Inclusive teaching is not condescending or fake. Rather, it’s a realization that traditional pedagogical methods — traditionally applied — have not served all of our students well. It’s a commitment to put actual substance behind our cheerful declarations that all students deserve access to higher education. Mumbling about “snowflakes” accomplishes nothing but further entrenching ineffective and unskillful practices. The beauty of inclusive pedagogy is that, rather than making special accommodations that would decrease equity, it actually benefits all students, not just those at whose needs it was originally aimed.
So what is inclusive pedagogy? It is a mind-set, a teaching-and-learning worldview, more than a discrete set of techniques. But that mind-set does value specific practices which, research suggests, are effective for a mix of students. More specifically:
It values course design. Inclusive teaching asks us to critically examine not just the way we teach on a day-to-day basis, but the prep work and organization we do before the course begins. Does our course design — including assigned readings, assessments, and daily activities — reflect a diverse array of identities and perspectives? Am I having my students read a bunch of monographs, all authored by white males, for example? And if I am, what am I telling students about how knowledge is produced in my field, and more important, about who is producing it?
Even such quotidian practices as in-class videos or case studies ought to be examined. What types of people do my students see when they watch a video featuring an expert in my discipline? Do the experts look like my students? In my teaching, am I mostly relying on one pedagogical method, where I might be able to connect with a wider array of students by differentiating the types of instruction I use? What assumptions am I making about my students’ prior experiences and educational opportunities when I ask questions in class or design my exams?
Spigner is one of a rapidly growing number of college students seeking mental health treatment on campuses facing an unprecedented demand for counseling services. Between 2009 and 2015, the number of students visiting counseling centers increased by about 30% on average, while enrollment grew by less than 6%, the Center for Collegiate Mental Health found in a 2015 report. Students seeking help are increasingly likely to have attempted suicide or engaged in self-harm, the center found. In spring 2017, nearly 40% of college students said they had felt so depressed in the prior year that it was difficult for them to function, and 61% of students said they had “felt overwhelming anxiety” in the same time period, according to an American College Health Association survey of more than 63,000 students at 92 schools.)
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But most counseling centers are working with limited resources. The average university has one professional counselor for every 1,737 students — fewer than the minimum of one therapist for every 1,000 to 1,500 students recommended by the International Association of Counseling Services. Some counselors say they are experiencing “battle fatigue” and are overwhelmed by the increase in students asking for help. “It’s a very different job than it was 10 years ago,” says Lisa Adams Somerlot, president of the American College Counseling Association and director of counseling at the University of West Georgia.
As colleges try to meet the growing demand, some students are slipping through the cracks due to long waits for treatment and a lasting stigma associated with mental health issues. Even if students ask for and receive help, not all cases can be treated on campus. Many private-sector treatment programs are stepping in to fill that gap, at least for families who can afford steep fees that may rise above $10,000 and may not be covered by health insurance. But especially in rural areas, where options for off-campus care are limited, universities are feeling pressure to do more.
From DSC: While it was great to see more Augmented Reality (AR) apps in education and to see Apple putting more emphasis again on educational-related endeavors, I’m doubtful that the iPad is going to be able to dethrone the Chromebooks. Apple might have better results with a system that can be both a tablet device and a laptop and let students decide which device to use and when.
At Apple’s education event in Chicago on Tuesday, augmented reality stood at the head of the class among the tech giant’s new offerings for the classroom.
The company showcased a number of ARKit-enabled apps that promise to make learning more immersive. For example, the AR mode for Froggipedia, expected to launch on March 30 for $3.99 on the App Store, will allow students to view and dissect a virtual frog’s anatomy. And a new update to the GeoGebra app brings ARKit support to math lessons.
Meanwhile, the Free Rivers app from the World Wildlife Federation enables students to explore miniature landscapes and learn about various ecosystems around the world.
