Tag: Life

  • A taste for the good life

    A taste for the good life

    Postcard views, luxurious watches, delicious cheese and chocolate — the country that comes to mind is idyllic Switzerland in central Europe.

    But this seemingly perfect country comes at a price: its high cost of living. According to Coop and Carrefour, two leading supermarket chains in Switzerland and France, one chocolate bar in Switzerland costs more than one and a half times as much as the same chocolate bar in neighbouring France. 

    “The price of chocolate with regards to its quality in Switzerland is fair and for me worth paying,” said Andrina Deragisch, a 17-year-old student of Kantonsschule Zürich Nord, a Swiss high school. 

    Chocolate’s price is affected by various factors, most importantly the price of the cocoa bean. Nowadays that is at an all-time high due to climate change, plant-affecting pests in Africa and East Asia and packaging prices and taxes. Its price is four to five times higher than a year ago, according to Migros, the second-largest retail company in Switzerland. But what makes the difference in Switzerland? 

    “The most significant factor is the labour,” says Richie Gray, global head of SnackFutures, the Corporate Venture Capital Hub of Mondelez that invests in businesses in the snack industry. 

    How much would you pay for a chocolate bar?

    Workers in Switzerland are paid well, which makes them able to keep up with the high cost of living. This leads to a high-end price of chocolate in comparison to neighbouring countries. To avoid such high labour costs, Mondelez moved Toblerone’s production to Slovakia in 2023, imitating various international companies such as Nestlé and Barry Callebaut, that have shifted a great part of their production operations to Eastern Europe and Asia. 

    According to the 2017 “Swiss Manufacturing Survey“ from the University of St. Gallen, 46% of the interviewed firms are considering outsourcing parts of their manufacturing operations to China, Germany or Eastern Europe. 

    As a result, the Swiss manufacturing industry is seeing rising unemployment; the number of jobs has already fallen by 10% since 1990, and lower taxes from the international companies to Swiss authorities. In further development this leads to reduced purchasing power of customers and state incomes, weakening the country’s economy.  

    According to data from the Federal Statistical Office and the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, the average Swiss person earns a little over 6,750 Swiss francs (CHF) monthly whereas in France, average wages are about 2,570 CHF a month. Switzerland counts as one of the best-earning countries in the world, creating a high-quality of life for its population.  

    According to Human Development Reports, Switzerland’s Human Development Index placed first among the whole world, providing wealth, comfort, material goods and exceptional healthcare and education. 

    A strong labour market

    High productivity and competitiveness shape the Swiss labour market, said Christian Gast, chief economist at Swissrock, an asset management company based in Zurich. “Switzerland is considered to be fully employed, with only 1.3% of the entire population having no job,” he said. 

    The demand for labour results in high pay. Moreover, when people earn more, they have more money to spend on products like chocolate. 

    Another factor is the strong Swiss franc. The European Central Bank reports that the exchange rate between the Swiss franc and the euro has constantly increased from 0.87 EUR per Swiss franc in 2018 to around 1.06 EUR per Swiss franc today.

    “If you’re coming from another country, you need more of your own currency to buy a Swiss franc,” Gast said.

    But what makes the Swiss currency so strong?  

    “Our fiscal policy is strongly regulated,” Gast said. “This means the expenses of the government are largely balanced with its incomes.”

    An attractive place for money

    If there is a stable relationship between expenses and income, there is little debt result and interest rates remain low. This makes Switzerland attractive to international investors. Purchases are made within the country, boosting its economy and simultaneously its prices. 

    However, where does Switzerland’s well-working economy with excessive prices for services and products originate from? The small country in the heart of Europe with no environmental advantages developed into a financial powerhouse with banks as its mines.

    According to the Swiss Bankers Association, Swiss banks held over a quarter of all assets present in all the banks across the globe in 2018. This means that 27.5% of global revenue, amounting to US.$6.5 trillion was stored in Swiss banks. 

    “There are barely any countries with more international banks than Switzerland,” Gast said. Since World War II, countless wealthy people have chosen to store their money in Swiss banks as Switzerland has a proven track record for its secrecy, neutrality and stable political system. 

    But wouldn’t there be frustration towards such high living costs among the population? On average, prices in Switzerland are 58.4% times higher than in the rest of the countries in the European Union. Consider that in the United States, Donald Trump won a second term as president in part because he promised lower prices and affordable living costs. However, Swiss people tend to accept the high prices in the country since the quality of life is also so high.  

    Additionally, the inflation rates in Switzerland are low — the price level has been relatively constant or only increasing minimally. According to the Federal Statistical Office, inflation rates were only at 1.1% in 2024, whereas in the United States it was at 2.9% in December 2024. People in the United States are displeased with the sudden higher prices which means they want a solution to solve this. At the same time, Swiss people have not experienced a drastic change and therefore are not as keen to make prices lower.  

    As Swiss people consume around 10kg of chocolate per person each year, there’s no doubting its popularity. We are both very fond consumers of Swiss chocolate and eat at least one bar of chocolate a week. The sweetness and comforting feeling of chocolate melting on your tongue is a sensation nobody can resist. 

