All posts by magister

2X the number of computer science teachers in Wisconsin

-by Ogeche Emechebe

“Computer science isn’t typically a required course in high school, but according to one Wisconsin professor, it’s one that’s necessary.

Dennis Brylow, associate professor of math, statistics and computer science at Marquette University, is working to double the amount of high schools that offer computer science courses in Wisconsin.

In 2013, Marquette University received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to promote computer science courses in Wisconsin high schools. The 3-year grant is intended to boost the number of computer science teachers in the state. Currently, less than 7 percent of Wisconsin high schools offer computer science courses.

“We came up with a three-pronged plan to try to increase the number of teachers and to permanently fix the pipeline that provides new teachers,” Brylow said. “We applied to the National Science Foundation and it took about three years of getting the proposal accepted, but it’s brought a million dollars to Wisconsin to essentially double the amount of computer science teachers in the state.”

Several groups came together to apply for the grant, including the computer science faculty at Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s computer science department, the Wisconsin chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association and advisers from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

The first part of the process is to get existing computer science teachers on board to teach an introductory course, calledExploring Computer Science. In summer 2014, professors from UCLA came to Milwaukee to teach the course to local teachers. Now that the teachers are trained, the goal is to have them train other teachers in the state to build a team of experts.

Exploring Computer Science, which also has an introductory course curriculum for students, has been implemented in 18 school districts across the state, including six public high schools in Milwaukee that have added computer science programs since the grant.

The course was first introduced at public schools last year. Brylow said so far the feedback has been positive and has inspired some students to pursue computer science further.

The second piece of the plan consists of easing the process for computer science teachers to receive their license. Getting certified is difficult, according to Brylow. According to one report from the Computer Science Teachers Association, the process is described as “confused, disparate, and sometimes absurd.”

UW-La Crosse and UW-Whitewater are the only universities left in the state that offer programs to get certified, after many universities began dropping the program in the 1990s.

“Whitewater has graduated three computer science teachers in the past five years and La Crosse has graduated zero in the past five years,” Brylow said. “So we identified that one of the problems is nobody knows how to teach this one critical course called the Computer Science Teaching Methods course.

“So the second prong of the grant was designing a modern version of this course using all the latest research and running initial versions of it this summer and next, and building it in a way that will be easy to adopt at other universities,” he said.

Also helping raise the level of expertise in local classrooms is the fact that Wisconsin is one of only two states (Arizona is the other) requiring that a computer science teacher be licensed or certified in computer science to teach the course. They are also the only states that have specific regulations on what a computer science teacher should know.

Andrew Kuemmel, a computer science teacher at West High School, was on the leadership team of the National Science Foundation grant. Kuemmel, who teaches Computer Science Principles, is working on creating an Advanced Placement version of the class, which is expected to roll out in the 2016-17 school year. West High School currently has three computer science classes and has offered its classes for around 30 years now.

“My students learn about how search engines work, how we process big data, and what is the impact of computing in society,” Kuemmel said.

Kuemmel said there’s been an increase in students taking computer science courses, with enrollment in such classes at about 200. All grade levels are able to sign up for it. “

Report finds student loan defaults heaviest at non-selective schools

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-by Mark Huffman

“Student loan debt is about $1.2 trillion and growing, with not everyone who took out students loans able to pay them back.

Student loan default rates doubled between 2000 and 2011, according to Brookings Institution researchers who analyzed U.S. Department of Education administrative data on federal student borrowing, linked to earnings records derived from tax records.

Their report traces most student loan defaults to students who attended for-profit colleges and, to a lesser extent, community colleges. A common thread, the researchers found, was non-traditional students – typically older than the average student – and those attending “non-selective” institutions – schools that accept anyone – were most likely to default.

Weak educational outcomes
“These non-traditional borrowers were drawn from lower income families, attended institutions with relatively weak educational outcomes, and experienced poor labor market outcomes after leaving school,” the authors write.

At the same time, the authors contend students attending traditional public or private non-profit colleges were much less likely to default and have done better in the job market after graduation.

