Category Archives: 21st Century Learning
Need a Job?
7 Trends That Will Impact Who Finds A Job in 2016
Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in seven years, at 5 percent, and for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher the rate is actually half that. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the economy has been adding well over 200,000 jobs a month. And healthcare, professional and technical services, retail, manufacturing, finance and government are all adding jobs.
Current U.S. employees—especially those looking to switch jobs—can expect a raise in 2016. A WorldatWork study found U.S. workers can expect an average base salary raise of 3.1 percent next year, but top performers can expect higher-than-average merit-based salary increases. New research from The Conference Board found that labor markets have tightened faster than expected, and that could mean employers will have to start raising wages faster than they have been. And research from SHRM and Rutgers University shows that the newly hired are seeing increased pay—which reflects the need for businesses to raise wages in order to attract new talent.
For those doing the hiring, employee retention will be a top priority in the new year. In fact, LinkedIn’s 2016 Global Recruiting Trends report found that nearly 60 percent of companies are investing more in their brand in an effort to keep current employees happy and recruit new, well-qualified talent.
Some of the job market and hiring trends to keep in mind as we head into the new year:
- Hiring isn’t limited to technology and healthcare.
Sure, those sectors are growing, but there are plenty of opportunities for new jobs and long-term, thriving careers in areas like marketing, sales, finance and transportation. Recent studies have found that among the top ten fastest growing occupations are nurses, software developers and network and computer system administrators, marketing managers, sales managers, industrial engineers, construction professionals and financial managers.
- However, if you are a software developer, it’s going to be a great year.
There’s no question software developers are still in high demand. Nearly one in every 20 open job postings in the U.S. is related to software development and/or engineering. Also in demand, is expertise with data analytics –now one of the most in-demand skills in the U.S.
- Marketing manager becomes a tech job.
Some of the highest growth tech companies, like Amazon and Facebook, have a great need for marketing managers. In fact, it’s the highest volume job opening after software developer/engineer. But the requirements are changing, because of the rapid growth of digital consumer advertising. The job increasingly requires the use of analytics to navigate new marketing channels and ways of acquiring customers.
- Millennials take the reins.
We’ll see a lot more Millennials in management positions in 2016. A new study from Upwork reports that nearly 30 percent of managers today are Millennials, with five percent seniors managers and two percent in executive positions. The study found that within ten years nearly half of Millennials are aiming to be senior managers; seven percent want to be executives and 15 percent want to be business owners. The global consultancy EY (Ernst & Young) is a good example of this leadership transition underway–about 60 percent of its managers are Millennials, as well as 18 percent of its senior managers.
- Video will become an even more important recruiting tool.
The use of video to attract and recruit talent is increasing because of its high impact—it’s an engaging way to show the culture of a company, as well as the excitement and passion around the the company’s mission, products and services. Expect to see more employee videos shot on cell phones, to give a more authentic peek inside a company, as well as personalized recruiting videos, video job descriptions and, yes, even video job offers.
- Recruiting will be more data-driven.
The technology available to recruiters today is better than it’s ever been, allowing them to optimize the entire recruiting and hiring process, from job descriptions to the process of nurturing and interviewing candidates, to developing and setting compensation. Letting data guide the hand of recruiters will most likely make the experience better for job candidates, allowing companies to better establish and nurture relationships with both current and potential candidates.
- The Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. will see the most hiring.
According to the Collegiate Employment Research Institute, states in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Southcentral, as well as the Central Midwest will see the greatest uptick in hiring, as much as a 40 percent increase from last year. In fact, regional employers will be increasing their hiring by the greatest percentage next year, nearly 20 percent over 2015. U.S. employers, the Institute’s new trend report says, “are entering the recruiting season with very high expectations for hiring.”
Happy Arbor Day!
Here are eight things you can do to celebrate this day!
1. Plant a tree. Make sure to pick the right type of tree for the right environment and correctly plant and care for it.
2. Organize an Arbor Day block party. Get your neighborhood excited about caring for the trees that line the streets in front of their homes.
3. Write a poem or a rap about trees. The spoken word can add another dimension to any Arbor Day event.
4. Clean up litter at a public park or downtown area. No matter if the litter is intentional or unintentional, big or small, it can have a serious impact on the environment for many years to come.
5. Host a “big tree” or “oldest tree” search within your community. After the contest, you can label the winners that are in public places.
6. Read a book about trees. Learn about the different types of trees that grow in your backyard and how toidentify them by their leaves, bark and seeds.
7. Go on a hike. Spend time with nature and appreciate the trees around you.
8. Volunteer with a local tree-planting or environmental group. You’ll meet new people and make a difference in your community.
