Technology for HyFlex Classrooms: Major Considerations — from hyflexlearning.org by Brian Beatty
Excerpts:
This post describes four aspects of classroom technology that are very important to address when developing a HyFlex approach that can be effective at scale.
…
The classroom technology needs can be organized into four areas:
- two-way audio stream (connection),
- incoming video presentation of remote learners
- outgoing video presentation of classroom and learners
- interactive technology to support interaction, engagement, and formative assessment
Also re: hyflex teaching — where some students are physically present and some are coming into the class remotely– see:
Part I – Motivating Learners by Building Efficacy (Confidence) through Scaffolding and Support— from hyflexlearning.org by Jeanne Samuel
Excerpts:
HyFlex delivery may be new to many learners. Therefore, it is important to provide them with the supports they need to be successful. Regardless of the delivery mode, learners are motivated by success and by instructor presence. In part one of this topic post, we will write about how instructor support and feedback (a form of guidance) can motivate learners and build learner confidence.
PART II- Feedback for Improving Student Success and Satisfaction — from hyflexlearning.org by Jeanne Samuel
Excerpt:
In part 1 of this post, we focused on how feedback and support promote learner confidence. Learner confidence can lead to improved learner retention, progression, and success regardless of the class delivery mode. In part 2, we focus on feedback strategies.
From DSC:
The resource below (from The Chronicle of Higher Education) is one of the best, most useful articles I’ve read in a long time. It’s full of innovative and/or powerful ideas. I like the part about seeking to give students “more voice, more choice, more control.”
5 No-Cost or Low-Cost Ways to Improve Your Campus — from chronicle.com by Richard J. Light and Allison Jegla
Change doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s often sparked by a simple suggestion and a leader willing to give it a try.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
No. 1: Reward innovative teaching. Lynne Schofield, a professor of statistics at Swarthmore College, has fundamentally changed the way her students learn basic and intermediate statistics. She lectures and assigns problem sets but she also teams up with local Philadelphia organizations such as food banks and blood-donation centers to give students an opportunity to solve real-world problems using their classroom knowledge. The organizations benefit from data and analysis that they may not have had time or bandwidth to collect themselves, and the students see the practical application of what they might ordinarily have perceived as a dry subject.
No. 2: Solicit ideas from students. …
They met with a dean and proposed a public event called, “10 Big Ideas, 10 Professors, 10 Minutes Each.”
When the dean agreed, the students took the lead on selecting and inviting professors to each present the “most exciting new idea” in their academic field, in less than 10 minutes.
Higher ed faces shrinking workforce and pay increases outpaced by inflation — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak
Dive Brief (emphasis DSC):
- The median salary increase for all higher ed professionals was less than half of the inflation rate in 2021-2022, according to workforce survey data released Wednesday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, CUPA-HR.
- Administrators saw the greatest average salary increase, at 3.4%. The salaries of professional staff rose 2.9%, while tenure-track and nontenure-track faculty got average increases of 1.6% and 1.5%, respectively. The consumer price index for 2021 was 6.8%, the largest increase in decades.
- The size of full-time and part-time staff as well as tenure-track faculty declined. CUPA-HR said colleges are feeling the same nationwide hiring and retention challenges as other employers.
From DSC:
This is going to hurt higher ed — how much so remains to be seen. But losing real purchasing power and working harder than ever doesn’t make for an effective, appealing, winning, long-term career proposition.
On the parental side of things, I’m not at all excited to have to absorb even higher costs as our son continues to make his way through college.
The Pros and Cons of Developing AI-Powered Corporate Training Videos with Synthesia — from blog.commlabindia.com by Saritha Esaboyuna
Synthesia is a game-changing invention that uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to generate videos from text inputs. It enables designers to not only natively localise content but also to create and update existing films.
Excerpt:
You don’t need an editing studio, expensive equipment, or a high-end video editing program to design a video. All you need is Synthesia. Actors, cameras, and microphones are no longer required! You can produce high quality AI-enabled videos in over 50 languages just by adding text with Synthesia.
Also see:
From DSC:
Teachers and faculty members might want to try this out as well — especially if you have multiple languages being spoken in your classroom. And/or perhaps IT Departments and Help Desks could look at this as well.
Teacher Job Satisfaction Hits an All-Time Low — from edweek.org by Madeline Will
Exclusive new data paints a picture of a profession in crisis
Excerpts:
Teachers’ job satisfaction levels appear to have hit an all-time low this year as the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage schools.
That’s according to the Merrimack College Teacher Survey, a nationally representative poll of more than 1,300 teachers conducted by the EdWeek Research Center and commissioned by the Winston School of Education and Social Policy at Merrimack College.