The finding that a significant portion of student loan defaults occurs among students attending for-profit schools is not exactly a new charge. Federal data released last year showed nearly half of the 650,000 federal student loan defaults between 2011 and 2013 were by students at for-profit schools.

Taking issue
Still, some for-profit schools are finding flaws with the Brookings study’s conclusions. Mark Brenner, an Apollo Education Group executive, whose subsidiaries include University of Phoenix, told Marketwatch the Brookings study was based on “limited data.”

The Brookings study appears to suggest students who are not qualified to attend college – they choose schools that have no admission requirements – are the ones who take on too much debt and default. The authors say a relatively new development is community college students are defaulting on student loans. In the past, the report says, few of these students took out loans to pay for college.

Accounting for 70% of defaults
“By 2011 borrowers at for-profit and two-year institutions represented almost half of student-loan borrowers leaving school and starting to repay loans, and accounted for 70% of student loan defaults,” the authors write. “In 2000, only one of the top 25 schools whose students owed the most federal debt was a for-profit institution, whereas in 2014, 13 were.”

According to the report, the borrowers from those 13 schools owed about $109 billion—almost 10% of all federal student loans. And once out of school, they faced more difficult employment prospects.

For example, the researchers say the median borrower from a for-profit institution who left school in 2011 and found a job in 2013 earned about $20,900 a year. At the same time, 21% were unemployed.

By comparison, community college borrowers earned $23,900 and only 17% were unemployed.”

Will your college major land you a job after graduation?

-by Mark Huffman, 9/3/15, ConsumerAffairs.com

“College freshmen, who are settling in on campus this week, probably arrived at school having already settled on a major. However, they might want to read this before finally making up their minds.

The workplace has its own needs and it turns out that colleges aren’t supplying as many graduates to fill those slots. In some cases, they might be providing too many in other less-in-demand fields.

Researchers at Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI), working in association with employment site Careerbuilder.com, looked at post-recession trends in education and compared them with trends in hiring.

Unique inflection point

“The market is at a unique inflection point, and we need to make sure that we’re educating workers to have 21st century skills for 21st century jobs,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.

The study uncovered a positive development. After years of promoting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, colleges are turning out more students with STEM degrees.

But the survey also showed a slowdown in overall degree completions – especially those tied to developing strong communications and critical-thinking skills – and Ferguson says that’s concerning.

“Nearly half of employers say they currently have job vacancies but can’t find skilled candidates to fill them,” he said. “We need to do a better job informing students and workers about which fields are in-demand and growing, and provide them with access to affordable education and training, so the journey to a high-skill job is an achievable one regardless of their socioeconomic situation.”

Degrees in demand

So which degrees are most in demand? The study found more than half of the top 10 broad programs leading the U.S. in degree completion from 2010 through 2014 were in STEM fields. There was a 49% growth in demand for degrees in science technologies.

There was a 45% increase in demand for degrees in natural resources and conservation. Demand for graduates with a background in parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness was up 44%, exceeding demand for experts in math and statistics, which rose just 35%.

There was also strong hiring demand for graduates with backgrounds in law enforcement and engineering.

The study found most of this growing demand occurred during the most recent year. If you happen to be majoring in one of these areas, you might have multiple job offers after graduation.

Degrees out of favor

If you are majoring in the humanities, job prospects might not be as bright. From 2010 to 2014, the study found only nine broad program categories experienced decline, nearly all of which were in humanities and social sciences.

Demand for applied science degrees were down 30%. There was a 17% drop in demand for library science degrees.

Of course, business needs often change and can do so relatively quickly. What’s hot today may not be in demand tomorrow. The study found that culinary services demand grew from 2010 to 2013, then declined after that. The same is true for law degrees.

And if students are not really suited to an in-demand field, entering it might not be such a good idea. As we reported in April, a study by RTI International found that while nearly a quarter of high performing students who began pursuing a bachelor’s degree between 2003 and 2009 declared a STEM major, nearly a third of these students had transferred out of STEM fields by spring 2009.”

