By Anastasia Salter. Twine is my favorite tool for working with would-be game designers new to interactive media: as I’ve noted in the past, both the original Twine and Twine 2.0 are newbie-friendly and flexible platforms for building hypertextual experiences. However, embarking on a Twine project can be daunting: the possibilities of building choice-driven narratives can lead down infinite paths. More...
By Thomas Fisher. My course this past semester began like so many others: 14 students and I arrived every Tuesday and Thursday morning in an uninspiring space of concrete-block walls and fluorescent lighting, with few windows and fixed desks all facing forward, ill suited to the discussion-based, flipped format of the class. So, a couple of weeks into the semester, we decided to go nomadic. More...
By Peter T. Mitchell. Whether the “Saving Sweet Briar” campaign succeeds in bringing the college back from the brink of closure, the announcement last month of its imminent demise is still a harbinger of tough times ahead for other private liberal-arts colleges. In a conflict between closing with dignity and fighting with every last breath and dollar, how Sweet Briar College prevails or fails will be instructive for all small colleges, single-gender and coed. More...
By Casey Fabris. For students taking courses online, the endless distractions of the Internet can be a hindrance to success. But using software to limit those diversions can make a big difference. More...
By Casey Fabris. For today’s students, social media isn’t just a diversion. It’s a support system.
That’s the key finding of a paper exploring the role that Facebook plays in helping students adjust to campus life. Collin M. Ruud, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, presented the paper, “Social Networking and Social Support: Does It Play a Role in College Social Integration?,” on Sunday at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting. More...
By Casey Fabris. Although some instructors are phasing out journal-keeping assignments in favor of a class blog, a study has found that blogs are not inherently better instructional tools. More...
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Laying the Foundations: Early Findings From the New Mathways Project”
Authors: Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow, senior research associate, and John Diamond, research analyst, both at MDRC
Organization: MDRC, a nonprofit research group
Summary: Mathematics is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for community-college students. More...
By Chronicle Staff. Title: “America’s Knowledge Economy: A State-by-State Review”
Organizations: Council of State Governments and Elsevier
Summary: This report compares each state’s research strength, using measures such as research output and knowledge transfer. It seeks to determine which states have advantages in research, and how they can capitalize on those advantages to spur economic growth. More...
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “2015 Administrative Burden Survey”
Organization: National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Summary: Following up on a similar effort several years back, the association surveyed its members to determine the resource shortages they face, the causes of those shortages, and their impact on students. More...
By Chronicle Staff. Report: “Revisiting the Relationship Between Institutional Rank and Student Engagement”
Authors: John D. Zilvinskis, research project associate, and Louis Rocconi, assistant scientist, both at Indiana University at Bloomington’s Center for Postsecondary Research
Summary: The researchers sought to determine what, if any, relationship existed between student engagement at any given college and how highly that institution was ranked by U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, or Washington Monthly. Their study examined data on more than 80,000 freshmen and seniors at 64 colleges ranked by each of the three magazines in 2013. More...
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