In addition, as part of its Everyone Can Code program, Apple has also updated its Swift Playgrounds coding app with ARKit support, enabling students to begin learning to code via an ARKit module, according to a report from The Verge.
[The 3/27/18] Apple event in Chicago was about more than just showing off new hardware and software in the classroom — the company was reasserting itself as a major player in education. The category has long been a lynchpin in Apple’s strategy — something that Steve Jobs held near and dear.
Any ’80s kid will tell you that Apple was a force to be reckoned with — Apple computers were mainstays in computer labs across the country. It’s always been a good fit for a company focused on serving creators, bringing that extra bit of pizzazz to the classroom. In recent years, however, there’s been a major shift. The Chromebook has become the king of the classroom, thanks in no small part to the inexpensive hardware and limited spec requirements.
Based on Google’s early positioning of the category, it appears that the Chromebook’s classroom success even managed to catch its creators off-guard. The company has since happily embraced that success — while Microsoft appears to have shifted its own approach in response to Chrome OS’s success.
Apple’s own responses have been less direct, and today’s event was a reconfirmation of the company’s commitment to the iPad as the centerpiece of its educational play. If Apple can be seen as reacting, it’s in the price of the product. Gone are the days that schools’ entire digital strategy revolved around a bunch of stationary desktops in a dusty old computer lab.
Blockchain is a public ledger type database made up of records called blocks that are linked together like a chain. It is a shared unchallengeable ledger for recording the history of transactions. Here, the ledger records the history of academic accomplishments. An education ledger (blockchain) could store academic information such as degrees, diplomas, tests etc. It could be kind of digital transcript.
A Few Potential Applications of Blockchain
Learning Credentials Repository – A blockchain database of credentials and achievements can be a secure online repository. Digitized records/blocks replace paper copies for sharing proof of learning and can be easily accessible and tracked. Blockchain can make it easy to access all of your academic accomplishments in a digitized and ultra-secure way. Each record is a block. Your records would be chained together and new credentials will be added as you go throughout your lifetime of learning.
Lifelong Learning Building Blocks – Informal learning activities could be captured, validated and stored in addition to formal learning accomplishments. This can be as simple as noting a watched video or completed online lesson. We’re already seeing some universities using blockchain with badges, credits, and qualifications.
Authenticating Credentials – Institutions, recruiting firms or employers can easily access and verify credentials. No more gathering of papers or trying to digitize to share. Blocks are digital “learning” records and come in multilingual format eliminating the painstaking task of translation.
What’s more, with diploma mills and fake credentials causing havoc for institutions and employers, blockchain solves the issue by providing protection from fraud. It has two-step authentication and spreads blocks across numerous computer nodes. It would take hitting over 51% of computers to falsify a block.
Sony and IBM have partnered and filed patents to develop a blockchain educational platform that can house student data, their performance reports and other information related to their academic records. Some universities have created their own platforms.
Context Blockchain technology is forecast to disrupt any field of activity that is founded on timestamped record-keeping of titles of ownership. Within education, activities likely to be disrupted by blockchain technology include the award of qualifications, licensing and accreditation, management of student records, intellectual property management and payments.
Key Advantages of Blockchain Technology From a social perspective, blockchain technology offers significant possibilities beyond those currently available. In particular, moving records to the blockchain can allow for:
Self-sovereignty, i.e. for users to identify themselves while at the same time maintaining control over the storage and management of their personal data;
Trust, i.e. for a technical infrastructure that gives people enough confidence in its operations to carry through with transactions such as payments or the issue of certificates;
Transparency & Provenance, i.e. for users to conduct transactions in knowledge that each party has the capacity to enter into that transaction;
Immutability, i.e. for records to be written and stored permanently, without thepossibility of modification;
Disintermediation, i.e. the removal of the need for a central controlling authority to manage transactions or keep records;
Collaboration, i.e. the ability of parties to transact directly with each other without the need for mediating third parties.
Very clever designs! Some serious creativity here!
