adjunct faculty

6 Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2020 [Kelly, Burns, Frazee, & Perez]

On 02/13/2020, in accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, data related items, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, Mixed Reality (MR), tools, trends, United States, universities, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

6 Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2020 — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly with:

Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
James Frazee, Chief Academic Technology Officer and Associate VP, Instructional Technology Services, San Diego State University
Ernie Perez
Director, Educational Technology, Digital Learning & Innovation, Boston University

This year’s top issues in education technology reflect the bigger picture of a student’s pathway from individual courses all the way to graduation and career.

Topics include:

1) Workforce Readiness
2) Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots
3) Extended Reality (XR)
4) Video and Accessibility
5) Predictive Analytics and Advising
6) Industry Partnerships

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy — from Iowa State University; with a shout out to Matt Miller for his blog posting entitled, “10 tips for lesson planning writer’s block” — where I saw this reference

A two-part series from Educause re: inclusive design/accessibility [Gonzalez & O’Neil]

On 02/10/2020, in accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, blended learning, colleges, community colleges, elearning, faculty, higher education, law schools, more voice more choice more control, online learning, participation, pedagogy, universities, by Daniel Christian

A two-part series from Educause regarding inclusive design/accessibility — with thanks to Ray Schroeder for his posting on this out on LinkedIn.

Part I: A Taxonomy of Inclusive Design: On Disclosure, Accessibility, and Inclusion — from er.educause.edu by Lorna Gonzalez and Kristi O’Neil
Part II: Moving a Taxonomy of Inclusive Design from Theory to Practice
— from er.educause.edu by Lorna Gonzalez and Kristi O’Neil

An excerpt from Part II:

The previous two definitions have tried to articulate the idea that students carry intersecting invisible circumstances with them into the classroom. Whether or not students disclose their circumstances—or whether faculty members invite students to disclose them—does not determine their existence. From this perspective, inclusion means designing and teaching for variability. Faculty can practice inclusive pedagogy by following universal design principles and offering multiple options for representation, engagement, and expression:

Options are essential to learning, because no single way of presenting information, no single way of responding to information, and no single way of engaging students will work across the diversity of students that populate our classrooms. Alternatives reduce barriers to learning for students with disabilities while enhancing learning opportunities for everyone.4

In a Nutshell …
Inclusive pedagogy can be an act of intention—something that is initiated before and during the course design process—rather than being an act of revision or omission.

Making (low-stakes) practice tests more effective [edutopia.org]

On 02/07/2020, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, assessment, faculty, higher education, K-12 related, memory, pedagogy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Making (low-stakes) practice tests more effective — from edutopia.org
Practice tests not only help surface gaps in knowledge—they also strengthen memory.

Flipped Learning 3.0 [Flipped Learning Review]

On 02/01/2020, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, faculty, higher education, instructional design, K-12 related, pedagogy, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

The January issue of FLR features an exciting new career path for frustrated Flipped Learning teachers. Yes, the first edition for 2020 is all about new trends and new directions Flipped Learning educators are pursuing as we move into the new decade.

Featured articles include:

Micro-Schools: An Exciting New Career Path for Frustrated Flipped Learning Teachers
It’s a New Decade: Time for a Flipped Learning Reality Check
2020: Taking Your Flipped Learning Effectiveness to the Next Level
It’s 2020: I’m Never Going Back
The Missing Link: Getting Flipped Learning Assessment Right
Frustrated With the Status Quo?
Flipped Learning To-Do List for 2020
Top 10 Must-Read Research Papers in January
Why I Want My Students to Struggle in Class This Year

Also see:

Live from Bett: What’s new in EDU–Free resources to boost engagement and collaboration — from the Microsoft Education Team on January 22, 2020

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In addition, on the day of a presentation, educators and students now can help every person in the classroom or audience understand what they’re saying by clicking on “Present Live.” Live Presentations enables every audience member to view the presentation on their own device, such as a laptop, tablet or phone. Each audience member can turn on live captioning and choose subtitles from more than 60 languages. They can even navigate between slides, so they don’t miss a single, important detail. The audience is engaged throughout the presentation and sends reactions in real-time. After the presentation, the audience can provide feedback on the content and delivery of the presentation, which educators and students can use to improve skills over time.

