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The author of this opinion piece, Frank Brun, writes a lot about education. This particular article is skewed a bit towards (recent) alums of highly selective private schools, but he makes up for that by spending some time on the results of a "mammoth study" of 100,000 college grads and their views about how they spent their college years: "The study has not found that attending a private college or a highly selective one foretells greater satisfaction. Instead, the game changers include establishing a deep connection with a mentor, taking on a sustained academic project and playing a significant part in a campus organization. What all of these reflect are engagement and commitment, which I’ve come to think of as overlapping muscles that college can and must be used to build. They’re part of an assertive rather than a passive disposition, and they’re key to professional success." CSUN students can retrieve this article for free through Oviatt. Frank Bruni. "How to Get the Most Out of College." New York Times Sunday Review, Aug. 17, 2018.

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“Checking phones in lectures can cost students half a grade in exams”

This brief overview of a 2018 peer-reviewed journal article lays out the article's main points very clearly. Here's the link to the brief overview: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180728083617.htm Key points: 1. "This is the first-ever study in an actual classroom showing a causal relationship between distraction from an electronic device and subsequent exam performance," 2. "In addition, when the use of electronic devices was allowed in class, performance was also poorer for students who did not use devices as well as for those who did." The journal citation appears at the end of the overview. (Suggested by U100 faculty alum Dr. Darlene Mininni)

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This readable guest post by Peter Greene (on John Warner's Inside Higher Education blog Just Visiting) asks us to consider the purpose of education: "What does it mean to be an educated person, a student, a scholar? Why are we in school? What are we trying to do?" Sample: "We have shifted schools in the direction of simple, standardized answers. We are not looking for complex and complicated searches for understanding; we want students to perform the simple response that the test manufacturers have selected as the Correct one. And this approach doesn’t just affect answers. We also confine ourselves to the kinds of questions that can be answered with a short, multiple choice selection." And: "We are preparing students with multiple choice tests, but students have to enter an essay question world." Post is dated 3/18/2018

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Quote: "While it’s true there are successful college dropouts, statistically speaking, they are not the norm." Thanks to Kim Henige for sending the link to this brief article.

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This NPR blog post from July 2016 could provide the opportunity for a very rich ethics discussion, with obvious connections to Between the World and Me. As usual, ethics and critical thinking go hand in hand here. The post also includes all kinds of data and many other kinds of evidence (chiefly quotations) which might allow for some information competence discussion, too. The police officer in this case was found not guilty in June 2017. I was going to suggest that you handle this with care; but I think it's equally right to say we might have a moral imperative to ask students and ourselves to think through this story. Up to you. (Submitted by Cheryl...)

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The "Academic Readiness Challenges" listed in this short-short piece might be particularly apropos for U100: • Adhere to a schedule consistently. • Ask for help with or clarification on an assignment or test material. • Walk into a class that’s already begun, rather than skipping it because you were running late. • Speak to your teacher or professor after class. • Make a phone call and ask basic (including “obvious” or “awkward”) questions. • Call and make your own doctor and dentist appointments.

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U100 faculty member Trista Payte used this piece from The Atlantic (Jan. 14, 2015) in her class. It's likely to be of interest to many of us. General claim: "some academics fear that greater access to technology could exacerbate social anxiety among teens, particularly as smartphones, tablets, and computers become omnipresent in and out of the classroom." Quote from a colleague at CSU Fresno: "If we are glued to technology 24/7, it’s going to have an effect on social skills—-it’s just natural."

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U100 faculty member Matthew Clements found a highly accessible research report explaining that "6 of 10 Millennials Have 'Low' Technology Skills" (see https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/06/11/report-6-of-10-millennials-have-low-technology-skills.aspx). The report is based on an equally accessible four-page brief ("Does Not Compute" at http://changetheequation.org/does-not-compute/), which includes a tantalizing infographic. You might use either reading and/or the infographic to help students engage in some self-reflection about their use of time and technology. Excerpt from "Does Not Compute": Although American millennials are the first generation of "digital natives"--that is, people who grew up with computers and the internet--they are not very tech savvy. That fact would probably come as a shock to most Americans--especially to millennials themselves. After all, millennials are glued to their phones, tablets, and other devices. Many assume that using technology often means using it well.