From DSC: NOTE: I’ve never been to this site before, but I saw the clever QWERTY image on Pinterest, which lead me to this page. What if more of our learning spaces — and/or perhaps our playgrounds — featured this level of creativity, color, innovative design, passion, beauty, and energy?
QM and Eduventures have teamed up to conduct a multi-year study to examine the changing landscape of online education, provide results to those who can use them and help those involved with online education place their institution within a broader context and possibly influence strategic decisions and organizational changes. Please complete the form on this page to gain access to the 2018 CHLOE 2 Report.
The third iteration of CHLOE is scheduled for April 2018 and focuses on in-depth coverage of issues such as governance of online programs, blended learning and the influence of subject matter on the design and delivery of online programs. If you are a Chief Online Officer and wish to participate in the next CHLOE Survey, or if you wish to nominate the COO at your institution, please contact QM’s Manager of Research & Development Barbra Burch.
Date Published: Tue, 03/27/2018
Also see:
Online Learning’s Complex, Fractured Landscape — from insidehighered.com by Doug Lederman — references new report from Quality Matters & Eduventures Research entitled “The Changing Landscape of Online Education: A Deeper Dive” Survey of chief online officers shows enormous variation in how colleges define and structure digital education, in terms of pricing, program structure and use of instructional design.
Excerpt:
A new survey of those who oversee online learning programs at their institutions reveals significant diversity in the online education landscape, from differences in colleges’ strategic goals in going online to how they structure and price their programs and how much they require/encourage faculty members to work with professional designers to craft their courses.
The report, “The Changing Landscape of Online Education: A Deeper Dive,” is the second such report from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research, leading them to dub it CHLOE2. (Inside Higher Ed and “Inside Digital Learning” covered last year’s report here and here.) One hundred eighty-two senior officials responsible for online education at their institutions responded to the survey (up from 104 last year), drawn roughly equivalently from four-year private, four-year public and two-year public colleges.
The survey explores a wide range of topics and issues, related to the administrative structure of online offerings, the economics of their programs and the role of instructional designers. Among the most interesting findings:
Psalm 62 — from biblegateway.com For the director of music. For Jeduthun. A psalm of David.
1 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. 2 Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
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5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. 6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8 Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
From DSC: I wish I could always be able to experience/live out the words King David wrote here. Finding rest. Never being shaken.
But things aren’t always perfectly tranquil and calm in my soul. I can find myself like Peter, who tries to go out to Christ on the water…but he started to sink and he quickly needed to reach out to the LORD for help. I appreciate that the LORD is patient, kind, and good. His patience is incredible to me. “O ye of little faith” applies to me at times, but I thank the LORD for His patience.
That said, the LORD *is* my refuge, a shelter in times of trouble but also when times are good. I like how King David urges us to communicate freely and openly with the LORD…pouring out our hearts to Him. It seems to me that strong/solid relationships need that level of communication.
From DSC: For those of you who attend services in churches/temples/synagogues, if I asked you to tell me what the 2-3 main key points were — along with the accompanying scripture(s) — from the last sermon that you heard…would you be able to tell me? Would you be able to retrieve those key points from your memory?
With all these reflections going on in my mind about metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) these days, I did a mental pivot the other day and I moved the focus off of professors and teachers — and re-focused it towards the church…to pastors. I thought to myself…at the end of each sermon, wouldn’t it really help “solidify the message,” facilitate active reflection, and hopefully have more practical impact if pastors/churches would provide:
An extremely pared down list of the the main 2-3 key points; again using very few words (many churches already do this, I’m sure)
For a little more detail (but not much more), the pastor could provide the outline of his/her sermon in printed form (some churches do this via a fill-in-the blank pre-printed sheet), or put it up on a slide that’s projected at the end of the service, or put it online even before the sermon was given that day
A list of metacognitive check-in type of questions such as:
What did you understand in my sermon?
What didn’t you understand in my sermon?
What do you agree with?
What do you disagree with?
