You got a degree in STEM and now what? - An overview of STEM career pathways

A degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) can offer a gateway to many great careers.

The poster below outlines possible career pathways for STEM graduates:

Download the poster as a high-resolution PDF here. 

 Source: http://findingada.com/resources/resources-for-schools/posters/

What is vocational education? What are current challenges of VET in Switzerland?

Vocational Education in different contexts
(Source: technicaleducationmatters.org)

Vocational education (also called  career and technical education (CTE), technical and vocational education and training (TVET), or vocational education and training (VET)), can be described as education that prepares people for a specific trade, craft, or career.

Traditionally, vocational education refers to classic trades such as carpenter, mason, plumber, electrician, blacksmith, etc. However, the lines can get blurred when one includes programs such as engineering, accountancy, nursing, medicine, architecture, pharmacy, and law.

At the upper-secondary level in Switzerland, over 60-70% of young people enter a VET program while 30-40% go to university (OECD report). Given the above definition of VET, many university students could also be considered part of VET (such as engineers, medical doctors, architects, lawyers, psychologists, teachers, etc.).

Following this line of thought, education could (roughly) be divided into two strands:

• Occupation-specific education: Education programs that prepare students for a specific profession (which often includes practical experiences through internships and apprenticeships).
• General education: Education programs that teach knowledge and skills independent of specific careers, particularly the liberal arts (for example literature, languages, art history, music history, philosophy, history).

Graduates from occupation-specific programs find it often easier to find a job after their program as they have a clear(er) career path, practical experience on the job, and relevant skills. However, university education is still perceived as more desirable. In 2014, over 13,000 Swiss VET apprenticeship positions could not be filled (Newspaper article July 16 2014). In the UK, studio schools try to combine schools with VET. In the US, forming a vocational education system could improve the overall education system (see article here).

Like Germany and Austria, Switzerland has a long history for vocational education going back to apprenticeship programs in the middle ages. Today, Switzerland builds on the 'dual system' approach for VET. Students learn practical skills and procedural knowledge at the workplace (under the supervision of a vocational trainer) 3-4 days/week) and theoretical (declarative) knowledge in vocational school (under the supervision of vocational teachers) (1-2 days/week). Additionally, students also attend yearly inter-company courses (organized by their professional unions) in industry training centers to complement their skill sets (under the supervision of vocational instructors). Some professions, particularly commercial employees, attend vocational school full time. Swiss VET program can take between two and four years and lead to a Federal VET Diploma (full 3- or 4-year program) or a Federal VET Certificate (less demanding 2-year VET program). Graduates from a university of applied sciences receive a 'professional bachelor' or a 'professional master' (Newspaper article June 18 2014). Currently, PhDs can only be granted by the regular universities.

Switzerland draws a distinction between vocational education and training (VET) programs (which take place at the upper-secondary level) and professional education and training (PET) programs (which take place at tertiary level). Beyond PET, universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen) offer vocational education at higher tertiary levels. Pathways enable people to shift from one part of the education system to another. The line between PET and university education (particularly of the occupation-specific programs) becomes increasingly blurred.

A big difference between the two strands is the cost factor. While the state heavily subsidizes university education (students only pay about $700/ semester), higher degrees in professional education need to paid fully by the student (often around $3000-4000/ semester). A professional diploma can cost as much as $30,000 to 40,000.

The question for a society (and economy) is to find the right balance between the two education strands. A society that focuses solely on occupation-specific education might have a highly skilled workforce but lack people who see pattern across narrow contexts, think critically about bigger issues, and find innovative out-of-the-box problem solving approaches.

What's new about MOOCs? Insights from the eMOOC conference 2014

The MOOC 2014 conference took place at EPFL in Lausanne Switzerland in February 2014. The catchphrase of the conference was "All you need to know about MOOCs".

In the introduction, conference chair Pierre Dillenbourg asked the participants not ask "what can MOOCs do" but rather "what should MOOCs do".

Some interesting observations from the conference:

MOOCs for corporate and vocational training:

• Currently, MOOCs are mostly developed for higher education and further education. However, the corporate and vocational training market is much larger than higher education. Several initiatives are developing MOOCs for corporate (COOCs) and vocational training (VOOC), e.g. customer training. Open question: Can MOOCs be used to teach physical skills, eg vocational skill, sport? If companies do their own testing and training, what are universities still needed for?

MOOC users:

• Mostly Western countries and mostly people who already have a higher degree (master or higher): MOOC as a form of further education (but not initial education). Should MOOCs in developing countries be seen as a form of cultural colonialism or a democratization of education? How can MOOCs advance new forms of pedagogy instead of being glorified video lectures?