Live Presentations will be coming soon to PowerPoint for the web as part of Office Education, which educators and students can access for free. If you haven’t already done so, get started with Office 365 Education now.

From DSC:
Might this type of functionality be a solid component of a global, next generation learning platform? Hmmmm…

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow [Wan]

On 01/24/2020, in adjunct faculty, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, education technology, faculty, higher education, instructional design, intelligent systems, law schools, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow — from edsurge.com by Tony Wan

Excerpt:

Smart Sparrow, which provides course-authoring tools for faculty and instructional designers to build adaptive courseware, has found a new home in a much bigger nest.

Last week, Pearson announced it paid $25 million to acquire Smart Sparrow’s technology, in a move that the publisher says will bolster the digital infrastructure that will soon support all its future higher-education offerings.

In recent years, Ben-Naim says his team has been building the next iteration of its adaptive course-creation tool. Called Aero, the platform has been in the works since 2017. And though Aero has not been publicly released or announced, that was the technology that attracted Pearson, he adds.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Another unintended consequence appears on the landscapes. [Christian]

On 01/18/2020, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty, future, Google, higher education, ideas, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, political science, programming, research, social learning / networks, social media, society, student-related, teachers, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, United States, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I’ll say it again, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

From the article below…we can see another unintended consequence is developing on society’s landscapes. I really wish the 20 and 30 somethings that are being hired by the big tech companies — especially at Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft — who are developing these things would ask themselves:

“Just because we can develop this system/software/application/etc., SHOULD we be developing it?”
What might the negative consequences be?
Do the positive contributions outweigh the negative impacts…or not?

To colleges professors and teachers:
Please pass these thoughts onto your students now, so that this internal questioning/conversations begin to take place in K-16.

Report: Colleges Must Teach ‘Algorithm Literacy’ to Help Students Navigate Internet — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If the Ancient Mariner were sailing on the internet’s open seas, he might conclude there’s information everywhere, but nary a drop to drink.

That’s how many college students feel, anyway. A new report published this week about undergraduates’ impressions of internet algorithms reveals students are skeptical of and unnerved by tools that track their digital travels and serve them personalized content like advertisements and social media posts.

And some students feel like they’ve largely been left to navigate the internet’s murky waters alone, without adequate guidance from teachers and professors.

Researchers set out to learn “how aware students are about their information being manipulated, gathered and interacted with,” said Alison Head, founder and director of Project Information Literacy, in an interview with EdSurge. “Where does that awareness drop off?”
…
They found that many students not only have personal concerns about how algorithms compromise their own data privacy but also recognize the broader, possibly negative implications of tools that segment and customize search results and news feeds.

On the care and handling of student ratings [Talbert]

On 12/28/2019, in adjunct faculty, assessment, career development, colleges, community colleges, faculty, higher education, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, pedagogy, student-related, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

On the care and handling of student ratings — from rtalbert.org by Robert Talbert
Student evaluations of teaching are not true evaluations. We should call them what they are — perception data — and use them accordingly.

Excerpts:

How to handle student perception data as a department

Never use student perception data as the sole, or even the main source of information about a faculty member’s teaching. Teaching, as I said, is a wickedly complex problem. It simply cannot be reduced to a set of data, or in some cases to a single number. To get an accurate picture of faculty teaching, you need more than just student perceptions. Use faculty self-evaluations, peer evaluations via class visits, faculty-initiated data collected through pre- and post-testing… Insist on using multiple sources of data for faculty evaluations and make it easy to include them.
Never compare one faculty member to another based on student perception data.
Look at trends over time and how faculty respond to their data.

