Retaining college students: new research

College dropouts – and the majority of students in the U.S. will drop out – say that more-immediate financial and scheduling commitments outweighed the investment that attending college represents. The solutions appear obvious but require a financial investment in equal opportunity.

Tips for Test-Taking

Our correspondent claims to have scored a highest-possible 800 on two sections of the GRE and over 700 on the third, without studying. S/he shares tips for doing one’s best while taking a test. Preparing is a separate and more important step.

IFS Guide to Test-Taking

 

Attitude is key:

• Your only goal and focus is to maximize your score for each section.

Statute of limitations on horror?

Because I teach anthropology and history, I frequently describe horrific events. I’ve noticed that my teaching and students’ reaction to it change depending on the distance in time of the events in question. It makes me wonder whether, someday, enough time will have passed for even many sensitive people to treat the Holocaust cavalierly.

Are Teachers Productive?

A recent UN report has highlighted the average American worker’s productivity – about $8000 higher per year than the runners up in Ireland. That’s nice for the average Americans, I suppose, but what about me? I’m pretty sure that my productivity last year as a high-school teacher wouldn’t show up in that UN report. Was I simply an economic parasite?

Two Grades for One Class? Sweet!

What do grades in high-school classes reflect? Knowledge? Learning? Effort? The truth is that the grading criteria differ from class to class and, with some teachers, from student to student. As a result, parents, employers, colleges, and the students themselves inevitably misinterpret students’ transcripts. And students have insufficient incentive to focus on both of the qualities that people commonly assume are being reported: knowledge and productive behavior. I propose that schools issue separate grades for each.