像"品質"等等,"博雅"也是洋人說的"傘"字眼(an umbrella word 無所不包括的字眼) 。即每個人看法都不一樣 (試讀湯校長的就職演說,他也有一套;我的『教育人行道』BLOG 也有許多套) 。
我們建築系的學妹現在在高雄某科技大學主持通識課程,她提出大家都忽略的: "體育"作為博雅之基礎,這也是相 當好的。
類似的問題是普遍的,這也是胡適之先生有名的論文《名教》之說法。
在管理學界中,幾年就流行一個新名詞的說法是類似的;可以用一些縮寫的字母湯來表示,譬如說,MBO、TQC、ZD、TQM、
Reengineering、BSC、TOC、Six Sigma、「xy 內閣」、全人(全腦)教育、零基預算法、豐田生產、精實 (Lean
此是鍾某的翻譯,通行於台灣等地) 、有中國特色的XYZ……
其實,這些或多是Babel 塔民花果飄零之後的現象之一。
Some of the News Fit to Print
ABOUT HIGHER ED
BETTER HIGHER EDUCATION LEADS TO BETTER REGIONAL ECONOMY, REPORT SAYS
Findings released on Wednesday by the Milken Institute corroborate a
view many in higher education have found themselves defending in recent
years: A college education pays. In a report titled “A Matter of Degrees: The Effect of Educational Attainment on Regional Economic Prosperity,”
the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank says its research proves “the
strong relationship between educational attainment and a region’s
economic performance.” The report associates education with increases in
real gross domestic product per capita and real wages, linking the
addition of one year in a worker’s average years of schooling to a
10.5-percent rise in a region’s real GDP per capita and a 8.4-percent
rise in the region’s real wages. The regional jumps in GDP and wages
grow even larger—to 17.4 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively—when
applied to workers who already hold at least a high-school diploma. The
article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
SEQUESTER THREATENS UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FUNDING
The impending federal budget cuts known as the sequester, which will go
into effect on Friday without action by Congress, are poised to have a
significantly negative effect on both public and private universities
nationwide. Some forms of federal student aid and funding for a variety
of research programs are likely to find themselves on the chopping
block, according to the White House and university administrators. The
article is in The Huffington Post.
ABOUT K-12
WHEN GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE, GIRLS MATCH BOYS’ SCORES IN MATH
In a recent math competition that spanned a number of rounds,
researchers found that after the first round the differences in
performance between boys and girls disappeared. According to the study
published by economists from Utah’s Brigham Young University the gender
disparity evident in one-shot events – competitions that only have one
round – was no longer evident when teams get an opportunity for a
rematch. Unfortunately, the study couldn’t answer the lingering question
of why girls underperformed their male peers in the initial test – even
one administered on paper and not in a public setting where
embarrassment might be a factor. The article is at EducationNews.org.
TEACHERS SAY THEY ARE UNPREPARED FOR COMMON CORE
Even as the Common Core State Standards are being put into practice
across most of the country, nearly half of teachers feel unprepared to
teach them, especially to disadvantaged students, according to a new survey. The study by the EPE Research Center, an arm of Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week, found
deep wells of concern among teachers about their readiness to meet the
challenges posed by the common core in English/language arts and
mathematics.
SEQUESTER SPELLS UNCERTAINTY FOR MANY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
If Congress and the Obama administration can't agree on a budget deal
by Friday, the federal government will be forced to cut $85 billion from
just about every federally funded program. Every state could lose
federal aid, and a myriad of government programs could shut down or
curtail services — and that includes the nation's public schools. The
piece ran on NPR’s All Things Considered.
OUTSIDERS FUNDING L.A. SCHOOL REFORM
The large amounts of outside money flowing into the Los Angeles Unified
school board election represent a new front in the reform battles that
have shaken up education politics over the last decade. Donations of $1
million by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and $250,000 by
former District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, in
particular, have sparked controversy. Donors like Bloomberg, Rhee, and
local philanthropists such as Eli Broad, are giving to a slate of
school-board candidates who support charter schools, new teacher
evaluations based on student test scores, and overhauling teacher
tenure. The article is at Hechinger Ed.
COLLEGE READY IN CALIFORNIA
High school achievement tests can be good predictors of how students will fare in community college, according to new research that
adds to the case for using more than just placement tests to decide
which students need to take remedial courses. However, the study also
identified a “disturbing” achievement gap, with Latino and black
students being less likely than their Asian and white peers to take and
pass transfer-level college courses. And that the gap occurs even among
students who performed well on their high school tests. The article is
in Inside Higher Ed.
ONLY HALF OF FIRST-TIME COLLEGE STUDENTS GRADUATE IN SIX YEARS
There is an abundance of evidence showing that going to college is
worth it. But that’s really only true if you go to college and then
graduate, and the United States is doing a terrible job of helping
enrolled college students complete their educations. A new report from
the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center digs deeper into
these graduation rates. It finds that of the 1.9 million students
enrolled for the first time in all degree-granting institutions in fall
2006, just over half of them (54.1 percent) had graduated within six
years. Another 16.1 percent were still enrolled in some sort of
postsecondary program after six years, and 29.8 percent had dropped out
altogether. The post is from The New York Times’ Economix blog.
ABOUT K-12
STUDENTS SHOW PROGRESS UNDER TEACHER-BONUS SYSTEM
A performance-bonus system that made use of "student learning
objectives"—academic growth goals set by teachers in consultation with
their principals—helped improve student achievement in schools using the
measure, concludes a new study issued today. The study,
by the Community Training and Assistance Center, a Boston-based
nonprofit technical-assistance and policy-evaluation firm, found that
students taught by participating teachers in math improved on average at
a rate 12 percent higher than those in comparison schools. That rate of
growth was enough to narrow gaps with their peers in those comparison
schools, who started somewhat ahead of them. In reading, students in
participating schools also improved by a rate that was 13 percent
greater than that of their peers in comparison schools. The post is from
Education Week’s Teacher Beat blog.
STUDY FINDS KIPP SCHOOLS BOOST ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
A new report
finds that students in KIPP charter schools experience significantly
greater learning gains in math, reading, science, and social studies
than do their peers in traditional public schools. The study, which
analyzed data from 43 middle schools run by KIPP, officially known as
the Knowledge Is Power Program, was conducted by Mathematica Policy
Research, a research center based in Princeton, N.J. It concludes that
students in the charter program, over a three-year period, gained an
additional 11 months of learning in math, eight additional months in
reading, 14 additional months of learning in science, and 11 additional
months of learning in social studies when compared to students in
comparable traditional public schools. The post is from Education Week’s Charters and Choice blog.