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  • You may not know this example of translation research, but it will have changed your life . . .

    You may not know this example of translation research, but it will have changed your life . . .

    Arguably, the most recognisable example of translational research in recent years was the swift development and rollout of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. The world was waiting for this research to meet its real-world ambition. Many members of the public would recognise that some of this research was undertaken at Oxford University and, with some exceptions, would also recognise the beneficial impact of the vaccine for both individuals and society. Following the rollout, there was even a public discussion that touched upon the idea of interdisciplinarity. How could the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine be communicated to communities who felt reluctant to have the jab or distrustful of medical science?

    However, there was another piece of research that was translated into real-world effect with serendipitous timing.

    In 2013, Professor Andrew Ellis was working at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies. Ellis had previously worked at BT, where his observations and experience suggested that the ‘capacity’ needed in the telephone infrastructure had and would increase consistently over time and was consistently underestimated. Ellis recalls an ongoing refrain of ‘surely we have enough capacity already’. This continued to be true once the copper phone lines were used to deliver data for home internet usage.

    At this point, most residential properties were on ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) internet connections. That is where copper wires are used to deliver broadband internet. Homes were typically working at speeds of around 8 megabits per second (Mbps).

    The Government had developed a strategy setting out that the majority of residential properties should be able to work at speeds of ‘at least 2 Mbps per second and 95% of the UK receiving far greater speeds (at least 24 Mbps) by 2017’. Fibre broadband was beginning to be rolled out, which used fibre optic cables to transmit data much more quickly. However, these fibre optic cables were generally only used to reach the street cabinet, with copper wires connecting the street cabinets to individual homes, restricting the broadband speed that could be achieved.

    From his previous work, Ellis could see that this ambition was neither competitive internationally nor of sufficient use long-term when demand for emerging applications was taken into account. He demonstrated that capacity was falling well below the predicted need and that the UK was slipping down the league table for connectivity in economically developed countries. Estonia, Poland, Korea and Norway were all streaking ahead.

    Ellis contacted MPs working on this strategy via the Industry and Parliament Trust. Two breakfast meetings and a dinner meeting were held to discuss the lack of ambition in the strategy. However, only the fortuitous attendance of a senior civil servant at the dinner meeting led to a policy breakthrough. Further momentum and publicity were generated by a meeting organised by the Royal Society to discuss ‘Communication networks beyond the capacity crunch’, including a presentation by Dr Andrew Lord.

    Ellis was lobbying for an increase in ambition. There was resistance to this as there was no additional money to spend on improving infrastructure outside of the spending review cycle. Ellis convinced the Government that no additional spending was needed to change the ambition. Changing a number in a policy document wouldn’t (on this occasion) cost the government any more money. (The terms ‘pure-fibre’ and ‘full-fibre’ were also coined at these meetings, meaning using fibre optics cables to the street cabinet and from the cabinet to individual homes.)

    With the Government changing their ambition, providers such as Clear Fibre, Gigaclear and BT Openreach would need to improve the infrastructure to deliver faster broadband to our homes.

    It was estimated that upgrading the whole UK to full fibre would cost £40-60 billion as part of the EU-funded Discus project. Research by the AiPT team showed that it would be closer to £8-10 billion if the network was reconfigured according to their research proposals, a one-for-one replacement of network equipment from copper to fibre-based ones. Further, research demonstrated that fibre is also more energy efficient.

    Optical networks were using about 2% of the electricity in the developing world. (Ellis explained that BT objected to this figure, stating that it was, in fact, 1.96%!) Not only was a full-fibre network faster, it was also more energy efficient. (This now pales in significance to the energy consumption that will increasingly be needed to power AI data centres.)

    BT began rolling out full-fibre broadband to 80% of the UK. In 2019, BT hired heavily for this work, much of which was completed in the first few months of 2020. The increased activity and presence of BT vans helped fuel the 5G coronavirus conspiracy!

    In a moment of serendipity, this meant that by the 23rd of March 2020, when the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced the first lockdown, there was enough access capacity for many of us to begin working at home. As we got used to Zoom and Teams, multiple people were using video calls in one household for work and homeschooling. Not only did this allow for a relatively smooth transition to remote working, but it allowed our children to continue accessing their education and for us to keep in touch with friends and family (Zoom quiz, anyone?) The societal shift to remote working, prompted by lockdowns but enabled by full-fibre, remains both contested in terms of productivity and profound in terms of impact.

