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Now consider that, according to the American Association of Community Colleges, about half of all freshmen and sophomores are enrolled at the nation's 1,300 two-year colleges, and many of those students transfer to four-year institutions. For a large percentage of people who earn bachelor's degrees, then, the liberal-arts portion of their education was acquired at a two-year college. Next, factor in all of the community-college students who enter the work force after earning two-year degrees or certificates, and whose only exposure to the liberal arts occurred in whatever core courses their programs required. The conclusion becomes obvious: Two-year colleges are among the country's leading providers of liberal-arts education, although they seldom get credit for that role.

Employers rank communication and analytical skills among the most important attributes they seek in new hires, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Perhaps those of us who teach those very skills at community colleges should embrace the integral role we play in preparing the nation's workers rather than rejecting the idea of work-force development as somehow beneath us.

More important, this new perspective could have a positive effect on student success. If we come to see ourselves as preparing students not just for transfer but ultimately for the work force, students may be more likely to understand the relevance of the skills that we teach them and better able to use those skills for some purpose other than just getting a passing grade.

Primary and secondary appraisals formed theoretically consistent and reliable evaluations of threat and challenge. Secondary appraisals were significantly lower for students who viewed the performance as a threat. Students who viewed the performance as a challenge reported significantly less cognitive anxiety and higher self-confidence. Findings indicate that the PAM is a brief and reliable measure of cognitive appraisals that trigger precompetitive emotions of anxiety and confidence which can be used to identify those performers who could benefit from pre-performance intervention strategies to manage performance stress.

Music performance anxiety (MPA) can be controlled when musicians cognitively restructure their own thoughts and feelings about their performance by anticipating symptoms of anxiety and turning them to constructive use

The cognitive interpretation, or appraisal, of an initial emotional response, such as fear, exerts a proximal influence on performance

There are keynote speakers—often the people who created the technology at hand or crafted a given language. There are the regular speakers, often paid not at all or in airfare, who present some idea or technique or approach. Then there are the panels, where a group of people are lined up in a row and forced into some semblance of interaction while the audience checks its e-mail.

Fewer than a fifth of undergraduate degrees in computer science awarded in 2012 went to women, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology

The average programmer is moderately diligent, capable of basic mathematics, has a working knowledge of one or more programming languages, and can communicate what he or she is doing to management and his or her peers

days could more accurately be described as the electronic version of class hand-outs. These courses usually consist of a course description, a syllabus, lecture notes, reading lists, and assignment checklists. In other words, whatever materials a student might have viewed on paper in the past are now read onscreen, and whatever presentations a student might have watched in the classroom are now observed on their screen

Online Course Design Pitfall #1: Upload your course materials, then call it a day.Reading your course material on a computer screen does not make for a memorable learning experience. Step back and take a fresh look at your content in the larger context of the world and the Web

Online Course Design Pitfall #2: Let the course management system drive your thinking.Course management systems (CMS) are usually preconfigured with a course template that instructors are expected to populate with their course description, syllabus, assignments, and announcements. Often these templates

"When a teacher becomes highly stressed, then their capacity to manage the classroom and relationships is often impaired."

teaching is the most stressful occupation there is

About 80% of teachers complain about stress at work and thousands of teachers leave the profession every year - predominantly due to stress

have a theory, though. I think Apple will introduce a Classroom iPad for $199 before the year is out. Pure speculation? Absolutely. However, considering how serious Apple is about improving the state of education, this makes real sense. I imagine it will be a 1024×768, 9.7-inch screen (while the iPad 3 gets the Retina Display and maybe changes size or shape), with a plastic back and rugged shell that only the school can remove. There will be a single, rear-facing camera, and the tablet will be locked down with access to the iBooks 2 app and pre-loaded textbooks. Safari will come pre-loaded, but it’ll run through Apple’s special proxy education server (yes, I’m making that up, too).There will be no App Store or iTunes account associated with it and schools will manage all of them centrally.

More and different types of learning and teaching are available in the digital environment. We must convince ourselves that we don’t yet understand digital education so we may open the doors more broadly to innovation and creativity

we shouldn’t set off on a cruise, and build the ship as we go

Few institutions pay much attention to re-creating these spaces online

the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.

Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history

What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills

children from low-income families spend more time handling technology -- across platforms -- than their wealthier counterparts, and across class, kids mainly use their "handling skills" for entertainment. They play games, watch videos, and visit social networking sites.

there's scant evidence that anyone but the companies who make, sell, and advertise on these new technologies benefit from the time young children spend with them, there's plenty of reason to be worried about it.

studies showing that the bells and whistles of electronic books actually detract from reading comprehension.

Any accurate evaluation of adaptive-learning technology would have to isolate and account for all variables: increases or decreases in a class's size; whether the classroom was “flipped” (meaning homework was done in class and lectures were delivered via video on the students' own time); whether the material was delivered via video, text or game; and so on. Arizona State says 78 percent of students taking the Knewton-ized developmental math course passed, up from 56 percent before

in Japan, where it is common for managers who have studied English with the adaptive-learning software iKnow to list their iKnow scores on their resumes.

“The reality is that it's going to be done,” says Eva Baker, director of the Center for the Study of Evaluation at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It's not going to be a little part. It's going to be a big part. And it's going to be put in place partly because it's going to be less expensive than doing professional development.”