Get Smart About Going Online: Choosing the Right Model to Deliver Digital Programming — from evolllution.com by Charles Kilfoye
A veteran online educator looks at the benefits and pitfalls for each of the three main ways to launch an online program.

Excerpt:

Online learning is making headlines again with big players such as University of Massachusetts and California Community College Online launching high profile online initiatives recently. Some would argue that if you haven’t made it in online education already, you’ve missed your opportunity.

However, my sense is it’s never too late. You just have to be smart about it. It all boils down to asking yourself the basic problem-solving questions of Why, What and How to determine if online education is right for your institution. To illustrate my point, I will briefly discuss major considerations you should make when exploring an online strategy and I will examine the pros and cons of the three most common models of delivering online programs in higher education today.
…
Be aware that differentiated pricing may indicate to prospective students that one format is more valuable or better than another. My personal opinion is that a degree earned online should be considered the same degree as one earned on-ground. It is the same program, same faculty, same admissions requirements, same relevance and rigor, so why not the same cost?

From DSC:
Regarding the topic of pricing, it would be my hope that we could offer online-based programs at significantly discounted prices. This is why I think it will be the larger higher education providers that ultimately win out — or a brand new player in the field that uses a next gen learning platform along with a different business model (see below article) — as they can spread their development costs over a great number of students/courses/program offerings.

If the current players in higher ed don’t find a way to do this (and some players have already figured this out and are working on delivering it), powerful alternatives will develop — especially as the public’s perspective on the value of higher education continues to decline.

Learning from the living class room

I’d also like to hear Charles’ thoughts about pricing after reading Brandon’s article below:

The Biggest Myth About College Has Just Been Busted — from forbes.com by Brandon Busteed

If it’s more expensive, it must be better. That, of course, has been the prevailing wisdom among parents and students when it comes to college. But that wisdom has now been exposed as an utter myth according to a new study published in The Journal of Consumer Affairs. It turns out the cost of a college does not predict higher alumni ratings about the quality of their education. In fact, the opposite is true: total cost of attendance predicts lower ratings.
…
Quality matters. Price does not. Quality and price are not the same things. And this all has enormous implications for the industry and its consumers.

Active Learning on the Uptick? [O’Donnell]

On 12/21/2019, in active learning, adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, education, engagement / engaging students, faculty, higher education, instructional design, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, pedagogy, student-related, universities, by Daniel Christian

Active Learning on the Uptick?— from LinkedIn.com by Carrie O’Donnell

Excerpt:

The evidence is overwhelming that employing active learning strategies leads to deeper learning, increased retention and higher performance. In fact, the EDCAUSE Horizon Report: 2019 Higher Education Edition states 73 percent of universities surveyed indicate active learning classrooms are in the planning process or being implemented in 2020.

Active learning is an instructional approach that puts the student in the center of the learning. This teaching methodology actively engages the learner and is a contrast with the traditional lecture-based approaches where the instructor does most of the talking and students are passive. Some of the many strategies that instructors use to promote active learning include group discussions, peer instruction, problem-solving, case studies, role playing, journal writing and structured learning groups.

Several trends we’ve seen on campuses across the country bode well for active learning:

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us [Schwegler]

On 12/21/2019, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, research, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us — from wcetfrontiers.org by Andria Schwegler

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This discrepancy suggests that perceptions are heavily influenced by idiosyncratic, personal experiences instead of by research.

Nearly a decade ago, a meta-analysis of studies comparing student learning in online, blended, and face-to-face contexts revealed no significant differences in learning across course modality (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2010). Today, a growing body of research corroborates no significant differences exist (National Research Center for Distance Education and Technological Advancements, 2019). That some faculty attitudes are not aligned with this information suggests that concerns regarding course delivery are confounded with beliefs about course modality. Leveraging existing research on teaching and learning and conducting new research to address gaps can clarify how to address concerns with course delivery to facilitate students’ ability to meet learning outcomes instead of assuming course modality is the problem.