    I asked Andrew what challenges he faced when trying to inform industry and policy of his research. He noted three key barriers:

    1. To impact Government policy, one needs to know the right person to talk to. There must be barriers to prevent a free-for-all lobbying system of civil servants. However, policy institutes, research impact centres and organisations such as the IPT should be able to facilitate connections when this is helpful to both parties.
    2. The second – is the structure of academic contracts. New ideas often come from, and are certainly implemented by, PhD students and Research Assistants. However, given that most research assistants are on two- or three-year contracts, their eyes are firmly on improving their CV to land the next contract. This often leads them to focus almost entirely on publications. To build good links with industry and engage in long-term strategy, longer-term job contracts are needed.
    3. Similarly, he feels a strong tension between metrics, such as 4* papers, required for REF and rapid publication of results in outlets read or attended by decision-makers in industry, where solutions are often required in months rather than years

    Whilst the success of the COVID vaccine development may have made global headlines, the work of the AiPT’s team (Andrew believes that others lobbied on the same topic, including Professor Dimitra Simeonidou at the University of Bristol, Professor Polina Bayvel CBE at University College London and Professor Sir David Payne at Southampton University) quietly allowed many of us to continue working and to be connected to our colleagues, friends, and family throughout the pandemic. Further, as Professor Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at the Jenner Institute and lead scientist on the vaccine project, explains, the ability to work remotely with trial volunteers (giving them information via video instead of in-person presentations) and collaborating with colleagues across the globe was vital in the vaccine production itself.

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  • The secret life of university applicants

    The secret life of university applicants

    In Spring 2023, 150 students from humanities and social sciences at our university stepped up to share something deeply personal -their reasons for pursuing higher education.

    Through brief, heartfelt recorded monologues, they opened a window into what university truly means to them.

    We ended up with nearly 160 pages of raw, unfiltered transcripts. Inspired by the power of verbatim theatre, where authentic dialogue bridges the gap between characters and audience, we have curated a collection of student voices.

    These firsthand accounts cut through the cliches narratives often associated with university life. Instead, they reveal the real stories, struggles, and aspirations driving students forward in today’s complex world of higher education. This is their voice, their truth, shared directly with you.

    Going to university was the scariest and the best thing

    From “screaming at the back of the car” and “crying tears of joy” to “relief” and “apprehension”, we got a glimpse into the rollercoaster of emotions students felt when they got their university acceptance letters.

    For most, it was the first big decision of their adult lives, and it was not an easy one. One student said:

    …going to university was the scariest and the best thing, the best decision, that I’ve made so far in my 19 years of existence.

    Another felt the decision to enter higher education was made:

    …not with trepidation as a reasonable person [but] with courage and self-assuredness that only ignorance and youth can bestow in such abundance.

    Dealing with such conflicting emotions is rarely simple. So, it is not a surprise that some of the surveyed students thought about dropping out, especially in their first year. They found their degrees “boring” or “very difficult” or wondered “was the amount of work something I was prepared for?”

    I’d rather pursue a passion… than end up working a job

    A recurring thread in many students’ reflections during this study was the dilemma between entering the workforce immediately or pursuing higher education. No doubt pursuing higher education is largely viewed as the “only option towards a better paying career” and a “comfortable job without a lot of physical demands”.

    While some of them questioned whether university “is worth all the debt”, most agreed that the skills acquired through higher education are crucial for getting “further in life” and earning “more than the minimum wage”.

    But their testimonies revealed other considerations that go beyond material gains and jobs prospects.

    In our survey, students made it loud and clear – it is also about the love and passion for what they do. “Studying what I truly love”, “something I’d enjoy studying every single day of my life”, and chasing that “passion and interest to grow as a person” often took priority, leaving material gains or “just getting into a certain job” in the background.

    Just working a job for working sake didn’t feel like a good use of my time.

    Students, while contemplating their future, felt that:

    …university does feel like a good safety net to hop into… [the] perfect avenue to give myself more options to explore different careers.

    We also saw several students entering higher education determined to “dig, dig, dig [to find out their] passions”.

    More than rankings

    For some students, university felt like a “clear, logical” move toward their career goals. For others, it was more than a decision – they felt it was “compulsory” or even a personal “duty”.

    There were also students who approached their university pursuits with less conviction.

    I didn’t have anything else to do, so I ended up going to university.

    I was not ready for the 9 to 5 life.

    When else in my life would I be able to just decide to move away [from home] and receive funding from the government to help me?

    Some expected higher education to create for them “a pathway towards finding some meaning in my life”. Others choose their university because its name was the same “as my great grandmother’s”.

    As we see when it comes to university studies, students bring a whole mix of ambitions to the table. So, it is no surprise that choosing a subject or a university is a deeply personal issue influenced by several factors.

    Among these, university rankings often emerged as a decisive factor. Many students associated high rankings with better career prospects, with one stating:

    …it is a lot more important where the university stands in ranking over what degree you’re doing.

    Another shared:

    I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t at least tried [to enter an Oxbridge institution]

    …highlighting the importance for them of the prestige tied to certain universities. This sentiment was echoed by another student who observed:

    …people were looked down on if they didn’t apply to Oxford and Cambridge.

    However, it is worth noting that some students in our sample cautioned against making decisions based solely on rankings. They acknowledged that prioritising rankings over programme suitability can lead to dissatisfaction.

    I realised that I can’t force myself to like a subject or excel in a subject that I don’t enjoy.

    …one student reflected, emphasising the importance of choosing a programme aligned with personal interests and strengths. Others recognised that decisions “purely because of rankings,” without considering the nature of the programme, may result in regret, as students risk enrolling in courses they ultimately dislike.

    Reading through the transcripts, it became clear that students do not make their choices in a vacuum. Instead, they are influenced by a network of factors, including family, friends, mentors, and the vast array of information available online. These influences collectively shape the way students see their future and guide their decisions.

