Introducing ACUE's New "Career Guidance
and Readiness" Course
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How can we better prepare students for meaningful careers? “Enlist the Faculty,” reports The Chronicle of Higher Education. And among the article’s six strategies, we’re delighted to share, is ACUE’s new course on career guidance and readiness.
ACUE’s new course prepares faculty to integrate career guidance into their classes with approaches that respect, build on, and show the relevance of educators’ fields. This course also helps faculty design and implement long-term projects and assignments that cultivate students’ career-ready, or “soft,” skills.
As with every ACUE offering, this new course was built with leading experts, including Jeremy Podany of the Career Leadership Collective, and showcases extraordinary faculty and students from Colorado State University, Franklin College, the University of Indiana, and others. It is offered to cohorts of faculty through our facilitated, Quality Matters-certified learning design and still addresses all of the core teaching competencies in ACUE’s Effective Practice Framework, leading to a Certificate in Effective College Instruction with a Concentration in Career Guidance and Readiness.
This new course is an ideal way to expand the reach and impact of your career centers. It recognizes—and embraces—the singular role that faculty can play in students’ preparation for life after college. This "Career Guidance and Readiness" course was developed with support from Strada Education Network and in collaboration with the Council of Independent College’s new Consortium for Instructional Excellence and Career Guidance, through which hundreds of faculty are currently enrolled at 26 colleges nationwide.
We welcome you to take a first look at new module introductions here.
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Promoting Student-Centered Learning Through Evidence-Based Self-Assessment
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 "Encouraging student investment and responsibility has been a priority throughout my teaching career," Dr. Santos Torres Jr., a professor at California State University, Sacramento, writes on The Q Blog.
To prompt students to reflect on their work, Dr. Torres and his colleague developed an Evidence-Based Self-Assessment (EBSA). Students evaluate their completion of required work, preparation, and participation. Students also write a self-assessment summary of their work, offering evidence for why they evaluated their performance as they did.
Dr. Torres has found that the tool supports and encourages student responsibility. For example, one student wrote in the EBSA: “I knew I needed to work on participation because just coming to class and doing the homework wasn’t going to cut it. Throughout this semester, I put in effort to participate, and it made class more pleasant and engaging. Through this self-assessment, I realized I need to step up my game in online discussions. This assignment was very useful and helped me reflect and better myself as a student.”
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News in brief
The latest news and opinions in higher education.
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6 Strategies to Prepare Students for Meaningful Careers
From Grinnell College’s “exploratory advisors” to intensive career-development workshops, institutions are rethinking how to prepare students for their futures. One initiative is the Consortium for Instructional Excellence and Career Guidance, a collaboration between ACUE and the Council of Independent Colleges. The program credentials faculty in effective teaching practices and career guidance. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
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How to Hold an Audience Captive
While it’s not an instructor’s job to be entertaining, according to Emma Björngard-Basayne, understanding performance art can help instructors connect with their students. Wayne Trembly, an academic specialist and actor, offers strategies such as using facial expressions to convey enthusiasm for the material, injecting humor into lectures, and sharing personal stories. (UConn)
The First Day!
Although many first classes tend to begin with icebreakers and syllabus reviews, Patrick Bigsby suggests having a more productive and engaging session by sharing introductory course information via email before the first meeting and actually diving into the material to ignite students’ curiosity, among other strategies. (GradHacker)
What a New Professor Learned After His First Class
Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut, discovered that even for accomplished professionals, teaching as a new instructor can be challenging. He is honing his instruction by using journal articles and case studies, borrowing from other institutions’ aviation courses, and injecting his experience into his course to help students apply theory to practice. (The Chronicle of Higher Education Teaching Newsletter)
What Students Say Is Good Teaching
In an event at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, undergraduate students shared their thoughts on what makes teaching effective. Students offered examples such as explaining all the details rather than skipping over steps that may seem obvious to instructors and emphasizing learning over grades, among other perspectives. (Inside Higher Ed)
Will Students Actually Believe They Can Do This Assignment?
“The more students feel that a goal is achievable, the more likely they will be motivated to pursue it,” David Gooblar writes. According to Gooblar, instructors can facilitate this outcome by designing courses with goals in mind, completing their own assignments, being transparent about the grading process, and giving feedback to allow students to self-correct. (Vitae)
I Trust That My Student’s Grandparent Died
When students approach an instructor needing accommodations due to a personal emergency, the instructor should respond with trust, writes Christopher Buddle. While some students take advantage of the system, Buddle believes they represent a minority and that lending support to students who are in need is more important than punishing outliers. (University Affairs)
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Welcome, new partners!
We are excited to welcome our newest institutional members, Indian River State College, Western Kentucky University, and the Texas State University System. We look forward to working with you to credential your faculty members in the use of evidence-based teaching practices that drive student engagement and learning!
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Partner news
Alderson Broaddus University: Alderson Broaddus University elected to join national initiative to support teaching and learning (The Exponent Telegram)
Arizona State University: 16 years into Crow's tenure, ASU is growing more than ever (The State Press)
Miami Dade College: Miami Dade College celebrates 58 years since opening (7 News)
Rutgers University: The 9 big projects transforming Rutgers campuses (NJ.com)
University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College: How education can bridge the skills gap (Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
West Virginia University: WVU and community colleges partnering to benefit students (WV News)
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Creative connections
 New research in The Harvard Gazette suggests that groups that interact intermittently produce some of the best solutions most frequently. The study found that this type of interaction resulted in more learning among group members than more or less frequent collaborations.
These findings have implications for how students and employees can collaborate most effectively, which is important given that most instructors assign team projects to prepare students for their future careers. How do you encourage students to collaborate in your courses? Let us know!
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