GMAC Introduces ‘Soft Skills’ Test, but Not for Admissions

The group behind the GMAT, or Graduate Management Admission Test, are introducing a new test designed to measure students’ personality-related skills, such as resilience, drive, and collaboration. The Graduate Management Admission Council expects that the $99, 45-minute test will be used by employers to gauge the “soft skills” of student applicants. GMAC does not intend, however, for the test to be used as an admissions tool by graduate schools. “GMAC Introduces 'Soft Skills' Test, but Not for Admissions.” Inside Higher Ed, 20 Feb. 2013. Read article »

How Colleges Should Prepare Students For The Current Economy

“Unfortunately for students, parents and educators, there is no established or readily accepted standard or metric to measure how ‘successful’ a college or university is in arming students for the post-diploma decades.” But for students at Bentley University, where 98 percent of graduates in 2012 received job offers or admission to graduate school, a four-year career development plan called “Hire Education” seems to nearly guarantee employment upon graduation. The program offers targeted career advising that is broken into four phases: “Explore” for first-years, “Experiment” for sophomores, “Experience” for juniors, and “Excel” for seniors. Brennan, Susan. “How Colleges Should Prepare Students For The Current Economy.” Business Insider, 13 Feb. 2013. Read article »

The College Grad/Employment Mismatch

A report based on federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that “nearly half of the 41.7 million graduates of four-year colleges in the U.S. work force hold jobs that require less than a bachelor's degree.” Worse yet, it predicts that the mismatch between college graduates and the number of jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree will worsen over the course of this decade, with 31.1% projected growth for the former and 14.3% for the latter. The director of Georgetown’s Center on Education questions the findings of the studying, arguing that “the market is very responsive to labor supply” and that the study does not take into account the effect that a college education may have on earnings for someone in a high school-level job. Lederman, Doug. “The College Grad/Employment Mismatch.” Inside Higher Ed, 28 Jan. 2013. Read article »

Revolution Hits the Universities

New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman foresees a day when students will create their own college degrees “by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world…paying only the nominal fee for the certificates of completion.” MOOCs, he believes, have more potential than any other technology to remake higher education and “unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems.” Friedman relays the highlights of his recent communications with Coursera team members, noting the exponential growth of Coursera over the past nine months – from 300,000 student users and 38 courses last May to 2.4 million students, 214 courses, and 33 partner universities. Friedman also quotes some of the players behind edX, including M.I.T. president Rafael Reif, who has predicted that in the coming years, universities will increasingly leverage technology and the Internet to enhance traditional on-campus experiences at the same time that they offer online courses to students around the world. Friedman, Thomas. “Revolution Hits the Universities,” The New York Times Op-Ed, 26 Jan. 2013. Read article »

The real problem with multiple-choice tests

“When a multiple-choice question is given to a student in hopes of measuring how well he or she understands something, it manufacturers the illusion of right and wrong, a binary condition that ignores the endlessly fluid nature of information.” Terry Heick (the Director of Curriculum at TeachThought, a blog and networking service for K-20 educators) argues that multiple choice testing is becoming less effective in a world that increasingly favors new data and fluid ways of learning. Heick reports that the “seeking and sharing of ideas” is becoming “an elegant kind of chaos” which multiple choice tests cannot possibly capture, now that information is absorbed through social media outlets, YouTube, video games, web essays, and blog posts, to name just a few. Strauss, Valerie. “The real problem with multiple-choice tests.” The Washington Post, 25 Jan. 2013. Read article »

Desire2Learn Acquires Course-Suggestion Software Inspired by Netflix and Amazon

The learning software company Desire2Learn Inc. has acquired a new technology that will allow students to choose college courses in much the same way that users of Netflix or Amazon browse movie or product recommendations. An algorithm will generate individual course suggestions for students ranked on a five-star scale and based on their transcripts, prior grades, and standardized test scores. The service even estimates the final grades that students will receive in these courses, based on past performance. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding for the development of this technology in 2011. New, Jake. “Desire2Learn Acquires Course-Suggestion Software...” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 24 Jan. 2013. Read article »