    Family, as expected, is a primary source of influence and will be discussed in detail in a separate section. Friends, however, also play a significant role. As one student shared:

    …it feels like you are doing something big with your friends [from which you] didn’t want to be left out.

    Mentors were another important factor. One student explained:

    …before coming to university, I spoke to people who were in the positions that I wanted to be in,”

    …highlighting the impact of role models on their decisions. Additionally, many students turned to platforms like YouTube for guidance. One student described their process, saying:

    I watched so many videos… YouTube videos on people’s experiences in different towns from Manchester to London to Liverpool, to Bristol to Birmingham.

    This underscores the significant role of online content in shaping their choices.

    Surveyed students also highlighted factors such as facilities, location and the associated lifestyle as significant influences on their university decisions. One student remarked that it was more important studying in London than having a good university ranking.

    Since all students surveyed for this project were studying at a London institution, their comments frequently referenced the “dynamic lifestyle” of London, described as “the place to be” where “everything is happening”.

    For many, being in London was about more than academics. It was about the opportunity to “see new things […] and explore different cultures”, “take part in so many events”, live in a place which is “buzzing 24/7” where they can “randomly, spontaneously […] see Wicked”, reflecting the unique cultural vibrancy that London offers.

    Prospective students were looking for everything that matters to them, and this highlights the importance of providing students with proper guidance to navigate wisely the labyrinth of educational choices.

    Several students commented on the importance of universities’ open days. Initially perceived as an “excuse to have a day off school”, one student recounted that it was during an open day that university became a “real option” for them.

    Surveyed students express enthusiasm for these events, describing them as the “first actual experience” and an opportunity to “envision my new life”. During these visits, they engaged with current students and staff, feeling “the passion within the department”.

    More importantly, they feel heard. As one student remarked:

    [I got the opportunity] to talk about things that interested me with someone that was interested in hearing my perspective.

    University has given me the space to explore who I am as a person.

    To these students, university was the bridge to adulthood. It was for them the place to find “freedom” and “independence” – two words frequently encountered in the transcripts of their recordings.

    They leave home with some apprehension, that is true, but they embrace it. And they “love that element of university”, are “really excited for the independence that university promised”, and “do not regret it”. Many viewed university as the opportunity to “learn how to live life without living with your parents”. It is striking to see so many young people eager to learn

    …important life skills such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping.

    University has given me the space to explore who I am as a person.

    Expressions such as “get out of my shell”, “without hiding in the closet”, and “without feeling scrutinised by my parents” frequently appeared in the monologues. Moving away to study at university provided a unique opportunity to embrace independence.

    As one student put it, university offered the chance to “do what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, exactly when I wanted to do it”. Several of the students in this study deliberately chose universities far from home, often making these decisions “without telling my parents”.

    For the young individuals in this study, university is seen as more than just an academic journey. It represents a transformative space for personal growth. It is described as a place to “grow as a person in terms of independence, but also experiences”.

    Students also view university as a setting that provides the “freedom and encouragement to be myself, fully and unapologetically, both personally, professionally, and creatively”.

    You have to go to university… it’s what we expect you to do

    While friends, mentors, and lifestyle factors shape many aspects of students’ choices, family remains a key part of the narrative. From these monologues, we see its role as both inspiring and constraining.

    Constraining in that students appear to enter higher education out of guilt or obligation to their families.

    One student mentioned pursuing higher education studies due to “the cultural aspect and expectation within my family”, another to make “the family proud and happy despite not sharing the sentiment”, and another simply because it is “what my family wanted me to do anyway, so… I just end up doing it”.

    The desire to enter higher education was coerced by a feeling that otherwise they would have “wasted everything that my parents have done for me”, and “disappoint them”, and that “would have been the worst thing”.

    Prior academic attainment of family members was also sometimes perceived as limiting students’ choices. In terms of degree choice, students mentioned that families with a background in certain fields “wouldn’t agree with me exploring [other] degrees” and “I feel like my parents just don’t understand that there are opportunities outside of this field”.

    Other students whose families had completed higher education claimed that their decision to join university was so that they would not be the “odd one out” or to prove that ”they are not dumb”, and that their intellectual ability reflects “somehow that of my family’s or my post-code’s”.

    My mum always wanted me to have a lot more. More choice in my life and so university really allows me that.”

    Family can also serve as a source of power and inspiration, fueling students’ academic journeys. Many said their family’s academic achievements and backgrounds inspired them to join university and choose specific subjects.

    One student cited the “admiration” for their grandfather’s life and job as “primarily the reason” to choose their subject. Another passionately spoke of wanting to “follow my parents’ first steps”. Another enthusiastically praised their parent’s commitment “to spend whatever they have saved in their lives to afford what they think is important” for their children.

    It was been fascinating to see what university meant for students whose family did not attend university. To them university was the opportunity to “take advantage of opportunities many of the members of my family didn’t have”, as “it was just seen as something unattainable for us of this economic class, race and learning difficulties”.

