 | | | | | | by rwweaver on
| John Donne's oft-quoted poem, "No Man is an Island," reads,
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Written during the 17th century, Donne's poem is still applicable, particularly in the education world. Students partner with teachers. Teachers partner with course material, programs, and then reach out to the students - teaching them not only the course material, but knowledge that will help the student "make the grade," and assist them in the everyday world - where collaboration and integration are integral to our existence.
Knowledge is best learned when shared, and best gained by sharing. No man is an island - when students, instructors, administration, parents, family, community collaborate when disseminating knowledge, the entire community benefits.
Donne understood partnering - and this is IHOU's mission.
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| | | | |  | | State of the Union Address: Education and Latinos | | | by rwweaver on
| Esther Aguilera, President & CEO of CHCI, discusses President Obama's State of the Union address in her article that can be found here. She suggests that education isn't just a "pathway to opportunity, it is a prerequisite." Higher education, particularly for Latinos, is imperative.
Aguilera states, "To address this critical need, the Board of Directors of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHCI) recently passed a unanimous resolution in support of the Lumina Foundation for Education, The Gates Foundation, key educational partners, as well the Administration to increase to 60 percent by 2025 the national college graduation rate for all Americans. To reach this goal and have the U.S. regain its education leadership status in the world will require engaging in programs and activities to improve the Latino college completion rate."
IHOU's mission most certainly reflects these goals. We are definitely in support of the Latino dream - the American dream.
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| | | | | | | International Hispanic Online University Releases New Course – Living in the USA: Cultural and Academic Transitions | | | by rwweaver on
| I've worked on this course for over a year - so happy to see it is now available for anyone transitioning to life in the USA.
The International Hispanic Online University (IHOU), a content provider of online college courses taught in Spanish, is pleased to announce the release of Living in the USA: Cultural and Academic Transitions, a new course available in English and Spanish.
Living in the USA: Cultural and Academic Transitions is meant to serve as a help to those who are transitioning from one cultural climate to another – specifically to the United States, and is meant for all adults, be they entry-level college students or those in the workforce, to those new to the United States or those who have been in the States for awhile, but would like to learn more about the USA.
Interested students will acquire a general understanding of the concepts and methods that shape the United States of America and broaden their knowledge of moving from one culture to another. Students will learn the value placed on higher education and be prepared to face the challenges that come with pursuing an education and will develop the ability to think critically by finding and utilizing resources available in one’s community.
For more information about the course, or how your organization can offer the course, please visit http://www.ihou.org/transitions.
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| | | | | | | Education, Technology, and Sesame Street: Serving Latino and Other Students | | | by rwweaver on
| The November 2010 "Smithsonian" magazine has a short article by G. Wayne Clough (secretary of the Smithsonian Institution) titled, "Big Opportunity."
Clough discusses how Sesame Street transformed learning for American children. Clough quotes Claudine Brown, the Smithsonian's director of education, "Sesame Street is Brown's favorite example of a 'pivotal moment in history when technology and educational opportunities came together to make something amazing happen.'"
Clough suggests that Brown, education, and the Smithsonian face challenges in continuing to make education and technology fit the needs of the student. Clough states, "Only 70 percent of US students earn a high-school diploma. . . . Approximately 50 percent of African-American, Latino, and Native American youths drop out of school prior to graduation."
One of the ways the Smithsonian is addressing this problem is by engaging students through innovative programs such as the "Latino Virtual Museum," an "online, 3-D learning environment in which users create an avatar and explore the Smithsonian's vast collections and multidisciplinary research."
At a July conference on education co-hosted by the Smithsonian, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, "No technological innovation in our lifetime has greater potential to transform education than broadband Internet." The Smithsonian will play a role in this by digitizing their collections, making videos available, sharing research-based curriculum materials, and enhancing interactivity through "Smithsonian Commons," and making this accessible to through the Internet.
Thank you Smithsonian Institution for reaching out with your materials - and providing students of all ages, races, and economic backgrounds with the opportunity for continual educational growth. Thanks Big Bird and Elmo for helping transform education.
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| | | | | | | Maybe Experience Really Can Be the Best Teacher | | | by rwweaver on
| This article, from the November 21, 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the value of employment to a college student's education and success. IHOU strongly supports this suggestion, which is one of the many reasons for having Spanish-language courses, online. Enjoy -
College students work for different reasons. Many take jobs to pay tuition and related educational expenses. Others work to afford electronic gadgets (often ones that we, their professors, don't yet know exist). Regardless of the reasons, many professors and administrators consider students' working during college to be an unfortunate distraction from what should be their primary focus: their academic studies.
Nonetheless, next to going to class, work is by far the most common activity in which undergraduates take part. At least two-thirds of students at four-year colleges and four-fifths of their counterparts at two-year colleges work at some point during college, either on or off campus. And, contrary to long-held beliefs, findings from the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement show that working is positively related to several dimensions of student engagement, especially for full-time students.
Given that policy makers and institutional leaders are looking for low- or no-cost ways to improve student success—especially for part-time and older students and from historically underrepresented groups—it's high time we look for ways to use the work experience to enrich rather than detract from learning and college completion.