AMERICORPS TO PLAY A PART IN TURNING AROUND SCHOOLS
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced the launch of a
new 15-million 5-year program to put AmeriCorps volunteers into the
halls and classrooms of the nation’s worst schools in order to help the
students most at-risk of dropping out to graduate high school. In total,
650 AmeriCorps members will be taking up posts in 60 schools around the
country and will be working to help students not only earn their
diploma but also to improve their math and reading skills. The article
is from EducationNews.org.
COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRADS OUT-EARN BACHELOR’S DEGREE HOLDERS
Significant numbers of community-college grads are getting better jobs,
and earning more at the start of their careers than people with
bachelor’s degrees, a trend that surprises even the researchers who have
noticed it in wage data that has started to become more available in
the last year. “There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is
the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the
value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that that
too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for
Research, which helped collect the numbers for some of the states that
report them. The article is in the Hechinger Report.
MANY STUDENTS DON’T NEED REMEDIATION, STUDIES SAY
At a time when more high schools are looking to their graduates'
college-remediation rates as a clue to how well they prepare students
for college and careers, new research findings suggest a significant
portion of students who test into remedial classes don't actually need
them. Separate studies from Teachers College, Columbia University, and
the Harvard Graduate School of Education come to the same conclusion:
The way colleges are using standardized placement tests such as
the College Board's Accuplacer, ACT's Compass, and others can
misidentify students, and secondary schools and universities should work
to develop a more comprehensive profile of students' strengths and
weaknesses in performing college-level work. The article is in Education Week.
READINESS MATTERS
Helping more students become ready for first-year college courses in at
least one more subject area has the potential to help our nation
increase the number of its students with a college degree and build a
more highly-skilled and productive workforce. The report is from ACT.
OUTLOOK FOR NON-PROFIT HIGHER EDUCATION IS ‘VOLATILE’
Lower-rated nonprofit colleges and universities that do not respond
proactively to the challenges outlined in Standard & Poor’s 2013
outlook report run the risk of developing weaker credits, according to
the report from the credit-rating agency. The report predicts an
“increasingly volatile” view of the nonprofit higher-education sector,
meaning there may be an increased number of positive and negative rating
changes during the year. The report also predicts that higher-rated
universities—those with a higher demand among students, a greater
diversity of revenue sources, and a strong history of fund raising—will
maintain or improve their creditworthiness. The article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
NEW STATE BY STATE COMPLETION DATA
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center today released a
state-by-state rundown of graduation data, which is based on a broad
sample representing about 97 percent of students who attend public and
private nonprofit institutions. The report is
a companion to a national completion data study the group released last
fall. Both are based on students who first enrolled in 2006 at the
3,300 colleges and universities that submit data to the clearinghouse,
which is a nonprofit that collects enrollment data and conducts degree
verifications. The article is from Inside Higher Ed’s Quick Takes.
MORE UNIVERSITIES TRY MOOC MODEL
There is growing consensus that the classic college lecture, with a
“sage on the stage” holding forth for an hour or more, too often
delivers mediocre results. Students tune out. Professors get stale.
“Year after year, you’re walking into the same room, saying the same
words,” said Stanford University computer scientist Andrew Ng. “Year
after year, telling the same jokes. You start to wonder if this is how
best to teach.” Dissatisfaction with live lectures helped drive Ng and
Stanford colleague Daphne Koller to put course materials online. The
success of those experiments led them last year to launch the MOOC
platform. The article is in The Washington Post.
2013年2月28日 星期四
2013年2月26日 星期二
談點與母校的關係 (I)與怎麼建立關係 (I)
談點與母校的關係 (I)
大學畢業之後,人際關係會豐富化得多。畢竟,這社會是很多元的,這其實是好事。,我的第一工作是某公家機構(1979春),當然沒校友會。,第2份工作某外商,有點校友會,但不很熱。第三工作是某科技研發單位,也幾乎沒多少校友,而且我那時候起當起部門主管,暑假工讀機會都給中原,因為有好朋友在那兒任教。而東海沒人跟我連絡。
4年後我到某外商,情況也是如此。7年後我自己創業,因為在中原兼課,朋友捐的獎學金和工讀機會都給中原的學生。
這不是說我與東海沒聯絡。偶爾也會捐小錢 (因為這緣故,《系史》出版時受贈一本) 。而我也有機會回東海建築研究所和化工系兼課。
我在產業工作約16年,比較重要的是聘請學弟加入工作團隊,這通常靠點緣份,母校的學弟約是我請過的同事的十分之一。與學弟他們的關係可能比較持久些,然而這多少是些機緣。當顧問有較長點的契約的,我會多照顧同學。
現在已故的兩位值得懷念的好友有二位,一位是我的學長寢室的張忠樸先生。
怎麼建立關係 (I)
最近碰到英國的中國科技史家李約瑟的大名,而我想起的是他訪台募款時,有人問他對於台灣將他的大作盜版販賣的看法。他說,虧本或法律問題,那是劍橋大學出版社的事,而作者無不希望他的思想廣播於世間。
我在BLOG《書海》中介紹東海《校史》 (1995)、《系史》 (40周年、10年前)兩書,我認為它們流傳太少,似應考慮設法使人人(起碼校友)可以自由下載downloading。
所謂取與捨,應該先捨得給,才比較可能有所得。(絕大多數的校友畢業之後就失聯)
同樣的想法,可應用到司馬中原先生免費贈其小說《啼明鳥》給校友會的情義。
2013年2月25日 星期一
日本這種拼命趕時髦求生存的高等教育花樣 很可供台灣參考
“there are too many universities in Japan.”拼命趕時髦求生存的高等教育花樣
這種拼命趕時髦求生存的高等教育花樣 很可供台灣參考
Japan's Hope: If You Build It, They Will Come
Raquel Marín
By MIKI TANIKAWA
Published: February 25, 2013
TOKYO — The colorful education minister of Japan,
Makiko Tanaka, riled Japanese academia last autumn when she denied
accreditation to three new schools on the grounds that “there are too
many universities in Japan.”
She later took it back when her decision was met with fierce resistance.
(And then she lost her job when the governing party lost a
parliamentary election in December.)
But her comment left a lingering question: Japan’s youth population is
declining, so why do new universities and departments keep popping up?
The number of 18-year-olds in Japan peaked in 1992 at 2.05 million,
dwindling to about 1.2 million by 2012. During that time, the number of
four-year universities grew to 783 from 523.