Novelty of MOOCs

• Open question: Are xMOOCs actually different from existing eLearning platforms (besides the larger user numbers)? [Siemen's and Downes' cMOOCs differentiated themselves through their connectivist pedagogy, but what about xMOOCs?]. Suggestion: Go beyond the university-semester model -> Trend towards shorter courses (as people don't have much time).
• The conference presentations offered a plethora of new terms: SOOCs and BOOCs (Small and Big open online courses (Is a MOOC with fewer participants still a MOOC?), COOCs (MOOCs for corporate training), VOOCs (MOOCs for vocational training), pMOOCs (project-based MOOCS), DOCC (Distance open collaborative course), etc.

Assessment:

• How can success be measured in MOOCs? An example from Proversity (UK): To prepare job applicants with job specific skills, applicants take a MOOC and then go through an assessment in which they have to apply that knowledge in job-specific scenarios. If they did well, they will go through an online job interview process. Peer review vs peer assessment

Certification/ Accreditation:

• New forms of awards are needed. Gamification of education: badges. Currently, no university or employer accepts MOOC credits, but some allow complementing with on-campus courses to get credit. Some (few) employers recognize MOOC certificates on CVs. Trend towards certification of MOOCs by professional organizations (rather than universities).

Dropout rate

• xMOOC companies (like EdX and Coursera) offer "premium track" models in which participants pay a fee in advance to get access to the final exam and get a certificate. Users in the premium track have a completion rate of up to 70% (which is much higher than regular MOOC participation). The increase could be explained by economic motivation to get your moneys worth and a selection effect as only motivated participants are willing to pay in the first place.

I created a brief overview of MOOCs in the dynamic mindmap below [Click on a term to read the attached notes in the window below].

Empirical study of design for learning

How do interdisciplinary teams of educational designers collaboratively design blended learning environments? My short presentation includes first observations from an empirical study of educational designers working on revising an university-level course.

Empirical studies of design for learning from Beat Schwendimann

Order of academic authorship (and how to avoid conflicts)

Photo by Shironosov/ iStock

Academic papers are often co-authored by several authors, from two to several hundred (for example in CERN physics studies).

Rules for the order of multiple authors vary by discipline, but generally there are three possibilities:

• By degree of contribution: Authors are listed in descending order of contribution. The principal investigator is often placed last in the author list. However, some universities want to change this practice by only having the principal investigator listed if he/she actively contributed to that particular paper.
• Alphabetically: Authors are listed in alphabetical order (by family name).
• Random: Authors are listed in randomized order (rarely used).

In theory, deciding on an order of authors should be a straightforward process. However, disputes over the order of authors can ensue. Ilakovac (2007) in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that over two-thirds of 919 surveyed authors disagreed with their coauthors regarding contributions of each author.

There are several suggestions how to avoid authorship conflicts (compiled from source #1 and source #2):

1) Who counts as an author? Only people who made substantial, direct, intellectual contributions should be listed as authors. All authors should meet the following three criteria, and all those who meet the criteria should be authors:
a. Scholarship: Contribute significantly to the conception, design, execution, and/or analysis and interpretation of data.
b. Authorship: Participate in drafting, reviewing, and/or revising the manuscript for intellectual content.
c. Approval: Approve the manuscript to be published.
People who provided technical services, administration, acquisition of funding, collection of data, editorial writing, or general supervision should not be listed as co-authors but mentioned in the acknowledgement section (see argument here).

2) Responsibilities of lead author: As a practical matter in the case of publications with multiple authors, one author should be designated as the lead author. The lead author assumes overall responsibility for the manuscript, and also often serves as the managerial and corresponding author, as well as providing a significant contribution to the research effort. A lead author is not necessarily the principal investigator or project leader. The lead author is responsible for:
a. Authorship: Including as co-authors all and only those individuals who meet the authorship criteria set forth in this policy.
b. Approval: Providing the draft of the manuscript to each individual contributing author for review and consent for authorship. The lead author should obtain from all coauthors their agreement to be designated as such and their approval of the manuscript. A journal may have specific requirements governing author review and consent, which must be followed.
c. Integrity: The lead author is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole, and ensuring that reasonable care and effort has been taken to determine that all the data are complete, accurate, and reasonably interpreted.

3) Responsibilities for co-authors: All co-authors of a publication are responsible for:
a. Authorship: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors acknowledge that they meet the authorship criteria set forth in section 1 of this policy. A coauthor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
b. Approval: By providing consent to authorship to the lead author, co-authors are acknowledging that they have reviewed and approved the manuscript.
c. Integrity: Each co-author is responsible for the content of all appropriate portions of the manuscript, including the integrity of any applicable research.

