Education – Page 5 – Jackie Koerner

Internet for All

The term net neutrality has been bouncing around for the past few years. While I’m sure many know what it is and the true impact of this on society, I’m also sure many get glassy-eyed when they hear the discussions. This is something that will affect us all. We should all pay attention for the hope of our society.

Perhaps I am being a bit bold when I say “hope for our society.” I think I’m spot on. We do not know yet the impact of the Internet on us as a people. We can clearly see that it has changed us, and I’d argue for the better.

Internet access is something most individuals have either in their home or at least in their community. Net neutrality levels the playing field by providing nearly limitless access to educational resources (MOOCs anyone?), professional connections and collaborations (how many of us got to collaborate and communicate with people around the world instantly before the Internet?), and so much more!

Net neutrality is important to our current success as a society. Not only do people pay bills online, shop for new clothes, but we do amazing things together. We collaborate. We communicate. We educate. We are empowered and all through this interconnected web.

President Obama spoke today about his thoughts on net neutrality. I do hope the FCC takes some of the hints so we can keep moving forward with such powerful intentions.

Read and Watch more:

Gizmodo

NPR on All Tech Considered

Boomerangs

I have worked in higher education now for 10 years. I have been a student in higher education for fifteen years. While the boomerang “phenomenon” seems to be a new thing, I really don’t think it is. There were loads of Generation Xers who crashed in their old room or took over their parents’ basements after college. What is new though is the consistent message of “failure to launch” that accompanies boomerang situations.

A couple days ago Chris sent me this article. I’ll wait while you open it (at least look at the pictures, as this is important).

Both Chris and I immediately went on a texting tirade about the pictures. These pictures failed to portray people worthwhile of a job interview, a good incidental conversation, or even a second look on the street, but degraded them. This degradation of the people in the pictures further harms their perceived worth in society.

Another important note…
The education and career aspirations fail to match. Perhaps instead of a photoessay about how these people reside in their lair of depression and desperation, give them some career counseling or suggest graduate programs. Unfortunately, many careers now require graduate degrees (i.e., the librarian, the professor) and then some people received degrees not matching their career aspirations (i.e., the social worker, the veterinarian). In order to work in certain jobs, people need to appreciate the required preparation.

ACPA Experience

Whew! I’m home now from the 2014 ACPA Convention in Indianapolis and I’m exhausted. The past 4 days were packed with learning, making new connections, and catching up with old friends. What a great time we all had collaborating and sharing our progress and research on topics. I was fortunate enough to share my dissertation research with the ACPA community. I was overwhelmed by the attendance in my session and very appreciative of those choosing to spend time in my session. Overall we had a positive conversation about making students with disabilities feel more welcome on our campuses.

Inside Higher Ed ran an article on the session, and while I don’t agree with the hook they used:

it is good to get the information out and more people in on the conversation.

In the session I asked fellow student affairs folks to consider some action items to tackle when they got to their home campus. I am invigorated by what the people plan to do!

Also, at the closing session today, I received some very poignant words from Brené Brown:

If you are not in the arena and also getting your ass kicked, I am not open to your feedback.

If someone else is in the game with you, listen and appreciate what they have to say, good and bad. If they’re not contributing to the knowledge at large, challenge them to step up to contribute, but ultimately appreciate the risk you took in sharing knowledge and dismiss their feedback.

I encourage you all to get out there, research, tackle those complex situations and always keep Brené’s wise words in minds.

View my presentation from the ACPA Convention below or download ACPA 2014 Presentation Jackie Koerner in pdf.

The Big Day

I’m terribly excited about my presentation in about an hour. I am not nervous at all – only very excited to share this information I have found with others in hopes they will be able to change the outcome for students with disabilities on their respective campuses. I cannot wait for the whole dissertation to be finished so I can share it with the whole world! Well, the part of the world willing to read it.

Hello ACPA

Hello all from ACPA! I have neglected my site for the most part due to dissertation (well, except when snapping pics of the cats while procrastinating on said dissertation). I’m just going to recap some of the energy from the first day:

Good discussion about being Flawsome.
Take it in stride and own up to your mistakes. It’s better in the end, and frankly people like you better if you’re ok with being human.

Met lots of fun people at CelebrACPA.
Music was a bit loud for networking, but we worked it out. 🙂 excited to be more involved with my interest areas and MoCPA.

Safe Spaces or Zones for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders
These spaces are devoid of harsh environmental stimuli (fluorescent lighting, loud noises, etc.) and complete with a staff member trained on how to assist students who might need them if they are over stimulated or just overwhelmed by something on campus. Great retreat spaces for students to process the experience they just had.