Even greater energy has been poured into thinking up new departments and
majors. According to the Ministry of Education, there were 207 new
departments, majors and graduate programs in 2011, and an additional 236
in 2012. In 2006, a whopping 482 new departments and majors were
introduced.
The boom has been happening for quite some time. Since the late 1990s,
more than 2,000 new academic departments and faculties have been created
in Japan, despite an aging population. Although dozens of departments
are scrapped each year, that still leaves hundreds added to the pile
annually.
Meanwhile, existing schools and departments are suffering. According to
the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation of Private Schools in Japan, a
Ministry of Education affiliate agency, 46 percent of private
universities have empty spaces. The group said that nearly 40 percent of
private universities were operating in the red.
Japan has been making an effort to attract more overseas students, but
the relatively small number of foreigners is not enough to offset the
growing number of university spaces.
To attract students, schools have taken pains to give their freshly
minted departments more modern-sounding names. Tokyo universities like
Hosei, Kokushikan and Seijo have created schools like the Faculty of
Lifelong Learning and Career Studies, 21st-Century Asian Studies and
Faculty of Social Innovation.
Provincial universities are doing the same. Utsunomiya Kyowa University
in Tochigi Prefecture now has a program for City Life Studies. Konan
University in Hyogo Prefecture opened a School of Creative Management,
known in English as the Hirao School of Management.
Akita University in Akita Prefecture is opening Japan’s first Faculty of
International Natural Resources next year. Kyoto Seika University has
been expanding its Faculty of Manga and recently added a Ph.D. in manga
to its roster of degree programs.
Professors and administrators affiliated with the new, nontraditional
departments say that they emphasize forward-looking, interdisciplinary
programs that fit the 21st century. But some experts say they are there
mostly to increase enrollment.
“There is a competition to win students, and universities need to show
they are doing something by tinkering with their product lineup,” said
Hiroshi Kobayashi, editor of College Management magazine, published by
Recruit.
As new universities and departments gushed forth in the past decade,
complaints have arisen among high school counselors who advise
college-bound students.
“The No. 1 complaint among high school counselors, according to our
survey, is that they cannot figure out what those new university
departments and majors are all about,” Mr. Kobayashi said. “If a student
expressed interest in a certain future career, the counselor can say,
‘Oh, in that case, you should apply to this program or that.’ But it is
hard to know what the English communication department does, as opposed
to the English language department.”
The term “communication” has become a popular term, Mr. Kobayashi said,
along with other fashionable words like “international,” “information,”
“environment,” “health” and “life.”
According to the National Institution for Academic Degrees and
University Evaluation, more than 1,200 kinds of undergraduate degrees
were offered by Japanese universities in 2009; about 60 percent of them
are unique.
Administrators of the new departments say they are establishing programs
that prepare students for new challenges facing a society in flux.
At the Faculty of Social Innovation at Seijo University in Tokyo,
students study corporate innovation and the roles of social groups and
individuals, said Mitsunobu Shinohara, dean of the faculty. Students are
exposed to a wide range of disciplines including business, public
policy and social psychology, with innovation as an important common
thread, he said.
“It’s critical to learn how to approach the issue and how to resolve
it,” and not just to study facts, Mr. Shinohara said. He said that a
more interdisciplinary approach gained popularity in the early 2000s,
when his faculty was established.
New programs typically emphasize the thinking process and not the mere acquisition of knowledge.
“Japanese students take notes and memorize, so they can do well on the
tests. But here, what you learn is not as important as how you learn,”
said Harumasa Sato, dean of the Hirao School of Management at Konan
University.
Mr. Sato said the main purpose of education was to train students to be
thinkers, capable of exploring and finding answers on their own.
“Students don’t exactly take courses, but rather the goal in this
program is to finish five major projects,” which include oral and thesis
presentations, Mr. Sato said. His school is about to graduate its first
batch of students in March, and their job placement rate “has been
pretty good,” he said.
To the extent that his and other new schools are experimenting with new
ways to train students, the movement represents efforts to do things
that traditional schools have fallen short on, he said.
“People criticize that what we do is not entirely clear. But are other
established departments of, say, economics and law doing what they
should be doing? Are they creating capable young people who can compete
in the globalizing world?” he asked.
“How should Japanese universities be in the age of globalization has
been one of the greatest themes for us,” said Kageaki Kajiwara, dean of
the School of Asia 21 — whose Japanese name is 21st-Century Asian
Studies — at Kokushikan University. “In this day and age, we cannot live
without having anything to do with globalization.”
Even though classes are taught in Japanese, nearly a third of the 1,700
students in the department are non-Japanese, with students from China,
Iran, Myanmar, Russia and South Korea.
“What’s great about this school is that you can learn about other Asian
cultures and get to know the people from those cultures, and at the same
time study Japanese language and culture,” Ehsan Sheikhi, a 26-year-old
Iranian student, said in fluent Japanese.
Izumi Yamanaka, 22, who is expected to graduate soon from the Faculty of
Social Innovation at Seijo University, said that rather than being
confusing, it was an advantage to have an intriguing department name on
her résumé.
“The interviewer always asked what my major was all about, which means
you get a chance to answer and explain,” she said. “That’s one question
other students don’t receive.” Ms. Yamanaka just got a job working for a
bank in Tokyo.
For some experts, the problem is not that new schools and departments
are introduced, but that institutions with lackluster reputations are
not allowed to die.
“As society changes, new universities should be created to fill new
needs,” said Bruce Stronach, dean of the Japanese campus of Temple
University, which is based in Philadelphia. “The problem is that
Japanese society is good at building but not at scrapping. There should
be greater emphasis on discontinuing universities that cannot fulfill
their quotas or no longer serve their original purpose.”
A few of the new schools have failed. In 2010, five universities said
they would no longer accept new students and expected to dissolve. In
2012, a Tokyo college that was founded in 2002 said it would close in
2015.
Still, closures and bankruptcies are rare, and schools tend to hang on despite low enrollments.
Most Japanese education institutions — both public and private — depend
heavily on grants from the Ministry of Education, which can be suspended
or removed if the ministry deems that a university has outlived its
purpose, Dr. Stronach said.
Shutting down universities and departments is often difficult because it
means dismissing faculty and staff members, which management is loath
to do. In fact, school administrators say new departments are sometimes
built to make up for lost divisions, often a junior college or a
department whose subject is no longer popular.
