a student’s grades also reflect a capacity to resist procrastination, to concentrate in class, and to juggle academic and extracurricular demands.

before some students can begin to learn, they need to be taught how to learn.

Although some are hobbled by their problems with procrastination and disorganization, these same students clearly have potential.

In recent years, many educators have started to emphasize what they call “noncognitive” skills. They recognize that success in school — and in life — requires much more than intelligence.

ivers were less likely to describe themselves as organized or detail-oriented, less likely to say that they are prepared, that they follow a schedule or that they get work done right away. Divers were also more likely to say they crammed for exams and more likely to score highly on measures of impatience.

character traits such as grit, perseverance and conscientiousness play a role.

The first year of college is a tough transition, and for many students, a disillusioning one.

students arrived with unreasonably optimistic expectations. On average, students predicted they would earn grade-point averages of 3.6. Those dreams were swiftly punctured. By the end of the year, the average freshman had only a 2.3.

Why students who do well in high school bomb in college

"Open teaching" began as a practice of using technology to open formal university courses for free, informal participation by individuals not officially enrolled in the course.

state pays to license the curriculum, you've now paid for it 250 times

instructors are essentially powerless to legally improve the materials they use in their classes

When we can't find a single textbook that meets our needs, it is not uncommon for us to assign two or more textbooks, intending only to use parts of each.

is the instructor a successful sharer?)

Education is, first and foremost, an enterprise of sharing. In fact, sharing is the sole means by which education is effected. If an instructor is not sharing what he or she knows with students, there is no education happening.

every person in the world enjoys free (no cost)

Many struggle to understand why there are those who would take the time and effort to craft educational materials only to give them away without capturing any monetary value from their work.

Learning from actions that are going on right around you would help to advance society and make people more socially aware.  This method would also allow the use of technology to be more optional and allow people to choose when to use technology and in what situations it would be useful.

Your also enforcing conformity to students that may not want to use technology. Like the question would you rather read a book online, or read a physical book in your hands?  This method of connected learning could provided students with useful skills but it could also drown them with to much technological advancement at once, and lead them to despise technology.

We connect three critical spheres of learning: academics, a learner’s interests, inspiring mentors and peers.

We build on the basics: The basics are important, but not enough for youth to thrive in our rapidly-changing world.

Learners are the focus: Specifically, developing lifelong learners with higher-order skills.

Making, creating and producing are powerful paths to deeper learning and understanding:

Within this holistic system, students can have clearer insight into their learning and collaboratively direct a trajectory toward their learning objectives

the concept of connected learning is just starting to take shape

When learning is defined less by the institution and more by the learner

As such, potentially all of the participants in the educational landscape—learners, edu-cators, institutions, accreditors, corporate entities, employers, and others—can use the concept of connectedness to recast their roles and reimagine the dynamics of learning.

Connected learning is rooted in the active partic-ipation of students, instructors, advisors, and collabo-rators

Higher education is entering a new, evolutionary phase defined by connections between everything and ev-eryone

It should be a year of inclusion which promotes theimportant ideal that all persons can and should have a voice in the construction of knowledge

The seminar should not be left at the margins of institutional life, its ideastreated as add-ons to the “real business” of the college.

The freshman seminar is enhanced when it is part ofa broader conversation about how the first year of college should be structured to best promotethe retention of students

It is clear that students learn best when they areprovided frequent feedback about their learning as they are trying to learn

At Seattle Central Community College, for example, learning communitystudents continue at a rate approximately twenty-five percentage points higher than do studentsin the traditional curriculum.

Learningcommunities enroll the same students in several classes so they get to know each other quicklyand fairly intimately and in a way that is part and parcel of their academic experience.

Faculty have reorganized their syllabi and their classrooms teaching practices to promoteshared, collaborative learning experiences among students.

An increasing number of colleges and universities have begunto successfully employ a variety of practices and pedagogies that seek to actively involvestudents in learning with others.

Simply put, involvement matters and at no point does it mattermore than during the first year when student attachments are so tenuous and the pull of theinstitution so weak.

By focusing thereforeon the conditions in which we place students we are necessarily led to the sorts of changes wecan and should make to enhance student retention.

What would our colleges and universities look like ifwe used the research on student retention to guide our actions?

have not taken student retentionseriously.

Many colleges speak of the importance of increasing student retention.

Banking education facilitates domination

There’s some pushback against these proposals too, with arguments that restrictions on data might hinder research or the development of learning analytics or data-driven educational software.