About Us | Quad Learning. Quad Learning, Inc. was founded in 2012 with the goal of creating more affordable pathways for students to earn their bachelor’s degree. Quad Learning is a venture-backed startup that collaborates with leading community colleges to jointly develop and deliver American Honors, a competitive 2-year honors program designed for high ability students who plan to complete the remainder of their bachelor’s degree at a top-tier college or university. Quad Learning provides several critical services for its network in the development of American Honors: Student Services Our personalized advising services provide students with a network of support throughout their time in the American Honors program. Our advisors specialize in course planning, career exploration, four-year transfers, financial aid and increasing student retention at each collaborating community college.
Advanced Learning Technology Faculty Support and Development Recruitment & Selective Admissions Marketing Strategy and Services. Syllabus Geeks | Intellidemia. Taking the Plunge | Reading Week spent in the ‘real world’ Reading Week spent in the ‘real world’ Posted on February 5, 2013 by admin As Reading Week approaches, many universities are putting the final touches on their plans to send students into the “real world” to do Community Service Learning projects (sometimes called Alternative Spring Break projects). According to information gleaned from the Internet, at least 10 Canadian universities will be supporting teams of students to do projects related to social issues such as income inequality and homelessness as well as sustainability issues such as food security. Students from St. Francis Xavier, Carleton, University of Ottawa, McMaster, Western, University of Regina, University of Saskatchewan, University of Alberta, UBC Okanagan, and UBC Vancouver will be doing projects locally, nationally, or internationally.
Knowing how powerful these hands-on, immersive experiences can be, I am excited for the students who will have the good fortune to take part in these projects. Social policies gone awry. How to Save College. I wrote a thing last fall about massive open online courses (MOOCs, in the parlance), and the challenge that free or cheap online classes pose to business as usual in higher ed. In that piece, I compared the people running colleges today to music industry executives in the age of Napster. (This was not a flattering comparison.)
Aaron Bady, a cultural critic and doctoral candidate at Berkeley, objected. I replied to Bady, one thing led to another, the slippery slope was slupped, and Maria Bustillos ended up refereeing the whole thing here on The Awl. Bustillos sees institutions like San Jose State experimenting with credit for online courses from startups like Udacity, and asks: "are we willing to jeopardize the education of young people (at the cost of millions or billions in public funds) on a bet like that?” To which my reply is: "Depends. That sentiment is the first sentence of Kio Stark’s forthcoming book, Don’t Go Back to School. Forget private school. About 900. And now here it is. Udacity, San Jose State University offer online classes for credit | Internet & Media. So you've graduated from high school and been accepted at a four-year college.
But when you arrive on campus you find out that you can't pass college entry-level courses, so it's back to remedial classes. That's the fate of half of all freshman at San Jose State University, according to Provost Ellen Junn. Add to those woes decreases in funding for higher education across California, higher tuition fees, and greater competition for college admission. Those are just some of the reasons the university has partnered with Silicon Valley startup Udacity to offer San Jose State Plus, online courses for academic credit. Udacity began offering MOOCs in early 2012. When students sign up for an Udacity MOOC, they watch short interactive videos online and take quizzes to make sure they've grasped the material before the next concept is introduced.
To start, San Jose State Plus is offering three classes: entry-level math, college algebra, and elementary statistics. Thrun isn't done yet, though. American Council on Education Recommends 5 MOOCs for Credit - Technology. By Steve Kolowich In what could be a major step toward bridging the gap between massive open online courses and the credentialing system that they are supposed to "disrupt," the American Council on Education on Thursday endorsed five MOOCs for credit. Two of the approved courses, "Introduction to Genetics and Evolution" and "Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach," come from Duke University.
Two others, "Pre-Calculus" and "Algebra," come from the University of California at Irvine. The last, "Calculus: Single-Variable," comes from the University of Pennsylvania. All five are offered through Coursera. The council, an association that advises college presidents, operates a credit-recommendation service that evaluates individual courses.
Whether colleges take the council's advice, however, is an open question. But if some colleges follow through, the council's recommendations could go a long way toward straightening the crooked path from free college courses to valuable college credits. UnCollege - Hacking Your Education.