    The dialogues shared within families hold immense power. In these intimate moments, life altering decisions often take shape. A student recalled their mother’s wisdom:

    …university is not just about getting that qualification […] It’s personal worth. And once you have that education, no one can take it away from you.

    Another reflected on the life-story of their mother, her unfinished studies, and the aspirations that span generations:

    Oh child, you know when you graduate, it’s going to be like I’m graduating as well […] which I guess is true because the amount of support that I had from my mum and my family has been like insane.

    I can go to university so I can get one step closer to my dreams.

    For some of the students surveyed, university was more than a path to knowledge – it was a journey for recognition, a way to overcome societal barriers, and to “fulfil [their] dreams in life”.

    One student said their studies will help them reach “the standing in society” they think they deserve, and will allow them “to be taken more seriously”. A student with a disability told us it is a means to “overcome low expectations that people in the society have for people like me”.

    For this student, it is their “liberation mechanism” to “escape the oppression that I felt I was facing and move my life towards a more success-oriented trajectory”.

    In their testimonies, students expressed dreams of becoming Supreme Court judges, CEOs, working in politics or international organisations. They acknowledged that without university education, as one student said,

    …I just didn’t have the confidence to dream big

    …I do feel proud when I say hey, I’m a [. . . ] student. It’s kind of nice when people are like, wow!

    Reading the transcripts felt like tuning into the unfiltered thoughts of students standing at the crossroads of their academic and professional lives. Their stories form a vivid tapestry of dreams, ambitions, and doubts about joining university each one unique, each one unfiltered.

    Our aim was not to evaluate their motivations or rank the importance of the influences they shared with us. Instead, we gave space for their voices to be heard. Because listening to these stories matters.

    It reveals the beautiful complexity behind their decisions and helps us understand them better. And perhaps, it will inspire us to create a learning environment that truly supports them, one that meets them where they are and helps them get where they are going.

    We would like to thank Lyubomir Vasilev for valuable research assistance and helpful comments and discussion. Financial support for this project was provided by the Queen Mary University of London’s Westfield Fund for Enhancing the Student Experience. Authors: Dr. Emmanouil Noikokyris, Reader in Economics and Finance Education, School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London; Emanuela Nova, Strategic Project Manager, School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London

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  • Introducing The Edge, a Breakthrough SEL and Life Skills Curriculum for Middle and High School Students

    Introducing The Edge, a Breakthrough SEL and Life Skills Curriculum for Middle and High School Students

    Los Angeles, CA — As students navigate an increasingly complex world defined by artificial intelligence, social media, and rapid technological change, the need for essential life skills has never been greater. The Edge, an innovative, research-based social-emotional and life skills curriculum, creates a dynamic and effective learning environment where middle and high school students can build the social-emotional and life-readiness skills needed to succeed in school, relationships, and life. 

    Designed in collaboration with educators and aligned with the CASEL framework, The Edge is the first curriculum to meet educators’ demands for high-quality instructional materials for SEL and life-skills readiness. The curriculum helps students cultivate communication, problem-solving, and self-awareness, as well as essential life skills like entrepreneurship, negotiation, financial literacy, and networking, to boost their academic abilities.

    “The Edge represents a paradigm shift in education,” says Devi Sahny, Founder and CEO of The Edge and Ascend Now. “It’s not just about helping students excel academically—it’s about helping them understand themselves, connect with others, and develop the resilience to face life’s challenges head-on.”

    By combining bite-sized lessons with project-based learning, The Edge creates a dynamic and effective learning environment with ready-to-use, adaptable resources educators use to help students develop both hard and soft skills. Its advanced analytics track student progress whilesaving valuable preparation time. Designed to enable educators to adapt as needed, the curriculum is flexible and requires minimal preparation to support all learning environments—asynchronous and synchronous learning, even flipped learning.

     Key highlights include:

    • Integrated Skill Framework: A robust curriculum featuring 5 pillars, 24 essential skills, and 115 modules, blending SEL with employability and life skills such as negotiation, financial literacy, and digital literacy, all aligned with CASEL, ASCA, and global educational standards.
    • Educator-Friendly Design: With over 1,000 customizable, MTSS-aligned resources, The Edge saves teachers time and effort while allowing them to adapt materials to meet their unique classroom needs.
    • Hard Skill Development Meets SEL: By engaging in activities like entrepreneurship, critical thinking, and leadership training, students develop technical proficiencies while enhancing communication, empathy, and resilience.
    • Real-Time Analytics: Advanced data tools provide administrators with actionable insights into student progress, enabling schools and districts to measure outcomes and improve program alignment with educational goals.
    • Compelling Content. The curriculum features engaging content that integrates the latest insights from learning sciences with professional writing from skilled authors affiliated with SNL, Netflix, and HBO Max. This combination guarantees that the material is educationally solid, relevant, and thought-provoking.

    The Edge immerses students in real-life, complex scenarios that challenge them to think critically, collaborate effectively, and apply social-emotional learning (SEL) to everyday situations. For example, one lesson about conflict resolution uses an actual problem that Pixar faced when allocating resources for new movies. 

