Have you followed our NEW Twitter list of cognitive scientists yet? #retrievalpractice https://t.co/aXYIblZ37Y
— Retrieval Practice (@RetrieveLearn) June 7, 2022
On 06/12/2022,
in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, hybrid learning, Hyflex learning, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, pedagogy, skills, teaching & learning, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
What I Learned When Visiting a Colleague’s Hybrid Class — from edsurge.com by Bonni Stachowiak (Columnist)
Excerpt:
Though I usually use this space to offer answers to teaching advice questions from professors, I wanted to try something different. So for my next few installments, I’m writing letters to people who have exemplified what it means to be an effective teacher. This column, the first in the series, is to my friend and colleague, Elizabeth Powell. Her discipline is psychology and she invited me to come observe one of her final classes at our university.
On 06/10/2022,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, community colleges, data related items, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, instructional design, teaching & learning, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
AI: Where are we now? — from educause.edu by EDUCAUSE
Is the use of AI in higher education today invisible? dynamic? perilous? Maybe it’s all three.
Also see:
Also relevant/see:
On 06/10/2022,
in 21st century, adjunct faculty, business side of he, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, leadership, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, liberal arts, motivation, parents/guardians, participation, reinvent, skills, society, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
The following items made me reflect upon the place of COVID-19 in causing the current ills within higher education — but also thinking about the ills that were present long before Covid hit us.
Key point:
We should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.
On the faculty/staff side of the house
The Season of Our Professorial Discontent — from chronicle.com by Paul Musgrave
The pandemic irrevocably changed the student-teacher relationship — and not for the better.
Excerpts:
As pandemic slides into endemic, it’s worth asking: Did the pandemic break something fundamental about academe? Was the spring of 2022 the end of pandemic disruptions, or the start of a new normal?
…
This time, as I delivered the lines to an audience of 30 in a course with 200 students enrolled, I was wondering whether I wanted to give a lecture ever again.
From DSC:
Regarding the first quote…several things were broken within academe long before COID-19. Re: the second quote, what should that tell us if only 30 students showed up in a class with 200 students in it?
Faculty autonomy and faculty satisfaction are being whittled away.
From DSC:
From what I can tell, that’s been happening for years within the K-12 learning ecosystem. It seems like this trend is now occurring within the higher ed learning ecosystem. (I could go off on a tangent about why we didn’t help our fellow educators within K-12 — whose “product” directly impacts those working within higher ed — but I better not. This posting is already packed with reflections.)
Below are some relevant quotes from Kevin McClure’s 5/27/22 article out at The Chronicle of Higher Education (emphasis DSC). I agree with much of what Kevin is saying here.
Don’t Blame the Pandemic for Worker Discontent
It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.
Excerpt:
The pandemic alone didn’t cause the low morale and turnover you might be seeing among your faculty and staff members just as the lack of personal protective equipment didn’t solely give rise to the Amazon Labor Union. Yes, today’s workers are re-evaluating their workplaces, seeking reassignment within their institutions, and in some cases resigning from jobs altogether. But they are doing so for many of the same reasons they did 20 years ago — poor working conditions.
…
So burnout isn’t just about people struggling to cope with stress; it’s about people struggling in workplaces where stress never subsides.
…
In my own interviews on morale, higher-education workers have talked about leaders who aren’t listening, low compensation, and understaffing.
…
We see our workplaces differently, and our tolerance of poor working conditions has evaporated.
On the student side of the house
“It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.” The same — and likely more — could be said for the student side of the house, especially in regards to the price of education and how relevant/up-to-date the content has been. As the prices of obtaining a degree have skyrocketed over the last several decades, students and parents now HAVE to ask, “What’s the Return On Investment (ROI) here? Am I gaining the skills in college that will get me hired after college?”
Again, the point I’m trying to make here is that we should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.
Along these lines, the following two quotes seem relevant to me from Beth McMurtrie’s (6/2/22) Teaching e-newsletter (also from The Chronicle):
I asked Walton to tell me more about the setup at his university. He said classes were fully in person but instructors were encouraged to record lectures and be highly flexible with due dates. The result: Most days he had less than 50-percent attendance, and he received a lot of last-minute emails from students who said they woke up that morning with a headache or otherwise not feeling well. A few filed documented absence requests, but not many, suggesting that these were not serious illnesses, like Covid.
…
I’ve never had more incompletes for courses than in the last two years, so signaling to students that their distribution courses are flexible and accommodating has only let them de-emphasize them even more.
There’s likely a variety of causes/possibilities here — and I’m sure that Covid-related reasons are among them. But it makes me really wonder if students don’t think that the content is all that valuable or relevant to begin with these days. Is college even worth it anymore? Why am I here in the first place? Where is the motivation coming from? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic motivation?
Perhaps it’s time to change the curriculum/content as well as the price.
A graphic I created back in 2009, with Yohan Na’s assistance.
On 06/01/2022,
in adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, law schools, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, Michigan, parents/guardians, participation, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
The items below reminded me that things aren’t looking good for higher education these days. Having a son a quarter of the way through college makes this even more relevant/personal for our family.