Are Less Students Going To College?
Percentage of First-Time Students at Public Four-Year Institutions Who Were State Residents, Fall 2002 and Fall 2012
The percentage of first-time public four-year college students who were residents of the states in which they were enrolled declined from 84% in fall 2002 to 80% in fall 2012.
Figure 28: Percentage of First-Time Students at Public Four-Year Institutions Who Were State Residents, Fall 2002 and Fall 2012
Notes & Sources
NOTE: Four-year institution categories include only those institutions where more than 50% of degrees/certificates awarded are bachelor’s degrees or higher.
SOURCES: NCES, IPEDS enrollment data; calculations by the authors.
- In fall 2012, the percentage of first-time students at public four-year institutions who were state residents ranged from 34% in Vermont and 38% in North Dakota to 93% in Alaska and New Jersey and 94% in Texas.
- The largest declines between fall 2002 and fall 2012 in the proportion of students who were state residents were 18 percentage points in North Dakota (from 56% to 38%) and 16 percentage points in Wyoming (from 66% to 50%).
- In 10 states, the percentage of first-time students at public four-year institutions who were state residents increased between fall 2002 and fall 2012. The largest increases were 5 percentage points in Maryland (from 70% to 75%) and 6 percentage points in Tennessee (from 84% to 90%).
Where Are All the High-School Grads Going?
More Americans are getting their diplomas—but fewer are enrolling in college. Why the mismatch?
The latest national data shows that more students are getting their high-school diplomas than ever before. Just over 82 percent of the students who were high-school seniors during the 2013-14 year graduated, up from 81 percent the year before. The rate has inched up annually over the last few years, largely because of strides made by disadvantaged students.
But that doesn’t mean more kids are going to college. Quite the opposite. Recently released numbers out of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center suggests that college-enrollment rates have actually decreased—and for the fourth straight year, all despite massive increases in federal aid for students who can’t afford tuition. The number of students enrolling in colleges and universities this year is 1.7 percent lower than it was last year. (The percentage of high-school graduates who immediately enrolled in college fell from 69 percent in 2008 to 66 percent in 2013.)
This isn’t new information, but it is new data for a new year, so it’s worth asking again: Where are all those high-school graduates going if they’re not ending up in higher education? For economists and education experts, the answer is obvious. As the Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign economist Jeffrey Brown have famously argued, students were more likely to enroll and stay in college during the Great Recession; at a time when there are fewer jobs, would-be college students are more likely to invest in opportunities to develop skills and enhance their chances at getting employed. People are drawn back toward the workforce once the economy has started to recover, which is what experts suspect is happening now. So this college-enrollment trend could be considered, as The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote back in 2013, “actually a sign of good news.”
Something very different and quite noteworthy is happening at the K-12 level, though, where traditionally at-risk students, particularly kids of color, are responsible for the biggest improvements in high-school completion. Conversely, disadvantaged students, in this case those who are poor or coming from families without a history of going to college, are a big reason the college-enrollment numbers are going down, as are people over age 25. Based on U.S. Census Bureau figures, the percentage of students from low-income families attending college immediately after getting their high-school diplomas has declined by 10 percentage points since 2008, to 46 percent. Only those institutions that serve the largest percentages of disadvantaged students—two-year and for-profit colleges—have seen enrollment drop; it’s actually slightly increased or remained steady at four-year institutions.
In some ways, the high-school graduates who head straight into the labor market are the most practical among diploma recipients. The Atlantic’s Gillian White has pointed out that the types of institutions seeing the most significant declines in enrollment tend to offer degrees that provide only marginal improvements in job prospects compared to high-school diplomas. Today, the popularity of a given degree and its return on investment are often “almost inversely related,” said Anthony Carnevale, who directs Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The high-school graduates who tend to forgo college and make it in the economy, Carnevale added, are also the ones who can land jobs that aren’t traditionally associated with higher-education degrees—blue-collar fields such as manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. Carnevale said there are only a few ways to beat the college wage premium—the income advantage of having a college degree—“and generally the only people who beat this game are boys.” In blue-collar jobs, “you can work your way up, learn on the job. But there’s none of that for females. Basically, there’s no real pathway for girls out of high school [except college].” No wonder women account for a majority of today’s college-degree-holders. “When enrollments go down, the first thing you lose are the boys.”
But going the non-college route is increasingly impractical, even when the objective is a job that’s more vocational in nature. While a job may certainly be an appealing alternative to an increasingly costly postsecondary education, the college wage premium has risen drastically since the early 1980s. The Pew Research Center called this “the rising cost of not going to college” in a report last year, concluding, “On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment—from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time—young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education. And when today’s young adults are compared with previous generations, the disparity in economic outcomes between college graduates and those with a high school diploma or less formal schooling has never been greater in the modern era.”
