College Students Worry About Time

Academics are not the only thing keeping college students up at night. A new survey of more than 1,500 undergrads currently enrolled in a two- or four-year institution found that 36% of respondents said time management and 35% identified anxiety as the key factors keeping them from a diploma.

Students also listed being overwhelmed with managing responsibilities (31%) and working too many hours (24%) to pay for school as other factors. The survey results may be the tip of the iceberg since so many nontraditional students are heading to college.

“We have a lot of students with very complicated lives and they have broader issues,” said Mark Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer of Civitas Learning, which did the study. “Trying to design the right kind of advising support is going to mean a level of diversification and a level of personalization.”

Advising is becoming much more important to students. The study noted that 40% ranked information on career options after graduation and on staying on track to finish a degree as the highest types of advice they should receive. Time management and academic success strategies were listed by 33% of the respondents.

Part-time Instruction Short in Other Ways

Two new studies reinforce previous research showing college students are less likely to continue their education if the first courses they take are taught by adjuncts or part-timers, rather than tenure-track faculty.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported one study looked at community college students taking remedial and introductory courses and found that fewer students in adjunct-taught classes moved on to the next course in the sequence. The other study examined students enrolled in STEM courses at four-year schools. More STEM majors switched to other fields after experiencing intro courses led by adjuncts.

Both papers were presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference.

The reason doesn’t appear to be that adjuncts are overall less capable at instruction than full-time faculty. Instead, the findings pointed to the lack of opportunities for adjuncts to assist students individually after class, often because they don’t have time due to a larger teaching load (sometimes at multiple campuses, requiring travel) and they may not have an office. Struggling students who can’t get help from their instructors tend to drop out or shift to an easier major.

“The new papers suggest that providing better support for nontraditional faculty members could make a difference for students,” noted the Chronicle article.

Social Sites Serve as Academic Media, Too

Even though most higher education institutions have learning management systems that are intended to provide each class with a platform for communication and content sharing, some students and faculty members are tapping into social media for those purposes.

In the January 2018 Student Panel Survey fielded by NACS OnCampus Research, 69% of the student respondents said they had personally used social media for some type of academic purpose (such as sharing notes or asking questions) and 38% indicated at least one of their professors had incorporated social media into a course (creating a community or posting content, for example).

When asked which social media sites they had accessed for academic reasons, 53% of students named Facebook, followed by YouTube (30%), Snapchat (23%), LinkedIn and Instagram (12% each), Twitter (11%), Pinterest (6%), and “other” (5%), which were mainly document-sharing and messenging platforms.

Facebook probably received the most use because more students have accounts there (89%) compared to YouTube (75%), Instagram (74%), or Snapchat (72%), but it’s not the most popular site with college students. Asked to pick their favorite social media (up to three), more students chose Instagram (51%) and Snapchat (50%) over Facebook (42%), despite fewer students having an account with Instagram or Snapchat.

Facebook could lose more ground with collegians. OnCampus Research data show student accounts with Facebook have remained relatively static since 2015, while other sites have enjoyed substantial growth. For example, just 49% of students had Snapchat accounts in 2015.

Twitter Goes to School

Despite all the anxiety over Twitter’s impact on civil discourse and society in general, more and more educators are finding the social platform a valuable tool for sharing assignments, increasing student engagement, and archiving classroom resources.

In intermediate and high-school grades, Twitter can be used to connect with students where they already are. One New Jersey high-school teacher found that students checked her classroom Twitter account more often than they read school emails.

Some school systems or individual instructors may be dubious of Twitter’s value or uncertain about what sorts of content they should tweet. In a blog post, Steve Williams, co-founder of Campus Suite, a provider of cloud-based communications solutions for schools, set out four areas where Twitter can and should be used by educators:

1. Enhancing student engagement—Any additional channel for communicating with students is a plus. In addition to tweeting project due dates and reminders about quizzes and tests, teachers can send links to class notes and even design projects that encourage students to use the platform to connect with each other (such as comparing their interpretations of a reading assignment) or with others (such as professionals in an industry being studied).

