Sports & Education: Pros and Cons

This is an ongoing debate. One that requires serious study and more empirical studies. One that is very important given the money and time pour society spends on sports.  As CPA, CFA and MBA tutors our focus is on helping students with finance, accounting, statistics, etc but we also want to help them truly evolve as individuals. So we do encourage sports as we believe it builds various aspects of personality in individuals.

Here is an excellent article on this topic. It does not provide any statistics or facts but is an excellent and entertaining read drawing on the authors own experience and some classic history. Recommended read for all tutors and not just CPA, CFA and MBA tutors.

Yes to Open Source Textbooks

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg’s is proposing funding  to bring digital open source textbooks to California. We say Yes to open source text books. Costs of education have been going up in the country and anything to help students lower the costs of education is a move in the right direction. It will be better for the economy and country in the long run.

Why is this limited to California!? All other states need this too.

 

Improving learning: Especially Online Learning

GraduateTutor’s mission is simply to ‘Make Learning Easier”.  Currently we do this by provide private tutoring which is one one one to students around the country and other parts of the world. As online learning has exploded, there has been a lot of debate about the quality of learning provided by the hundreds of online universities, online learning institutes, services, websites and programs. It currently is far from perfect but it is something that will keep getting better. Robert Connor has written about parts of this debate in a recent article in the Chronicle. We are glad that there is more discussion on this topic and investments being made.

While there is still no clarity or agreement on the best way forward, we are very sure that we tremendously increase the quality of learning online with private tutoring. Its definitely very valuable and effective. It however, is not very scalable  like most things done one-on-one. The question is should something like this be scalable!? Can it exist over the long term without being scalable?

 

Learning Online Advances further with more innovation from MIT

MIT has just launched MITx. MITx will be a learning platform that hosts a number of MIT courses online. It will be interactive and free to students from around the world. MITx will also enable students to grade themselves on the subjects too. What is truly innovate IMHO is that they will allow student to show their mastery over a subject to get a certificate of completion (although not from MIT to distinguish and presumably not to diminish the value of their on campus programs!). This is moving towards competence based education rather than time based education.

MIT has been in the forefront of open course ware or OCW since its launch 10 years ago. They are taking it even further with the launch of MITx, an initiative led by MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif.  MIT deserves significant praise for their efforts in freeing up education.

We at GraduateTutor.com are on standby to assist students who may need some private tutoring to master the subjects of choice.

Support for students with Learning Disabilities

The WSJ has an interesting article on students with disabilities. You can see from the large number of comments that this is a sensitive topic!

GraduateTutor.com has always supported MBA, CPA and CFA students with learning disabilities with tutoring support. We will continue to expand our skills in this area and are actively exploring this subject. Do let us know if we can be of assistance.

Honest thinking from Warren Buffett: Taxation

Taxation is a sensitive topic (so is tax tutoring – if we may add a little). It’s not often that you hear someone say ‘tax me some more’! And it’s not often that you come across someone who thinks honestly. Warren Buffett is truly someone who thinks honestly. Be it disputing finance theory or saying ‘tax me some more’!

Here is an excellent article by Warren Buffett in which he says that he is paying far less taxes (as a percentage of his income) than most people and that the rich should and can afford to pay more taxes. This has been his position for sometime now but this is the first time I’m seeing it documented with facts in a newspaper.

Critics may say that Warren Buffett is over simplifying taxation. US taxation is a complex legislation and applying it to over 300 million people uniformly is not easy. However, Warren Buffett’s main point is that the rich are paying less taxes (as a percentage of income) than most people including the poor. The rich should and can afford to pay more taxes. And this can be changed by removing the benefits given to the rich (including lower taxes on capital gains) without hurting the economy.

We need more people like Warren Buffett!

PS: Please give us 5 minutes to expand on this topic, if you are doing tax tutoring with us 🙂

Free tuition with the “Illinois Back to Work” program

This is wonderful news and so we thought we must share it with our readers. Benedictine University is helping people out of work study – tuition free. More specifically, they are offering to cover students’  tuition and fees after all eligible state and federal aid is applied. Yes, there are limitations. The “Illinois Back to Work” program is only limited to  Illinois residents and qualified applicants must be 25 or older. They must have been unemployed for at least 18 months and have not already earned a bachelor’s degree. This is not an offer for all but is still a welcome example. Thank you to all the wonderful people at Benedictine University.

“The people who are out of work right now were at one time employed. Their tax money helped build the education system throughout this country. It’s now time for higher education to give back,”  – William Carroll, President, Benedictine University

Please pass this along so more people will follow Benedictine’s example and those in need of support can become aware and get help if they qualify.  If you are aware of other programs like this, please let us know so that we can spread the word too.

Get your paper graded by a computer!

Jeffrey R. Young writes about external graders and even computers grading papers and assignment in some universities. The two examples provided are not business schools. Read the full article here. Its very interesting and brings out some great points in support for the practice. I especially agree that it will reduce the grade inflation. See if you spot an issue here.

Grades over time
Do you spot a trend here?

Source: chronicle.com

I wonder if this is something we will see more of in business schools! With more MBA schools opting for non disclosure of grades, this may be less of an issue for students and more of an issue with faculty. What do you think?

Education for all

As MBA tutors, we are part of the entire education system. Although our current focus is limited to tutoring MBA, CPA, CFA students and other professionals, education overall is close to our hearts and one that we track.  Gordon Brown has been an ambassador of education for all. He spoke recently about an unfulfilled education promise of the developed world.

According to the report “Education for all: Beating poverty, unlocking prosperity,” improved access to schools and increased learning achievement could increase per-capita income growth in the poorest countries by 2%.  The report estimates that every $1 invested in education would generate $10-$15 in returns through higher growth.

We are glad that Gordon Brown is becoming an active advocate for education. We believe that there needs to be a drastic change in one or more spheres of life to be able to fulfill this promise of global education. It may be a technological breakthrough with prices of computers dropping and internet accessibility increasing, or may be a new learning or cultural system.

Data analysis: Evidence of ‘Statistics is everywhere’!

Data analysis is everywhere. In-fact, our Statistics Tutor Group’s moto is really ‘Statistics is everywhere’!  Here is more evidence (pun intended 😉

This excellent piece by Ed Young in the Discover Magazine blog shows how statistics can be applied everywhere!  Ed uses statistics to show that even judges with all their intellectual powers and years of training and testing, are subject to the limitations of a human mind. Read the full article but for MBA statistics students these two graphs will be encouraging.

Presenting evidence with data analysis
Presenting evidence with data analysis and statistics

As our statistics tutors will emphasis, please understand the statistical methodology and the data source and circumstances to get the full picture.

Data analysis - Statistical Tutoring evidence
Using data analysis and statistics

Our statistics tutoring group provides MBA and other graduate level students with private tutoring in data analysis. As a statistics tutoring team we celebrate and cheer on writers and thinkers like Ed Young who apply statistics in everyday settings.