Mr. Shinohara at the Faculty of Social Innovation at Seijo University
admitted that one reason his department came into being was because the
junior college division at his university closed — because of a shortage
of students.
How Children Succeed by Paul Tough
Helping children succeed
How do you learn grit?
TEACHING character skills like determination and optimism is more important than raising test scores, argues Paul Tough in his new book作者 錄音訪問挨(英文)
How Children Succeed by Paul Tough – review
Is fostering 'character' the secret to creating confident, determined children?
Anxious parents drawn to this US bestseller by the title will
find themselves taking a back-row seat in classrooms full of children
far more disadvantaged than their own and learning something useful in
the process. Paul Tough's book is not the straightforward "grow clever
children" manual it appears to be. The author has followed some of urban
America's poorest young people through their secondary school careers
over some years, tracking their rocky road towards higher education and
revealing how their teachers are compensating for the missing investment
in their early years by fostering what Tough sums up as "character".
The components of character include resilience, self‑control, optimism
and (Tough's favourite) grit. And he argues that it helps young people
absorb and act on criticism, overcome setbacks and meet frustration and
obstacles with renewed determination. Those who manage to graduate from
high school despite poverty and an absence of supportive role models
have to have more reserves of character than their socially cushioned
peers.
Tough's tour of institutions that seek to inject character range from the Knowledge is Power Programme (Kipp) and junior high in the South Bronx to the well-heeled New York suburban Riverdale campus, where many parents hamper their child's character growth with too much cosseting. The highlight is the glimpse he affords us into the lives of the gifted, success-hungry chess players of IS 318, a low-income public school in Brooklyn, and the passionate, confrontational teacher who forces them to replay and learn from their wrong moves.
The UK's Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal) framework, introduced in state primary and secondary schools in 2007, is the closest we have come to structured attempts to teach character. The Seal values – self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills – are in the same ballpark as Tough's character traits. But grit is something we have to teach our kids to pack with their PE kits or their chess pieces.
Tough's tour of institutions that seek to inject character range from the Knowledge is Power Programme (Kipp) and junior high in the South Bronx to the well-heeled New York suburban Riverdale campus, where many parents hamper their child's character growth with too much cosseting. The highlight is the glimpse he affords us into the lives of the gifted, success-hungry chess players of IS 318, a low-income public school in Brooklyn, and the passionate, confrontational teacher who forces them to replay and learn from their wrong moves.
The UK's Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal) framework, introduced in state primary and secondary schools in 2007, is the closest we have come to structured attempts to teach character. The Seal values – self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills – are in the same ballpark as Tough's character traits. But grit is something we have to teach our kids to pack with their PE kits or their chess pieces.
Some of the News Fit to Print
ABOUT K-12
NEXT STEPS TOWARD ACHIEVING EQUITY IN EDUCATION
Linda Darling-Hammond and Michael Honda write in The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet blog: It is no secret that U.S. educational outcomes have fallen behind those of many other nations, in large part because of the yawning achievement gap between rich and poor students. This achievement gap is more appropriately understood as an opportunity gap, fed both by our growing poverty rates for children — now by far the highest in the industrialized world — and by unequal educational resources across schools. Unfortunately, current federal policy focuses on identifying teacher deficits, rather than building up a vibrant, highly qualified and competent teaching corps. To build up an effective teaching workforce, therefore, it is clear that teacher preparation — even more than evaluation — may matter most for meeting the 21st century learning needs.
TEACHER JOB SATISFACTION HITS 25-YEAR LOW
A new survey paints a troubling portrait of the American educator: Teacher job satisfaction has hit its lowest point in a quarter of a century, and 75 percent of principals believe their jobs have become too complex. The findings are part of the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Challenges for School Leadership. Conducted annually since 1984, the survey polled representative sampling of 1,000 teachers and 500 principals in K-12 schools across the country. Only 39 percent of teachers described themselves as very satisfied with their jobs on the latest survey. That's a 23-percentage point plummet since 2008, and a drop of five percentage points just over the past year. Factors contributing to lower job satisfaction included working in schools where the budgets, opportunities for professional development, and time for collaboration with colleagues have all been sent to the chopping block. Stress levels are also up, with half of all teachers describing themselves as under great stress several days per week, compared with a third of teachers in 1985. The article is in The Atlantic.
GIVING COGNITION A BAD NAME
Mike Rose blogs in the NEPC: Cognition traditionally refers to a wide and rich range of mental processes, from memory and attention, to comprehending and using language, to solving a difficult problem in physics or choreography or living with someone. But over the last few decades cognition has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Under No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, cognition in education policy has increasingly come to mean the skills measured by standardized tests of reading and mathematics. And as economists have gotten more involved in education, they’ve needed quantative measures of cognitive ability and academic achievement for their analytical models, so they’ve used I.Q. or other standardized test scores (like the Armed Forces Qualification Test or AFQT) as a proxy for intelligence or achievement. From the Latincognoscere, to come to know, or cogito erqo sum, I think therefore I am, we’ve devolved to a few digits on the AFQT. As if that were not enough, there is now emerging on a number of fronts – nicely summarized in Paul Tough’s new book How Children Succeed – a belief that our nation’s educational focus on cognition has been misguided. Rather than focusing our energies on the academic curriculum – or on academic intervention programs for the poor – we need to turn our attention to the development of qualities of character or personality like perseverance, self-monitoring, and flexibility. As much or more than the cognitive, the argument goes, it is these qualities that account for success in school and life. The importance of qualities like perseverance and flexibility are indisputable, but what concerns me is that the advocates for character accept without question the reductive notion of cognition that runs through our education policies, and by accepting it further affirm it.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
YOUR MASSIVELY OPEN OFFLINE COLLEGE IS BROKEN
Clay Shirky writes in The Awl: Tuition and fees at public four-year colleges went up 72% last decade, even as the market value of a bachelor's degree fell by 15%. The value of that degree remains high in relative terms, but only because people with bachelor's degrees have seen their incomes shrink less over the last few years than people who don't have them. "Give us tens of thousands of dollars and years of your life so you can suffer less than your peers" isn't much of a proposition. More like a ransom note, really. This is the background to the entire conversation around higher education: Things that can’t last don’t. This is why MOOCs matter. Not because distance learning is some big new thing or because online lectures are a solution to all our problems, but because they’ve come along at a time when students and parents are willing to ask themselves, "Isn’t there some other way to do this?" MOOCs are a lightning strike on a rotten tree. Most stories have focused on the lightning, on MOOCs as the flashy new thing. I want to talk about the tree.