    Early adopters of The Edge have reported remarkable results. The Edge was used by rising high school seniors during a three-week summer college immersion program (SCIP) at Georgetown University, which prepares high school students from underserved backgrounds to apply for college. At the end of the program, 94% reported learning important skills, and 84% said they discovered something new about themselves.

    ABOUT THE EDGE

    The Edge is the latest innovation from Ascend Now US, dba The Edge, a US-based education startup committed to increasing both college and career readiness for all students.  Sahny founded The Edge in the US after building and scaling Ascend Now Singapore, which has provided personalized academic and entrepreneurship tutoring to over 10,000 students and 20+ international schools over the last decade. 

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  • How Spokane Public Schools is helping kids engage in real life

    How Spokane Public Schools is helping kids engage in real life

    Key points:

    Social media has connected kids like never before, but what they get in likes and shares, they lose in real, meaningful engagement with their peers and classmates. Lunch hours are spent hunched over smartphones, and after-school time means less sports and more Snapchat.

    The adverse effects of this excessive screen time have significantly impacted students’ social- emotional health. Forty-one percent of teens with the highest social media usage struggle with mental health issues, and between 2010 and 2020, anxiety among adolescents skyrocketed by 106 percent.

    At Spokane Public Schools (SPS), educators and administrators are reversing the side effects of social media by re-connecting with students through school-based extracurricular activities. Through its transformative Engage IRL (Engage in Real Life) initiative, the district is encouraging kids to get off their devices and onto the pickleball court, into the swimming pool, and outside in the fresh air. With more than 300 clubs and sports to choose from, SPS students are happier, healthier, and less likely to reach for their smartphones.

    An innovative approach to student engagement

    Even before the pandemic, SPS saw levels of engagement plummet among the student population, especially in school attendance rates, due in part to an increase in mental health issues caused by social media. Rebuilding classroom connections in the era of phone-based childhoods would require district leaders to think big.

    “The question was not ‘How do we get kids off their phones?’ but ‘How do we get them engaged with each other more often?’” said Ryan Lancaster, executive director of communications for SPS. “Our intent was to get every kid, every day, involved in something positive outside the school day and extend that community learning past the classroom.” 

    To meet the district’s goal of creating a caring and connected community, in 2022, school leaders formed a workgroup of parents, community members, coaches, and teachers to take inventory of current extracurriculars at all district schools and identify gaps in meeting students’ diverse interests and hobbies.

    Engaging with students was a top priority for workgroup members. “The students were excited to be heard,” explained Nikki Otero Lockwood, SPS board president. “A lot of them wanted an art club. They wanted to play board games and learn to knit. No matter their interests, what they really wanted was to be at school and be connected to others.”

    Working with community partners and LaunchNW, an Innovia Foundation initiative focused on helping every child feel a sense of belonging, SPS launched Engage IRL–an ambitious push to turn students’ ideas for fun and fulfillment into real-life, engaging activities.

    Over the past two years, Engage IRL has been the catalyst for increasing access and opportunities for K-12 students to participate in clubs, sports, arts activities, and other community events. From the Math is Cool Club and creative writing classes to wrestling and advanced martial arts, kids can find a full range of activities to join through the Elite IRL website. In addition, five engagement navigators in the district help connect families and students to engagement opportunities through individual IRL Plans and work with local organizations to expand programming.

    “All day, every day, our navigators are working to break down barriers and tackle challenges to make sure nothing gets in the way of what kids want to be involved in and engaged in,” said Stephanie Splater, executive director of athletics and activities for SPS. “For example, when we didn’t have a coach for one of the schools in our middle school football program, our navigators mobilized for really good candidates in a short amount of time just from their personal outreach.”

    In only two years, student engagement in extracurriculars has nearly doubled. Furthermore, according to Lancaster, since the Engage IRL launch, SPS hasn’t experienced a day where it dipped below 90 percent attendance. 

    “That’s an outlier in the past few years for us, for sure, and we think it’s because kids want to be at school. They want to be engaged and be part of all the cool things we’re doing. We’ve had a really great start to the 2024-2025 school year, and Engage IRL has played a huge role.”

    Engage IRL also helped SPS weather student blowback when the district launched a new cell phone policy this year. The policy prohibits cell phone use in elementary and middle school and limits it to lunch and periods between classes for high school students. Because students were already building personal connections with classmates and teachers through Engage IRL, many easily handled social media withdrawal.

    Creating opportunities for all kids

    Key to Engage IRL’s success was ensuring partnerships and programs were centered in equity, allowing every child to participate regardless of ability, financial or transportation constraints, or language barriers.

    Establishing a no-cut policy in athletics by creating additional JV and C teams ensured kids with a passion for sports, but not college-level skills, continued to compete on the court or field. Partnering with Special Olympics also helped SPS build new unified sports programs that gave children with disabilities a chance to play. And engagement navigators are assisting English language learners and their families in finding activities that help them connect with kids in their new country.

    For Otero Lockwood, getting her daughter with autism connected to clubs after years of struggling to find school activities has been life-changing.

    “There are barriers to finding community for some kids,” she shared. “We know kids with disabilities are more likely to be underemployed as adults and not as connected to the community. This is something we have the power to do that will have a lasting impact on the children we serve.”