The Big Quit | Even tenure-line professors are leaving academe. — from chronicle.com by Joshua Doležal
Excerpts:
We have become accustomed to the exodus of graduate students, postdocs, and adjuncts, but before Covid it was still possible to see tenured and tenure-track faculty members as relatively immune from the stresses of working in higher ed. No more. A 2020 study by The Chronicle and Fidelity Investments found that more than half of all faculty members surveyed were seriously weighing options outside of higher education: either changing careers entirely or retiring early.
“If a return to normal simply means restoring the burnout conditions that the pandemic inflamed, then the rumble of faculty members leaving may build to a roar that no amount of magical thinking can explain away.”
Here’s a relevant quote from a weekly newsletter — Teaching — from The Chronicle of Higher Education (by Becky Supiano)
The bottom line? “You don’t get student success,” McClure says, “unless you have invested in faculty well-being.”
The quote is from Kevin McClure, who is “trying to get the challenges front-line faculty and staff face on the radar of more college leaders.” As primarily a former staff member, I appreciate that he’s including staff members here. Staff are important members of the academe as well.
Drop in Spring-2022 Enrollment Is Worse Than Expected — from chronicle.com byAudrey Williams June
Excerpt:
New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provide a final tally on enrollment for the spring of 2022 — and reveal a persistent trend: College attendance continues to decline.
Undergraduate enrollment fell 4.7 percent from a year earlier, a shortfall of more than 662,000 students. Since the pandemic began, the undergraduate student body has dropped by almost 1.4 million students.
But also in play, he said, are students who increasingly question the value of college, are wary about taking out student loans to pay for it, and who have options to join the labor market instead.
Michigan colleges experience nation’s worst spring enrollment dive, new report shows — from mlive.com by Samuel Dodge
Excerpt:
College enrollment across Michigan plummeted 15% during the spring semester this year, dragged down by a 20% hit to four-year public universities, a new report shows. Spring enrollment across all sectors dropped to 360,220 students, a decrease of more than 62,000 from 2021 to this year, according to data released Thursday, May 26, by the National Student Clearinghouse.
[Cost of Inequity] The Student Loan Crisis — from businessinsidre.com by various
How the student loan industry put a $1.7 trillion price tag on the American dream and the proposed reforms that could pay the bill.
A somewhat-related item:
The Future of Higher Education Is the Hybrid Campus — from campustechnology.com by Dr. Jeffrey R. Docking
Blending the best of face-to-face instruction with the flexibility of online learning can enhance the higher ed experience for all types of learners, lower the cost of a degree and better prepare students for the workforce.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
What Students Want
Students and families are increasingly rethinking whether a traditional college education is worth the investment, leaving higher ed leaders searching for innovative ways to showcase their school’s value and entice students. When we think about what students really want, they want more than a degree — they want skills training that will ensure a well-paying, rewarding career. In fact, 62% of college students say they would be more likely to re-enroll if their institution offered “new programs and certificates tailored to the new economy” with high-demand majors and education that connects them to employability. This makes sense since employers are continuing to find value in students developing a “broad skill base that can be applied across a range of contexts.”
But over the last several years, and after seeing the success of it at Adrian College, I’ve become convinced that the future of residential colleges is not face-to-face or online, but an intelligent blend of both modalities.
A somewhat-related item:
Navigating career turbulence — from ted.com by Adam Grant; with thanks to Deirdre Honner for this resource
Description:
Everyone’s career will hit some turbulence at some point. Instead of pushing harder against the headwinds, we’re sometimes better off tilting our rudder and charting a new course. In this episode, host Adam Grant speaks with people who have taken unusual steps to battle uncertainty, rethought their approach to finding and landing a job and reached out for help in unexpected places — as well as an expert on recessions who forecasts the future by looking to the past. Listen and subscribe to WorkLife with Adam Grant and more podcasts from the TED Audio Collective wherever you’re listening to this.
On 05/20/2022,
in adjunct faculty, corporate universities / corporate training, education technology, faculty/staff, internet, IT in HE, productivity / tips and tricks, teachers, tools, training / L&D,
by Daniel Christian
10 Best Web Highlighters for Desktop in 2022 — from hongkiat.com by Kei Watanabe
Excerpt:
Have you used any web highlighters? It helps us improve our productivity by copying and pasting important texts you’ve found online automatically, saving good articles in your directory, and highlighting important sentences on articles so that you can remember them when looking back.
In this article, I’ll introduce you to 10 useful web highlighters for the desktop. All these tools offer different features and you can read about each tool in detail in the following.
On 05/20/2022,
in adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
On 05/20/2022,
in adjunct faculty, CMS/LMS, collaboration, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, future, future of higher education, higher education, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, library / librarians, organizational change, pedagogy, teaching & learning, United States, universities, using teams,
by Daniel Christian
The Pandemic’s Lasting Lessons for Colleges, From Academic Innovation Leaders — from edsurge.com by Nadia Tamez-Robledo, Rebecca Koenig, and Jeffrey R. Young
Excerpts:
“Universities are in the business of knowledge, but universities do a very poor job of managing their own knowledge and strategy,” says Brian Fleming, associate vice chancellor of learning ecosystem development at Northeastern University. “You may have faculty members who study organizational development, but none of that gets applied to the university.”