ONLINE COURSES COULD WIDEN ACHIEVEMENT GAPS AMONG STUDENTS
Low-cost online courses could allow a more-diverse group of students to try college, but a new study suggests that such courses could also widen achievement gaps among students in different demographic groups. The study, which is described in a working paper titled “Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas,” was conducted by Columbia University’s Community College Research Center. The researchers examined 500,000 courses taken by more than 40,000 community- and technical-college students in Washington State. They found that students in demographic groups whose members typically struggle in traditional classrooms are finding their troubles exacerbated in online courses. The study found that all students who take more online courses, no matter the demographic, are less likely to attain a degree. However, some groups—including black students, male students, younger students, and students with lower grade-point averages—are particularly susceptible to this pattern. The post is in The Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus blog.
2013年2月24日 星期日
學校(含校友)數據庫的重要
我或許會寫一系列類似這篇的建言給大家參考
學校(含校友)數據庫的重要
(所有的東海大學的利害關係人都應該有學校的全面面向的約略數據)
昨日林康同學在Facebook
談起博士來,決果社交網站終究有社交網的功能,有老朋友在留言版上認起”親”了,可賀。其實問題之一是,台灣和中國近十幾年的高等文憑的通貨膨脹 (爆炸性倍增),它多少引發出品質危機。
這要是有數據說明就很容易了解,下次補件。
這為什麼引發要談《學校(含校友)數據庫的重要》,我希望在此等地方討論或應梢加強。 (校友會情形類似,譬如說,台北地區有多少校友,雖非會員可是有資源的,即可能的「金礦」。
IE系為例 (現在系的全名長到我懶得打……這是因為十幾年前發現新生分數大降的補強法之一) 以此系為例,因為1971年的工學院學生都可進成大中段系以上的,當時也有能進台大而選東海的人 (文學院當時也有這種類似第一志願的,現在我聽說某研究所的入學試題就嘆息。當時東海的學生是全”省”名校都有的,十年前就有人說她已是求區域性”卓越的……其實東海連在中部的大學的排名都直直落,更不用談北部各私立大學的蒸蒸日上……)
譬如說,我1975年東海畢業時,學校的研究所很少,現在學校學生說不定近1/3是研究生。IE系還有二個研究所學程,碩博士研究生人數近80多名,它已是IE系1971年,很無可奈何) 的學生總數之7成,當時無研究生。10幾年前設博士班,一開始還可借名額給建築系,現在可能早已面臨招不足博士生的問題。
我們在企業界的訓練教我們,凡事先思考其目的(Purpose) ,價值觀 (Values) ,再談那些是達成目的之「關鍵少數」(vital few) ,譬如說「重金禮請優秀學生」入學…..至於如何有各種資源,那是經營管理者的責任。
2013年2月22日 星期五
博雅教程/ 博雅教育
2013.2.22 今天四點多到文學院一遊,很幸運,取的一些中文散文和小說,中英文期刊數本。先記趣事。
日本關西大學KansaiUniversity的 Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia 發行英文年刊: Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia
它的封面都採某大學之一景:
2011年(Vol.2)的是臺灣大學文學院College of Liberal Arts 正門
2012年 (Vol. 3) 的是華中師範大學校園一景,一片梅花盛開,其中有一刻石曰博雅。
Liberal Education在台灣起碼有兩種-說法 教育部委託某些大學主編的季刊叫"通識教育" 而台大東海等稱為"博雅"---台大還出版不少這方面的"論述" 這些或許淪為說說寫寫而已
我 想沈哥等關心的 似乎是新校長有雄心想將東海目前的做法擴及全校 (這玩藝做法很多 譬如說成大醫學院圖書館也有許多故事/ 我今天讀的童元方女士介紹的生動法: 精確與生動 ( rigorous vs vigorous 非正式/各系雜處的教育方式 ) 收入《為彼此的鄉愁》pp.109-116......)
東海有極貧乏的金錢資源問題 所以或許只先求所有學生 多受點語言(譬如說英文/英語 )教育就可......陳義不要過高......
窮學校也可以有高品質的教育.
譬如說 將課堂設在有能有心的校友處. (我們"華人戴明學院"等等)
或者趁著現在"國美館"有Tony Cragg 展. 很可以開一門美藝領域上的課程 這些都是我們當年1970年代所沒有的外部資源.
此BLOG 目的: 教導學生讀美英各大報
十幾年前是臺大管理學院的黃金時代 (對我這校外人士而言) 。譬如說亞洲華爾街日報AWSJ他們說服台灣的一些企業家贊助校園閱讀AWSJ。
所以每天會送近50-70份報免費到學院 (約2年) 。
前一年AWSJ都剩餘 。所以我曾想過應該免費為臺大學生開班,教導學生讀美國第一大報WSJ。這只是空想。
那時候紐約時報也是網路上免費,所以我開一個”英文人行道”的BLOG,希望稍微教”讀者”讀英文各大報。它有237398人次讀過它.
http://word-watcher.blogspot.tw
十幾年前是臺大管理學院的黃金時代 (對我這校外人士而言) 。譬如說亞洲華爾街日報AWSJ他們說服台灣的一些企業家贊助校園閱讀AWSJ。
所以每天會送近50-70份報免費到學院 (約2年) 。
前一年AWSJ都剩餘 。所以我曾想過應該免費為臺大學生開班,教導學生讀美國第一大報WSJ。這只是空想。
那時候紐約時報也是網路上免費,所以我開一個”英文人行道”的BLOG,希望稍微教”讀者”讀英文各大報。它有237398人次讀過它.
http://word-watcher.blogspot.tw
要談談所謂的"博雅"
HC: 那時候沒什麼"博雅"這樣做作的名詞啦! 博雅,
- liberal
- [形]1 (…を)物惜しみしない, (…に)気前のよい((of, with ...)) a liberal giver物惜しみしない人 be liberal of [with] one's mo...
- liberal arts
- ((the 〜))1 (大学の)教養課程[科目](((英))liberal studies).2 (中世の)自由学芸:文法・論理学・修辞学・算数・幾何・天文・音楽から成る.
- liberal education
- (職業教育に対して)高等普通教育;幅広い教育[経験].
2011.5.9 去年某學長問我,司馬中原贈版權的《啼鳴鳥》已無庫存,要如何加印?
