What They Didn’t Teach You in School: Lessons for STEM Students and Professionals Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education has been described as, “drinking from a firehose.” STEM students are required to absorb an overwhelming amount of technical information before they can earn their undergraduate degrees. But it takes more than a thorough understanding of math, science, and engineering concepts to become successful in today’s job market. NASA’s former Chief Knowledge Officer, Roger Forsgren, was responsible for training the agency’s technical workforce and provides critical lessons learned for STEM students and graduates to build successful careers as they compete in today’s workplace. Being an introvert in an extroverts’ world: You may certainly be the smartest person in the room but that may not be enough to convince a client, make a persuasive presentation, or effectively manage others. Learn how to remain in your comfort zone yet still make a compelling impact by becoming an ambivert. Communication Skills: How to get your point across and express yourself in a cogent, concise manner. How to make yourself heard, and respected, in a group of experienced professionals. Critical Thinking: Avoid jumping to conclusions by training yourself to look beyond the obvious for the real clues to a problem or situation. Ethics: STEM professionals possess unique skills, but such technical expertise also requires a sense of personal responsibility ensuring your talents are being put to the best use for yourself and for society. Case studies have proven to be valuable learning tools and Roger Forsgren includes twelve compelling historical case studies that demonstrate the critical knowledge needed for STEM students as they progress through their careers.

What will it take to achieve President Obama’s higher education completion agenda? The United States, long considered to have the best higher education in the world, now ranks eleventh in the proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree. As other countries have made dramatic gains in degree attainment, the U.S. has improved more slowly. In response, President Obama recently laid out a national “completion agenda” with the goal of making the U.S. the best-educated nation in the world by the year 2020. Getting to Graduation explores the reforms that we must pursue to recover a position of international leadership in higher education as well as the obstacles to those reforms. This new completion agenda puts increased pressure on institutions to promote student success and improve institutional productivity in a time of declining public revenue. In this volume, scholars of higher education and public policymakers describe promising directions for reform. They argue that it is essential to redefine postsecondary education and to consider a broader range of learning opportunities—beyond the research university and traditional bachelor degree programs—to include community colleges, occupational certificate programs, and apprenticeships. The authors also emphasize the need to rethink policies governing financial aid, remediation, and institutional funding to promote degree completion.

Organizations face increasing cybersecurity attacks that threaten their sensitive data, systems, and existence; but there are solutions. Experts recommend cybersecurity training and general awareness learning experiences as strategic necessities; however, organizations lack cybersecurity training planning, implementation, and optimization guidance. Cybersecurity Training: A Pathway to Readiness addresses the demand to provide cybersecurity training aligned with the normal flow of IT project delivery and technology operations. Cybersecurity Training combines best practices found in standards and frameworks like ITIL technology management, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, ISO risk, quality and information security management systems, and the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Trainers will appreciate the approach that builds on the ADDIE model of instructional design, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Thought, and Kirkpatrick’s Model of Evaluation, a trilogy of training best practices. Readers learn to apply this proven project-oriented training approach to improve the probability of successful cybersecurity awareness and role-based training experiences. The reader is guided to initiate, plan, design, develop, pilot, implement and evaluate training and learning, followed by continual improvement sprints and projects. Cybersecurity Training prepares trainers, project managers, and IT security professionals to deliver and optimize cybersecurity training so that organizations and its people are ready to prevent and mitigate cybersecurity threats leading to more resilient organizations.

A group of eminent software developers gathered at a Colorado ski lodge in 2001, codifying The Agile Manifesto, a philosophy for efficiently accomplishing technical work. In this accessible, real-world-example-laden, and unexpectedly entertaining book, The Agile Enterprise explains how to apply The Agile Manifesto's ideas company-wide. The wisdom imparted in The Agile Enterprise teaches students to decompose large problems into manageable chunks, helps managers find their value among self-managing teams, and enables executives to measure and recognize success in their own Agile Enterprises.

Your guide to making a whole-school move toward personalized learning Give students the freedom to map their own educational pathways and help them meet graduation standards! This book illustrates how to support students to take advantage of resources from the community, colleges, virtual platforms, and creative outlets to design their own education. Readers will: Hear from educators who have successfully steered schools toward personalized learning Get specific tips to help your entire staff implement key processes and measure outcomes Find answers to the big questions that threaten success Use models of prompts and rubrics to get your pilot program started Personalized Learning gives you solid, flexible tools to enhance your school’s depth and generate successful outcomes. "With a sharp eye for detail, Clarke reminds us that students can and must make their own sense of the world, but to do so, they need smart and flexible frameworks, the company of attentive adults, and lots of back and forth about the important big ideas." —Larry Myatt, Founder and President The Education Resources Consortium

High-impact strategies to improve student outcomes Based on first-hand experiences from one of the world’s fastest improving school systems, this comprehensive resource provides concrete, detailed, and research-based tools with particular attention to learning progressions. Scaffolded instruction and leadership strategies promote early and sound foundations in literacy and numeracy, build pathways to close achievement gaps, and emphasize character and citizenship development, among other strategies, to improve graduation rates. You’ll also find: A multi-pronged approach that includes state, district and school level action points Sample tools and templates for planning and self-assessment Lessons learned from schools that have successfully implemented strategies