How can you apply this sermon this week?
By doing this, pastors would help move their main point(s) into more of the long-term memories of the people attending services within their congregations.
Virtual reality (VR) lets you tour the Turkish palace featured in “Die Another Day,” learn about life in a Syrian refugee camp firsthand, and walk through your dream home right from your living room. With the latest version of Chrome, we’re bringing VR to the web—making it as easy to step inside Air Force One as it is to access your favorite webpage.
For a fully immersive experience, use Chrome with your Daydream-ready phone and Daydream View—just browse to a VR experience you want to view, choose to enter VR, and put the phone in your Daydream View headset. If you don’t have a headset you can view VR content on any phone or desktop computer and interact using your finger or mouse.
You can already try out some great VR-enabled sites, with more coming soon. For example, explore the intersection of humans, nature and technology in the interactive documentary Bear 71. Questioning how we see the world through the lens of technology, this story blurs the lines between the wild world and the wired one.
MondlyAR features an avatar “teacher” who brings virtual objects – planets, animals, musical instruments and more – into the room as teaching tools, engages the user in conversations and gives instant feedback on pronunciation thanks to chatbot technology. By incorporating these lifelike elements in the lessons, students are more likely to understand, process, and retain what they are taught.
Users will have seven languages to chose from, American English, British English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German with the studio expecting to be able to offer no less than 30 languages in AR by the next update in August 2018.
Cornell researchers are taking 3-D printing and 3-D modeling to a new level by using augmented reality (AR) to allow designers to design in physical space while a robotic arm rapidly prints the work. To use the Robotic Modeling Assistant (RoMA), a designer wears an AR headset with hand controllers. As soon as a design feature is completed, the robotic arm prints the new feature.
As virtual- and augmented-reality technologies mature, legal questions are emerging that could trip up VR and AR developers. One of the first lawyers to explore these questions is Robyn Chatwood, of the international law firm Dentons. “VR and AR are areas where the law is just not keeping up with [technology] developments,” she says. IEEE Spectrum contributing editor Tam Harbert talked with Chatwood about the legal challenges.
The Benefits of Using Virtual Reality in eLearning
It offers a visual approach – According to numerous studies, people retain what they have read better when they are able to see it or experience it somehow. VR in eLearning makes this possible and creates a completely new visual experience to improve learners’ retention capacity and their understanding of the material.
It lowers the risk factor – VR in eLearning can simulate dangerous and risky situations in an environment that is controllable, so that it removes the risk factor usually associated with such situations. This lets learners alleviate their fear of making a mistake.
It facilitates complex data – Like the visual approach, when learners can really experience complex situations, they are more likely to handle them with ease. VR simplifies the complexity of those situations, allowing learners to actually experience everything themselves, rather than just reading about it.
It offers remote access – VR in eLearning doesn’t require an actual classroom so that learning can be conducted remotely, which can help you save a lot of time and money that would normally have to be spent on planning a complete learning program.
It provides real-life scenarios – As mentioned, one of the greatest things about VR in the context of eLearning is that it allows learners to really immerse themselves in various virtual scenarios. For instance, if the learning program involves some real situation that a certain business has faced before, an employee will be able to handle such a situation more efficiently after experiencing it virtually.
It is fun and innovative – People love to try out new things. VR offers a completely innovative and interactive approach to learning and makes learning become an entertaining, rather than an everyday dull process.
[AR] is making it possible to add a layer of enhanced reality to a context-sensitive virtual world. This gives educators and trainers numerous possibilities to enhance the learning experience, making it lively, significant and circumstantial to the learner.
According to the investment company, Goldman Sachs, Augmented Reality “has the potential to become a standard tool in education and could revolutionize the way in which students are taught, for both the K-12 segment and higher education.” The company further projects that by 2025, there would be 15 million users of educational AR worldwide, representing a $700 million market.
Let’s have a look at 5 main reasons to use Augmented Reality in education.