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Learning Myths Quiz Kamenetz, Anya. "You Probably Believe Some Learning Myths: Take Our Quiz To Find Out." NPR Ed: How Learning Happens. March 22, 2017. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/03/22/520843457/you-probably-believe-some-learning-myths-take-our-quiz-to-find-out

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The Sundial (3/15/17, Heather Smith) interviews three seniors about to graduate and asks each one questions about motivation, what they're going to miss when they leave, what they wish they'd done while at CSUN..... I think freshmen might get a lot out of this piece. Cheryl

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David Lazarus wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times (9/23/16) about the current controversy over how to price drugs: “Recipe for ripoffs: Pricing drugs by their ‘value’ to sick people”: http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-healthcare-value-pricing-20160919-snap-story.html A much-discussed recent example he cites is the EpiPen (which saves lives in the case of severe allergic reactions and which has gone up in price about 500%). If you’re looking for a short reading that exemplifies the world of ethics (competing positions with no obvious, perfect, “right” solution), this one might do it. Let students practice applying the Five Simple Questions about Ethics, or put the reading through the RESOLVEDD exercise. That should equip them to do the same thing with other ethical dilemmas.

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"An Open Letter to High School Students about Reading" by Patrick Sullivan, an English professor at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut. Reprinted by the blog Tomorrow's Professor at Stanford, from the May/June 2016, Vol. 102, Number 3 issue of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) http://www.aaup.org/academe. Excerpt: "I recommend that you start to find a way right now to enjoy reading and to make it an important part of your life. A great deal of research has been done on the importance of free choice in building engagement with reading, so choosing what you are interested in is a great way to start. You can read whatever books or articles you want. Of course, we all enjoy reading social media, but we’re not going to count that. Let’s focus, instead, on books and articles. This kind of reading requires sustained concentration that will help you develop a number of important cognitive skills, including the capacity to focus your attention for longer periods of time and the ability to monitor and direct your reading processes (metacognition). These skills will be vitally important to you in college and beyond." For U100, the theme would be: it's definitely not too late to grow your mind.

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College doesn't hurt anyone. Dropping out with debt does.

LA Times Op-Ed piece (8/22/16) arguing against claims that going to college will set people up for life-long difficulties due to debt. Rather, it is not completing college that is the problem.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcpherson-complete-college-20160822-snap-story.html (Submitted by Wendy Snyder)

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U100 faculty member Jeff Sosner says: This piece is poignant and could be very useful. Aside from the central concern of the article--the notion that NCAA athletes' political expression, whether liberal or conservative, ought never be stifled--we could encourage conversations about whether it is ethical to deny college athletes compensation for product endorsements. Another UCLA student athlete, 1990s basketball star Ed O'Bannon, spearheaded a suit against the NCAA and EA Sports for using athletes' likenesses in video games: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/sports/ncaabasketball/understanding-ed-obannons-suit-against-the-ncaa.html?_r=0 Cheryl says: Here's a key pull-quote from the article: "Whether liberal or conservative, college athletes have a right to speak out. When they do, they are going to have to defend their ideas."

And Inside Higher Education has published a broader review of similar decision points and episodes that faculty might find useful as background: What Athletes Can Say by Jake New (3 Aug 2016).

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"27 highly successful people share the best career advice for new grads." Jacquelyn Smith and Rachel Gillett. Business Insider. 16 May 2016. More like a list than an article, this piece offers a snippet for each student in your class (and the mentor, too, if you have one). Nyla Dalferes (U100 faculty member and associate director of the Career Center) submitted this reading. She suggests it could be used in a discussion of goal-setting, or as a way to help students define success for themselves.

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Lisa Riccomini says: This highly readable brief piece should help freshmen understand that they need to learn basic skills STARTING freshman year. After graduation, when they're starting a job, it's too late to make decisions on how hard to push yourself to acquire these skills. And, she adds, this reading ties in to class attendance, work ethic, challenging courses and professors, goal setting, time management, and more. Cheryl cautions: well, of course the Forbes site has pop-up ads. Forewarned is forearmed. Thanks to Beth Lasky (Professor, CSUN's Department of Special Education) for the link.

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"Don't Follow Your Dreams" was the print edition title for this Los Angeles Times op-ed (5 May 2016). Sample: "Soon-to-be graduates who have no idea what they want to be when they grow up need not fret. And those who think they know their life plan at the age of 22 would be well advised to recognize that they are still developing as human beings and that their visions about what would make for a satisfying life might soon be very different than what they imagine today." Discussion might focus on choosing a major, understanding the value of lifelong learning, and (especially given the ending of this piece) student agency with respect to parental pressures. The big question: how is your college education related to your post-college career(s)?