2. Community engagement—Twitter is a quick and easy way to share classroom news and student accomplishments with the broader community, including other school systems.

3. Connecting with parents—Almost any parent knows that classroom information isn’t always passed on to them by their offspring, so Twitter provides another path for ensuring everyone is kept in the loop, whether the content is a class reading list, a field-trip reminder, or an emergency alert.

4. Extending the school’s reach—Twitter can also deepen connections with a school system’s wider network of vendors, consultants, boosters, and board members to generate interest in new programs or support for fundraisers or a tax levy.

Faculty, Staff Can Influence Career Readiness

About a third of college students leave school feeling unprepared for the workplace, according to a new survey. One way institutions can help is by making officials and faculty aware that initiating contact with students about their career readiness makes a big difference.

Researchers found that students who had a conversation with at least one instructor or staff member were more likely to feel ready to begin their careers. About 40% of those students said they were confident they would graduate with the necessary skills to be successful in the job market.

When faculty or staff failed to initiate the career conversation, just 25% of students said they were convinced they would find success in the job market.

“We tend to think in higher ed, that’s the job of career services,” said Carol D’Amico, executive vice president of mission advancement and philanthropy for Strada Education. “Well, we learned that most students don’t access the career services department, so it’s really everybody’s job at the university or college.”

More than 32,000 current students from 43 four-year institutions selected at random participated in the survey, conducted by Gallupand the Strada Education Network. The schools ranged from large public universities to small liberal arts colleges, but for-profit institutions were not included.

The study also reported that 62% of students earning science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees strongly agreed that they would find a good job. Just 40% of liberal arts majors and 51% of business majors felt the same way.

“If I was still a chancellor … I would be concerned by that and I’d want to know about my own students,” said D’Amico, a former chancellor for Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana. “This is a nationally representative sample so I think they should want to know where their students stack up.”

Study Finds Benefits in Microlearning

Tools such as flash cards have been helping students learn for generations. Now, the idea of providing short bursts of information lasting no longer than 15 minutes—known as microlearning—is taking on a new focus in the digital age.

After short lessons, students at Northeastern University, Burlington, MA, use Twitter and Snapchat to create posts of hyperfocused content for others to consume. Research there also found that using social media for microlearning increased student engagement, created learning communities, and provided opportunities for information retention.

“We focus on microlearning where students sometime consume, but often create, content,” said Lindsey Sudbury, academic instructional technologist at Northeastern. “It’s usually created quickly after a lot of thought and integrating what they already know.”

The Northeastern work on microlearning found that breaking education into small pieces allows students to access content more easily and learn at their own pace. The study also reported that it helped reduce student burnout syndrome, which is a concern for medical students.

“With microlearning, you’re constantly getting this information over and over again, so it’s allowing for you to really synthesize information and connect those dots more frequently,” said Clair Waterbury, who works with Sudbury as an academic instructional technologist at Northeastern.

Students Want a Tech-Savvy Campus

Almost 90% of college students stated it’s important that the institutions to which they apply be technologically savvy, according to a survey of 1,000 students by educational software and services provider Ellucian Co.

However, the report also found that 58% of respondents said their college, of all the companies and organizations with which they’re involved, was furthest behind in providing a personalized digital experience. That sentiment was even stronger for students on two-year campuses (71%) than for their counterparts at four-year schools (53%).

The experience they’re looking for extends beyond edtech, with 97% adding that campus technologies to support them outside the classroom are equally important.

Almost all students (94%) said they believe that connecting with fellow students, faculty, course suggestions, deadline reminders, and event calendars based on their interests and academic performance would be conducive to fostering a greater emotional attachment to their institution. Such stronger connections could lead to higher retention, as well as increased likelihood of future giving as alumni.

Students Need Slower Pace for Digital Reads

A number of recent surveys indicated that college students would rather read print course materials, not digital. A new study which delved more deeply into reading comprehension both confirmed and contradicted those earlier surveys.