Alternative Degree Options. Re:BOOT California Reform. At P-TECH, Educators and Employers Work Together to Solve the Skills Gap | Technology. This story is the fourth in a six part editorial series exploring the balance between student learning and job skills. We’re asking leaders and thinkers in education and technology fields: Can America educate its way out of the skills gap? This series is brought to you by GOOD, with support from Apollo Group. Learn more about our efforts to bridge the skills gap at Coding for GOOD. Mentoring has always been a very important part of my life. From childhood, through college, and even now in my profession as I mentor aspiring education leaders, my mentoring experiences have been great opportunities to learn.
Located across the street from the New York City Housing Authority’s Albany Projects in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, P-TECH is currently in its second year and has 226 students. Our students are not hand-picked, and do not take any academic examinations to qualify for their seats. But it takes more than knowing the statistics for communities to help their children excel. Semester Online. Bridge to Learning - Educational Research. Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of a new MOOC or a new tie up between universities to offer MOOCs. this despite widespread scepticism amongst educationalists as to the pedagogic model being offered by the ‘commercial’ or x-MOOC providers or indeed any particularly convincing financial model.
And yet the original idea behind the MOOC as developed by Downes, Siemens and others is not dead. Today I received an email from Yishay Mor about a new MOOC being launched in early 2013. The OLDS MOOC “Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum” is a project based 9 week course. We expect 500-1000 participants, and we hope a large portion of these will be working on a group project throughout the MOOC, dedicating 3-10 hours a week to it, and producing an innovative, robust and meaningful design for a learning activity or curricular resource. We aim to provide a semi-structured, highly interactive, constructive and collaborative learning experience. This looks interesting. American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2001 to 2011 | Council of Graduate Schools. The complete survey report, Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2001 to 2011, is available below.
This year's survey was sent to a total of 788 colleges and universities, and usable responses were received from 655 institutions, for an overall response rate of 83%. The responding institutions confer about 74% of the 688,000 master's degrees and 91% of the 69,000 doctorates awarded each year by U.S. colleges and universities.
The CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees is the only national survey that collects data on first-time and total graduate enrollment by field across all fields of graduate study. It is also the only source of data on graduate enrollment by degree level (master's versus doctoral) and the only national survey that collects data on applications to graduate school by field of study. Information by broad field is publicly available here. Click below to view the report. What Will You Learn? Spoiler: Not as much as they say you will…. « Innovate.EDU. Time for the 2013 Edition of ACTA’s What Will They Learn? ™ report. In last year’s edition, ACTA followed the curricula at over 1,000 undergraduate institutions to see whether there was any correlation between desired learning outcomes in liberal arts programs and topics actually covered in the classroom.
Last year’s results were shocking enough. Most high-tuition institutions — including the Ivies — failed to provide even the most basic coverage of topics promised in published course descriptions. You would think, for example, that a humanities curriculum that promises courses in the sciences and mathematics would design courses in which students could actually learn both science and math. This year’s survey results were no more encouraging: From the report’s Executive Summary: What Will They Learn? The Seinfeld Show Most discouraging to me is the F grade that Amherst earned this year by requiring literally nothing.
Like this: Like Loading... Colleges Expect Lower Enrollment. The survey, released by the credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday, found that nearly half of colleges and universities that responded expected enrollment declines for full-time students, and a third of the schools expected tuition revenue to decline or to grow at less than the rate of inflation. “The cumulative effects of years of depressed family income and net worth, as well as uncertain job prospects for many recent graduates, are combining to soften student market demand at current tuition prices,” Emily Schwarz, a analyst and lead author of the report, said in a statement. The growing financial challenges for colleges and universities come as students and graduates have amassed more than $1 trillion in student debt, and many are struggling to pay their bills.
Nearly one in six people with an outstanding federal balance is in default, the federal government says. But that attitude has changed, in part because family incomes have declined. Daniel J. But Mr. Community colleges to release scorecard rivaling the president’s. Students planning to attend one of the nation’s 4,500 colleges and universities have a new interactive College Scorecard touted by President Obama in his State of the Union address as a tool “to compare schools based on a simple criteria – where you can get the most bang for your educational buck.”
Example of a California community college scorecard. The actual design has not been finalized. Source: California Community College Chancellor’s office. (Click to enlarge) Community college leaders say the focus on costs and graduation rates is a flawed lens for measuring their worth. The federal scorecard is “very four-year centric data,” explained Patrick Perry, Vice Chancellor for Technology, Research and Information Systems for California Community Colleges.
