than 70 percent complete and on schedule to open in August. Not only will this four-story building serve as the new home for the university’s growing undergraduate programs in biology, chemistry and physics, the $65 million facility will also complement the university’s graduate-level offerings in pharmacy and the health sciences.”

“The main lobby of the new science building is nearly 50 feet high, topped by a cupola. A hallway leads into the building past big windows that show off two labs — microbiology on the left, physics on the right. At the end of the hallway is one of the building’s key features: a planetarium with 125 stadium-style seats and an overhead dome that’s 50 feet in diameter. HPU students will use the planetarium for earth studies, astronomy and other science courses. It’ll also be the site of one of the few planetarium operations courses in the country, said Brad Barlow, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy.”

“The science building will have classrooms, faculty offices and 30 labs, including ones for animal, insect and cadaver research. It also will have a makerspace so students can work on their own projects outside of class. Next door to the Wanek building, HPU will erect a 15,000-square-foot conservatory that will house a new greenhouse for botany research and to grow the trees, shrubs and flowers that are planted throughout campus.”