Community colleges continue to shake up education

http://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-community-colleges/15076/

-by Mark Huffman, 8/31/15, ConsumerAffairs.com

“While policymakers have wrung their hands over the increasing cost of a college education, and students and families have been buried deeper in student loan debt, community colleges have evolved into an efficient, practical, and affordable educational choice.

That’s the conclusion of a study of the nation’s community colleges by WalletHub, a personal finance website, which finds in some cases community colleges are outperforming four-year colleges and universities.

Community colleges have long been associated with students who couldn’t win acceptance to a traditional college or university, and with non-traditional students – those returning for their education while holding down a full-time job.

“Much of their ‘second-rate college’ stigma stems from three factors: price, demographics and graduation times,” the authors write. “Although their relatively cheaper tuition rates are a clear incentive, affordability also signals subpar educational quality to skeptics. And with an average student age of 28, the nontraditional profile of the typical community-college attendee perpetuates a misconception — one that assumes these students flunked out of high school and consequently failed admissions standards at ‘real’ universities.”

The study points out that a vast majority of non-traditional students are balancing their studies with jobs, family, or both — commitments that often limit their enrollment to one or two classes per semester and force them to delay graduation.

Drawing traditional students

But increasingly, as college tuition costs have skyrocketed, many traditional students have chosen to attend a community college for their first two years – at much less cost – then finish at a traditional four-year college, drastically reducing the cost of a bachelor’s degree.

The WalletHub study also notes that in 22 states, community colleges have expanded to include four-year bachelor’s degree programs in high-demand fields.

Besides their low cost, the study finds schedule flexibility, rigorous coursework, and smaller class sizes make community colleges appealing to a wider number of students. Of course, some of these institutions are better than others.

Ratings

The WalletHub study compared 670 community colleges in the U.S. to find the best, relying on a total of 17 key metrics, ranging from the cost of in-state tuition and fees to student-faculty ratio.

Among the winners is Dine College of Arizona, which scored the lowest cost of in-state tuition and fees.

Guttman Community College in New York spends the most per student. It was also tops in Highest Level of Collaborative Learning and Highest Level of Student-Faculty Interaction.

Renton Technical College took top honors for the Highest Graduation Rate.

Six schools – West Georgia Technical College; Alabama Southern Community College; Dine College; Rich Mountain Community College in Arkansas; Columbia College and Porterville College, both in California, tied in the important category of Lowest Student Loan Default Rate.

Northern Oklahoma College was judged to have the Highest Return on Educational Investment.

According to the College Board, the average in-state tuition at a community college is $3347. That compares to $9,139 for in-state tuition at a public four-year university.”

Career Menopause…”Too Old to Rock’n Roll, Too Young to die!!!”

too_old

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
CAREER PLANNING
Coping with “Career Menopause”
-by Bronwyn Fryer
OCTOBER 28, 2009

“Night sweats. Heart palpitations. Crying jags. Mood swings. I’m a 55-year old woman, well and gratefully past that hormonal “change of life.” So what the heck was this thing?

My brilliant (and younger) colleague Julia Kirby took me out for a glass of wine and patted my arm. “Don’t worry,” she told me sympathetically. “It’s career menopause.” Count on Julia to consistently deliver le mot juste.

I’ve always loved my job, but for ages I’ve been feeling something else — call it a longing for greater self-fulfillment — tugging at me. Relatives and friends have had brushes with death, or have died. I, too, have felt the shadow of my own mortality. I’ve been aching to write The Great American Novel, or volunteer for the Peace Corps, or sing in my own band, or do some other as-yet-undefined-thing — before it’s too late.

I’ve spent sleepless nights wondering whether I could possibly afford to make a career change — an especially crazy idea in a down economy.

