CAROL’S SUMMARY:
AP teachers are dealing with a high influx of students across the country taking college level courses in their junior and senior years. Some teachers complain that AP students are in “over their heads,” while others go for special training in collaborative and project-based learning skills in an effort to reach students with different learning styles. In the days of old, AP courses were geared for the verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical child. Today, bright students learn differently. Whether their abilities will all show up in AP classes remains to be seen. Whether students are taking AP classes or not, there are a few basics they need to be college-ready:

1) Understand the value of effort in success. Many students who test well and are considered “bright” don’t learn to challenge themselves and struggle in the post-school environment—career and life. Those bright students and average students who really apply themselves do better over the arc of their careers than those who don’t.

2) Embrace challenge. Many “bright” students get addicted to the 4.0. It is far better to take difficult teachers who challenge you than those teachers who “give” A’s. Students who learn to challenge themselves look for opportunity, create interesting experiences and provide high value in the world of work.

3) Risk: Grow beyond your comfort zone. We all learn by growing and doing things that make us feel uncomfortable, but few students get the value of life experience in addition to book learning. Do the things that you resist with people whom you are not necessarily drawn to—you will grow and at the same time prepare yourself for the working world. Students around the world are doing this in spades.

4) Ask: What else? If we spent half of our energy in this country on solving some of the world’s greatest problems and thinking about what, over the course of two or four years in college can really make you unique, more students would be world-ready than simply college ready.

It is time for all of us to get the 20,000 foot perspective on college-readiness. It is not about getting ready for college, it is about getting ready for college, career and life. Those abilities and skills are inextricably linked. If we continue to prepare for academics alone, we are preparing students for the world of the past. If we focus on project-based learning, connections which students can make in school and out, and people who can actually stretch and broaden their world, they will be ready for the interconnected, global world they are about to enter. AP classes or not, we owe them that readiness.

ARTICLE
St. Petersburg Times
by Ron Matus

Twenty-six high school teachers stood with straws in mouths and spoons at the ready. Bowls of M&Ms rainbowed before them.

Pretend the M&Ms are fish, the instructor said, and pretend the straws are fishing poles.

The teachers sucked up the M&Ms with the straws. They scrapped for them with the spoons. As the candy disappeared, a lesson about regulation and natural resources took its place.

This is what Advanced Placement teachers do when they step away from the front lines of an education revolution.

To view the entire article visit
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/article1012101.ece

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

As more and more students add an international component to their education, it is critical to understand how to engage and support students during a time when they are susceptible to culture shock, isolation and academic stress. As the article below indicates, many colleges fall short of their goals in helping foreign students adapt to American culture. The coaching required to help international students with academic, financial and emotional issues can be extensive and challenging, as advisors discover that tactics that work for American college students often don’t work for their foreign counterparts.

Socially, international students often stick together because they can be uncomfortable trying to mesh with our culture. However, survey results taken from undergraduates at several private liberal arts colleges reveal that many international students would like to have more American friends. As perhaps the most important challenge for international students is forming relationships with individuals different from them, the support networks and mentoring programs mentioned in this article are crucial to student success.

Some internationals students arrive on campus with more complex and weighty issues than homesickness or culture shock. They may come from war-torn or politcally unstable countries, such as the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which traumatically affected students attending universities in this country who knew their family members were either in hiding or being killed. In those kinds of cases, colleges must ramp up their crisis intervention programs. This article’s primary charge is for colleges and universities to commit to training advisers, who often are the first person on campus that international students seek out when they need help.

This article also raises a critical issue in coaching: how do we help engage at-risk populations who often aren’t asking for help? This article provides several suggestions, from partnerships between foreign and domestic students to professional counseling to presemester courses on writing, culture, and acclimating to the United States. The importance of providing the right resources, practicing active listening skills and asking the right questions simply cannot be understated, especially when dealing with cultures different from our own.

ARTICLE:
Chronicle of Higher Education
By BETH MCMURTRIE

American colleges pride themselves on welcoming students from around the world. But how effectively are they helping foreign students adapt to and thrive in an American setting?

That is a subject of increasing debate among educators, some of whom question the support systems their institutions have in place.

To view the entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=vGkW9myprTw9WByRPDS2wrgSyxCCR9nc

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

What do college graduates today need to know? In the article below, colleges are carefully reviewing a long standing guideline developed in 1945 by professors at Harvard. The call at that time was for: honest thinking,
clearness of expression and the habit of gathering and weighing evidence before concluding. In a nutshell, this is the heart of critical thinking.

But colleges today are looking at those learning components in a larger context. Grads are entering a global world, and they need knowledge as well as these skills which employers require:
  *teamwork skills with diverse groups
  *strong written and oral communication
  *general success skills not tied to majors.

Employers want skills and experience, not merely knowledge and inert critical thinking skills. So today’s colleges must come up with learning outcomes whereby students can measure their progress in class and out in effort to become world-class ready.

ARTICLE:
Chronicle of Higher Education
By David Glenn

A balanced diet of course work—a mathematics class here, a few history and literature courses there—may be a fine and healthy thing. But course-distribution requirements probably are not enough to guarantee that undergraduates acquire a broad range of knowledge and skills.

To view the entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=zNnyfgCbvymwsVcGXFgQHT5cx32QngVN

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
East Carolina University is developing innovative new ways for students in the U.S. to collaborate with their counterparts in foreign countries. What started as a modest pilot in 2003 between East Carolina U. and Soochow in China, has become a successful model for 23 universities world-wide in seventeen countries from five continents. East Carolina University has made it a point to partner with institutions world-wide who are willing and
interested in new learning models in the age of technology. But they didn’t stop there. They also enlisted the support of the U.S. State Department to help the broker relations with schools in countries they knew little about. With a fairly simple platform, these students are participating in classes for freshmen on global learning. What a way to motivate and inspire freshmen students to succeed in college, career and life!

This will, no doubt, become a new standard for learning as collaboration continues to flourish in the age of technology and global exposure becomes one of the most valued skills.

ARTICLE:
Chronicle of Higher Education
By KARIN FISCHER

Just 1 percent of East Carolina University undergraduates study overseas.

But thanks to a pair of enterprising faculty members, a growing number of students are having international experiences without ever leaving the Greenville, N.C., campus. The university’s Global Understanding program uses inexpensive and relatively unsophisticated technology — a low-bandwidth video link and e-mail chat — to connect East Carolina students with counterparts at 23 institutions in 17 countries and five continents.

To view entire article visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=ccDMzpbjKqKpzYhyQz5KsxwkbXdBmd2n