Substantial research suggests that working during college is related to acquiring such employer-preferred skills as teamwork and time management. Employment also has the potential to deepen and enrich learning, as is the case when students participate in such "high impact" activities as learning communities, student-faculty research, study abroad, capstone seminars, and internships both paid and unpaid. When done well, those and other high-impact activities require students to connect, reflect on, and integrate what they are learning from their classes with other life experiences. Doing so helps students see firsthand the practical value of their classroom learning by applying it in real-life settings—which, additionally, often helps to clarify their career aspirations.
For more than a century, integrating learning and work along with service has been the mission of the seven federally recognized work colleges in the United States: the College of the Ozarks and Alice Lloyd, Berea, Blackburn, Ecclesia, Sterling, and Warren Wilson Colleges. These institutions meet the eligibility criteria for funds from the Work-Colleges Program administered by the U.S. Department of Education, including featuring work, learning, and service in their educational philosophy; requiring that all students work at least five hours a week (though most students at work colleges average between 10-15 hours); and making student performance on the job as well as the classroom part of the student record. The goal is to help students learn to balance study, service to others, and the demands of their jobs.
Other institutions are pursuing similar ends. The University of Maine at Farmington has created more on-campus jobs to help students see the connections between curriculum and work. Boston's Northeastern University and the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, offer large numbers of high-quality off-campus internships.
As part of a two-day visit to the University of Iowa in 2009, I encouraged staff members in the division of student services to teach their student employees to connect and apply what they were learning in class to their jobs, and vice versa. They subsequently started a small pilot program with students working in different kinds of jobs—clerking at the campus bookstore, assisting at the health center, and answering questions at the residence-hall information desk, to name just a few.
Supervisors met with their student employees twice during the semester. To focus those conversations, they provided students with a list of questions in advance: - How is this job fitting in with your academics?
- What are you learning here at work that is helping you in class?
- What are you learning in class that you can apply here at work?
- Can you give a couple of examples of what you are learning here at work that you will use in your chosen profession?
Although only about half of the 33 students who had the structured meetings with their supervisors responded, the results of the survey comparing them with 373 co-workers who did not have such meetings were striking. On virtually every measure, the pilot-program group was much more positive. For example, about 70 percent of the students in the pilot program agreed that they had made connections between their work experience and their major-field course work, compared with only 29 percent of their co-workers. Sixty-nine percent of the pilot-program workers reported that their work had helped improve their written communication skills, compared with 17 percent of their peers. Seventy-seven percent of the pilot-program workers said their jobs had helped them use critical-thinking skills to solve problems, compared with 56 percent of the others.
Iowa is expanding the program this year, making an effort to include more students working in areas such as food service, where integrating academic learning with the work experience may be more challenging. Any college can adapt this generic, low-cost, potentially high-payoff approach.
For students in off-campus jobs, a classroom-based model can achieve similar ends. Professors can create assignments that encourage such students to make connections between course materials and their jobs, and can lead discussions that ask students to reflect on and integrate their learning. For example, in an upper-division writing course, a professor could ask students to analyze, in a genre appropriate for the field, the relevance of key concepts presented in class readings to one's workplace, or to dealing effectively with a low-performing co-worker.
Getting students to talk, in the company of their peers, about how they are applying their learning can be a significant challenge. One way to jump-start meaningful exchanges is to include in the class an upper-division student who is articulate in such matters. After a few sessions, students will very likely begin making and discussing connections themselves.
Not every course needs to be so structured for students to derive benefits from connecting learning and work. If working students have just one or two such courses in the first year, and again a few more times in the major, they would begin to develop an enhanced, practiced capacity for reflection and integration that they can use in other classes and settings.
So how can colleges build on those successes? One way is for a consortium of colleges and universities to seek funds to develop course modules focused on connecting learning and employment. The challenges and rewards of using work to educational advantage could then be documented and adapted by colleges with large numbers of working students.
There are many good ideas for enhancing college achievement and helping more undergraduates succeed. Few promise to deliver as much bang for the buck as making work more relevant to learning, and vice versa.
(George D. Kuh is director of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, located at Indiana University at Bloomington and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a professor emeritus of higher education at Indiana University and author of High Impact Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter [AAC&U, 2008].) | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | by rwweaver on
| On February 24, 2009, President Barack Obama said, "By 2020, American will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world." A hearty goal, and what will it take for the United States to make Obama's dream a reality?
In 2008 (latest numbers) the US was ranked as tenth in educational attainment, or the percentage of adults with associates or higher degrees, and traditional US college-age students lag behind other countries in their degree attainment. Yet the biggest population growth is in students of color, who often have modest disposable income. In order to attain the number of degrees required to become #1 in higher education, internationally, the gap can only close by reaching out to an under-served and fast growing sector of potential students, those of Latino or Hispanic descent.
Hispanics have the fastest growth rate of any other racial and ethnic group in the nation, a trend that will likely continue as immigration and birth rates continue to grow among Latinos. And, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, nearly 90% of Hispanics between the ages of 16 and 25 believe a college education is important to success in life.
In order to make Obama's wish a reality, a focused effort on growing the Latino population in higher education is a must. As Latino students are pulled into institutions of higher education there must be an emphasis on language of origin, the strength and involvement of family of origin, and accessibility of courses.
IHOU, in partnering with private and public institutions can assist in meeting these needs, and in doing so, empowering students, their families, their communities, and the nation, placing the US, once again, as #1 in degree attainment.
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