Those of us in Jethro Tull’s “Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die” cohort are caught in a bind. We’re working at full-tilt because we have dependents and financial obligations — we can’t afford to retire early. At the same time, we’re getting tired and thinking of downsizing. We are proud of our well-honed experience and skills, but we’re also yearning to polish long-neglected aptitudes or build new ones. Many of us are frustrated and restless.

I called Marc Freedman, who runs a think tank called Civic Ventures. His organization studies issues affecting boomers who are undergoing psychic, generational, physical and economic transitions.

“An enormous number of people your age are hitting the career wall,” Marc told me. “You’ve been working very hard for a long time. The ‘pause’ in the term ‘career menopause’ catches it exactly. It feels awkward, uncomfortable, personal, and lonely. But you’re not alone at all.” Marc observed that at my stage of life there is no clearly-defined path, as there is for my college-bound daughter. “You are in a do-it-yourself situation.”

According to a survey by Civic Ventures:

  • A majority of Americans in the 40-70 age bracket want work with more meaning (i.e., work that contributes directly to society such as teaching, healthcare, government or nonprofit work).
  • 2/3 of those interested in what Freeman calls “encore careers” want to use their skills and experience to help others.
  • Those most interested in ‘encore careers’ are trailing-edge boomers – ages 44-50.
  • And get this: 84% of those who found jobs in education, healthcare, government and nonprofit work say they get a huge amount of satisfaction in their jobs.

So what are we all make of this? If we want to “retire retirement,” what other options do we have?

I finally hit on a solution that works for me. I’ve changed jobs — I’m no longer a senior HBR editor but a “contributing” editor. I love the title. (Hey — I’m contributing!) In my new role I’m off the payroll but working on freelance projects for my company. I’m also diving into new undertakings — volunteering in a hospice, songwriting, and catching up on the part of me that’s been ignored for a very long while.”

Textbook sticker prices soar, but expanding options keep expenses in check

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August 17, 2015 6:00 am • by Pat Schneider

UW-Madison student Kezia Weigel-Sterr was at University Book Store on the State Street Mall Wednesday to pick up the only text for the fall semester she was not able to rent online from a bookseller or publisher.

Her total textbook price tag: $286 — a lot less than the $400 or so she has paid in past semesters.

As a political science major, the books her instructors assign are not typically the big wallet busters used in some classes, particularly the sciences, but some courses require a lot of texts.

“There was one class last semester that had eight different books,” said Weigel-Sterr, who will be a sophomore in September.

She rented all those books and for another class used a reserve copy of the text at a university library instead of purchasing it.

“Nobody else was looking at it, but I could only have it out for two hours at a time,” she said.

For another course, her professor, Donald Downs, gave students a book he had written that was used as the text, Weigel-Sterr said.

Her story illustrates how college students are increasingly staying away from buying textbooks as a way to keep their spending down as the sticker price for books continue to soar, along with other college costs.

Textbook prices have climbed some 1,000 percent over the past four decades, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with some titles now costing $400 or even $500. But students have been spending less on course materials in each of the past few years, according to a survey of the National Association of College Stores.

Students’ average annual spending on course materials dropped from $701 in 2007-2008 to $563 in 2014-15, according to the association.

The inclusion of non-renewable computer codes needed to access supplementary materials has driven up the price of some texts and obstructed the used-book market, said Patrick McGowan, president of University Book Store.

But student expenditures are nevertheless dropping because fewer books are being required as course materials, he said.

On the UW-Madison campus, instructors are increasingly using open educational material — notes, articles, and databases that either are available free on the internet or for which the university has purchased access, McGowan said. About 40 percent of courses being offered on campus this fall have no required books, he said.

That’s one reason that the most frequent visitors to the lower level of the book store — where the stacks of textbooks are located — were people in search of the public restroom on a recent weekday afternoon.

The other reason is that online registration for classes means that the crush to register and buy texts right before the start of the semester is a thing of the past. Students now have plenty of time to shop for the best price on their books and plenty of websites on which to do it.

For University Book Store it means that revenue from textbook sales is dropping “from the mid to high single digits” every year, said McGowan. But textbook sales and rentals still account for about half the revenue at the store, where the main floor focuses on the sale of Bucky Badger apparel and other items.