In interviews, teachers say they still love teaching—but they’re fed up with everything else. They feel burdened by a constantly growing workload, especially with more students having greater academic and social-emotional needs than ever before. They don’t feel like they’re paid appropriately for all the work they do. And they don’t feel respected as professionals.
Also see:
- Here’s How Many Hours a Week Teachers Work — from edweek.org by Ileana Najarro
- Despite More Money Than Ever for Summer School to Aid With COVID Learning Loss, Teacher Shortages Threaten Programs — from the74million.org by Alex Baumhardt
From DSC:
But it’s not just in K12 where our learning ecosystems are malnourished:
- Ep.77: Turnover, Burnout and Demoralization in Higher Ed — a podcast from insidehighered.com and hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman
Excerpt:
Faculty and staff members are leaving colleges and universities in droves. Other employers are experiencing these trends, too, but are some issues unique to higher education? Employers of all kinds are struggling to hold on to their employees in the wake of the pandemic and amid a white-hot job market. Data recently released by the University of North Carolina system, for instance, shows that faculty and staff turnover in the first half of this academic year was about 40 percent higher than the average of the last four years. Are colleges and universities just dealing with the same issues other industries are facing? Or are there unique problems in higher ed that campus leaders need to acknowledge?
Also relevant/see:
- How to Make Your Campus a Better Place to Build a Career — from chronicle.com by Aaron Basko
Seven ways to improve the work environment for everyone in higher education. - Here’s How Rising Inflation Is Affecting Higher Ed — from by Audrey Williams
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2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report | Teaching and Learning Edition — from library.educause.edu
Sections include:
- Trends: Scanning the Horizon
- Key Technologies & Practices
- Scenarios
- Implications: What Do We Do Now?
Also relevant/see:
Also relevant/see:
2022 Educause Horizon Report Suggests Change Is Here to Stay; No Return to ‘Normal’ — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Excerpt:
If the COVID-19 pandemic has been a time of unprecedented change in higher education — characterized by rapid pivots to remote work and learning and an explosion in the use of technology across the institution — the future is about reframing those changes into long-term realities, according to the 2022 Educause Horizon Report Teaching and Learning Edition, released this week. Colleges and universities are shifting their mindsets to “reflect an evolution from short-term ’emergency’ or ‘reactive’ modes of offering education during extraordinary circumstances to making strategic and sustainable investments in a future that will be very much unlike our past,” the report suggested.
6 Technologies and Practices Impacting the Future of Higher Education — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Teaching: Fresh Approaches to Faculty Development — from chronicle.com by Beckie Supiano
Excerpt:
Baranovic can’t imagine returning to the old model: He’s sticking to panels in Zoom. Among the benefits, he says: “This arrangement breaks institutional silos, allows faculty to talk more about their experiences, shares effective practices from sources faculty trust (their peers), creates a stronger sense of community, makes it easy for panelists (they receive the questions ahead of time if they want to prepare, but because they’re speaking to experience, they don’t really have to prepare), and creates a form of support that works like therapy but doesn’t feel like therapy.”
Next, Baranovic hopes to turn the panels into a podcast format for professors unable to attend in real time.
From DSC:
As someone who had been involved with Teaching & Learning Centers for years, I can tell you that it’s very disheartening to put together a training session for faculty members and have very few — if any — people show up for it. It’s a waste of time and it leaves the T&L staff and/or IT staff members feeling discouraged and unvalued.
Over the years, I developed a preference for putting things into an asynchronous digital format for faculty members and adjunct faculty members to access per their own schedules. The institutions that I was working for got a greater ROI from those sessions and they were able to visit an internal “course” or website to reference those materials on-demand.
I also like the idea of podcasting here, but that takes a lot of time and effort — and isn’t always possible when you are one person trying to assist hundreds of faculty members (from a technical support and an LMS admin standpoint).
As an Instructional Designer, I also want to comment that it’s hard to help steer a car if you can’t even get into the car. Those institutions that are using team-based approaches will be far more successful in designing and developing more polished, effective, accessible learning experiences. Very few people can do it all.
Short and Sweet: The Educational Benefits of Microlectures and Active Learning — from er.educause.edu by Hua Zheng; with thanks to the Learning Now TV Newsletter – April 2022
The combination of short videos and the techniques of active learning can create rich, engaging educational experiences to maximize learning.
Excerpt:
The goal of interspersing a microlecture with active learning approaches is to improve student engagement and learning performance when participating in online, hybrid, or face-to-face instruction. Empirical studies have shown that active learning approaches, such as combining pause points with interactive quizzes, tasks requiring written responses, or note taking, can improve student performance.