In a report for Business Insider, researchers Patricia A. Alexander and Lauren M. Singer said they first asked students which medium they preferred, then had the students read two items—one in print, the other online. Afterward, students had to identify the main ideas in the texts and describe key points. At the end, students were asked to rate their comprehension of the materials.

Alexander and Singer said students “overwhelmingly” claimed to prefer reading digital materials. Students did finish reading their digital assignment sooner than the printed one. They also said their comprehension of the online material was “better” than print. That didn’t hold up under closer scrutiny, though.

In analyzing students’ answers about the reading content, the researchers found their understanding of the main points was about the same for either medium. When it came to recalling more detailed information, however, students’ comprehension improved considerably with the printed materials in comparison to the digital.

But there was an interesting side note: Some students performed equally well regardless of the medium. It turns out this group took their time in reading online, allowing them to absorb the information.

That led Alexander and Singer to recommend that instructors keep educational goals in mind when choosing formats for course materials. If students are expected to retain more detailed concepts, then instructors should stick with printed works or encourage students to slow down their screen reading.

First-Gen Profs to Inspire First-Gen Students

Many college campuses offer some type of academic and social support to students who are among the first in their families to enroll in higher education. The University of California is trying a different tack with a new program involving faculty.

The program, dubbed First-Gen Faculty, encourages professors who were first-generation students themselves to open up about their experiences with their classes. Those who sign up to participate will wear special shirts or buttons during the first week of school next fall so students can identify them.

According to a report in Inside Higher Ed, an estimated 800 faculty from nine campuses are expected to take part. About 42% of UC students are the first in their families to enroll in a four-year school.

“The idea is that first-generation students can seek out professors with similar experiences as role models or mentors,” the report explained. “Faculty members can share advice and alert students to essential campus services.”

The program will also provide training about first-generation issues to UC faculty and staff.

Video Edging Text for Class Discussions

For online discussions, more college and university classes are replacing or supplementing traditional threaded text forums with short video presentations. Sharing questions or arguments via video is seen as more “authentic” and more conducive to building community, according to a recent article on EdSurge.

In course evaluations, students say that watching videos of their classmates enhances a feeling of connectedness. One stated that responding by video rather than writing made her “more accountable” for her words and message.

There are free tools available to facilitate creation of threaded video chats that are only accessible by a course’s instructors and students. Some course-managements systems also let students submit videos, audio, or text for their assignments.

However, the idea isn’t to simply forgo text for video. Threaded text discussions and written essays remain part of many classes, so students still get experience putting their thoughts into writing.

“In life, as in school, we read and write across platforms for multiple purposes, for a variety of audiences, using different strategies,” notes Joyce Valenza, an assistant teaching professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

Cheating Common in Student Survey Group

An investigative company specializing in background checks detected that academic cheating and unethical acts were surprisingly frequent in a sample group of college students.

Kessler International surveyed 300 students attending public and private colleges and universities, which included online schools. A whopping 86% had cheated at least once in school and 54% even thought “cheating was OK,” a Kessler press release said.

Many admitted to passing someone else’s work off as their own for a class. More than three-quarters had copied “word for word” another person’s homework assignments, according to Kessler, and 79% had plagiarized material from the Internet or another source. Some bought papers and essays online (42%) and 28% had “a service take their online classes for them.”

Why would students do these things? Apparently because they can get away with it. Of those who said they had cheated, 97% bragged they hadn’t ever been caught.

Creating Optimal Conditions for Learning

Using computer games and wearables, researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington are analyzing the effect young students’ physical and emotional states have on their attention and self-control during different tasks, especially learning. The results may reshape instructional methods and where school systems focus their efforts and investments.

“We think that if we understand the different physical and emotional states related to attention and self-regulation, we could develop targeted interventions for children and adults to achieve greater well-being,” principal researcher Catherine Spann said in a release.

Volunteers aged 7 and older answer questions about their levels of self-control and attention in everyday life, as well as how they’re feeling that day, and then move on to play games on an iPad while a wristband tracks their heart rate and skin activity, which gives an indication of how calm and engaged they are. Subjects’ scores are determined by accuracy and reaction time in completing game tasks.