…
University leaders should learn to think more like futurists, he argues, working to imagine scenarios that might need planning for but are beyond the usual one-year or five-year planning cycles.
The pandemic prompted more faculty to ask the question, “What do we actually want to use class time for?” says Tyler Roeger, director of the center for the enhancement of teaching and learning at Elgin Community College. And the answer many of them are landing on, he adds, is: “Actual face-to-face time can be dedicated to problem-working, and working in groups together.”
On 05/20/2022,
in active learning, adjunct faculty, blended learning, career development, colleges, communications, community colleges, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, hybrid learning, ideas, instructional design, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, online learning, participation, pedagogy, skills, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
4 Online Tactics to Improve Blended Learning — from campustechnology.com by Megan Burke, CPA, Ph.D.
An accounting professor shares how best practices from online pedagogy have helped her create a blended learning environment that supports student success.
Excerpts:
Now that students are back in the classroom, I have been combining these tactics with in-person instruction to create a blended learning environment that gives my students the best of both worlds.
The right activities, on the other hand, can make a significant difference. For example:
- Breakout rooms (for think/pair/share);
- Polls and quizzes that are low-stakes and anonymous to encourage full engagement;
- Using the whiteboard option; and
- Having reviews of material at the end of class.
I also encourage faculty (and myself!) to get out and meet with employers and ask what we can do to better prepare students, so that we can get a better feel for what first-year staff really need to know — and ensure that we present that knowledge and information in the classroom.
On 05/13/2022,
in active learning, adjunct faculty, change, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education reform, faculty/staff, higher education, innovation, instructional design, learning, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, open courseware and systems, teaching & learning, United States, universities, using teams, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Why Improving Student Learning is So Hard — from opencontent.org by David Wiley
Excerpt:
2. Student behavior will normally change only in response to changes in faculty behavior – specifically, the assignments faculty give and the support faculty provide.
For many students, the things-they-do-to-learn are all located within the relatively small universe of things their faculty assign them to do – read chapters, complete homework assignments, etc. For a variety of reasons, and many of them perfectly good reasons, “students don’t do optional” – they only do what they’re going to be graded on.
Therefore, students will likely engage in more effective learning behaviors ONLY IF their faculty assign them more effective learning activities. Faculty can further increase the likelihood of students engaging in more effective learning activities if they support them appropriately throughout the process.
From DSC:
I can put an “Amen” to the above excerpt. For years I managed a Teaching & Learning Digital Studio. Most of the students didn’t come into the Studio for help, because most of the faculty members assigned the normal kinds of things (papers, quizzes, and such). Had there been more digitally-created means of showing what students knew, there would have been more usage of the T&L Digital Studio.
Also, if we want to foster more creativity and innovation — as well as give our learners more choice and more control over their learning — we should occasionally get away from the traditional papers.
Another comment here is that it’s hard to change what faculty members do, when Instructional Designers can’t even get in the car to help faculty members navigate. We need more team-based efforts in designing our learning experiences.
On 05/13/2022,
in adjunct faculty, business side of he, colleges, community colleges, higher education, instructional design, learning ecosystem, teaching & learning, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
The Future of Work Is Flexible. Will Higher Ed Stay Stuck in the Past? — from edsurge.com by Kevin R. McClure (Columnist)
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
We know that institutions are capable of making big changes. We pivoted in March 2020, then again in fall 2020, then again in fall 2021. Institutions have achieved things in the last two years that some considered unimaginable. Faculty and staff want to see that type of willpower and creativity directed at working conditions and cultures. They want the type of “reimagining” the Future of Work@Iowa report promised but didn’t deliver.
In a city full of adjunct faculty members, many struggle to get by — from washingtonpost.com by Lauren Lumpkin; with thanks to Ray Schroeder for this resource
Adjuncts across the region are protesting what they say are unfair working condition
7 Ways the Pandemic Changed Faculty Development — from er.educause.edu by Amy Kuntz, Sara Davis and Erica Fleming
Pandemic lessons about faculty development should be understood and factored into future offerings.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Regarding this perspective shift, conference session participant Lindsay Wood, manager of instructional design at Penn State Abington, stated, “When reflecting on the impact of pandemic teaching, those of us working in faculty development and learning design know that there has never been and likely will never be another opportunity to upskill faculty and improve teaching and learning so broadly. It’s important … to really take a deep dive into how we meet the moment and ensure the positive changes are lasting. It would be a shame to squander a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to adopt innovative practices because we didn’t adequately identify the lessons learned and apply them to the future.” This seemed to resonate with many participants; they want to see the positive changes from the past two years integrated at an institutional level.
Is Hybrid Learning Here to Stay in Higher Ed? — from edsurge.com by Daniel Lempres
State of Continuing Education 2022 — from resources.moderncampus.com; with thanks to Amrit Ahluwalia for this resource
Universities Share Lessons Learned from Ransomware Attacks — from edtechmagazine.com by Chris Hayhurst
Universities that faced security breaches share advice from their experiences.