Students will learn about the power of civic action to achieve justice — even 329 years later. Then, they will propose their own plan to rectify a wrong in their own community.
Football Season
Will you be watching or playing this fall?
Word of the Day: precipice
This word has appeared in 115 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Our Full-Stack Engineer Career Path Just Got Even Better
Great news! We’ve revamped our Full-Stack Engineer career path to offer a new and improved interface that’s more conducive to your learning experience.
If you don’t already know, our career paths are highly structured programs that teach you all the skills you’ll need to launch a successful career in tech. The Full-Stack Engineer career path covers front-end development, back-end, and everything in between — and we’ve redesigned it to make the curriculum feel more digestible and easier to navigate, and ultimately accelerate your learning progress.
Better organization
We’ve broken the Full-Stack Engineer career path into clearer sections. We know that scrolling through dozens of lessons can be intimidating, so we’ve reorganized the course’s curriculum into distinct modules that clarify the exact skills you’re learning.
We’ve also added a Career Path Syllabus, which shows you all the topics you’ll learn as you work toward becoming a Full-Stack Engineer. And clicking on each topic will bring you to its Unit Syllabus, which lays out the lessons, projects, and other content you’ll complete in that unit — as illustrated in the gif below.
Better illustration of your progress
In the old career path, you might’ve spent hours coding only to see marginal increases in your progress. But that’s no longer the case! We’ve fine-tuned the progress-tracker so it now increases as you complete each individual lesson. That means you’ll see progress with every lesson, quiz, and assessment you complete — giving you a better sense of your development (and hopefully some encouragement along the way).
Better job prep
We’ve also started integrating other resources to help ensure you’re job-ready by the time you complete your path. You’ll find resources for connecting with other developers in our community, advice for preparing for technical interviews, tips for building a resume and portfolio, and more, weaved throughout your coursework.
How to access the new career path
If you’re new to the Full-Stack Engineer career path, you’ll be automatically brought to the new version upon enrolling in the course. And if you’re already enrolled, you’ll see a banner prompting you to make the switch. Just hit “update syllabus” (seen in the image below) to be directed to the new version.
What inspired the change?
We’re constantly looking for new ways to improve your learning experience. This redesign comes after months of research and experimentation, and data shows that breaking down the curriculum and better illustrating your progress will help keep you engaged and motivated as you work toward your new career.
And for those exploring other careers in tech, sit tight. We’ll be reorganizing our other career paths over the next few months.
Stay tuned for future updates!
How Punctual Are You?
Are you always on time, or are you known for arriving late? How has the pandemic changed your relationship with time?
Lesson Plan: Explore How CRISPR Is Revolutionizing Science
In this lesson plan, students will learn about the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR and its implications.
Word of the Day: moratorium
This word has appeared in 247 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
BITS Pilani collaborates with Coursera to launch first online B.Sc in Computer Science from top-ranked engineering institute in India
This degree is the first bachelor’s degree from an Indian institute on Coursera. It will enable people from diverse backgrounds to acquire a computer science degree, helping address the growing demand for skilled, qualified IT professionals in India and across the world.
By Coursera
Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani, an Institute of Eminence and a globally acclaimed Indian institute in science, engineering, and management domains, has collaborated with Coursera, one of the world’s leading online learning platforms, to launch an online Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree in Computer Science.
Designed to serve Indian and global audiences, BITS Pilani’s B.Sc degree will expand access to high-quality computer science education. The programme’s job-relevant curriculum, designed with inputs from various industry partners, will empower learners to develop advanced skills in software development, data analysis, and core systems, alongside leadership and soft skills.
With 28 million new technology jobs projected to emerge in India by 2025, there is a growing need for technical talent. A recent Nasscom-Zinnov report estimates a shortfall of 14 to 19 lakh technology professionals in India by 2026. To address this, BITS Pilani’s B.Sc degree prepares graduates to enter the job market ready for various in-demand entry-level job roles, such as application and system software developer, computer programmer, and data analyst.
“We are honoured to partner with BITS Pilani as it reimagines a B.Sc degree for a digital future,” said Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera. “Through our partnership, we are opening up access to this premiere institute at an unprecedented scale — enabling more students to earn this highly sought-after computer science degree in a flexible, affordable way.”
“Our collaboration with Coursera gives us the platform to help ensure that our aspirational degree programmes are readily accessible to a large and diverse audience, irrespective of locational or other constraints,” said Prof. G Sundar, Director, Off Campus Programmes and Industry Engagement, BITS Pilani. “This collaboration will enable BITS Pilani to help address the need for equitable growth of the pool of technology talent across the country and the globe. This also empowers learners with knowledge and skills, which are highly valued by the IT industry, and serves to provide Indian institutions as major providers of high quality education, internationally as well.”
