What's the Point of College?

What's the Point of College? PDF Author: Johann N. Neem
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421429896
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Before we can improve college education, we need to know what it's for. In our current age of reform, there are countless ideas about how to "fix" higher education. But before we can reconceptualize the college experience, we need to remember why we have these institutions in the first place—and what we want from them. In What's the Point of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends? During this time of drift, Neem argues, we need to moor our colleges once again to their core purposes. By evaluating reformers' goals in relation to the specific goods that a college should offer to students and society, What's the Point of College? connects public policy to deeper ethical questions. Exploring how we can ensure that America's colleges remain places for intellectual inquiry and reflection, Neem does not just provide answers to the big questions surrounding higher education—he offers readers a guide for how to think about them.

What's the Point of College?

What's the Point of College? PDF Author: Johann N. Neem
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421429888
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Before we can improve college education, we need to know what it's for. In our current age of reform, there are countless ideas about how to "fix" higher education. But before we can reconceptualize the college experience, we need to remember why we have these institutions in the first place—and what we want from them. In What's the Point of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends? During this time of drift, Neem argues, we need to moor our colleges once again to their core purposes. By evaluating reformers' goals in relation to the specific goods that a college should offer to students and society, What's the Point of College? connects public policy to deeper ethical questions. Exploring how we can ensure that America's colleges remain places for intellectual inquiry and reflection, Neem does not just provide answers to the big questions surrounding higher education—he offers readers a guide for how to think about them.

College: What's the Point?

College: What's the Point? PDF Author: David B. Van Heemst
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1449724124
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
In the compelling book College: What's the Point? Embracing the Mystery of the Kingdom in a Postmodern World, author David Van Heemst passionately and insightfully challenges Christian college students to abandon superficiality and apathy during their four years of college to instead go deep, ask the hard questions, and pursue a life of radical meaning. College: What's the Point? addresses the significant issues facing college students today such as identity, calling, academic integrity, relationships, and healthy sexuality to guide the reader in a thought-provoking journey of faith, reflection, and discovery. College: What's the Point? frames these difficult issues confronting college students in the context of biblical justice and God's redemptive purpose for the world, and speaks directly to the young adult desiring more than the status quo. The author invites students to use their time in college to grapple with the tough questions, to embrace the brokenness, and to participate in ushering in the Kingdom of God. Accessible and engaging, College: What's the Point? enables the reader to approach their college education with a deeper understanding of the impact of these years upon their life, their calling, and the world.

The Case against Education

The Case against Education PDF Author: Bryan Caplan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691201439
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.

Think College!

Think College! PDF Author: Meg Grigal
Publisher: Brookes Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Help students with intellectual disabilities succeed in college with this comprehensive resource. You'll discover the big picture of today's postsecondary options and learn how to support students with disabilities before, during, and after a successful t

The Real World of College

The Real World of College PDF Author: Wendy Fischman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262046539
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Why higher education in the United States has lost its way, and how universities and colleges can focus sharply on their core mission. For The Real World of College, Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less-selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply on their core educational mission. Fischman and Gardner, both recognized authorities on education and learning, argue that higher education in the United States has lost sight of its principal reason for existing: not vocational training, not the provision of campus amenities, but to increase what Fischman and Gardner call “higher education capital”—to help students think well and broadly, express themselves clearly, explore new areas, and be open to possible transformations. Fischman and Gardner offer cogent recommendations for how every college can become a community of learners who are open to change as thinkers, citizens, and human beings.

College

College PDF Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165513
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations. In a new afterword, Delbanco responds to recent developments—both ominous and promising—in the changing landscape of higher education.

College (Un)Bound

College (Un)Bound PDF Author: Jeffrey J. Selingo
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544027078
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Jeff Selingo, journalist and editor-in-chief of the Chronicle for Higher Education, argues that colleges can no longer sell a four-year degree as the ticket to success in life. College (Un)Bound exposes the dire pitfalls in the current state of higher education for anyone concerned with intellectual and financial future of America.

What the Best College Students Do

What the Best College Students Do PDF Author: Ken Bain
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674066642
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The author of the best-selling What the Best College Teachers Do is back with more humane, doable, and inspiring help, this time for students who want to get the most out of college—and every other educational enterprise, too. The first thing they should do? Think beyond the transcript. The creative, successful people profiled in this book—college graduates who went on to change the world we live in—aimed higher than straight A’s. They used their four years to cultivate habits of thought that would enable them to grow and adapt throughout their lives. Combining academic research on learning and motivation with insights drawn from interviews with people who have won Nobel Prizes, Emmys, fame, or the admiration of people in their field, Ken Bain identifies the key attitudes that distinguished the best college students from their peers. These individuals started out with the belief that intelligence and ability are expandable, not fixed. This led them to make connections across disciplines, to develop a “meta-cognitive” understanding of their own ways of thinking, and to find ways to negotiate ill-structured problems rather than simply looking for right answers. Intrinsically motivated by their own sense of purpose, they were not demoralized by failure nor overly impressed with conventional notions of success. These movers and shakers didn’t achieve success by making success their goal. For them, it was a byproduct of following their intellectual curiosity, solving useful problems, and taking risks in order to learn and grow.

David and Goliath

David and Goliath PDF Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241959608
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Why do underdogs succeed so much more than we expect? How do the weak outsmart the strong? In David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell, no.1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw, takes us on a scintillating and surprising journey through the hidden dynamics that shape the balance of power between the small and the mighty. From the conflicts in Northern Ireland, through the tactics of civil rights leaders and the problem of privilege, Gladwell demonstrates how we misunderstand the true meaning of advantage and disadvantage. When does a traumatic childhood work in someone's favour? How can a disability leave someone better off? And do you really want your child to go to the best school he or she can get into? David and Goliath draws on the stories of remarkable underdogs, history, science, psychology and on Malcolm Gladwell's unparalleled ability to make the connections others miss. It's a brilliant, illuminating book that overturns conventional thinking about power and advantage. 'A global phenomenon... there is, it seems, no subject over which he cannot scatter some magic dust' Observer