4) Talk about contributions early: Co-authors should talk early in the process about the order of authorship, degree/kind of contribution, and the decision-making process (how decisions are made and who has final say if a consensus is not reached). The order of authors is a collective decision of the authors (not just by the lead author).

5) Deal with disagreements: If disagreement arises, make every effort to resolve the dispute locally among the authors. If necessary, get the principal investigator or the Ombuds office involved.

6) Revise degrees of contributions: If authorship seems straightforward, the order of authors can be arranged in advance but with the caveat that this could change if contributions change significantly. Create a culture of transparency and revisit the issue of order of authorship periodically in case contributions (or assumptions about contributions) have changed. Towards the end of the writing process, each co-author should describe his/her contributions and what he/she thinks every other author contributed (this can reveal misunderstandings and provides the opportunity for clarification).

7) Approve final document: Each co-author should review drafts and approve the final version before submission.

8) Describe contributions for reader: When submitting to the journal, include a short description of each co-author's contributions and how order was assigned to help readers interpret roles correctly.

References:
Ilakovac V, Fister K, Marusic M, Marusic A (January 2007)."Reliability of disclosure forms of authors' contributions".Canadian Medical Association Journal 176 (1): 41–6.doi:10.1503/cmaj.060687

Fujitsu is building a robot that can beat comprehensive university entrance exams

Todai Robot logo
(Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/fujitsu-trying-to-get-artificial-intelligence-into-university-of-tokyo)

After IBM's Watson computer sucessfully beat human competitors at "Jeoparday", Japanese researchers from Fujitsu are now working on a robot that can pass the comprensive entrance exam of Tokyo University (Todai). The full test involves language, science (physics, chemistry, biology, and geology), history, geography, English (plus some German, French, and Korean), civics (ethics, politics, and economics), and of mathematics. As a first step, the Fujitsu team focuses on solving the mathematical part of the test. This requires the Todai robot to translate natural language problem sets into mathematical formula (See picture below). The team hopes to succeed by 2016 and then extend to passing the full exam by 2024.

Todai robot's procedure to solve math problems
(Source: http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2012/20120910-01.html)

Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/fujitsu-trying-to-get-artificial-intelligence-into-university-of-tokyo

Suggestions how to improve the U.S. education system

A paradigm shift is needed

The U.S. education system, as many other education system, is still stuck in an industrial age paradigm that does not prepare young people for the knowledge age. There are two basic kinds of change: Piecemeal and systemic (Reigeluth, 1999). Currently, most educational reforms happen in a piecemeal fashion that try to "fix" the existing system. What is needed is a radical systemic reform.

1) The current U.S. education paradigm is based on the "conveyor belt" analogy of the Industrial Age. All students learn the same content in the same amount of time. As Campbell and Monson (1994) state "This may be a model of efficiency, but certainly not for effectiveness". The current paradigm of standardized education allows for valid comparison of students with each other and sort them out efficiently, but does not aim to educate every student (Reigeluth, 1992). When an educational system holds the time of instruction constant, achievement must vary. It is well documented that students learn at different paces. What is the alternative? Instead of grouping students by age group that passes through the education system, schools need to give each learner the time he or she needs to reach the learning goals.

2) Besides the Industrial Age paradigm, the U.S. education system still uses elements from the older Agricultural Age: The three month long summer break was intended to allow children to help during the harvest on farms. Instead of one long summer break, the U.S. could introduce several shorter 2-3 week breaks spread out throughout the year. Research provided strong documentation that the long summer break increases the achievement gap between poor and middle class students (See Summer learning loss and The Case Against Summer Vacation). This also links to the main reason for the education achievement gap in the U.S.: Poverty (or "socio-economic disadvantage") (See Poverty is key factor to improve U.S. education).

3) A dual education system, with an academic and a vocational pathway, offers students valuable alternatives. Unfortunately, the U.S. does not have a well-structured vocational school system as found in many European countries. In Finland, around 50% of students choose vocational school over University education (See The Finland Phenomenon). In the U.S. there exists no alternative to high school, and the current high school curriculum was created to prepare students for higher education not a vocation. In other words, a seventeen year old in the U.S. has only one option: He/She is either a high school student or a dropout (See Americas misplaced disdain for vocational education and Strengthening vocational education could improve U.S. education).

