Edulinks – Personality, Productivity & Paradox

A veritable banquet of linkageness for the weekend.  As always, enjoy!

Freestyle Mind – Mental Math Tricks to Impress Your Friends

Complex sums aren’t always that complex at all.  You just need to know the tricks to get the answer fast.

PsyBlog – Does Delaying Decisions Lead to Better Outcomes?

Delaying a decision takes a person further away from whatever the ‘default’ decision would be.  Clearly a good thing if the default decision is rubbish, but not such a good thing if the default answer was best.  No wonder some decisions are so tough to make!

Registrarism – The global higher education revolution

Paul Greatrix, Registrar at Nottingham, points us toward an interesting piece about the way HE is changing around the world.  The piece offers “a grim prospectus but a realistic one”.  If the highlights get you thinking, I recommend you read the entire article.

World of Psychology – Off the Internet for 24 Hours
and
Chronicle – Students Denied Social Media Go Through Withdrawal

A study at the University of Maryland has examined how students feel when they give up all forms of media for a 24-hour period.  At first, it sounds as if the students collapsed into quivering wrecks due to their media addictions.  But the report doesn’t exactly report it like that.  World of Psychology explains:

“This study had far less to do with ‘addiction’ and ‘dependency’ than it did to show us that college students are using these tools as important ways for keeping in touch, connected, and informed. Taken from that perspective, that sounds a lot less like ‘addiction’ and more like ’empowering.'”

A different issue was raised in the report regarding students’ use of media:

“Students showed no significant loyalty to a news program, news personality or even news platform. Students have only a casual relationship to the originators of news, and in fact rarely distinguished between news and more general information.”

For further information, check World of Psychology’s more detailed report.

How To Get Focused – 8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating

Fact: You have more ability to concentrate than you think.  Scott Scheper gives a huge insight into what is known about concentration and how you can exercise yours much better.

Independent – Why you need to look around the campus

If you do just one thing when deciding which universities to study at, go to open days.  Take in the uni atmosphere and talk to current students about their experience of the place.  This is one of the most important things you can do:

“This is your chance to look behind the scenes. You should try to get under the skin and get a sharper view of how life on the campus really is. Above all, you’ve got to be able to picture yourself there.”

Smashing Magazine – Five Tips For Making Ideas Happen

Is your behaviour proactive or reactive?  Have you stripped your projects down to three primary elements?  Are you self-aware?  Can you work beyond the stage of initial excitement?

Follow Smashing Magazine’s advice and your productivity should shoot up.

Marc and Angel Hack Life – Productivity Advice in 5 Words or Less

Talking of productivity, sometimes you need a quick boost of enthusiasm to get you going.  Here are 101 brief nudges for you.

From Smithsonian – How Our Brains Make Memories

“People tend to have accurate memories for the basic facts of a momentous event—for example, that a total of four planes were hijacked in the September 11 attacks—but often misremember personal details such as where they were and what they were doing at the time. Hardt says this could be because these are two different types of memories that get reactivated in different situations. Television and other media coverage reinforce the central facts. But recalling the experience to other people may allow distortions to creep in. ‘When you retell it, the memory becomes plastic, and whatever is present around you in the environment can interfere with the original content of the memory,’ Hardt says. In the days following September 11, for example, people likely repeatedly rehashed their own personal stories—’where were you when you heard the news?’—in conversations with friends and family, perhaps allowing details of other people’s stories to mix with their own.

[…]

“Perhaps it’s better if we can rewrite our memories every time we recall them. Nader suggests that reconsolidation may be the brain’s mechanism for recasting old memories in the light of everything that has happened since. In other words, it just might be what keeps us from living in the past.”

Academic Matters – The University: Punctuated by Paradox

Universities need paradox.  It’s hard to imagine a university without paradox.  Epitomising modernism and tradition, a university for markets but not of markets, research for all conducted by a tiny few…it’s just the way things are.  But should it be?  And if not, how do you resolve the paradoxes?