Masculinity and Disability
Great discussion not only about masculinity and disability but about many things: being human, accepting of others and their mistakes, appreciating people for moving in a different path than we would choose. Finally, discussing the common practice of “removing” people with disability from gender.

Now, I’m off to a coffee and to check out my room for my presentation tomorrow! If you’re here, come to Marriott Indiana G at 10:30 April 1. Students with Disabilities Persisting Through Higher Education: Their Perspective.

Contributing to the Masses

Mirroring a post by my other half, and the consistent message from the conference I’m attending, we all need to consider what we are contributing to the masses.

Today I did something really exciting. I participated in an abstract exchange for the UCEA conference (a bunch of educational leaders and researchers, new scholars and seasoned sages). My dissertation topic (perceptions of students with disabilities regarding their reasons for persisting in higher education) is exciting to me; however, is it exciting to other people? My advisors and colleagues, sure. But other scholars?

Each participant in the abstract exchange had 3 minutes to address his or her abstract. There were 10 of us, so we pushed 2 round tables together and went around the table in turn. How was my topic received? Everyone said they enjoyed it on the feedback cards. A few people caught me after to chat about my topic and I even received several business cards asking me to send my completed paper. Why did this happen? Was my topic good? Well, I suppose. But why did I get such a reaction out of my audience? Passion. I am very passionate about my topic and what I do.

I know there are many people out there who are passionate about what they do, inspired by something they read, or even just curious about something they have experienced. It is so very important to contribute and to not stop contributing. How else are we going to move forward as a society? We are all very intelligent beings. We each have something to contribute to the vast collective of knowledge. It is vast, but not all knowing – so much left to uncover!

So many of us are armchair critics. It’s easier to gripe about what others have or have not done than to do ourselves. Go forth. Blog. Edit Wikipedia. Make a solid review on Amazon. Just contribute!

Focus on Education

Last week I read this Op-Ed piece Arne Duncan wrote for the Washington Post. This morning during my commute, I was delighted to hear the upcoming Diane Rehm Show would focus on education discussion for the first hour of the program, and the guest list included Arne Duncan. The topics included early start of high school, ranking of colleges and their rising cost, early childhood education, and education law.

My comments concerning the discussion are swayed by my firm beliefs regarding a right to education for all and education can benefit all people.

Early Start/Late Start High School
Research has shown starting later gives way to better minds, but where do activities, homework and after school jobs fit into a high school student’s life? Perhaps start later, and offer sports earlier. Jump start minds with some zero hour sports! This is a time to mesh research about exercise and education. Also, the bus debate will always make staggering the start and release times of schools necessary as long as we make busses the priority. I think everyone would benefit from school starting no earlier than 8:30 or 9 am. Being functional at 7 am is a feat for many of us – young, teen and adult.

College Cost and Ranking
The U.S. News and World Report College Rankings are a little swayed. All of the information depends on how the colleges report it. What is that joke about violent criminals and white bread? Statistics can be manufactured to show what is meant to show. For argument’s sake, questions asked to the colleges are potentially interpreted differently by the individuals answering the questions.

The quote about community colleges having a low graduation rate frustrated me for several reasons. First, some people go to community college with intentions of taking a few classes, but not completing a degree. Second, some people attend community college with the intent of transferring to another college to complete their degree. Finally, some people attend community college to test the water to see if they like college. If not, that is not a fault of their own or the community college. We should not be focused on production of graduates, but on providing a service to the community served.

Cost is a very passionate topic of mine. I feel strongly that college is a right and all people should be able to go to college if they so choose. Some people do fine without higher education, but even if their career does not require a higher degree, the student development in college can lead to a well rounded individual in society. There should not be a person willing to attend where cost is the prohibiting factor. No, perhaps not everyone could attend a private school, where costs are also outrageous, but attend some form of higher education regardless of economic class.

Early Childhood Education
Research has shown access to early childhood education can impact the success of students. A point during the show focused on assessment of teachers who are teaching students with and without early childhood education, and how students without early childhood education could negatively impact their evaluations. Perhaps we need to move into a system that looks at growth of a student educationally over the year, instead of the whole population reaching certain standardized test goals.

Perhaps also focus government financial support for children receiving daycare assistance on facilities that provide a meaningful early childhood curriculum.

Education Law and Standardized Testing
At curriculum night for Kari’s school, one of the teachers mentioned the standardized tests were changed this year and the curriculum would be changing slightly to address that change. I remember filling in bubbles after bubbles on standardized tests when I was little. This portion of the school year was dreadfully dull and I imagine so for other children. There has to be another answer besides a standardized test philosophy.

Will we as a society figure this out? I hope so.

Law School: Reduction under Debate

In this article, President Obama calls for cutting a year of law school. I have to agree for two large reasons: cost savings and experience.

