Across the world, international students are making last minute decisions about whether to enrol in university courses this September or defer until 2021. But study destination countries are responding differently to this challenge. Australian universities have indicated that they will allow international students to enter the country before all internal state borders have opened. Meanwhile, […] … learn more→
Radical reform to student visas is required for UK higher education
Learn to learn how geniuses do it
One of the emerging phenomena in this century is the progressive consolidation of international consensus on educational policies. This is the case, for example, of the redesign of the curriculum and its focus on competencies , understanding as such knowledge, skills, and attitudes and values. This orientation is the result, on the one hand, of the digital revolution […] … learn more→
Four things that can bias how teachers assess student work
The way that teachers assess students has been under scrutiny since the UK government announced that this would be one element of a range of evidence used to replace GCSE and A Level exams this year. Teacher assessment is a key part of university study, too. University educators play a pivotal role in judging and grading written and non-written […] … learn more→
We must get beyond research management-by-numbers
Very few aspects of our lives escape numerical evaluation for comparative purposes. Humanity’s current challenge is to keep Covid-19’s reproduction number, or R0, as low as possible to prevent its spread. This numerical fixation is certainly true of university research. Many measures of research output, quality and impact are used to guide recruitment, funding and […] … learn more→
How women react to sexism
Every day, women are subjected to sexist remarks and behaviors: sexist harassment in the public space, sexist remarks at work, unwanted sexual invitations … No area is spared, no place. Launched in 2017 to collect testimonials from students, doctoral students and young researchers, the “Paye ta fac” site had shown that the academic world was no exception. Faced […] … learn more→
Until teachers feel safe, widespread in-person K-12 schooling may prove impossible in US
Safely resuming in-person instruction at U.S. public schools is important for the academic, physical, emotional and social well-being of children and their families. It’s also a key factor for the nation’s economic recovery. But in mid-July, despite considerable pressure from the Trump administration, many school systems around the nation had announced that they didn’t yet believe that anything close to […] … learn more→
Trump’s ICE U-turn will not save universities from the fallout
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s announcement last week that international students should go home if their US campuses are unable to provide on-campus instruction in the autumn always looked arbitrary. Hence, it is no surprise that the government has backed down in the face of a widespread outcry and legal threats from some […] … learn more→
Post-Covid exam success : results too good to be true?
At the end of a school year turned upside down by the Covid-19, one can only be struck by the importance of the progression of success in exams. The phenomenon affects both secondary and higher education. At the end of the first year of university, the success rates in the baccalaureate are “exceptional”. There is an increase of 10 to 12% compared […] … learn more→
Let’s scrap the neuromyths: No, you aren’t a ‘visual’ or ‘auditory’ person
Who hasn’t heard the statement that we only use 10 per cent of our brain? That listening to Mozart’s music makes you smarter or that most learning happens in the first three years of life? Or that a person who is “right-brained” is more creative? Another widespread idea is that we are either visual, auditory […] … learn more→
4 things students should know about their health insurance and COVID-19 before heading to college this fall
As colleges and universities decide whether or not to reopen their campuses this fall, much of the discussion has focused on the ethics behind the decision and the associated health risks of in-person instruction. As a researcher who studies health insurance policy, I see two important gaps in this discussion: 1) Who should pay the cost of treating the inevitable COVID-19 cases […] … learn more→