BC EDUCATION
Saved by @Alex1Powell

1-Every prof and teacher I know is having a really hard time at end of term. Everyone is overwhelmed. So are our students. So are university staff and administrators (hard to believe, right?) Everyone is working night and day, feeling inefficient, overwhelmed...

 2-One way to address this, for those still having classes post-Thanksgiving, is like a friend (everyone's anonymous in this thread: they can out themselves!) who told students, if they wished, they could end their term w all the work they'd done pre-Thanskgiving and be done.
3-Another friend announced post Thanksgiving that the final exam would be "open everything" and they could work together if they wishes as long as they also submitted a signed "study/crib sheet" along w the final. They warned working together might hurt them because it slows.
4-Another friend--genius scholar and prof at an Ivy--had a "PJ day" where they came to class in flannel pjs and students did to and they played them a thank you song for their resilience and care on the guitar (their Covid hobby is learning to play guitar).
5-Another friend called off a week of class and held "open collective off hours" in those slots where anyone could ask and talk about anything--the most responsive week they've had all term and everyone learned far more than usual and it nourished them all.
6-Another friend told students in advance that they could take the regular final or write questions out and answer them. They recommended students answer during the prescribed exam time so this stayed manageable.
7-Anyone who thinks these make classes "too easy" is thinking in the "sequestered problem solving" mode which makes higher ed ludicrous, a pretense that in everyday life and work we don't search for just about everything and make judgments based on that knowledge.
8-Once you realize this is a ludicrous assumption, and we should be teaching how to learn, how to judge good info from bad, how to take what's out there and turn it into something that addresses the question at hand, college becomes more relevant, meaningful, and less stressful
9-"Sequestered problem solving" is high stakes in that it minimizes the goal of "learning" and maximizes sequestering--what did you learn in 'this' class, how did you learn to answer 'me,' with 'my' (the prof's) assumptions and knowledge in tact.
10-One-way learning in a closed system (trad higher ed), in pandemic world, where everything is closed off, adds trauma of an archaic high stakes system of judgment and credentialing to what should be the joy, agency, and empowerment of learning. @AnyClassroom @nemersonian
11-Final bonus: if you as prof value learning (not grading, testing, one-way data transmission etc), it's not being "soft" (students learn more!) but is far easier emotionally on students and you too. @AnyClassroom
12-Meta-study of 225+ studies of active learning benefit: Freeman, et al, “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 111, no. 23, 2014, pp. 8410-8415, https://t.co/1Up4GXE2C8.
13- And Theobald, E. J., et al., “Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117, no. 12, 2014, pp. 6476-6483, https://t.co/UMekvVnxrk
14"I canceled final project. Class won’t meet last week; instead students can complete any missing work from semester revise any assignment for a higher grade. 'Cuz no zoom meetings, I’ll have time to give feedback etc It’s least stressed my students & I have felt all semester!

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I often say to grad students: a reasonable thing to aim for in grad school is ~2-3 essentially complete and posted papers, alongside your JMP. This often looks like your JMP, plus your 2nd-yr paper, a paper from RA'ing for a faculty, or from working with classmates

Of course, some people get top jobs with only one very, very good paper. This is very risky though - you don't know ex-ante whether your paper will be very good! Most schools care about productivity, so having a couple of completed papers helps

Even if the papers are not change-the-world papers. Also, it exercises your paper-writing muscle. Not everyone comes into grad school ready to write ECMA's!

One "mistake" I sometimes see is some students don't take the 2nd year paper seriously enough. That's basically your only big milestone other than your JMP, so if all the time you put into the 2nd year paper doesn't produce a draft, that's a pretty big time sink

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This thread is for parents of teenagers. I have something for you: the first chapter of @ronlieber’s THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR COLLEGE. Because ye gods, here’s what we and our kids are facing.

Beyond obvious changes, like $$$ tuition prices, the system has changed from when we were in school. Nearly all colleges use so-called “merit-aid” to pay kids for good grades.

This is NOT need-based financial aid, and it’s not about expanding college access for the poor... it's an arms race by schools scrambling for US News rankings.

Tuition list prices are misleading at this point. College seats are more like airline seats, and your kid's actual price is calculated based on everything from his zip code... SAT scores... how much interest he and his cohort have shown in school X (yes they can figure that out.)

Ron has seen NYC high school classes in which three kids were offered admission to the same small school at three different prices-- and *none* of them had applied for need-based financial aid!
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If You Want a Voice in NYC Education, You Must Vote for Mayor in the Primaries - Deadline to Register for the Primaries is February 14.

https://t.co/VGqli10Owu

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The Next Mayor Will Determine the Fate of Public Education in NYC: The Mayor will determine whether the city cuts or protects education budgets and whether highly successful G&T Programs are abolished or made more accessible and expanded to every district in the city. 2/

He or she will determine whether 8th graders have access to Algebra, Arts and Regents level science classes and will determine whether NYC’s selective high schools stay selective or dole out seats via lottery. 3/

Mayor and other NYC Races Decided in the Primaries:

The election is not until Nov, but the vast majority of NYC elections are won by the winner of the Democratic primary. So most NYC elections are effectively decided in June. 4/

To Vote in a Party’s Primary, You Must Register to Vote as an Affiliate of that Party

To vote in the Democrat, Republican or any other party’s primary, you must submit a voter registration and check that you are registering with that party. 5/
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