Carnevale said a key obstacle to getting more high-school graduates enrolled in college is limited information; postsecondary education in the U.S. is “like a big computer with no operating system.” Americans, he said, have a “chaotic” understanding of the role of college in the economy. “Students are lost; they don’t know how to make these connections” between the value of a college degree and their position within the economy. This is why lobbying groups and businesses have been advocating for greater correspondence between career-and-technical education and the demands of the labor market and development of more alternative credentialing programs.
The College Scorecard, which Obama unveiled last September, uses troves of institutional data to improve transparency about the country’s colleges and universities; users can sort results based on various metrics, such as the percent of students who earn above high-school graduates or the average salary after attending. But as Carnevale argued, it’s “more symbolic than real.” It gives users access to federal data on graduation rates and attendance-cost figures at thousands of colleges and universities, but it doesn’t break that data down by area of study. For example, if I were to search for “Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs” at four-year private universities, the results on graduation rates and salary outcomes would only reflect students who attended the school at large—not the communications or journalism graduates specifically. Yet, for the most part, a person’s major is, as a Brookings paper concluded last year, “likely a much more important driver of salaries than the overall institution.” In fact, close to a third of Americans with associate’s degrees—30 percent—earn more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to research done by the Georgetown workforce center.
The growing mismatch between rates for high-school graduation and college attendance in the U.S. may largely have to do with the challenges with outreach and resources faced by community colleges, which often struggle to provide support to students. “Most people would say higher education is not connected to the economy, which is not true,” Carnevale said. “The higher-ed curriculum is very oriented toward the economy (with some obvious exceptions)—it’s just not connected strongly enough, as a counseling and career-planning system.”
There is “this information problem, this confusion, the Tower of Babel that you face when you’re looking at the economy and higher education,” he continued. “You’re young; you don’t want to take out loans … People are pretty much just wandering around between youth dependency and adult dependence.” And ultimately, even high-school graduation rates are falling short of expectations. This year marked the first time in a while that the country stumbled on its way to reaching a 90-percent graduation rate by 2020.
Help Your Child Prepare For Upcoming Testing!
Testing with success series
Overcoming test anxiety
Most students experience some level of anxiety during an exam
However, when anxiety affects exam performance it has become a problem.
General preparation/building confidence:
Review your personal situation and skills
Academic counselors can help you in these areas, or refer to our Guides on the topic:
- Developing good study habits and strategies (a link to our directory)
- Managing time
(dealing with procrastination, distractions, laziness) - Organizing material to be studied and learned
Take a step by step approach to build a strategy and not get overwhelmed - Outside pressures
success/failure consequences (grades, graduation), peer pressure, competitiveness, etc. - Reviewing your past performance on tests
to improve and learn from experience
Test preparation to reduce anxiety:
- Approach the exam with confidence:
Use whatever strategies you can to personalize success: visualization, logic, talking to your self, practice, team work, journaling, etc.
View the exam as an opportunity to show how much you’ve studied and to receive a reward for the studying you’ve done - Be prepared!
Learn your material thoroughly and organize what materials you will need for the test. Use a checklist - Choose a comfortable location for taking the test
with good lighting and minimal distractions - Allow yourself plenty of time,
especially to do things you need to do before the test and still get there a little early - Avoid thinking you need to cram just before
- Strive for a relaxed state of concentration
Avoid speaking with any fellow students who have not prepared, who express negativity, who will distract your preparation - A program of exercise
is said to sharpen the mind - Get a good night’s sleep
the night before the exam - Don’t go to the exam with an empty stomach
Fresh fruits and vegetables are often recommended to reduce stress.
Stressful foods can include processed foods, artificial sweeteners, carbonated soft drinks, chocolate, eggs, fried foods, junk foods, pork, red meat, sugar, white flour products, chips and similar snack foods, foods containing preservatives or heavy spices - Take a small snack, or some other nourishment
to help take your mind off of your anxiety.
Avoid high sugar content (candy) which may aggravate your condition
During the test:
- Read the directions carefully
- Budget your test taking time
- Change positions to help you relax
- If you go blank, skip the question and go on
- If you’re taking an essay test
and you go blank on the whole test, pick a question and start writing. It may trigger the answer in your mind - Don’t panic
when students start handing in their papers. There’s no reward for finishing first
Use relaxation techniques
If you find yourself tensing and getting anxious during the test:
Relax; you are in control.