Holding hands and helping students study right

There’s a difference between helping a student and holding their hand.

A big difference.

photo by gfpeck

photo by gfpeck

As a student, there were many areas in which I needed more guidance and help than I actually received.  Help may have been around, but I wasn’t always made aware of it.

Some people argue that students have their hands held and should learn to be more independent.  They say things like, “You can’t act like a child your whole life.  Learn to deal with your own problems, don’t get other people to sort them out for you.”

This argument is misguided nonsense, but I’ve heard variations of it many times.  C. A. Mace explores this mistaken argument through the question of what a student should read:

“The college student is guided by his teacher.  Some teachers rattle off a reading list in what might seem a very irresponsible way.  If the student attempted to read all the books on the list it would take him several years to get through them.  If the complaint is made that the teacher does not indicate which books, which parts of each book are essential the teacher replies, ‘Good heavens, my students do not expect to be spoonfed.  That are mature enough to exercise their own judgement.’  This is perhaps a rather heavy responsibility to fasten on young shoulders.” [C. A. Mace – The Psychology of Study]

Using this example, an academic needn’t hold a student’s hand.  They can help students find a suitable direction by suggesting major introductory textbooks, or titles specific to an essay the student is working on, or works seen as crucial in the field.  Some reading lists are more helpful than others!

The aim is to help students think independently by offering a platform to work from or a specific area to begin with.  All books on a reading list should be relevant, but a list alone is often daunting.  How can a student make suitable choices for study without understanding why a book is on a list?  It will become clear as time goes on, but what’s the point in any student making this revelation just as they’re about to graduate!?  Much better to be helped toward realising this as soon as possible.

Therefore, in order to move forward, it’s necessary to outline why and how particular options would benefit a student.

You make your own decisions, but you need to understand the implications to make them wisely. You can’t tell the future, but neither do you need to make a bunch of random choices:

“To exhort others to think is like telling them to be clever, or to love their enemies…If the student is to be told to think about his work he must be shown how to do it.” [Mace]

Being told what to do in isolation won’t get you closer to working anything out on your own.  That is merely a hand holding exercise.

Something which allows you to continue independent study with greater understanding and/or a more specific focus, is helpful.

See?  Big difference.

We don’t need our hands held. We just need a basis from which to explore.  As Mace quite rightly says, “We are more likely to find the needle in the haystack if we know that we are looking for it”.

It’s wonderful to stumble upon something by accident, but undergraduate study shouldn’t be a series of forced stumbles.  You should be jumping visible hurdles, not tackling major blind spots.  Hurdles aren’t always easy to jump, but at least you have an idea what you’re trying to clear!

Have you been given enough help throughout your studies?  Do you feel like tutors are holding your hand, or even ignoring you completely?

University admissions and the difficulties students face

Earlier this month, The Independent published a piece in which the author complained that her daughter couldn’t get into university.  This was not down to academic underachievement.

The daughter’s current and predicted grades were both credible and she applied to several top universities.  Despite clear potential, she was rejected by them all.  Too many candidates applied for too few positions.

Admissions teams are unable to cope with so many students achieving high grades and they can’t easily distinguish between them.

The sheer number of people vying for a place at uni now results in otherwise worthy students getting turned away.  It happened last year, it’ll happen this year, and it may happen for some years to come.

photo by pasotraspaso

photo by pasotraspaso

The author states:

“I naturally assumed that hard work would pay off and the world would be her oyster. In some ways, it stands against her. Friends of hers who are predicted Bs and Cs in their final A2 exams have had no problem getting places at universities with lower entry requirements.”

Now, I assume those predicted Bs and Cs have been offered conditional places.  While better than rejection, the grades still need to be achieved.  And who says those students are not working as hard as the author’s daughter?  Lower predicted grades aren’t automatically due to a lack of trying.

Whatever the case, I do agree that there are students getting left by the wayside despite consistently good results.

