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An online course for women in science, engineering and technology jobs (SET) that helps them return to work after a break has been praised by one of its organisers. Run by the UKRC and Open University, the course aimed to address the issue of the large number of women who fail to return to their career and stem the gender gap in the industry. While many participants returned to their SET career, author of a report into the course, Clem Herman from the Open University, said that many soft outcomes also came about from the project, such as increased confidence and self esteem.

This week we offer an oxymoron of sorts: extreme humility. We suppose that one candidate could be more humble than the next, but one could never refer to oneself as “extremely humble,” because doing so would undermine the very claim to humility.

Our philosophy at mbaMission is that candidates should let their experiences captivate the admissions committees. Sometimes we find that instead, candidates attempt to emphasize their actions with “extreme” adjectives and adverbs—an approach we strongly advise against.

In these two sentences, the writer uses the descriptors remarkably, dramatically, wildly and tremendous to make his impression. We find that a more effective approach is to eliminate these “extreme” descriptions and let the experiences do the “talking.”

In this second example, we do not need to be told that the results were “tremendous,” because the $1M speaks for itself; we do not need to be told that the marketing campaign was “wildly creative,” because this is implied in the nature of guerilla marketing. In addition to truly showing a

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The job of a teacher is ideal for a parent as it has someone working during normal school day hours. This allows teachers to pick their children up from school (or soon after) and still maintain a career with school-age children. However, it is always hard to juggle a career and be a parent, no matter the occupations. These helpful tips will keep your time organized and your mind free to be productive and happy with your family.

Image Via Flickr

Short Term and Long-Term Planning

As a teacher, you have a lot of responsibilities in terms of planning. That same responsibility resides at home, too. Use a large planner that allows you to organize your career and your family’s chores in the same place. Read more…

The Denver Post recently analyzed the cost of taxpayer subsidies to teacher unions in the 20 largest districts in Colorado and found they added up to more than $1M per year. In many places across the country, school districts pay some or all of the salary and benefits of union presidents and other functionaries who dont teach for a single hour. The fact that the practice is common doesnt make it impossible to change, however:

Douglas County Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, who started in June 2010, said she cut the districts payments to union members nearly in half last spring and will end the extra spending altogether in January.

Id rather not make comments on the past, Celania-Fagen said. Going forward, my responsibility is to do whats right for our students in these economic circumstances and to be accountable for taxpayer dollars.

Its difficult to make an argument that taxpayers should be directly subsidizing union leaders. Organized labor already extracts indirect subsidies by skimming dues from teachers paychecks, sometimes against the desires of teachers.

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At the beginning of the current school year I had a chance to talk with Peter Robinson, the Director of Information Technology for the Auburn school department in Maine. With the support and help of his district and some federal money, Robinson’s staff is pioneering the use of iPads in the classroom–in kindergarten to be precise. The pilot program began last spring. A literacy specialist in the district was having trouble getting through to some children. They weren’t responding to conventional or even unconventional methods, so she thought outside the box and brought her iPad in to school. Loaded with a select a few educational apps, it allowed her opportunities to reach children who had been untouched by other efforts. It allowed them learning opportunities that they just weren’t open to by other means. It also sparked many conversations in the right places, and at the right time.