當時忘記介紹網路的印刷大廠,以及他們應考慮用電子書免費贈送。
其實,學校相關的”校友文學” ,似可以整理出書,譬如說鍾玲教授的詩,葉教授的《柏克萊精神》 (楊牧)中的《夜宿大度山》-- 20周年畢業生3824人, 1975學生數3929人。 "如果東海決定以幾何級數擴大招生 它必須以幾何級數加聘教授添置設備"…..
最重要的是,文中的那些學弟妹 (陳南吉……),不知流落何方?
當今的博雅教程方式,(可能或)應是東海傳統的大誤解。當年的”博雅”很簡單,所有學生修兩年國文和英文,理工的修一門如《美學/藝術欣賞》;《世界宗教》……梅怡寶教授1973年回來開”博雅” ,當年選修的人可能近10人而已。
教育的最大迷思之一,就是以為,多開些”五花八門”或經典的課,或多修些課,就是博雅教育。
不過,有好心的慷慷校友多捐款,創造些就業機會,織些”新衣” ,我們只有/只能祝福。
昨夜沈金標兄 世琦學妹等來訪暢談0423 2009 我印象深刻的提到同一大學之內另外一套"精英制"之公平問題 其實 這樣相隔近30年之學生的談天說地 就是真博雅教育
昨夜沈金標兄 世琦學妹等來訪暢談0423 2009 我印象深刻的提到同一大學之內另外一套"精英制"之公平問題 其實 這樣相隔近30年之學生的談天說地 就是真博雅教育
2013年2月20日 星期三
A Filling Job for a B. A. 遠程實習的限制
ABOUT K-12
FEDERAL GRANT PROSPECT REIGNITES KINDERGARTEN-ASSESSMENT DEBATE
A federal grant program in the works to help states jump-start kindergarten-entry assessments is renewing debate among early-childhood educators about the benefits and pitfalls of evaluating young children. The U.S. Department of Education aims to distribute $9.2 million for the readiness-to-learn initiative through an existing grant program intended to help states devise better tests at all grade levels. The proposal, for which the department is seeking comments through Feb. 25, comes at a time when the White House is paying increased attention to early education. In last week's State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama said he would make universal preschool a budget priority. And in 2011, the Education Department launched Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grants, awarding about $633 million to 14 states. The article is in Education Week.
EDUCATION PANEL: TO CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAP, URGENT STATE, FEDERAL ACTION NEEDED
The nation must act urgently to close the achievement gap between poor and privileged children by changing the way public schools are financed, improving teacher quality, investing in early-childhood education and demanding greater accountability down to the local school board level, according to a report issued Tuesday by an expert panel. Created by Congress in 2010 — with legislation sponsored by Reps. Michael M. Honda (D-Calif.) and Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) — the Equity and Excellence Commission aimed to propose ways to improve public education for poor American children. The 27-member panel included state and federal officials, civil rights activists and academics. The article is in The Washington Post.
FOR TEACHERS, A NEW ATTENTION TO EVALUATIONS
Across Massachusetts, administrators are increasingly visting classrooms this year and amassing a stockpile of notes, lesson plans, and examples of student work as they carefully judge the effectiveness of more than 68,000 teachers statewide. The goal of the new ramped-up evaluation systems — developed under hard-fought state regulations — is to build a more skilled teaching force that can help students reach new heights. The regulations, which also apply to administrators and superintendents, encourage sharing successful teaching strategies, creating improvement plans for unsatisfactory educators, and terminating those repeatedly deemed ineffective. The article is in Boston.com.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
BITING THE BULLET ON COMPLETION
Research has identified several ways for colleges that enroll lesser-prepared students to improve their graduation rates. But college leaders are often wary of those solutions, because they can take a whack at the bottom line and challenge a tradition of open doors. Klamath Community College recently went all in with several measures aimed at improving student retention, including mandatory orientation for students, mandatory advising and the elimination of late registration for courses. The college’s new president, Roberto Gutierrez, said he knew those policies could discourage or freeze out some students. He was right. Klamath saw its enrollment decline roughly 20 percent last fall, when compared to the previous year. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
IT TAKES A B.A. TO FIND A JOB AS A FILE CLERK
The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job. Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college-educated population. Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills. This prerequisite applies to everyone, including the receptionist, paralegals, administrative assistants and file clerks. Even the office “runner” — the in-house courier who, for $10 an hour, ferries documents back and forth between the courthouse and the office — went to a four-year school. The article is in The New York Times.
WHY CONFUSION CAN BE A GOOD THING
We all know that confusion doesn’t feel good. Because it seems like an obstacle to learning, we try to arrange educational experiences and training sessions so that learners will encounter as little confusion as possible. But as is so often the case when it comes to learning, our intuitions here are exactly wrong. Scientists have been building a body of evidence over the past few years demonstrating that confusion can lead us to learn more efficiently, more deeply, more lastingly—as long as it’s properly managed. How can this be? The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. It evolved to identify related events or artifacts and connect them into a meaningful whole. This capacity serves us well in many endeavors, from recognizing the underlying themes in literature, to understanding the deep structure of a scientific or mathematical problem, to anticipating hidden complications and seeing their solutions in our work. Over time, exposure to these problem-solving situations gives us a subconscious familiarity with their essential nature that we can hardly articulate in words, but which we can easily put into action. The article is in the MindShift blog.
ABOUT K-12
DEASY WANTS 30% OF TEACHER EVALUATIONS BASED ON TEST SCORES
L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election. Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal. In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count. The article is in the Los Angeles Times.
HOW OHIO’S NEW TEACHER EVALUATIONS WILL CHANGE STUDENT TEACHING
Ohio’s educators have been nervously watching the development of a new way to evaluate teachers. They’re nervous because half of their evaluations will be based on student test scores. Officials hope the higher stakes will improve teaching performance. But there could be ripple effects, like big changes in the way student teachers get classroom experience. The new teacher evaluations kick in next fall. “When that goes into place I will not give up my classroom for a student teacher,” says Barb Sole, an eighth grade language arts teacher at Utica Jr High School in rural central Ohio. Sole has a student teacher now. It’s the third she’s worked with, and she says probably her last. The piece is from StateImpact Ohio.