Most of the students in law school graduated with at least some student loan debt. Some students graduated with quite a bit. Many students I saw in my office had over $100,000 in students loans. All of the graduate level student loans are unsubsidized, meaning interest accumulates from the point of disbursement, even if the student is in school and unable to pay.

If students graduate and take an entry level legal job, most are not, especially in this economy, making over $50,000 annually. The final year of law school is mostly in externships and internships, which are unpaid and the students have to pay tuition for these externships and internships. If only we could make it so students graduate after 2 years of classroom instruction, and use the traditionally reserved third year for externships, internships and Bar exam preparation. This way, if these experiences are still unpaid (which should be changing soon with all unpaid externships and internships under debate), the students are not paying outrageously to gain experience.

Sure, there is the student loan repayment plan for students working with non-profits to have their loans forgiven after 10 years of service, but many individuals now change employers as opportunity strikes. I personally would hate to miss an amazing employment opportunity because I need to stay with a certain type of non-profit to get my loans forgiven. Employment to this generation is not just about salary, but impact one can have on the whole of society.

How impactful could these students be without the added stress of an additional year of student loans? Would the Bar exam preparation be less a trial of determination and more a trial of knowledge? How many more students could actually follow their intended career path of non-profit legal work with potentially $60,000 less on their student loan bill?

Writing

For the past 2 months, I have been struggling with my dissertation. I write it, love it, hate it, redo it, assume I need to read some more. Rinse. Repeat. Usually writing comes easily to me, but this is not just any paper, this is huge.

Some things that are helping me get over the perfectionism:

Reference first. Before going off on a fact finding tangent, stop and take down the reference. It’s easier to do it now than to get called out by the Ph.D. Candidacy Advisor later right at the finish line. I personally use Scrivener to keep my references organized, but others I know use End Note and the like.

Write every day. Ninety minutes should be the goal per day of solid writing time. During this, I just write. I am a perfectionist and all of a sudden much more so with this dissertation. Let the sentences and words fall, rearrange and replace later. This process gave me an introduction I’m pretty happy with.

Be the scholar. This I think is the biggest thing for me. A faculty member told me nothing can be in my own words in a dissertation. The writing bootcamp instructor told me this is not completely true, and I have to consider this dissertation as my piece. I am driving. I am the scholar! (maybe.)

Save drafts. Maybe you get excited about something and decide to go a different direction. The next day, you come to your senses and think, “Omigod – whatdidIdo?!” Save everything. I don’t keep a daily save, but if I decide a paragraph has got to go, or even a sentence I love that just may not fit anymore, I slip it into another document called “Dissertation Dump” so it’s not lost forever if I have an impulse edit.

For those of you writing, or just watching me go though this experience, I hope this helps.

A Scholar’s Struggle

Tomorrow starts another semester. In preparation for the oncoming hours of study and various activities related to my dissertation, I decided to clean out the email and finally read the backlogged copies of scholarly news I ignored over holiday.

I opened the most recent one: Inside Higher Ed: Parents, Tuition and Grades / Academe Reacts to Aaron Swartz’s Suicide – January 14, 2013

I just stared. That is the extent of it. Just staring at my laptop. One thing I have learned along the road to becoming educated is that the more aware I am, the angrier I am. Hence the adage: ignorance is bliss. This man died because he was smarter than people could see. They misunderstood the message in his work and threatened his freedom because they simply did not understand. Information is not to be coveted, but to be shared. That was the whole point – the whole point of his activism!

We just lost an intelligent ally. He made the leaps in thought his prosecutors apparently could not make. They were blinded by the laws designed to prosecute malicious Internet criminals, not thinkers. Aaron did not want the gain for himself. He was promoting awareness and open distribution of knowledge.

His activism has been always something I have loved to see in action. And now I don’t get to see the next chapter. It is now a book with missing pages. Someone can write another ending, but it will still be missing something.

I am saddened by this. Aaron’s death. The way institutions for education treat creative thinkers. The way our democracy responds to freedom differently when on the Internet. And finally how education is still very limited to the elite few.

For these reasons, and perhaps for many more I will discover later, I am making a decision today to provide PDFs (or whatever the future evolution) of my publications, current and future, openly to anyone who would like copies. My research is not for myself. It is done for the masses. I just ask for credit where credit is due.

By coveting our knowledge, we will stunt our growth as a people. The movement of several higher education institutions and other groups to offer free courses excites me. It excites me beyond belief. I love learning and always have and to have everyone be able to learn as I – no, even better than I have – is absolutely encouraging.

For more information about Aaron, see the wikipedia page about him. Also, while there, consider writing an article or editing one. Contribute to the collective. (See also Cognitive Surplus, or at the moment, the skim NYT review for a brief overview).

Also see:
Coursera
edX Course Listings
Khan Academy