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Students give e-learning a grade of incomplete
They’re addicted to Facebook and slaves to their smartphones — “digital natives” trying to navigate the post-secondary world. But as universities spend millions on e-learning tools to help cater to this tech-savvy generation, current students say they’re learning more in classes that don’t have all the technological bells and whistles.
In fact, the first Canadian study of its kind has discovered that students prefer — and learn more — when a live lecturer stands at an unadorned podium. The finding surprised even the study’s authors.
“We were expecting to see evidence of what’s known as the ‘digital native’ era and we just didn’t see that,” said Joseph Berger, director of business development and communications at Higher Education Strategy Associates, the Canadian education consultancy that published the study. “It’s not the portrait we expected whereby students would embrace anything that happens on a more highly technological level. It’s to the contrary — they really seem to like access to human interaction, a smart person at the front of the classroom.”
The study to probe the attitudes and preferences of students being taught with online resources found the more technology there was in a particular course, the lower the proportion of students who said they learned more. And while the 1,370 undergraduate students from more than 60 universities nationwide were generally happy with their courses, those with more message boards and websites where students can access grades and study notes were associated with a drop in satisfaction compared with courses with less online interaction.
E-learning tools have become far more common at Canadian universities over the past 10 to 15 years in the face of sky-high enrolment rates (Ontario’s first-year undergraduate enrolment hit a record 90,000 this fall) and the constant challenge of always getting better.
The study went on to find that more than half of respondents said they would be more likely to skip courses with more online resources because it’s easier to catch up later. Four out of five students said they’d rather watch a live stream of a lecture than attend it in person.
To read the entire article, published in the National Post, click here.
The Secrets of a Good Principal
According to Michael Winerip, a good principal:
- has been a teacher
- feels at home in a cafeteria filled with 800 children eating rubbery scrambled eggs for breakfast
- has her own style
- protects her teachers from the nonsense
- sets her own high standards
- works with union leaders to carry out her educational agenda, and if she can’t, takes them on
- knows teachers are only part of what make a school run
- takes money out of her pocket for the school
- loves and trusts the public schools where she works
- worries in private, ignores the surreal and finds a way to get things done
- has a To Do list several feet long
- leads by example
To read the entire article, published in The New York Times‘ On Education section, click here.
Inner-city students need food and clothing
A teacher from Vancouver’s inner city has issued a heart-wrenching plea for help, saying she needs warm socks, shoes without holes, snacks for hungry tummies and — most of all — people to care for children living in poverty around Admiral Seymour elementary.
“From where I sit every day, things are not okay,” Carrie Gelson says in a letter she penned Friday and addressed simply to the people of Vancouver.
“I can teach these children. Love them. Advocate for them. Stock my room with great books. Give away parts of my lunch.
“I can build community partnerships. I can build relationships with families. I can watch others around me doing the same thing. But until I know you are helping, too, it will remain not good enough.”
Gelson, a Seymour teacher for 16 years, said the words “just poured out” after a particularly frustrating day and she decided to circulate her letter in the hope it might strike a chord, spark a discussion, produce volunteers and encourage people to care about the state of inner-city schools and the crumbling housing projects nearby.
While individuals, groups and businesses have tried to help, Gelson, who teaches a Grade 2-3 split, said it’s not enough.
By the third week of the new school year, she already had a list of items she needs:
• Recess snacks for children who arrive late and have missed breakfast.
“We have had donations and thank goodness. But I have many hungry kids and the stash in my file cabinet won’t last.”
• Warm, dry socks for children who come to school without any or with a pair too small.
“The rains are coming. This just isn’t okay.”
• Boys’ shoes size 3 or 4 and for girls, toddlers’ size 13 to a girls’ size 2, because every day some students come to school wearing shoes with holes.
• A counsellor for the cloakroom, to mop up tears and talk to children who may only be seven or eight years old but are often overwhelmed by sadness. The school has a counsellor who visits once a week for part of a day. “We have bigger needs — plain and simple,” Gelson writes.
• Lots of advocates.
• Affordable, safe housing.
Click here to read the entire Vancouver Sun article.
Linking Your Students to Course Readings
To help direct your students to their course readings and specific web pages please refer to our help page on “Creating Persistent URLs”.
Persistent URLs (PURLS) for web pages, course readings and e-books on their own do not allow the system to authenticate users. This means that your PURLS won’t work when accessed from off-campus. To avoid having this happen you will have to add the following prefix to your PURL: http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=. This prefix will prompt students to log-in using their CWL before accessing the article, allowing the system to confirm that the user is a current UBC student, faculty or staff-member.
Go to the following page for assistance in Creating Persistent URLs
http://help.library.ubc.ca/help-for/faculty/creating-persistent-urls/
Year-round schooling may start in Vancouver next year
The Vancouver School Board could launch a year-round school pilot project at several city schools as early as 2012/13, according to superintendent Steve Cardwell.
Last year, trustees asked the district’s calendar committee to examine if educational advantages exist in having what’s known as a balanced calendar, which involves lengthening the school year, shortening the summer break and adding longer breaks between sessions.
Several schools in B.C.—including Richmond’s Spul’u’kwuks elementary, Maple Ridge’s Kanaka Creek elementary, Langley’s Douglas Park community school, and Glendale elementary in Williams Lake—offer year-round schools.
“We have not worked out what schools [would be involved] at this point, but we’ve been talking about the balanced school calendar—year-round schools—for a year or so now and believe that the old agricultural, industrial-based calendar that currently exists with long summers may not necessarily be the right thing for everyone,” Cardwell told the Courier. “We want to give another choice to parents and students. We are aware Maple Ridge and Richmond have schools with a balanced-year calendar and they have long lineups or waiting lists to get in and we think we should be looking at the same concept.”