ABOUT HIGHER ED
REDEFINING COLLEGE-READY
The growing crisis of students arriving at college unprepared to do college-level work has led to plenty of finger-pointing between high school and college educators. But two community colleges have learned that better collaboration with local high schools may be the best way to dramatically reduce the number of students who fall into the quagmire of remedial coursework. Long Beach City College has worked closely with the Long Beach Unified School District so it can experiment with using high school grades to help determine whether incoming students have remedial needs -- a shift from instead relying heavily on standardized placement tests. And according to newly available data from the college, an initial group of 1,000 students from Long Beach high schools who were placed with this new method were far more likely to take and pass credit-bearing, transfer-level courses at the college than their peers the previous year. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
TEACHER PREP REVIEW DEBATE BREWS BEFORE FINDINGS EVEN COMPLETE
Of all the efforts to show which teacher preparation programs are the most effective and which ones are the least, the one that could potentially have the biggest influence on the public is the Teacher Prep Review being produced by the National Council on Teacher Quality. A $5 million project in the works since early 2011, the review is set for release this April as one of the latest additions to the college rankings published by U.S. News & World Report. Creators of the Teacher Prep Review say the syllabi and other materials they are examining to produce the review are sufficient to determine if teacher prep programs are meeting a series of standards that NCTQ describes as the “nuts and bolts of building better teachers.” The article is in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.
posted Feb 19, 2013 10:43 am
Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate Announces 2012 Dissertation in Practice Awardees [In the News]
Eleven nominations representing three CPED institutions (University of Louisville, Virginia Commonwealth University and Arizona State University) were received in 2012 for the first ever Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) Dissertation in Practice Award. A Committee comprised of nine CPED faculty members representing eight CPED institutions was assembled to develop a set of criteria that would distinguish the dissertation of scholarly practitioners as work grounded in high quality research with the potential to impact practice in education. The Committee worked for almost a year developing the criteria that were used to judge submissions. This week, the Committee announced two winners and one Honorable Mention. Learn more from the CPED website.
遠程實習,網絡時代大學生的新選擇
JENNA WORTHAM 報道 2013年02月17日
費利西亞·菲茨帕特里克(Felicia Fitzpatrick)是Do Something的社交媒體實習生,這家位於紐約的非營利組織致力於青年運動。她每天開始工作前要向老闆通報情況。不同之處在於,她是在德克薩斯大學奧斯汀分校(University of Texas, Austin)的學生宿舍里,通過電子郵件或Skype通訊軟件彙報工作。
越來越多的學生選擇遠程實習,20歲的菲茨帕特里克就是其中之一——這些職位不再要求學生待在辦公室里。Internships.com網站列出了8000多個遠程在線實習職位,這個數字比去年同期增長了20%。這家網站對303名僱主的調查顯示,三分之一的僱主今年提供或者計劃提供遠程實習職位。
遠程實習通常需要學生從事研究項目或社交媒體方面的工作,因為他們需要的只是一台筆記本電腦和互聯網接口。在跨國公司和遠程虛擬辦公盛行的世界裡,這類作法很有意義。傳統企業也發現,年輕的實習生擅長管理Twitter頁面和YouTube賬戶。
28歲的布里·韋爾策(Brie Welzer)是Green Seal的 市場助理,這家設立在華盛頓的非營利環境組織採用了遠程在線實習方式,他表示:“這個工作理念改變了很多人。遠程辦公的範圍更廣泛,成本更低廉,在很多方 面比在辦公室工作更富有成效。”Green Seal對虛擬實習職位的要求包括:能夠獨立工作,文筆清晰有條理,擁有Skype賬戶(配備網絡攝像頭者優先)。
遠程實習的優點很多。學生們有更多的實習機會,尤其是在學年期間,而且他們不需要支付通勤和租房費用。遠程實習生的工作時間很靈活,他們可以兼顧課 程安排甚至兼職工作。菲茨帕特里克每周工作12到15個小時,獲得大學學分,有時候她會獨自管理Do Something的Facebook頁面直到深夜。
儘管這些實習經驗讓學生們為適應新的職場規範做好準備,但是韋爾策認為,遠程實習並不能提供員工在繁忙職場上獲取的重要經驗,比如對職業期望、企業文化和職場禮儀的深入理解。
作為賓夕法尼亞州立大學(Pennsylvania State University)的媒體效果研究實驗室(Media Effects Research Lab)主任,希亞姆·孫達爾(S. Shyam Sundar)主要研究人們的在線互動和行為,他表示:“儘管這些選擇可以為今天的學生提供寶貴的經驗,但是他們並沒有經過職業培訓,而這些培訓會教他們 如何成為優秀的員工。”他說道:“他們只能依靠自己,自己弄明白如何在職場上獲得成功。”他警告說,遠程實習生面臨被負擔過重的項目協調員遺忘的風險,成 功的實習生必須積極主動與僱主溝通,徵求反饋意見。
此外,在簽訂合同前,學生們應該認真審查這家公司的資質。有些情況屬於危險信號:比如公司使用Gmail或Hotmail郵箱地址,辦公室設立在家中。
菲茨帕特里克希望日後在數碼營銷領域找到一份工作,她表示自己正在學習如何管理社交媒體活動,處理面向網絡的工作任務,她認為自己不需要待在辦公室(她去年夏天參加了傳統的實習計劃)。
然而,她確實因為錯過了Do Something公司舉辦的節日聚會感到難過。她說:“我希望他們當時能安一個攝像頭,這樣我就好假裝在現場,除此以外,我覺得沒什麼不同。”
越來越多的學生選擇遠程實習,20歲的菲茨帕特里克就是其中之一——這些職位不再要求學生待在辦公室里。Internships.com網站列出了8000多個遠程在線實習職位,這個數字比去年同期增長了20%。這家網站對303名僱主的調查顯示,三分之一的僱主今年提供或者計劃提供遠程實習職位。
28歲的布里·韋爾策(Brie Welzer)是Green Seal的 市場助理,這家設立在華盛頓的非營利環境組織採用了遠程在線實習方式,他表示:“這個工作理念改變了很多人。遠程辦公的範圍更廣泛,成本更低廉,在很多方 面比在辦公室工作更富有成效。”Green Seal對虛擬實習職位的要求包括:能夠獨立工作,文筆清晰有條理,擁有Skype賬戶(配備網絡攝像頭者優先)。
遠程實習的優點很多。學生們有更多的實習機會,尤其是在學年期間,而且他們不需要支付通勤和租房費用。遠程實習生的工作時間很靈活,他們可以兼顧課 程安排甚至兼職工作。菲茨帕特里克每周工作12到15個小時,獲得大學學分,有時候她會獨自管理Do Something的Facebook頁面直到深夜。
儘管這些實習經驗讓學生們為適應新的職場規範做好準備,但是韋爾策認為,遠程實習並不能提供員工在繁忙職場上獲取的重要經驗,比如對職業期望、企業文化和職場禮儀的深入理解。
作為賓夕法尼亞州立大學(Pennsylvania State University)的媒體效果研究實驗室(Media Effects Research Lab)主任,希亞姆·孫達爾(S. Shyam Sundar)主要研究人們的在線互動和行為,他表示:“儘管這些選擇可以為今天的學生提供寶貴的經驗,但是他們並沒有經過職業培訓,而這些培訓會教他們 如何成為優秀的員工。”他說道:“他們只能依靠自己,自己弄明白如何在職場上獲得成功。”他警告說,遠程實習生面臨被負擔過重的項目協調員遺忘的風險,成 功的實習生必須積極主動與僱主溝通,徵求反饋意見。
此外,在簽訂合同前,學生們應該認真審查這家公司的資質。有些情況屬於危險信號:比如公司使用Gmail或Hotmail郵箱地址,辦公室設立在家中。
菲茨帕特里克希望日後在數碼營銷領域找到一份工作,她表示自己正在學習如何管理社交媒體活動,處理面向網絡的工作任務,她認為自己不需要待在辦公室(她去年夏天參加了傳統的實習計劃)。
然而,她確實因為錯過了Do Something公司舉辦的節日聚會感到難過。她說:“我希望他們當時能安一個攝像頭,這樣我就好假裝在現場,除此以外,我覺得沒什麼不同。”
本文最初發表於2013年2月3日。
翻譯:孟潔冰
Ms. Fitzpatrick, 20, is among a growing number of students taking on virtual internships — positions that don’t require students ever to set foot in the office. Internships.com, which lists more than 8,000 virtual positions, reports a 20 percent increase over the last year. Its survey of 303 employers found that a third offer remote internships or plan to this year.
