Education Blog
Are You Earning What You’re Worth? | Career Advice
February 15, 2011 by Joel Milani
The average retirement age in America is about 65. But, according to PayScale, most people’s salaries top out at around age 40.
That’s about 25 years of work with no salary increase for many Americans.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Career, Career Change
Revolutionary New Method for Post-Exam Self-Assessment: Think about It
February 14, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
In all seriousness, in late January new findings came out on why college students learn things (or don’t) at an annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The fancy term for this awareness of the precise ways in which people learn is metacognition. (Yes, I encourage you to use that term at your local college watering hole.)
Inside Higher Ed reported on some of the lessons of the metacognition projects that came from various members of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest at the 2011 annual meeting.
What is metacognition all about?
Basically, as Kristin E. Bonnie, assistant professor of psychology at Beloit College, put it:
“We want those who are not doing well to think about it.”
The idea is that through forced reflection (a kind of forced retrieval?), students might be able to determine exactly why they didn’t know a particular answer. Then, the students can use the new information to improve their studying behaviors.
The real question might be, how many students will change their behaviors after only learning better ways to learn?
IHE’s write-up reveals a potential answer: professors found that the greatest results came from students who were actively surveyed and engaged in class discussions about about their attitudes and habits, proving what psychologists have told us before: it’s easy to learn how to change, but often very difficult to do it.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Higher Education, Learning Styles
Pain Funnels and Why Not to Attend College
February 11, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
Never heard of a pain funnel? Neither had I, until today. Essentially, it’s what certain marketers (in this case, for-profit college recruiters) use to identify people’s pain or problems in order to entice them to consume their products, which represent the solution.
While it’s marketing 101 to appeal to emotions like fear—often closely related to pain—some of the recruiting document language for several for-profit colleges that was revealed Monday in a Senate floor speech by Sen. Tom Harkin is disturbing:
- “Poke the pain a bit and remind them who else is depending on them …”
- “Stay in constant contact through phone calls, emails, etc.” [Emphasis added]
- “We serve the UN-DER World” (Refers to unemployed, underpaid, unmotivated, unskilled etc.)
- “Student profiles: Welfare Mom w/Kids … Pregnant Ladies … Low Self-Esteem … Experienced a Recent Death … Physically/Mentally Abused”
My biggest issue is the predation, i.e., targeting individuals who may not be sufficiently educated or otherwise ready to make a rational decision and coercing them to enroll regardless of what is really best for them. It’s one thing to soothe people’s pain; it’s another to take advantage of it. View the individual documents above (via The Huffington Post) and judge for yourself. (Tip: Get a full-screen view by clicking the button to the left of “Download” at the top.)
Subscribe to our blog
10 Hottest Jobs of 2011 | Infographic
February 10, 2011 by Joel Milani
As the graphic says, unemployment is rather high right now, floating at just under 10%. That’s why if you’re considering enrolling in a degree program, or changing careers, it’s important to know whether the career you choose is a vibrant one.
This handy infographic can help you make that choice.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Infographic!
Career Advice for Twentysomethings from Atlantic Records’ COO
February 9, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
Among the highlights of the latest authoritative career advice in the weekly “Corner Office” column of The New York Times:
- differentiate yourself
- be resourceful
- outwork everybody
- project confidence
- think creatively
In this case, the person giving the advice for twentysomethings (and other generations) is the chairwoman and COO of Atlantic Records, Julie Greenwald. She also talks about wanting to fall in love and grow old with her hires, cramming large amounts of people into her office for meetings, and learning leadership lessons on her way to the top of the music business.
And some words of hers to live by:
… because all we want is people who can handle impossible tasks and get them done and not say, “Well, I couldn’t.”
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Career
Is Your Crappy Resume Holding You Back? | 10 Resume Saving Tips
February 8, 2011 by Joel Milani
This is Derek Summers’ resume. Not very impressive, I know, but he was never very good at this sort of thing.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Career Change, Job Skills
Why You Shouldn’t Put Sexy Industries Above Career Development
February 7, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
Stop me if you’ve heard somebody tell you to find a job in a field you love. (Heck, we’ve used this language on our own site.) Choosing a job for the industry—not necessarily the development opportunity—is something a lot of young adults do. But they shouldn’t, according to Scott Shrum in the WSJ’s “Hire Education” blog last week. Shrum, a director of MBA admissions research (and MBA-holder himself) challenges the conventional wisdom about job-seeking that says to choose your industry first.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Career, Job Skills
The Quizzical New Science on Forced Retrieval: Test, Test, Test
February 4, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
It may sound like a dangerous search-and-rescue tactic, but forced retrieval has just proven to be a good way to learn. According to a new study published in Science last month, a form of forced retrieval—written self-testing—came out ahead of three other studying methods after a one-week interval.
The other three methods were:
- concept mapping (see image below);
- five minutes of reading;
- short-term repeated studying (cramming?).
Written self-testing also came out 145% ahead for memory retention when placed directly against simple reading. Another groundbreaking finding was that students thought beforehand that they would learn more in the three “losing” methods than they did in the winning “testing.”
Look who’s talking
Read more
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Higher Education, Learning Styles
Trouble With Trig? Get the Khan Academy iPhone App
February 3, 2011 by Joel Milani
Math was, hands down, my most difficult class in college. It wasn’t even advanced math. I think I’d actually learned the same material years before, in 8th grade algebra. The trouble was, I hadn’t used those basic algebraic principles in so long, I’d forgotten everything.
If only there had been some resource . . . a place where I could brush up on the basics and even get help on more complicated concepts.
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Online Education
Business Professor Rejects Business Professors, Praises Liberal Arts
February 2, 2011 by Paul Richlovsky
What does it mean when a business professor writes a full-blown allegory of a Division III soccer coach and a Division I football coach to represent the differences between “many professors in the liberal arts” and business professors? For one, this person—Jason Ferti—is obviously conflicted about his career choice: assistant professor of management at the University of Southern Indiana.
All joking aside, this is not to say that the 665-word vision isn’t well imagined or instructive (it is): it is just overly simplistic. For example, the part about the mythical Coach Locke (the obscure soccer coach) getting his players to work hard and learn life lessons makes sense as an analogy for liberal arts, where professors aim to prepare students for a wide range of challenges across disciplines so that they have the tools to adapt to any situation. However, this idealistic look at liberal arts fails to take into account tuition excesses (PDF) and problems with lack of financial aid (PDF), degree dilution and over-supply in the marketplace (PDF).
Subscribe to our blog
Category: Higher Education
