News and Updates

STARLINK is thrilled to present an "All-Star" lineup for your November professional development training.

40 million adults in America have some college, but no degree. Only 11% of business leaders "strongly agree" that students have the requisite skills for the workforce, whereas 96% of chief academic officers believe that their institutions are "very effective" or "somewhat effective" at preparing students for the work world. Students are beginning to question the return on their higher education investments, while the price of attaining a college degree continues to rise. This perfect storm has paved the way for competency-based education (CBE). But what is it? How will it impact your institution? What are the challenges, benefits, and best practices for CBE?

STARLINK interviewed a wide range of experts addressing this new and disruptive trend, competency-based education (CBE). Our experts discussed faculty/student impact, challenges, and best practices regarding CBE.

Additionally, STARLINK is releasing a spectacular program from our leadership series called "Successful Time Management Training". Dr. Rob Cavanna of Resource Training & Solutions shows you how to take control of your life, learn the myths of time management, and how to best prioritize your activities.

"It is about the difference 'competency-based education' is making in lives of students and the transformation that is occurring in higher education." -Dr. Christine Seifert

Got Skills? Why Online Competency-Based Education Is the Disruptive Innovation for Higher Education

By: Michelle R. Weise

There's an elegance to the term disruptive innovation-an elegance that also, unfortunately, leads to broad misuse of the phrase. It's no wonder that former Intel CEO Andy Grove advised Clayton Christensen-who coined the term in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma-to instead name his theory "the Christensen Effect."

So, what exactly is disruptive innovation? A disruptive innovation explains why many companies have difficulty sustaining success. In business, companies tend to innovate faster than their customers' needs evolve. Most of them thus end up producing sustaining innovations in order to drive up prices by making better products or services for the best customers. The countervailing disruptive innovations, meanwhile, drive prices down. In aggregate, these two vectors-sustaining innovations and disruptive innovations-keep prices in line.

Retention in the Trenches

What can you do in your own classroom to keep students on track?

By: Rob Jenkins

Anyone who has worked at a community college for more than a few years knows that the current emphasis on "college completion" is really just a repackaging of an age-old concern: retention. Essentially, the question before us is: How do we keep students in our classrooms and on our campuses long enough for them to either transfer or earn a credential?

That's a question two-year colleges have been asking for decades. What's changed lately is that many states are now factoring retention - or "completion rates" - into their funding formulas, which raises the stakes for colleges even higher.

My 5 Favorite Google Sheets Add-ons & How to Use Them

By: Richard Byrne

The addition of Add-ons to Google Sheets has made it easier than ever before to take advantage of the flexibility of spreadsheets. Even people, like me, who have struggled with spreadsheets in the past can accomplish a lot with the help of Google Sheets Add-ons. The following are my favorite Google Sheets Add-ons.

The "how-to" advice that you can implement right away!

Teaching Tips are brief programs that will help you tackle classroom challenges. They are Free to all educators.

Teaching Tips - Who's Responsible

News and Updates

Got Skills? Why Online Competency-Based Education Is the Disruptive Innovation for Higher Education

Retention in the Trenches

What can you do in your own classroom to keep students on track?

My 5 Favorite Google Sheets Add-ons & How to Use Them

STARLINK Teaching Tip