Even worse, for those students offered a place, there are now suggestions that some conditional offers are not being honoured.  Apparently UCAS don’t have a rule that prevents institutions from changing their offer.  I’m not criticising UCAS, but I am concerned that unis could begin ‘moving the goalposts’ as Mike Baker calls it.  That practice is scary, inappropriate and unreasonable.

Where would students be left then?  Would the pressure ever end?  How damaging would it be for a student to get the grades originally required, only to be slapped in the face with the news that it’s still not good enough?

I hope this behaviour isn’t commonplace and I’d like to see a ruling to stop the possibility altogether.

I stick by my thought that waiting until the next year to go to uni isn’t the end of the world.  But it’s a further fudge to a system that’s already facing great difficulty.  At what point does the system collapse entirely?  Woe betide potential students if problems escalate further.

Whatever grades and results a student is predicted, it’s a risk to choose only universities that want those grades or better.  This is especially true if some institutions change their mind over an offer later.  At least one agreeable institution could be chosen with slightly less demanding grades.  It gives more scope for movement at a time when it’s so difficult to find a place through clearing.

It wouldn’t take long for someone with commitment and talent to secure a place somewhere, even if it’s not quite the establishment they wanted.  They may even be able to secure an unconditional place at their preferred place the following year based on the grades they already have.  Always worth pushing for.

Despite all this concern, an unwanted change in plans shouldn’t be viewed as a disaster.  It should be viewed as a compromise.  Live with future hope, not past regrets.

The importance of ideas

What you read and retain has a potential bearing on what you read and retain after that.  The ongoing, holistic process is what gives each of us a unique viewpoint.  No wonder we have such varied opinions.  With a general election campaign in full swing, you can’t avoid opinions.  Personal views, official lines, big picture analysis, minor point evaluation…

Opinions are important because they help shape our ideas.  Reading is also important because we learn about other opinions and ideas in the process.  We can’t form our own conclusions if we don’t read about other ideas out there.

Ideas are important too.  Without ideas, progress isn’t made, change doesn’t happen, much of human development stops.

original photo by farleyj

original photo by farleyj

But ideas can’t go anywhere unless they are realised and actioned.  And you can’t action anything without the initial idea:

“Ideas make the world, for they are the guide to future practice.  Even the flimsiest ideas rooted in prejudice and ignorance make history and form public culture…Ideas, when mobilised, become the templates of thought and practice.” [Ash Amin & Michael O’Neill in Thinking About Almost Everything]

When you put your mind to work — whatever the focus — don’t be afraid of what you think.  You may stumble upon something brilliant.  Your education is an opportunity to discover and let your mind wander.  Will your ideas fit in with what has already been, with what is to come, or with nothing at all?

You’ll probably discard the majority of your ideas.  That’s no bad thing.  The more ideas you have, the more you should expect to pass by.  Luckily, you should hold on to more ideas too.

Don’t worry about what you’re doing.  You can’t please everyone.  Many successful ideas look unworkable or unpopular until they go beyond the idea.  As they get a life of their own, what once sounded ridiculous can end up changing the world.

Whether you’re studying in the humanities, the sciences or something entirely different, ideas are crucial.  As Ash Amin and Michael O’Neill explain, university is the home of ideas:

“The very ethos of what defines a university is currently a matter of debate.  It is critical that scholarship, education, and thinking about better ways of living and doing things are all central to what a university should be.  We should not confuse ‘teaching’ – repackaging and dissemination of existing ideas – with education and scholarship, which generate new ideas and open the minds of leaders of the future.  It is no accident that one of the first targets of any extremist regime is the university.  The ideas it generates are central to the future of our civilisation and society.” [From Thinking About Almost Everything]

More now than ever, life carries us along so quickly.  With instant updates and so much on offer, many of us have a fear of missing out.

Every now and then you should stop and think in your own time.  You don’t need to reel off amazing ideas that will change the world, but isn’t it good just to step off the world for a few minutes?

When you get back on, enjoy seeing things differently.

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