The new scorecard will shine a light on key indicators of success and provide data on how well each of the 112 campuses is measuring up. Pyramid. “I am telling you it’s really unbelievable,” said Fulks. The economic payoff. Big list of IdeaFestival 2012 story links. Online Courses: Opening the Ivory Tower? - Education. In a recent post, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) education expert Andrew Kelly highlights a notable trend: prestigious academic institutions are beginning to offer open, online courses. Kelly explains that if employers and less prestigious colleges begin to accept the credit earned in these online course, this change has the potential to make high quality education affordable to many more students. (full text below). "[P]olicymakers should spend less time haggling over student loan interest rates and more time figuring out how to encourage such low-cost course providers.
" Andrew Kelly is a research fellow in education policy studies at AEI and is available for interviews. For help or for additional media inquiries, please contact Jesse Blumenthal at jesse.blumenthal@aei.org or 202.862.4870. Leveling the Ivory TowerAndrew Kelly A funny thing is happening at some of America's most prestigious colleges and universities.
Home - Competitiveness. Customer Service and/or Academic Standards. Customer Service and/or Academic Standards "Academic integrity is not dependent on maintaining an indifference to student needs. It doesn't serve anyone's interestes. " Photo by John Manoogian III I recall walking down the hall of a university with a senior faculty member (I was merely tenure-track), when a student asked him for help with a small matter. He refused to help, noting that it was not currently his office hours. He was rude and condescending toward the student. I knew he could have helped her quickly with the matter. I was reminded of this event recently when a social media “friend” recently asked how we can best reconcile the disjuncture between great customer service and academic integrity and standards. The overriding logic seems to be that if we concern ourselves too much with the student’s experience, then we are merely another business.
Although I was embarrassed by the rudeness of my colleague, I sympathize with the logic that is behind his behaviour. Future of learning: obsolescence of knowledge, return to real teaching. The future of learning is far more than new devices, digital content and online classrooms. It means potentially rewritten relationships between students and information, teachers and instruction, and schools and society. In a short documentary released Tuesday, telecom giant Ericsson pulls together observations from leading voices in education technology and entrepreneurship to give a high-level snapshot of what the future of education could look like and how technology is leading it there.
The 20-minute film, called the Future of Learning, which is part of the company’s ongoing Networked Society project, is particularly timely given the momentum behind online education platforms like Khan Academy and Coursera, adaptive learning technology from Knewton and the transition to digital textbooks. It includes commentary from Knewton founder and CEO Jose Ferreira and Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller explaining how their startups are shaping the new world of education. FutureSchool: A Teen Perspective #edcmooc « Amy's MOOCs: Professional Digi-velopment.
Since we’ve been exploring the future of education / ed reform in #edcmooc, I thought I’d share something my IB Theory of Knowledge students participated in last semester, as we examined the Nature of Knowledge / Learning, and the History of “Schooling”. Throughout the semester we watched several TEd talks and other videos by great people like Sir Ken Robinson, Will Richardson, Michael Wesch, Clay Shirky, and Stephen Fry.
One of the best was Seth Godin’s TEdxYouth@BFS talk based on his “Stop Stealing Dreams” book. We then read and collaboratively annotated the book in our Diigo group, focusing on the overarching question: What is School For? Some choice excerpts (though you can read them all in the link): “I still think kids are an investment in our economic future. “Our mind has been comprised. “I think that we should have courses that will help us prepare for the responsibilities of being an adult. “I feel like an inanimate product. “This guy really, really hates conventional schooling. Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart? Canada must make profound changes to succeed: Lynch.
A modest proposal to reform universities. We Must Embrace Higher Ed Reform. Peering into the Crystal Ball: Challenges for Continuing Higher Education in the Next One to Three Years. Universities and Continuing Industry Education: Making an Impact is Key. How the Student Voice Can Make Education Better. Can We Transform Education with Sal Khan’s ‘One World Schoolhouse’? Why Education Needs a New Brand. At Stanford, scholars debate the promises, pitfalls of online learning. Accreditation: Removing the Barrier to Higher Education Reform. Education Innovation | Huron Consulting Group. Future Work Skills 2020. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century.
Some Practical Experience with that Degree? - At Work. College Degrees Employers Want Most.