Autobiography and Community: A Personal Journey

Our personal and professional lives intersect: the story of how one young man dropped out of a doctoral program in physics to figure out what to do about the continuing problem of dropout in higher education. Vincent Tinto is Distinguished University Professor and former Chair of the Higher Education Program at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York

Tinto’s South Africa lectures

The following are transcripts of the four lectures given by Prof. Vincent Tinto, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University, at the regional symposia “Conceptualising a coherent approach to student success” organised by the Council on Higher Education in Pretoria, Durban and Stellenbosch in August 2013

Academic Libraries and Learning Support in Collaboration. Library Based Guidance for Peer Assisted Learning Leaders at Bournemouth University: Theory and Practice.

This article begins with an overview of the University’s pioneering Peer Assisted Learning Scheme (PAL) and describes how in 2005/6, the Library became involved, collaborating with the PAL Coordinator to develop materials for use by PAL Leaders. PAL is intended to foster cross-year support between students on the same course. It encourages students to support each other and learn co-operatively under the guidance of trained students from the year above - called PAL Leaders. Two documents were produced to support and empower these leaders. The first, Using the Library for Your Research, provides leaders with key guidance information on the University Library, its resources and the services it provides. The second, Citing References Using the Harvard System, aims to explain and demystify the Harvard Referencing system and to encourage good referencing habits from an early stage of their course through a practical hands-on exercise. Feedback from PAL Leaders continues to inform the development of these guidance materials, in particular the referencing exercise which was reworked to better suit the needs of the leaders delivering it

Enhancing student persistence: Lessons learned in the United States

Thirty years of experience in trying to enhance student persistence in the United States has taught us some important lessons as to the essential features of success policies and practices. Among other things, we have learned that successful efforts require that universities do more than simply add-on services. They must establish conditions within universities that enable students to find academic and social support, obtain feedback about their work, and become actively involved with other students. No where is that involvement more important than in the classrooms and laboratories of the universities, the one place, perhaps only place, where students meet each other and engage with faculty in learning. An increasingly popular strategy that promotes such involvement is learning communities and the collaborative pedagogy that underlies them. In conclusion, it is argued that any strategy to increase student persistence requires universities to take seriously the task of faculty and staff development and provide the resources, rewards, and incentives to ensure that successful programs are able to grow over the longterm.Trinta anos de experiência na tentativa de incrementar a permanência dos estudantes nos Estados Unidos ensinou-nos algumas lições no que respeita aos aspectos essenciais de políticas e de práticas de sucesso. Entre outras coisas, aprendemos que para que os esforços sejam bem sucedidos é preciso que as universidades façam mais do que simplesmente criar serviços. Devem estabelecer-se nas universidades condições que permitam aos estudantes encontrar suporte académico e social, obter retro-informação sobre o seu trabalho e envolverem-se activamente com outros estudantes. Em nenhum outro local das universidades o envolvimento é mais importante do que nas salas de aula e nos laboratórios, os locais, talvez os únicos locais, onde os estudantes se conhecem uns aos outros e se implicam com a Faculdade na aprendizagem. Uma estratégia, cada vez mais aceite, que promove tal envolvimento são as comunidades de aprendizagem e a pedagogia colaborativa que lhes subjaz. Em conclusão, argumenta-se que qualquer estratégia tendo em vista aumentar a permanência dos estudantes requer que as universidades levem a sério a tarefa de desenvolver a faculdade e os seus agentes e disponibilize os recursos, recompensas e incentivos para assegurar que intervenções eficazes aumentem no futuro.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Enhancing student persistence: Lessons learned in the United States

Trinta anos de experiência na tentativa de incrementar a permanência dos estudantes nos Estados Unidos ensinou-nos algumas lições no que respeita aos aspectos essenciais de políticas e de práticas de sucesso. Entre outras coisas, aprendemos que para que os esforços sejam bem sucedidos é preciso que as universidades façam mais do que simplesmente criar serviços. Devem estabelecer-se nas universidades condições que permitam aos estudantes encontrar suporte académico e social, obter retro-informação sobre o seu trabalho e envolverem-se activamente com outros estudantes. Em nenhum outro local das universidades o envolvimento é mais importante do que nas salas de aula e nos laboratórios, os locais, talvez os únicos locais, onde os estudantes se conhecem uns aos outros e se implicam com a Faculdade na aprendizagem. Uma estratégia, cada vez mais aceite, que promove tal envolvimento são as comunidades de aprendizagem e a pedagogia colaborativa que lhes subjaz. Em conclusão, argumenta-se que qualquer estratégia tendo em vista aumentar a permanência dos estudantes requer que as universidades levem a sério a tarefa de desenvolver a faculdade e os seus agentes e disponibilize os recursos, recompensas e incentivos para assegurar que intervenções eficazes aumentem no futuro

Reflections on Student Persistence

The Feature for this issue Reflections on Student Persistence has been prepared by Professor Vincent Tinto, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Syracuse University, United States of America (USA) and a longtime friend and supporter of STARS. Vincent explores the case for motivation to be considered as a significant aspect of the tertiary student psyche by drawing on theoretical frameworks, research and practical experiences related to the issue. He synthesises this extensive, detailed, rich but often somewhat impenetrable data into a trilogy of clear and credible key dimensions of the motivation construct student self efficacy, sense of belonging and perceived value of the curriculum. This interpretation of the literature is a personal but informed reflection and is a timely piece which highlights the breadth and profundity of the presentations at this year's conference in Adelaide, Australia where students in all their diversity are central to our focus on enhancing the student experience. In this opening article, Vincent refers directly to the STARS papers selected for this Conference issue of the Journal which also address the importance of student persistence, self-efficacy and building the sense of belonging within their own institutional communities (Fernandes, Ford, Rayner & Pretorius; Kahu, Nelson, & Picton; McFarlane, Spes-Skrbis & Taib; Naylor; Smallhorn). Echoing his position on social justice and his advocacy for underserved students, Vincent reminds us that educational equity gaps still exist, and he encourages us to see the issue of persistence through the eyes of the students to support their perseverance and completion and thereby help reduce educational disadvantage

Numerical simulation of time delay interferometry for eLISA/NGO

eLISA/NGO is a new gravitational wave detection proposal with arm length of 10^6 km and one interferometer down-scaled from LISA. Just like LISA and ASTROD-GW, in order to attain the requisite sensitivity for eLISA/NGO, laser frequency noise must be suppressed to below the secondary noises such as the optical path noise, acceleration noise etc. In previous papers, we have performed the numerical simulation of the time delay interferometry (TDI) for LISA and ASTROD-GW with one arm dysfunctional by using the CGC 2.7 ephemeris. The results are well below their respective limits which the laser frequency noise is required to be suppressed. In this paper, we follow the same procedure to simulate the time delay interferometry numerically. To do this, we work out a set of 1000-day optimized mission orbits of the eLISA/NGO spacecraft starting at January 1st, 2021 using the CGC 2.7 ephemeris framework. We then use the numerical method to calculate the residual optical path differences in the second-generation TDI solutions as in our previous papers. The maximum path length difference, for all configurations calculated, is below 13 mm (43 ps). It is well below the limit which the laser frequency noise is required to be suppressed for eLISA/NGO. We compare and discuss the resulting differences due to the different arm lengths for various mission proposals -- eLISA/NGO, an NGO-LISA-type mission with a nominal arm length of 2 x 10^6 km, LISA and ASTROD-GW.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, minor changes in description to match the accepted version of Classical and Quantum Gravity. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1102.496