“We need to understand the conditions under which people optimally learn and the ways that educators can best support students,” said George Siemens, executive director of UTA’s Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge (LINK) Research Lab, which is conducting the study in collaboration with the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History’s Research and Learning Center.

Innovators Push for Changes in Higher Ed

To those who don’t work on a college or university campus or in a related field, the term “higher education” often conjures up moldering institutions stuck in an outdated time warp, unwilling to change. But, many schools are indeed trying new things to help their students succeed and to ensure more people can afford a college education.

Washington Monthly profiled 16 leaders in higher ed—not presidents or chancellors, but administrators and academics at schools, government agencies, and nonprofits—who have helped lead the charge in innovation in postsecondary education and access.

“These front-line innovators don’t always have a lot of power,” wrote Gilad Edelman. “So when they try to advocate for new and better ways of serving students, they are typically pushing against resistant leadership, indifferent or threatened colleagues, and a general institutional inertia that makes progress painfully slow.”

The people highlighted in “The Sixteen Most Innovative People in Higher Education” are responsible for programs that support potential dropouts, encourage students to graduate within four years, enable students to take online courses at a lower cost, admit more low-income students, and use technology to monitor student progress and intervene when necessary.

Other programs focus on competency-based education, remedial course requirements, student advising and mentoring, open educational resources, and student-success coaching.

Technology Is No Substitute for a Teacher

A quality education is more about the relationship between an instructor and motivated students than the technology used in the classroom. That, according to a post from Insider Higher Ed tech blogger Joshua Kim, is why technology will never really lower the costs of education.

Technology can complement the relationship-based method of learning by providing tools the instructor can use to help students achieve their goals. What technology can’t do is become a substitute for the teacher.

“The idea that technology can lower the cost of education while improving quality—or improve quality while keeping costs steady, or lower costs while keeping quality steady—is anchored in a basic misconception about how technology behaves,” Kim wrote. “This misconception is that new technologies substitute for existing actions or for existing technologies. The reality is that new technologies most often end up complementing existing practices and technologies. New and old technologies exist side by side.”

Prep Students Use MOOCs to Start College

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are making it easier for high school students to explore the choices offered in college before they ever apply.

According to a report from U.S. News & World Report, MOOCs allows high school students to gauge their interest in potential majors and gain exposure to courses and instruction at the college level.

Taking a MOOC can also provide the extracurricular activities college admissions officers like to see. Experts say students should list MOOCs they’ve completed on admissions applications, or at least mention they’ve taken the classes in the “additional information” section of the application.

“They’re really one of many activities that students can do to enrich their learning, and that’s really how we look at them,” said Stu Schmill, dean of admissions and student financial services, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Facebook May Help Retain MOOC Students

A new study reported that Facebook may play a role in keeping students in massive open online courses (MOOCs). The research compared student use of MOOC message boards and course Facebook groups, noting that students seemed more engaged in the Facebook groups.

Students told researchers they preferred Facebook to the MOOC communication tools because it was a real community where they are already regularly connected, according to a report in eCampus News. Students also said they believe Facebook has better collaboration tools and instructor involvement on the social media network.

“In previous studies, we found that the real challenge for MOOC developers and instructors is trying to keep students engaged and enrolled in the course,” said Saijing Zheg, a co-author of the report and a research scientist at Microsoft. “In this study, we are finding that social media tools may be one way to keep students engaged in a MOOC.”

The researchers found students tend to be more willing to reveal their true identities on Facebook, while they make up names for the MOOC message boards. In addition, students said they had more ways to connect with instructors on Facebook.

Emails Can Be a Tough Read

College students know they get emails. The challenge is actually getting them to read messages, according to a study from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH.

Researchers polled 315 students about their email, social media, and text-messaging habits in the 2015 survey. They found that 85% said they check their university email daily and will open messages that interest them, particularly from faculty.

On the flip side, 72% said they avoid messages from organizations on campus, viewing those emails as spam. The survey also found that 39% of students don’t always read emails from academic advisers and 54% will skip emails from the university or academic departments.

