By Natasha Clark. The pressure is on for good grades in undergraduate degrees, but is it the same story for postgraduates? At undergraduate level, a lot of emphasis is put on the grades required to carry on to the next level, whether that be a job, a further course or a graduate programme. More...
By Joanna Williams. Student satisfaction does not say much about the quality of education, says Joanna Williams. Labour's manifesto needs to be more radical and push for intellectual challenge. It seems Ed Miliband is banking on a promised cut in university tuition fees to secure electoral success. Before we indulge in dewy-eyed nostalgia for the days before student loans, it's incumbent upon those who care about what happens in our universities to question the motives of the party that first introduced tuition fees, raised them to over £3000 per year, and commissioned the Browne Review that recommended the current £9000 annual fee. More...
By Richard Adams. Rising number of Chinese students masks fall in overall number of foreign students taking higher education courses in England. There are now almost as many Chinese students on full-time postgraduate courses at English universities as there are British students, according to figures published on Wednesday. More...
By Kerry Provenzano. Social media could help you get a job – if you use it to your advantage. The thought of graduating and finding a job can be daunting. The idea that our student bubble is going to be popped with the sharp edges of a graduation cap is enough to make us want to hibernate. More...
By Bryony Merritt. There's no shortage of female expertise in universities, yet men's voices still predominate in the media. Bryony Merritt looks at what university press officers can do to redress the balance. As a press officer, I believe communications teams have a role to play in supporting women to feel confident about interviews, and increasing their visibility both within the institution and more widely. More...
By Camille Kandiko Howson. Global competition for international students is growing – the UK needs to start treating them as people and learners, not numbers. For the first time in 29 years the number of international students enrolling in England's universities decreased. In 2013, there was a 50% drop in the number of postgraduate students coming from India and Pakistan, and close to a 25% drop in the number of students who enrolled from the EU compared with last year. More...
By Anonymous academic. I drink too much and haven't had a good night's sleep since last year when I began my PhD. Why? Research. Academic research is dangerous. I am not a nuclear physicist, nor an heir to Dr Frankenstein, so I shall have to explain further. More...
By Julia Molinari. Students are paying agencies to write their essays. Julia Molinari asks whether it can ever be considered ethical – and what universities can do to detect and stop it. If you Google "academic proofreading," you will see a list of sites offering to "proof" your work. What they are also offering, however, is to write your assignments for you. How do I know this? There are two main reasons. More...
By Peter Scott. The world of work is changing – challenging how we think, and pay for, higher education, says Peter Scott. There are uncanny parallels between the flawed privatisation of the railways in the 1990s and the government's failing higher education reforms today. More...
By Robert Talbert. We’ve seen a significant ramping up of interest in – and exposure to – the flipped/inverted classroom over the last few years, and it’s been nice to see an uptick in the amount of research being done into its effectiveness. But one thing that’s been lacking has been a consensus on what the flipped classroom actually is. If a professor assigns readings to do before class and then holds discussions in class, is that “the flipped classroom”? I’ve said in the past that it is not (necessarily), but that’s just me. Now, however, a group of educators and others interested in flipped learning are proposing a common definition of flipped learning, and it’s pretty interesting. More...
/https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