Take slow, deep breaths
Don’t think about the fear
Pause: think about the next step and keep on task, step by step
Use positive reinforcement for yourself:
Acknowledge that you have done, and are doing, your best
Expect some anxiety
It’s a reminder that you want to do your best and can provide energy
Just keep it manageable
Realize that anxiety can be a “habit”
and that it takes practice to use it as a tool to succeed
After the test, review how you did
- List what worked, and hold onto these strategies
It does not matter how small the items are: they are building blocks to success - List what did not work for improvement
- Celebrate that you are on the road to overcoming this obstacle
Check out local centers and resources in your school for assistance!
If you are aware that you have a problem with test anxiety,
be sure your teacher or instructor knows before any testing begins
(and not the hour before!).
There may be other options to evaluate your knowledge or performance within the subject matter.
http://www.studygs.net/tstprp8.htm
The Classroom of the Future
The Physical Space
The days of classrooms where a teacher desk sits at the front of the classroom and students’ desks are neatly aligned in rows are over. Learning technologies, and changing pedagogical methods, are not only changing the way we teach but also the physical environments we teach in. The role physical environments play in our learning is just beginning to be studied and understood. Akinsanmi (2011) asserts that “there is little research on the role the physical environment plays in the learning process” but more and more educations theorist and psychologists are beginning to offer perspectives “from which designers can conceptualize the creation of an optimal learning environment” (The Optimal Learning). One thing that is clear from the research of the physical spaces which make up learning environments is that current classrooms seldom facilitate 21st century learning.
Image taken from: http://rliberni.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/ideal-classroom-design-for-21st-century-learning
A study done by the Herman Miller Company (2011) on adaptable spaces and their impact on learning identified four key constructs that affect student learning; Basic Human Need, Teaching, Learning, and Engagement. Herman Miller assert that there is a “pedagogical value of a comfortable chair” and that by “recognizing the impact that physical comfort has is support of pedagogy, and designing flexible, comfortable learning spaces enhances the experience of both faculty and students.” When classroom furniture is easily moved to allow for comfort and practicality students’ learning experience was heightened with increased seating comfort (32%), being able to clearly understand the professor (14%), and view materials (17%). Besides students being better serviced by redesigned and malleable classrooms educators also reported the benefits of increased lighting, better access to internet connections, improved ability to hear students and having more whiteboard space (p. 3,5).
The research summary also highlighted the fact that with regard to teaching “emerging discoveries about how people learn, rapid advancements in technology, and heightened awareness of student expectations” were what caused the most pedagogical changes and in order for teachers to take advantage of these changes teaching spaces must be able to utilize new technologies and have classroom “flexible enough to accommodate different teaching styles”. Adaptable learning spaces also better facilitate learning especially since the “meaning of knowing has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find it use it and contextualize it.” Marc Presnsky describes how students no longer prefer large lecture halls and instead desire learning spaces that “allow them to get to know one another, engage in dialogue, work independently or in groups on projects…get or provide private feedback [and] seek a collaborative environment that fosters understanding and learning” (Herman Miller Company, 2011, p. 5-6). Prensky’s quote perfectly illustrates why classroom spaces should no longer be static but should be easily adaptable to fit whatever activity or pedagogical method the teacher chooses to deliver that day’s lesson in.
Lastly adaptable learning spaces make it easier to engage students by allowing for the quick and easy configuration of classrooms to facilitate different kinds of activities. Students who participated in classes held in classrooms designed around adoptable spaces ideas reported being 24% more engaged in class and 23% more likely to feel that communication was better facilitated while teachers describded how it was easier to integrate teaching methods (22%), easier to use technology while instructing.The figures below are also taken from the study and show just how effective adaptable spaces are.
“Additional insights came from evaluating faculty and student perceptions about
collaboration and fostering a sense of community or belonging within the Learning
Studio. Students reported they are:
• 16% more likely to feel comfortable asking questions
• 28% more likely to be able to conduct group work
• 20% more likely to feel the classroom presents the appropriate image for the college
• 22% more likely to feel valued
The results from faculty were even more supportive. Faculty members are:
• 32% more likely to agree that collaboration between students is better
• 24% more likely to agree that collaboration between faculty and student is better
• 44% more likely to believe the Learning Studio conveys the appropriate image
• 47% more likely to feel valued (Herman Miller, 2011, p.8-9)”
Classrooms designed using adaptable learning spaces adhere exactly to what Askinsanmi described as removing “the focus from the teaching wall and creating the ambiance of a favorite grandma’s living room, thereby providing an emotionally safe, comfortable and visually stimulating environment” (p. 6). When students are comfortable, sitting in a room that they feel caters to their needs they are more willing and able to learn. Hopefully as our ideas about how to instruct students continue to change and evolve so will the way we setup and decorate our classrooms.