For many years, the university libraries did not purchase textbooks, but that has changed in the past decade, said university librarian Edward Van Gemert.

“Our observation is that more and more students are forgoing purchasing print textbooks,“ Van Gemert said. They may find ways to share the cost, and often postpone getting a textbook until it is clear it is actually required for a course, he said.

So the library has stepped in to provide access to some textbooks. For example, in 2013-14, the library spent $25,279 to purchase 538 course-related books and videos. A separate “high-cost textbook” fund of $4,000-$5000 a year buys multiple copies of particularly expensive books used in high-enrollment classes that are held on reserve at multiple libraries for two-hour loan.

Many instructors are helping students reduce course material expenses by seeking out open educational resources, said professor Kristopher Olds, chairman of the department of geography and a senior fellow in educational innovation.

Those materials — texts, podcasts, videos and other visualizations — are designed to be available digitally at low or no cost, Olds said.

UW-Madison is trying to get a handle on the development and use of such resources on campus, and will soon launch a study, he said.

The interest in open resources is spurred by an appreciation of the high cost of curriculum materials, a culture that says knowledge should be shared and technological innovation that facilitates sharing, Olds said.

Research also shows that ready access to curriculum materials, without obstacles of cost, enhances student engagement and outcomes, he said.

Instructors are sensitive to the cost of the materials they assign, said Alex Chase, a UW-Madison senior who works at the book store.

“Working here, I’ve been able to see that it’s a thin line they walk between giving students the best and latest information and the price,” said Chase, who is majoring in legal studies and political science and plans to go to law school.

And students network about how to keep the price of books down, said student Mariel Leering, also a book store employee.

“I belong to a sorority and I ask around for someone who has the book and can tell me if it’s really necessary,” Leering said. “And working here I’ve learned that the earlier you buy books, the likelier you are to find used ones. So I passed that along to my friends.”

She said everyone routinely shops websites like Amazon and Chegg for the best prices.

“It adds up,” she said. “If you save $5 on five textbooks, that’s $25.”

Leering, a junior, is studying genetics, a field where textbook prices can be high. But a friend is lending her a $150 textbook for one class this coming semester, leaving her to purchase only one $120 text and a couple of course packets of materials collected by the instructor.

Leering figures her course material expenses will total $150.

“For once, I’m not spending $400,” she said.

Not that she’d actually be paying that full $400. Her grandfather frequently buys some of her books and she has had a college fund since she was a child, Leering said.

“I was lucky,” she said, “hopefully I won’t be in too much debt when I’m done.”

UW-Marshfield prof says cuts at colleges could slam door to education for many

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-by Pat Schneider

 

“A proposal to merge University of Wisconsin System colleges with the state technical college system — on top of a plan to regionalize the UW colleges — threatens to slam the door to education for Wisconsin students who need it most, said UW-Marshfield/Wood County associate professor Kelly Wilz.

The contraction of the two-year school system through cuts in state funding to the UW System is sparking an exodus among the skilled and dedicated instructors who are her colleagues, Wilz wrote on her blog, Dissent and Cookies, in a post picked up by The Academe Blog of the American Association of University Professors.

“The UW Colleges literally embody the Wisconsin Idea — the idea that everyone should have access to affordable, quality education. And now we’re losing our best,” wrote Wilz, who teaches communications and theatre arts.

The “best” faculty at UW-Marshfield, said Wilz, are those who go the extra mile to help their students — part-time, returning and first-generation — succeed.

“Why? Because that’s what you do … when you believe in students who have never been told they’re worthy. That they matter. That it doesn’t matter if they are the first ones in their families to go to college because we’re here to help them navigate those waters,” Wilz wrote.

She joined the chorus of critics who point to departing colleagues as a sign of the UW’s decline.

Because who wants to work in a system that may not exist a few years, that has been so crippled through defunding and divestment it’s barely able to function?” she wrote.”