    Through Engage IRL, SPS has redefined student engagement by expanding access and opportunity to 6,000 students across 58 schools. In just two short years, the district has seen attendance increase, student wellness improve, and dependence on smartphones diminish. By continuing to listen to the needs of students and rallying the community to partner on out-of-school activities, Spokane Public Schools is successfully fostering the face-to-face connections every child needs to thrive.

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  • Butterflies and Biology for Life

    Butterflies and Biology for Life

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    When I was in sixth grade, my homeroom teacher brought monarch caterpillars into our classroom. One of our homework assignments was to walk around our backyard and find milkweed (the only kind of plant monarch caterpillars eat) to feed our caterpillars. Now, over 25 years later, I still clearly remember the excitement of hunting around in my backyard to find milkweed and checking every day to see the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly.

    You might say that raising monarch caterpillars gave me the bug to want to be a biologist.

    An early interest in biology sparks a lifelong dedication

    As the years went by, my interest in biology didn’t wane. In college, molecular biology became my primary focus area. During graduate school and beyond, I trained in both molecular biology and the learning sciences, settling into a career in biology education. I taught Non-Majors and Majors Biology while running a research lab dedicated to understanding how people learn biology.

    A lack of enthusiasm from students

    When I taught Non-Majors Biology, I noticed a concerning trend among my students: All in all, they didn’t like biology.

    That may be too gentle. The comments from an “introduce yourself” activity that I use in the first week of class revealed that most of my students were either afraid to take a biology class, thought the subject was boring, or didn’t think they could succeed at it. Some people even flat-out admitted they hated the subject.

    Now, as a self-professed biology nerd, those comments took me aback. As a learning sciences researcher, I wanted to know why there were such pervasive negative feelings about biology. As a biology educator, I wanted to know what to do about it.

    A common point of view

    Negative perceptions around biology are common, driving people away from engaging with the big biology issues we face today. Lack of knowledge around scientific topics can make it easier to be duped by misinformation, leading one to potentially make decisions against their own best interests. We see this with issues ranging from climate change to vaccines.

    Acknowledging that biology is all around us is important not only because it enriches our lives, but because it’s also important to the health and welfare of our society. Biology is everywhere, and engagement starts with reimagining how we think about biology’s role in our lives. It’s about reigniting wonder and emphasizing  relevance. It’s about giving students the chance to learn biological material in a way that makes sense to them. When we start to make connections between the classroom and the real world,  it becomes easier to engage with bigger concepts and ideas.

    Connecting biology to the everyday

    Let’s look at hand washing, as an example of how to relate lipid biochemistry to our everyday routines.

    Okay, fine, we all know we’re supposed to do it, and yet nasty microorganisms like norovirus (transmitted mainly by the fecal-oral route, ahem) still tend to spread rampantly. Isn’t hand sanitizer sufficient? Or Lysol? The soap dispenser is out again — does it matter?

    According to the Centers for Disease Control, hand sanitizer doesn’t work well against norovirus. Think of norovirus as wearing a protective coat — hand sanitizer doesn’t penetrate, and since the virus doesn’t readily dry out on surfaces, it remains ready to infect on the surface of the skin. In order to effectively remove the virus, you have to use soap and water and rub your hands together. Why?

    Soap particles have water-repellant and water-loving components. Those water-repellant portions, combined with rubbing your hands back in forth, causes the virus to break apart. The soap particles surround the bits of virus, and water washes it away.

    If I talked about the structure of soap as a fatty acid with a carboxylic acid functional group, sodium ion, and fatty acid tail, and how with other fatty acids, it forms a micelle in water, students’ eyes would glaze over. On the contrast, breaking down the basics of why hand-washing works to illustrate the biochemistry proves far more interesting.

    Impacting student perceptions

    When biological principles are applied to our daily lives, they become inherently interesting. When students realize they can understand the biological principles behind their daily experiences, it becomes accessible. By viewing biology through a personal lens, students learn to appreciate rather than hate the subject.

    When students see biology everywhere, as an integral part of their lives, they are more likely to engage. As they engage, they realize they can understand biology, and that it’s actually interesting.

    Think back to the opening example — my homework was looking in my backyard for milkweed to feed to the classroom caterpillars. Biology was relatable and accessible and that made it exciting. That’s the driving framework behind my biology education practice. I always consider the relevancy in students’ lives as the main touchstone in my teaching practice.

    What is something that you can do in your classroom to bring your own excitement about the material in? What kind of real-world examples can you bring into your classroom? Come tell me about it on social media!

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    Written by Dr. Melanie Peffer, Teaching Assistant Professor and Research Scientist Level II at the University of Colorado Boulder, and author of “Biology for Life: A Guide to Our Living World,” 1e.

     

    Interested in this first edition text for your biology course? Look for Peffer’s first edition text, “Biology for Life: A Guide to Our Living World,” 1e coming spring, 2025, and check out other available biology titles on the discipline page. 