An interview about the “60-Year Curriculum (60YC)” [Lambert]

On 12/17/2019, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, new business models, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Redefining Norms Critical to Sustained Relevance in the Changing Postsecondary Environment — from evolllution.com by Hunt Lambert
Sticking to the status quo will end in disaster for most postsecondary institutions. To stay relevant, institutions have to rethink all aspects of the higher education product, from programming to student support to organizational models.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Higher education has existed for over a millennium in an effectively unchanged state, but the impetus to transform has arrived. Fast-changing labor demands, evolving learner expectations and transformed market realities are forcing college and university leaders to rethink the traditional postsecondary model and find ways to serve the growing numbers of lifelong learners. This idea has been broadly articulated as the 60-Year Curriculum (60YC), and executing on this vision demands a fundamental change in how higher education institutions must operate to serve students. In this interview, Hunt Lambert expands on the 60YC vision and shares his insights into how the organizational models of postsecondary institutions need to evolve to adapt to this approach.

The 60YC proposes that higher education providers, who happen to be best in the world at knowledge creation and dissemination through well-designed curriculum, expand that curricula concept from the current two-year AA, four-year BA, two-year master’s and seven-year PhD learning models into a 60-year model inclusive of 15- to 75-year-old learners and, most likely, beyond.

XR for Teaching and Learning [educause]

On 12/17/2019, in 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), digital audio, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty, ideas, immersion, innovation, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, IT in HE, law schools, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, participation, pedagogy, platforms, play, simulations, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, usability, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

XR for Teaching and Learning — from educause

Key Findings

XR technologies are being used to achieve learning goals across domains.
Effective pedagogical uses of XR technologies fall into one of three large categories: (1) Supporting skills-based and competency-based teaching and learning, such as nursing education, where students gain practice by repeating tasks. (2) Expanding the range of activities with which a learner can gain hands-on experience—for example, by enabling the user to interact with electrons and electromagnetic fields. In this way, XR enables some subjects traditionally taught as abstract knowledge, using flat media such as illustrations or videos, to be taught as skills-based. (3) Experimenting by providing new functionality and enabling new forms of interaction. For example, by using simulations of materials or tools not easily available in the physical world, learners can explore the bounds of what is possible in both their discipline and with the XR technology itself.
Integration of XR into curricula faces two major challenges: time and skills.
The adoption of XR in teaching has two major requirements: the technology must fit into instructors’ existing practices, and the cost cannot be significantly higher than that of the alternatives already in use.
The effectiveness of XR technologies for achieving learning goals is influenced by several factors: fidelity, ease of use, novelty, time-on-task, and the spirit of experimentation.

5 proven ways to make your good online course great [campustechnology.com]

On 12/11/2019, in adjunct faculty, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, faculty, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, metacognition / metacognitive skills, multimedia, pedagogy, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, universities, by Daniel Christian

5 proven ways to make your good online course great — from campustechnology.com

Excerpt:

Recent research uncovered just a handful of distinct elements that set great online teaching apart from the merely good. The findings came out of interviews with eight faculty members who have won awards for their online teaching from three professional associations: the Online Learning Consortium, the Association for Educational Communications & Technology and the United States Distance Learning Association.

Again, the report is here.

For those parts about being relevant and also taking some time for some reflection, also see this separate, somewhat related item:
Helping students develop metacognitive skills to understand the ‘why’ of learning

Learning Ecosystems

A two-part series from Educause re: inclusive design/accessibility [Gonzalez & O’Neil]

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow [Wan]

Reflections on “Get Smart About Going Online: Choosing the Right Model to Deliver Digital Programming” [Kilfoye]

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us [Schwegler]

XR for Teaching and Learning [educause]

5 proven ways to make your good online course great [campustechnology.com]

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