Instead of piecemeal reforms, like "No child left behind" that encourage standardization and assessment (=> sorting), the outdated paradigm itself needs to be changed (See Changing Education Paradigms). Changing the content (educational content standards) or assessment (standardized tests) is not sufficient to meet the needs of the Knowledge Age for the very structure of education discourages self-guided learning, initiative, and creative diversity.

References:

Campbell, R., & Monson, D. (1994). Building a goal-based scenario learning environment. Educational Technology, 34(9), 9-14

Reigeluth, C. M. (1992). The imperative for systemic change. Educational Technology, 32, n11

Reigeluth, C. M. (1999). What is instructional design theory and how is it changing? In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design theories and models, vol 2: A new paradigm of instructional theory. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Map of Boston Colleges and Universities

Boston is truly a college town. [Click on the map to enlarge.]

See more here: radicalcartography

80% of US college admissions departments check your Facebook Profile

A recent Kaplan survey found that admissions departments at 80% of US top colleges “visit potential students’ online Facebook profiles during their recruiting process.” The obvious advice is to keep your Facebook profile private.

Read more here: Report: 80% of College Admissions Departments Check Applicants’ Facebook Pages | Geekosystem

PHD Comics: Love your Thesis.

PHD Comics: How do I love you?

Could online courses fully replace traditional courses?

In his 2010 annual letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates suggested that have at least one great course online for each subject rather than lots of mediocre courses. The idea is that students could freely access these "best possible" lectures online - which might in turn replace more mediocre real-life lectures.


Several top universities already offer some of their lectures online for free, including the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University,  M.I.T.’s OpenCourseWare program, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of California, Berkeley. The UK-based OpenUniversity offers free online courses. Aggregator website Academic Earth offers a collection of over 150 full courses from different universities. Additionally, youtube edu offers a collection of lectures.


However, could such online lectures truly replace traditional education? There are several issues to hinder online courses to replace human-taught courses. First, online courses are notorious for high dropout rates. Personal relationships with instructors and other students might help students persevere. Second, many universities may now offer online lectures but complete courses consists of more than just the lecture, for example discussion groups, feedback from instructors, study groups, and office hours. These elements are currently missing in free online courses. Third, while lectures might be freely available, universities do not give credit for studying them. Free online courses do not (yet) lead to academic degrees. A step in this direction was taken last year by the regents of the University of California when they approved a proposal to test the viability of offering a bachelor’s degree that could be earned entirely online.


Read more in this New York Times article: Online Courses, Still Lacking That Third Dimension - NYTimes.com

UC Berkeley ranked 2nd best university in the world

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranks the University of California at Berkeley in 2nd place! Go Bears!

See full ranking here: ARWU 2010

Study finds limited impact of college education on learning

A study of more than 2,300 undergraduates across 24 different US colleges found that 36 percent of students showed no significant improvement after four years in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years (based on the standardized Collegiate Learning Assessment). Subsequent research found that many students one year out of college are not faring well: One-third moved back home, and 10 percent were unemployed.

The findings are published in a new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by sociologists Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia.

Critics of the Collegiate Learning Assessment argue that it doesn't capture learning in specialized majors or that it isn't a reliable measure of college performance because so many factors are beyond their control.

See more detailed results in this article: The Associated Press: Student tracking finds limited learning in college

China produced six million college graduates this year, but not enough jobs for them

Last year, Chinese universities produced over 6 million graduates. Despite China's rapidly growing economy, there are not enough good professional jobs to absorb the influx of highly educated young adults. Many recent graduate students move to the large Chinese cities, where they often struggle to find a job if their families are not politically or financially connected.


Strangely, the people in highest demand are not college graduates, but uneducated villagers who are flocking to factory towns to make goods for export.


The NY Times has an interesting report about the life and struggles of current graduate students in China: China’s Army of Graduates Faces Struggle - NYTimes.com

Is it worth going to college? How strengthening vocational education could improve US education.

President Obama declared that he wants to send every U.S. student to college. Is this a reasonable goal? Is a college degree the best way to get a good job?

The U.S. does not have a developed vocational school/apprentice system present in many European countries. This gives young U.S. students few options. The video shows an ABC report that concludes that entering a craft instead of going to college might be a better career decision for students who don't excel in academic learning.

From one of my earlier posts:
In other countries, the belief is that schools educate and select the students that show academic excellence, while other students enter vocational training. As the U.S. does not have a vocational school alternative, K-12 education became a try-to-fit-all solution. The president of Bard college, Leon Botstein, suggests that junior high schools should be removed and replaced with a K-10 school, and the graduation age of 18 should be dropped to 16. At the age of 16, students can either go to college or get a job.