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  • A short college course for students’ life, academic skills

    A short college course for students’ life, academic skills

    While many students experience growing pains in the transition from high school to college, today’s learners face an extra challenge emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students experienced learning loss in K-12 as a result of distance learning, which has stunted their readiness to engage fully in academia.

    Three faculty members in the communications division at DePaul University noticed a disconnect in their own classrooms as they sought to connect with students. They decided to create their own intervention to address learners’ lack of communication and self-efficacy skills.

    Since 2022, DePaul has offered a two-credit communication course that assists students midway through the term and encourages reflection and goal setting for future success. Over the past four terms, faculty members have seen demonstrated change in students’ self-perceptions and commitment to engage in long-term success strategies.

    The background: Upon returning to in-person instruction after the pandemic, associate professor Jay Baglia noticed students still behaved as though their classes were one-directional Zoom calls, staring blankly or demonstrating learned helplessness from a lack of deadlines and loose attendance policies.

    “We were seeing a greater proportion of students who were not prepared for the college experience,” says Elissa Foster, professor and faculty fellow of the DePaul Humanities Center.

    Previous research showed that strategies to increase students’ collaboration and participation in class positively impacted engagement, helping students take a more active role in their learning and classroom environment.

    The faculty members decided to create their own workshop to equip students with practical tools they can use in their academics and their lives beyond.

    How it works: Offered for the first time in fall 2022, the Communication Fundamentals for College Success course is a two-credit, five-week course that meets for two 90-minute sessions a week, for a total of 10 meetings. The class is housed in the College of Communication but available to all undergraduate students.

    The course is co-taught and was developed by Foster and Kendra Knight, associate professor in the college of communication and an assessment consultant for the center for teaching and learning. Guest speakers from advising and the Office of Health Promotion and Wellness provide additional perspective.

    (from left to right) Jay Baglia, Elissa Foster and Kendra Knight developed a short-form course to support students’ capabilities in higher education and give them tools for future success.

    Aubreonna Chamberlain/DePaul University

    Course content includes skills and behaviors taught in the context of communication for success: asking for help, using university resources, engaging in class with peers and professors, and learning academic software. It also touches on more general behaviors like personal awareness, mindfulness, coping practices, a growth mindset, goal setting and project management.

    The demographics of students enrolled in the course vary; some are transfers looking for support as they navigate a university for the first time. Others are A students who wanted an extra course in their schedule. Others are juniors or seniors hoping to gain longer-term life skills to apply to their internships or their lives as professionals and find work-life balance.

    Throughout the course, students turned in regular reflection exercises for assessment and the final assignment was a writing assignment to identify three tools that they will take with them beyond this course.

    What’s different: One of the challenges in launching the course was distinguishing its goals from DePaul’s Chicago Quarter, which is the first-year precollege experience. Baglia compares the college experience to taking an international vacation: While you might have a guidebook and plan well for the experience beforehand, once you’re in country, you face challenges you didn’t anticipate or may be overwhelmed.

    Orientation is the guidebook students receive before going abroad, and the Communication for Success Class is their tour guide along the way.

    “I think across the country, universities and college professors are recognizing that scaffolding is really the way to go, particularly with first-generation college students,” Baglia says. “They don’t always have the language or the tools or the support or the conversations at home that prepare them for the strangeness of living on their own [and navigating higher education].”

    A unique facet of the course is that it’s offered between weeks three and seven in the semester, starting immediately after the add-drop period concludes and continuing until midterms. This delayed-start structure means the students enrolled in the course are often looking for additional credits to keep their full-time enrollment status, sometimes after dropping a different course.

    The timing of the course also requires a little time and trust, because most students register for it later, not during the course registration period. Baglia will be teaching the spring 2025 term and, as of Jan. 10, he only has two students registered.

    “It has not been easy convincing the administrators in our college to give it some time … Students have to register for this class [later],” Baglia says.

    The results: Foster, Knight and Baglia used a small grant to study the effects of the intervention and found, through the data, a majority of students identified time management and developing a growth mindset as the tools they want to keep working on, with just under half indicating self-care and 40 percent writing about classroom engagement.

    In their essays, students talked about mapping out their deadlines for the semester or using a digital calendar to stay on top of their schedules. Students also said they were more likely to view challenges as opportunities for growth or consider their own capabilities as underdeveloped, rather than stagnant or insufficient.

    The intervention has already spurred similar innovation within the university, with the College of Science and Health offering a similar life skills development course.

    Course organizers don’t have plans to scale the course at present, but they are considering ways to collect more data from participants after they finish the course and compare that to the more general university population.

    Get more content like this directly to your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe to the Student Success newsletter here.

    This article has been updated to clarify the course is housed in the College of Communication.

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  • Joe Biden Commutes Life Sentence of Indigenous Activist Leonard Peltier (APTN News)

    Joe Biden Commutes Life Sentence of Indigenous Activist Leonard Peltier (APTN News)

    From Minnesota Public Radio News

    In one of his last official acts before leaving the White House, President Joe Biden released Leonard Peltier from prison. The action is an extraordinary move that ends a decades-long push by Indigenous activists, international religious leaders, human rights organizations who argued that the 80-year-old Native American activist was wrongly convicted.

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