Remote internships often entail working on research projects or social media efforts, for which only a laptop and an Internet connection are needed. They make sense in a world of global companies and virtual work forces laboring from afar. Traditional companies, too, find in interns the youthful know-how to manage a Twitter feed or YouTube account.
“The idea of work is changing for a lot of people,” said Brie Welzer, 28, a marketing associate at Green Seal, an environmental nonprofit in Washington that uses virtual interns. “Telecommuting is becoming much bigger. It’s less expensive and in many ways more productive than working in an office.” Among requirements for Green Seal’s virtual intern: ability to work independently, clarity in writing and Skype account (webcam “preferred”).
The upsides are plentiful. Students have more opportunities, especially during the school year, and they don’t incur commuting and housing expenses. Remote interns enjoy flexible hours, allowing them to juggle class schedules and even part-time jobs. Ms. Fitzpatrick works 12 to 15 hours a week, for college credit, and sometimes finds herself managing Do Something’s Facebook page late into the evening.
But while the experience may well prepare students for the new workplace order that Ms. Welzer describes, remote internships don’t always provide the crucial lessons that can come from being in the thick of things, like insight into professional expectations, corporate culture and office etiquette.
“While these options can provide today’s students with valuable experience, they are not accompanied by a training component that teaches them how to become better workers,” said S. Shyam Sundar, a director of the Media Effects Research Lab at Pennsylvania State University, who studies how people interact and behave online. “They are on their own,” he said, “as they figure out how to succeed in the work force.” He warns that remote interns run the risk of being forgotten by overburdened program coordinators, and that successful interns must be proactive in communicating with an employer and soliciting feedback.
Also, before even signing on, students should vet the company. Some red flags: a gmail or hotmail address or an office operated out of a home.
Ms. Fitzpatrick, who hopes to someday have a job in digital marketing, says that she is learning how to run social media campaigns and juggle Web-oriented tasks, and doesn’t think she needs to be physically in the office (she spent last summer there in a traditional internship).
She did, however, have pangs over missing out on Do Something’s holiday party. “I wish they had a webcam so I could pretend I’m there,” she said. “Other than that, it feels the same.
翻譯:孟潔冰
Virtually There: Working Remotely
By JENNA WORTHAM February 17, 2013
OR her social media internship at Do Something, a nonprofit organization in New York aimed at youth activism, Felicia Fitzpatrick checks in with her boss before getting started on the day’s tasks. The twist? She reports to work by e-mail or Skype from her dorm room at the University of Texas, Austin.Ms. Fitzpatrick, 20, is among a growing number of students taking on virtual internships — positions that don’t require students ever to set foot in the office. Internships.com, which lists more than 8,000 virtual positions, reports a 20 percent increase over the last year. Its survey of 303 employers found that a third offer remote internships or plan to this year.
Remote internships often entail working on research projects or social media efforts, for which only a laptop and an Internet connection are needed. They make sense in a world of global companies and virtual work forces laboring from afar. Traditional companies, too, find in interns the youthful know-how to manage a Twitter feed or YouTube account.
“The idea of work is changing for a lot of people,” said Brie Welzer, 28, a marketing associate at Green Seal, an environmental nonprofit in Washington that uses virtual interns. “Telecommuting is becoming much bigger. It’s less expensive and in many ways more productive than working in an office.” Among requirements for Green Seal’s virtual intern: ability to work independently, clarity in writing and Skype account (webcam “preferred”).
The upsides are plentiful. Students have more opportunities, especially during the school year, and they don’t incur commuting and housing expenses. Remote interns enjoy flexible hours, allowing them to juggle class schedules and even part-time jobs. Ms. Fitzpatrick works 12 to 15 hours a week, for college credit, and sometimes finds herself managing Do Something’s Facebook page late into the evening.
But while the experience may well prepare students for the new workplace order that Ms. Welzer describes, remote internships don’t always provide the crucial lessons that can come from being in the thick of things, like insight into professional expectations, corporate culture and office etiquette.
“While these options can provide today’s students with valuable experience, they are not accompanied by a training component that teaches them how to become better workers,” said S. Shyam Sundar, a director of the Media Effects Research Lab at Pennsylvania State University, who studies how people interact and behave online. “They are on their own,” he said, “as they figure out how to succeed in the work force.” He warns that remote interns run the risk of being forgotten by overburdened program coordinators, and that successful interns must be proactive in communicating with an employer and soliciting feedback.
Also, before even signing on, students should vet the company. Some red flags: a gmail or hotmail address or an office operated out of a home.
Ms. Fitzpatrick, who hopes to someday have a job in digital marketing, says that she is learning how to run social media campaigns and juggle Web-oriented tasks, and doesn’t think she needs to be physically in the office (she spent last summer there in a traditional internship).
She did, however, have pangs over missing out on Do Something’s holiday party. “I wish they had a webcam so I could pretend I’m there,” she said. “Other than that, it feels the same.
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