An example is Switzerland that established a dual-education system (and wikipedia on dual education system): At the age of sixteen, students choose to follow an higher academic education or the enter an apprenticeship. Apprentices are employed by companies and receive a small salary. They work for their employer while spending 1-2 days each week at vocational school where they continue their general education and learn skills related to their craft. After completing their apprenticeship, students can decided to remain in their craft or attend a professional university. Professional university offer bachelor and master degrees equivalent to the traditional university. Professional university graduates are often in high demand as their portfolio includes both practical experience and theoretical knowledge. Swiss craftsmen are among the highest skilled in the world and they frequently win international craftsmen championships.


Additional discussion about vocational education in these blog post and How higher education has failed the U.S.

How Higher Education Has Failed America

ZenCollegeLife.com posted an interesting essay on the value of US college education (given the ever rising costs of tuition).

Two points from the essay:

-Colleges teach skills that are removed from workplace skills.

-A cause for this disconnection lays in the tenure system that focuses on research and not education.

The essay raises a few interesting points, but I consider the issue to be much more complex to reduce to a critique of the tenure system.

How Higher Education Has Failed America

Top 10 benefits of a college degree

The list below describes ten benefits of a college education. While the list is encouraging, I found it interesting that none of the ten benefits of college education had anything to do with gaining personal knowledge...

A college degree pays off financially and intangibly for the graduate – and for society at large, says a report from the College Board. Here are 10 top benefits:

10. Better-prepared kids
Parents with advanced degrees are three times more likely to read to their kids every day than parents who haven’t finished high school, and twice as likely to participate in other educational activities like visiting museums and libraries.
The payoff? Children of highly educated parents are three times more likely to start school already knowing their alphabet and how to count to 20.

9. Fewer social costs
High school graduates are three times more likely to live in poverty than college graduates, and eight times more likely to depend on public assistance programs
For every female high school student who goes on to attend college, society saves $48,600 over her lifetime. For every African-American male who goes on to finish college instead of dropping out of high school, society saves $294,000.

8. More tax revenue
Higher salaries for college means more money for the government, which matters to policymakers. “The typical college graduate pays, on average, 80 percent more in taxes each year than the typical high school graduate,” according to the College Board report. For those with advanced degrees, the tax benefits to the government are even better. Doctors and lawyers might grouse that they pay 3-1/2 times as much in taxes as high school graduates do. Then again, they earn three times as much.

7. More volunteering and voting
The share of people who donate their time to organizations and the number of hours that they spend in volunteer activities are higher among individuals with higher levels of education. Most volunteer for religious organizations (34 percent) or youth-related services (26 percent).
At every age group, the more educated someone is, the more likely she is to vote. It’s most dramatic among 18- to 24-year-olds, where college graduates are 2-1/2 times as likely to vote as those who haven’t finished high school.

6. Fewer smokers
Between 1998 and 2008, the smoking rate declined from 14 percent to 9 percent among college grads, while the rate for high school grads barely dropped, from 29 percent to 27 percent.
Of people with advanced degrees, 70 percent never smoked, only 3 percent choose to keep smoking, and the rest have quit or are trying to. Of people who didn’t finish high school, half have never smoked, a third have quit or are trying to, and 15 percent choose to maintain the habit.

5. More exercise, less fat
Those with more education are more likely to exercise than those with less education. College-educated adults are also less likely than others to be obese or have obese children. These results hold for all age groups.

4. Higher job satisfaction
In 2008, about 60 percent of people who had attended college – whether or not they’d completed a degree – reported that they were very satisfied with their jobs. Only 50 percent of high school graduates and 40 percent of high school dropouts could say the same. People with job satisfaction were three times as likely to say that they were very happy.

3. Better recession protection
College graduates’ employment rose 2 percent between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2010, despite the great recession. Every group with lower education levels saw employment numbers decline. Those hardest hit were those who hadn’t finished high school. One in 5 for them has lost a job, compared with 1 in 100 for high school graduates and those with some college education.

2. More benefits, higher pensions
Only half of high school graduates have employer-provided health insurance or pension plans, but almost 70 percent of college graduates do. Also, while 93 percent of college grads participate in employer-matching pension plans if they're available, only 3 in 4 of those who didn’t complete high school do, meaning that 1 in 4 pass up essentially free money from their employer.

1. Increased earning potential
Everyone knows the price of a college degree, but fewer know the price of not getting one: $22K a year.
In 2008, median earnings of college graduates were $55,700, which was $21,900 more than the median earnings of high school graduates who hadn’t attended college.
See the list at: Top 10 benefits of a college degree