Just over 50% of the students said they used text messaging for most of their communications, followed by social media (35%), and email (12%). Those students most active on social media were least likely to avoid emails.

“Text messaging and many social media tools seem to carry a greater expectation that viewing and responding happen as a real-time conversation,” Bernard R. McCoy, associate professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, said about the BGSU research in a report for Inside Higher Education. “You send a text message, you expect a quick reply. You receive a text message, you expect to read it and reply to it.”

Email gives users the freedom to read and respond or ignore, according to McCoy. Besides, students also know they are getting far more junk emails than junk text messages.

Use MOOCs to Support Student Success

Many students head off to college still needing preparation for entry-level college courses, particularly at the community college level. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are often seen as a way to offer a flexible and affordable way to improve those skills without paying for remedial classes.

However, MOOCs are also self-directed and self-paced, which can be a problem. Research has shown that community college students in particular struggle with online learning environments, according to Matt Lawson, principal architect at NetApp, who suggested that the solution lies in the support the institution provides its students.

“Of particular significance with MOOCs on community college campuses is identification and support of students at academic risk,” Lawson wrote in a column for eCampus News. “Big data and analytics are a formidable tool that can help identify these at-risk students and thereby enable much-needed proactive intervention to help those students succeed in college.”

While serving as director of enterprise services for community colleges in Virginia, Lawson found that student engagement could be recorded through the number of times they clicked into the online courseware. Using that information allowed the system to determine which students were engaged with the material and which were struggling.

“This sort of targeted intervention can prove critical at the community college level, and could prove to be a boost to student retention and attrition—two top goals of any institution of higher education,” he wrote.

Middle Schoolers Earning College Credit

Many school districts around the nation provide ways for high school students to earn college credit. Hayward, CA, may be the only one making that same offer to middle school students.

Instructors from Chabot College are teaching everything from early childhood development to engineering to five middle schools in the Hayward area. Each of the schools can offer one class per semester and credits the students earn are transferable after high school graduation.

The goal of the program is to provide college exposure for the youngsters, many of whom come from low-income families, according to a report from EdSource.

“As long as they can handle it, it’s good to challenge them,” said David Farbman, senior researcher for the National Center on Time and Learning. “You don’t want to push kids too hard, but given the right support, they can achieve at high levels.”

Chabot College chooses courses middle schools students should be able to handle and Hayward district staffers select students they think are ready to take the classes. The district also has an after-school staff to help students complete their work. State and federal after-school program grants fund the offering.

Over the first three semesters of the program, 175 students enrolled in classes, with some taking more than one. Students completed 72% of the classes with a grade of C or better, according to data from Chabot College.

“No one can tell them they’re not college material,” said Chien Wu-Fernandez, assistant superintendent of student and family services for the Hayward Unified School District. “They have just proved that they are.”

Apple Updates Its Education Platform

The Google Chromebook has become the tech tool of choice for many K-12 schools, but Apple isn’t going to let the business just walk away without a fight. The computer company is revamping its iOS education platform that allows student sharing of a single device.

“Apple is clearly gunning for Chromebooks,” Eric Zeman wrote in a post for InformationWeek. “The iPad maker would prefer to see students using its tablet instead of Google’s inexpensive laptops.”

Using the new Apple platform, students will be able to log into any school-issued iPad with their Apple ID and find their individual apps, books, and documents on the device. The Shared iPad feature uses a photo login system so students find their assigned iPads. There’s also a PIN system to make it easier for younger children to log on.

The new iOS 9.3 upgrade lets teachers launch and close apps remotely. The Screen View feature allows teachers to view what’s on a student’s iPad at any time and provides locks to keep students on task, according to a report in MacRumors.

“Apple’s strategy means to make tablets more flexible in the classroom, both for teachers and their students,” Igor Bonifacic wrote in a tech blog for MobileSyrup. “With iPad sales stalling over the last two years, this could be a way to spur sales, especially of older, less expensive models.”