Eligibility that enables many
The degree requires no entrance exam and is open to students from diverse profiles, including those without a science or significant mathematics background. Anyone with a class 12 or its equivalent qualifications can apply.
Accessibility to pursue education from anywhere
The 100% online programme can be accessed from anywhere in the world. By leveraging virtual and cloud labs, learners will apply their skills using simulations and real-world environments.
Flexibility to pursue the programme while working or along with pursuing any other degree programme
To maximize flexibility, students can take up to six years to complete this three-year degree. This will enable flexibility for learners to pursue the programme while working or along with pursuing any other degree programme. The programme also features an intermediate exit option of a diploma, which students can earn in about two years.
Student support system and access to BITS Pilani’s alumni network
The degree prioritises building a digital network, using Zoom and Slack. Students will connect with peers around the globe in digital study groups and group projects. There will also be periodic live sessions so that students can connect with BITS Pilani’s faculty and peers in real-time. When needed, learners will be able to access career services, including CV reviews and job-interview preparations.
Upon graduation, students will gain access to the institute’s illustrious alumni network — a community that has spawned 900+ startups and 13 unicorns, including Zeta, MPL, Swiggy, BigBasket, and Groww.
Online applications open today, Sep 12, 2022
Students can apply starting today, Sep 12, 2022, for the first cohort that begins in November 2022. The last date to apply is Nov 15, 2022. For details of the programme and to start the application, please visit https://www.coursera.org/degrees/bachelor-of-science-computer-science-bits.
What’s Going On in This Picture? | Sept. 12, 2022
Look closely at this image, stripped of its caption, and join the moderated conversation about what you and other students see.
Spacing Retrieval is More Important than Extra Retrieval
Let me phrase those results a different way. Taking the same amount of time and energy that it took to write the normal quiz for a class and just distributing those questions across a couple different quizzes was more beneficial than writing and answering (and grading?) additional quiz questions.
Educators: Quiz your students. Absolutely you should incorporate retrieval practice. Just space it out over time instead of providing blocked weekly quizzes just over that week’s content. But congratulations! You don’t have to do the extra work of writing and grading more quiz questions to get this benefit!
Students: Quiz yourselves and when you do, make sure you’re reviewing old material. Build in frequent study sessions, but you don’t have to double the time you’re spending studying to get great benefits, as long as you’re doing what you should be doing throughout (spaced retrieval).
Caveats
I started this blog by saying you shouldn’t change your habits on the basis of one study. And then I told you to change your habits on the basis of this study…
This study in housed in a large body of research, making me feel pretty confident about those tips above. That said, there are some things to consider here. This research was done with precalculus engineering students at a university. They’re probably not representative of everyone. Even further, in order to analyze the data, the researchers could only look at students who actually took all of the quizzes (about half the class). Their behavior may have been different (i.e. they may have studied a lot more outside of class), which could influence these results.
Another important result in this study is that increased spacing reduced quiz performance. Even though students remembered more of the material long-term, their initial performance wasn’t great. This is so important. Students are not going to like this. It’s harder than taking a weekly quiz over what they just learned. It’s also important that educators not “punish” students for this reduced initial performance. If we want to encourage students to engage in a behavior at home that is going to lower their grades in class… that is arguably unethical as grades (perhaps unfortunately) determine much of their future success. Educators need to express this to students. They need to understand why they are doing something different and harder than they’ve done before and they need to be provided with the psychological safety to fail early for later gains. In other words, quizzes should be low or no stakes in order to reduce the anxiety involved with what will inevitably be lower initial marks.
Bottom Line
Retrieve old stuff.
No, really. The bottom line here is that you should be utilizing retrieval and you should space it out, but you don’t need to worry about doing so over and over and over again necessarily (although a few times to get that spacing in is necessary). And it’s going to be hard, but that is going to lead to better retention and therefore better performance on the final and in the next class. #worthit
References:
(1) Hopkins, R. F., Lyle, K. B., Hieb, J. L., & Ralston, P. A. S. (2016). Spaced retrieval practice increases college students’ short- and long-term retention of mathematics knowledge. Educational Psychology Review, 28(4), 853-873.
(2) Lyle, K. B., Bego, C. R., Hopkins, R. F., Hieb, J. L., & Ralston, P. A. (2020). How the amount and spacing of retrieval practice affect the short-and long-term retention of mathematics knowledge. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 277-295.
