Group items tagged

"Invisible Transfer Students February 28, 2012 - 3:00am By Mitch Smith Enrollment managers have long spoken about the mobility of students, citing the high number of credits transferred in and out of their colleges and grumbling that federal graduation rate calculations fail to account for those transient degree-seekers. Data released today by the National Student Clearinghouse back those assertions, showing that a third of those who were first-time college students in 2006 had attended at least one other institution by summer 2011. The study followed 2.8 million full- and part-time students of all ages at every type of institution. Students were counted as transfers if they enrolled at a second institution before earning a degree. Thus, students who moved to a four-year institution after earning an associate degree were not counted, but university students who took a community college class over the summer were. High school students who enrolled in concurrent enrollment courses were not counted as transfers. The Clearinghouse researchers found that a quarter of those who transferred did so more than once and that the greatest number of moves, 37 percent, took place in a student's second year. It also found that 43 percent of transfers were to public two-year institutions, making them the most common transfer destination for students from every type of institution except other public two-year colleges. This study, unique in including part-time students and in following students who might transfer several times, joins a small but growing body of research on the mobility of students. The findings don't surprise Clifford Adelman, a senior associate with the Institute for Higher Education Policy whose research agenda includes national transfer patterns. Loyalties to a particular institution or location, which can discourage transferring, have long been eroding, Adelman said. He calls the phenomenon "geomobility" and said it has called attention to ineffi

A seven-year project in which dozens of small private colleges used a standardized measure of student learning to gauge and try to improve their performance accomplished many of its goals, increasing the colleges' focus on student learning outcomes and stimulating changes in practices on many campuses, says a report on the effort released today.

" Preview: Obama's 2013 Budget February 13, 2012 - 3:00am By Libby A. Nelson WASHINGTON -- President Obama today will propose spending $8 billion on job training programs at community colleges over the next three years, part of a budget for the 2013 fiscal year that also would increase spending on Education Department programs and some scientific research. The president will outline the job-training proposal in more detail in a speech at Northern Virginia Community College this morning. But unlike past calls to spend more on community colleges, this plan is aimed squarely at an election-year message of "jobs, jobs, jobs" rather than the administration's goal of increasing the number of Americans with college degrees. The proposal, as outlined by Education Department officials Sunday evening, builds on job training programs already in existence -- especially the Trade Act Assistance Community College Career Training Program, which began making grants to community colleges in September. If approved by Congress, the president's proposal would provide $1.3 billion each per year to the Education and Labor Departments, on top of the trade act grants. While it's unclear whether the money would create new federal programs or build up existing ones, the funds would be spent at community colleges that train workers for jobs in high-demand fields, according to materials released by the Education Department. Programs that are especially successful at finding jobs for their graduates, or at placing those who traditionally have difficulty finding work, would be eligible for additional money. The grants would also be used to encourage partnerships between businesses, states, local governments and community colleges, and to create an online course to encourage entrepreneurs. The money would also support paid internships for low-income college students. But the plan would shut out for-profit colleges, which would not be eligible for the additional funds -- a move alm

"BeMIS: A New Career Matchmaking Tool An individual's personality and character play an important role when it comes to choosing the right career and being successful in it. Finding an effective way to measure these two factors is one of the keys to helping clients achieve their employment goals. BeMIS (the Behavioral Management Information System) is a powerful tool for identifying relevant character and personality attributes, and includes personalized development plans for helping clients to develop new career-facilitating behaviors and eliminate those that impede successful career choice, competence and satisfaction."

Whether to inform a case management process, to assist with career life decision-making, or to measure outcomes of counseling interventions, effective assessment is an essential counseling competency. The following ten questions will help you keep your assessments on track.

Focused jobseeking: A measured approach to looking for work.

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday will release the final version of its much-awaited "gainful employment" rule that punishes career-training programs for graduating students with heavy debt loads. The rule, one of the most controversial to come out of that office in years, is an effort to ensure the programs are preparing students for legitimate jobs. This final version is less severe than a draft released last summer, giving programs more opportunities to right themselves if they run afoul of the measure.

I spent most of my early career trying to do things perfectly. And as you can imagine, this didn't work out very well. Screw-ups happen, and how you cope with them is a strong measure of your overall effectiveness in a work environment.

3 in 4 mobile users check-in from a smartphone comScore, a market research firm that measures trends in the digital world has released a study that shows just how mobile the world has become. Their research reveals that many mobile and smartphone users checked in using mobile apps such Facebook Places, Foursquare and Gowalla. The study, which surveyed users in March, found that 16.7 million, or 7.1 percent of the total US mobile subscriber base used location-based "check-in" services on their phones. 17.6 percent of the estimated 12.7 million smartphone owners now use these services.

Job portals are designed to help candidates find their dream job, but without adequate security measures in place, their personal information can be compromised. This article explores the various ways in which job portals can protect candidate security, such as using SSL certificates to encrypt data and implementing two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access.

"Good teaching and exposure to students from diverse backgrounds are some of the strongest predictors of whether freshmen return for a second year of college and improve their critical-thinking skills, say two prominent researchers."

"He finds the grading grid, which has recently captivated many of his faculty colleagues in the history department here at Utah State University, entirely too rigid."