Below is a diagram taken from Herman Miller Company Research Summitry which illustrates student and facility experience in physical learning spaces.
Below are two pictures showing some of the learning spaces described by Herman Miller.
Both images taken from: http://www.hermanmiller.com/discover/tag/cetld/
The Pedagogical Place
Besides the physical layout of the classroom changing so will the tools we use to instruct students. As Heather Edick asserts “there is increasingly sophisticated technology to come” which will benefit teachers “in terms of resource management and the opportunity to tap sources of knowledge that would not have been available because of geographical barriers” (Edick, Visions of the). Besides technology’s increased use in the classroom of the future another major change “is an emphasis placed on learning models that support the active construction of knowledge and skills.” Instead of educational environments and instruction being passive “there has been a shift…to environments in which the learner actively explores the world and constructs their own internal models of understanding (Classroom of the, 2006).” Classrooms of the future will no longer be little factories where we “can find teachers encouraged (and often compelled) to mass produce learning and marginalize the differences in aptitudes, interests, and abilities” which no longer “prepare students for the fast changing global society they will inherit” (Fielding, Lackney, Nair, 2011).
The Human Computer Interaction Lab (2006) completed a study which anticipated the development of “new embedded technologies that can be a seamless part of any physical object in schools” which can then be used to support learning” (Classroom of the). One example of technology being used to facilitate learning when it is viewed as a “constructive and social activity” is the internet. As the internet “increasingly gained in popularity as a communication channel” and Web 2.0 applications become more common “attention switched to social interaction and its relevance for learning” (Mäkitalo-Siegl, 2010, p. 3). An example of this might be students using a curation tool such as Paper.li to sort and evaluate information before sharing it with others or collaborating on a Wikispace page with another student, both of which focus instructions on the active construction of knowledge and building communities and social interaction. In the classroom of the future technology will no longer limit collaboration and community thinking solely to the inside of the classroom but will allow for these activities to occur outside the classroom in the real world. Students could learn Chinese “using a large HDMI monitor and High Definition sound system, along with a web connection…[and instructors] could take them on virtual field trips once a month, wearing a wen camera that shows students sites, such as the Wall of China” while also allowing them to practice their Chinese with native speakers (Edick, Visions of the).
In addition the classroom of the future will facilitate learning by using technology-enhanced objects while also “building communities in virtual and physical learning spaces.” By embedding technology into “familiar every-day devices” it makes the technologies easy to use while also turning them “into tools for effective and motivating learning.” An example of this might be having students complete concept maps on a whiteboard or laptop or by having students use StoryTable to collaborate while making a story. An example of a “knowledge-building community” existing both inside and outside of the classroom is a project called CIPHER (Communities of Interest to Promote the Heritage of European Regions) which “constitutes a multidisciplinary community in the field of digital cultural heritage.” The project uses “advanced technology and the digital tools applied in the creation, recording, and preservation of cultural heritage…[with] collaboration taking place between different groups and communities, such as universities, local schools, and museums” to produce the artifacts used in the project (Mäkitalo-Siegl, 2011, p. 5-7). A classroom designed to allow this kind of learning would need space for collaboration to occur, access to the technologies that allow for the creation of artifacts and would look remarkably different from the look of most classrooms today.
The classroom of the future might also be paper free as laptops and other educational technology allow for the elimination of paper. As laptop and tablet computers become cheaper in the near future instead of teachers copying handouts and exams to give to students they will be ‘pushed’ online to students. All students will carry laptop computers which will include textbooks, eliminating textbooks, heavy backpacks and lockers, while also making for a cleaner classroom environment. The use of laptops and tablets could also allow for students to keep electronic portfolios enabling them to “add comments and reflections based on an artifact at any time.” The portfolios could also be used during parent teacher conferences by allowing the teacher to share students portfolios “via SMART board or a tablet and explain the student’s progress to the parents using the portfolio” (Edick, Visions of the).
The classroom of the future is a space, both physically and pedagogically, in flux. The physical spaces which make up the classroom, the educational technologies we use, and the teaching pedagogy we subscribe to are not static and as educators it is critical for use to continue learning about what the classroom of the future will look like. No matter what state or country we teach in these changes will affect us all. As Makitalo-Siegal et al (2010) assert “teachers themselves should be more open to new pedagogical models and the development of technology as well as be willing to regularly update their knowledge by participating in in-service education and reading current research literature” (2010, p.7).