SXSW 2018: Key trends — from jwtintelligence.com by Marie Stafford w/ contributions by Sarah Holbrook
Excerpt:
Ethics & the Big Tech Backlash What a difference a week makes. As the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke last weekend, the curtain was already coming down on SXSW. Even without this latest bombshell, the discussion around ethics in technology was animated, with more than 10 panels devoted to the theme. From misinformation to surveillance, from algorithmic bias to the perils of artificial intelligence (hi Elon!) speakers grappled with the weighty issue of how to ensure technology works for the good of humanity.
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The Human Connection
When technology provokes this much concern, it’s perhaps natural that people should seek respite in human qualities like empathy, understanding and emotional connection.
In a standout keynote, couples therapist Esther Perel gently berated the SXSW audience for neglecting to focus on human relationships. “The quality of your relationships,” she said, “is what determines the quality of your life.
AI is no substitute for human search professionals, but the technology is going to completely overhaul the people business, say recruiters. A new report from Korn Ferry uncovers how talent professionals feel about the increasing use of big dataBig Data describes data collections so big that humans are not capable of sifting through all of it in a timely manner. However, with the help of algorithms it is usually possible to find patterns within the data so far hidden to human analyzers. and AI in their roles.
From DSC: I’m hesitant about the presence of AI in terms of talent recruitment. I still would rather have a human being, with lots of experience, gauging whether my resume and background could transfer into a new position. I think AI will get there, but at this point, I’m skeptical and a bit more cautious on this area.
MILPITAS (KPIX 5) – Artificial intelligence will soon be put to work at Walmart stores around the country. And it could be a game-changer for retail. The company is launching a small army of autonomous scanning robots. The robots are 6 feet tall, equipped with an array of lights, cameras, and radar sensors. It then goes up and down each aisle on its own, at 2 to 3 mph, scanning the shelves for empty spots and also checking the price tags. Because the robot uses LIDAR and other video cameras, what the robot actually sees is very similar to what a self-driving car sees.
NGDLE is really just “enigma” misspelled — from er.educause.edu by Bryan Ollendyke An example of a next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE) is in development at Penn State; according to the lead developer, however, it should instead be considered a “distributed learning ecosystem.”
Excerpt:
Why stop at media? What if we could tell the LMS we have an assignment (so we need a grade book entry) while simultaneously invoking a studio instruction space to be created for students to learn? What if we could simply say the things we wanted it to do and bring the technology to us, instead of us having to go to it?
The American Bar Association has granted the Syracuse University College of Law a variance to offer a fully interactive online juris doctor program. The online J.D. program will be the first in the nation to combine real-time and self-paced online classes, on-campus residential classes, and experiential learning opportunities.
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The online J.D. was subject to intense scrutiny and review by legal education experts before the College was granted the variance. Students in the online program will be taught by College of Law faculty, will be held to the same high admission and academic standards as students in the College’s residential program, and will take all courses required by its residential J.D. program.
“The JD degree is usually required to practice law in the United States. It is considered the first degree in law. The JD degree is offered by American Bar Association (ABA)-approved law schools, by law schools that are not ABA-approved, and by many Canadian law schools.”
From DSC: The American Bar Association is finally starting to grant more variances that involve online-based education (or in their terms, “distance education”). I’m sure that they have been facing increasingly intense pressure from a variety of law schools over the last decade or more. It’s good to see the ABA grant these types of variances, as it won’t be long now before online-based learning is as much a part of the offerings from a variety of law schools as it is for institutions offering traditional undergraduate and graduate degrees.
One of the goals of my newest book, The Kickstart Guide to Making GREAT Makerspaces, was to highlight best practices in makerspaces around the world. Since the book’s publication, I have continued to see many people creating not just makerspaces, but GREAT makerspaces. I honestly could write another book based on all of the amazing things I am seeing happening, but wanted to share with you in this post, 6 that recently have stood out to me.
