adjunct faculty

Some reflections on students owning their own learning — from DSC:
Sometimes when students are introduced to a new method of learning something — say when a professor introduces a new pedagogy into an active learning-based classroom — they may not like it. It not only looks and feels different, but at times this new method of learning may require additional time and/or effort from them. For example, this could occur with a flipped/inverted classroom approach. In that model of learning, the students are supposed to review some learning-related materials online ahead of time so that their face-to-face time in the (physical) classroom can be used for group discussions, group work, problem solving, debates, etc. Coming to class prepared may take some additional time and/or effort. Also, to think of where the gaps are in one’s understanding — a metacognitive activity — requires effort, time, and reflection.

Students may balk at having to do these things. These methods don’t match up to their histories…to the ways things have always been done. In fact, a student may ask, ‘Why should I do these things? It’s a lot more work than listening to the lectures in class, then doing the homework outside of class. I’ve/We’ve never done it this way before.”

Here are some of my answers to that WHY question:

You need to OWN your OWN learning and be open to new ways of learning. Your future will require it.
You need to be active — and even proactive — in your own learning. Intentionally build your own learning ecosystem and make adjustments to it as necessary.
To stay marketable and relevant today, each of us is now required to be a lifelong learner. No longer is it a situation of going to college for four years and calling it good. You need to learn how to learn.
When you graduate, it’s likely no one will be there to give you a Betty Crocker list of next steps. You need to think of and own those decisions.
When you get into your first job, you will likely get some training (if the company or organization is any good). But there will be times when the training isn’t enough to get you ready to take the next step in your career (and I’m not talking about a job ladder, which often doesn’t even exist anymore). In fact, you could easily be laid off from that first job due to a new direction that the company decided to take. Or you could be let go because the company was acquired by another organization — and you have to move or lose your job (which happened to me…twice). Or perhaps your group is being let go due to a decline in sales. Or perhaps some technological changes were made by everyone else in your industry — except your company — and now your company is being blown out of the water by its competition. There are a myriad of reasons you could lose your job. Then, what will you do? No one is there to spoon feed you. You need to be able to pivot, think for yourself, practice real-life problem solving, reflect on your values and where you want to contribute, etc. This will be on YOU, and no one else. You need to be able to learn new things.

Also, it’s not just what you know. It’s what you can do with what you know. “Yeh, yeh, yeh…blah, blah, blah…I’ve heard it all before” (I can hear some of you saying.) B.S.! This is serious business. Wake up! Let me give you some concrete, real-world motivation then that relates to whether you will be able to put some bread and butter on your table, and whether or not you will be able to pay your bills, and whether or not you will be able to pay for decent housing and medical care, and whether or not you will be able to save enough money for retirement, and more:

You didn’t get that software developer position because, though you knew a lot about programming, your applications were uninspiring/weak/not very useful and they weren’t easy to use.
You didn’t get that User Experience Design position because, although you had a UX degree from ___, the app that you submitted on your application was hard to use and not very intuitive.
You didn’t get that new sales job because your previous sales didn’t match the other applicants’ sales figures.
You didn’t get that marketing position because your competitions’ marketing campaigns were far better, more polished, and more effective than yours was.
You didn’t get that web developer position because your web sites didn’t employ the latest and greatest designs, colors, navigation methods, scripting, extended technologies, and more.
You didn’t get that editor position because, although your writing was grammatically correct, was boring and verbose. We need sharp, concise, engaging copy!
Etc., etc., etc.

There’s your bottom line. Not only do you need to know things — you need to be able to do good, solid work with what you know.

So, you need to own your own learning — you want to own your own learning. Now!

Plan now to attend the 2018 Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference — tour USC’s campus!

On 11/09/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, learning theories, liberal arts, lifelong learning, maker movement, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, online learning, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, staying relevant, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I am honored to be currently serving on the 2018 Advisory Council for the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference with a great group of people. Missing — at least from my perspective — from the image below is Kristen Tadrous, Senior Program Director with the Corporate Learning Network. Kristen has done a great job these last few years planning and running this conference.

NOTE:
The above graphic reflects a recent change for me. I am still an Adjunct Faculty Member
at Calvin College, but I am no longer a Senior Instructional Designer there.
My brand is centered around being an Instructional Technologist.

This national conference will be held in Los Angeles, CA on February 26-28, 2018. It is designed to help institutions of higher education develop highly-innovative cultures — something that’s needed in many institutions of traditional higher education right now.

I have attended the first 3 conferences and I moderated a panel at the most recent conference out in San Diego back in February/March of this year. I just want to say that this is a great conference and I encourage you to bring a group of people to it from your organization! I say a group of people because a group of 5 of us (from a variety of departments) went one year and the result of attending the NGLS Conference was a brand new Sandbox Classroom — an active-learning based, highly-collaborative learning space where faculty members can experiment with new pedagogies as well as with new technologies. The conference helped us discuss things as a diverse group, think out load, come up with some innovative ideas, and then build the momentum to move forward with some of those key ideas.

If you haven’t already attended this conference, I highly recommend that you check it out. You can obtain the agenda/brochure for the conference by providing some basic contact information here.

Per Kristen Tadrous, here’s why you want to check out USC:

A true leader in innovation: USC made it to the Top 20 of Reuter’s 100 Most Innovative Universities in 2017!
Detailed guided tour of leading spaces led by the Information Technology Services Learning Environments team
Benchmark your own learning environments by getting a ‘behind the scenes’ look at their state-of-the-art spaces
There are only 30 spots available for the site tour

Building Spaces to Inspire a Culture of Innovation — a core theme at the 4^th Next Generation Learning Spaces summit, taking place this February 26-28 in Los Angeles. An invaluable opportunity to meet and hear from like-minded peers in higher education, and continue your path toward lifelong learning. #ngls2018 http://bit.ly/2yNkMLL

Which assessment strategies do students prefer? [Orlando]

On 11/03/2017, in adjunct faculty, assessment, education technology, engagement / engaging students, faculty, higher education, online learning, pedagogy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

Which assessment strategies do students prefer? — from facultyfocus.com by John Orlando

Excerpt:

While most faculty stick with the tried-and-true quiz and paper assessment strategies for their online courses, the wide range of technologies available today offers a variety of assessment options beyond the traditional forms. But what do students think of these different forms?

Scott Bailey, Stacy Hendricks, and Stephanie Applewhite of Stephen F. Austin State University experimented with different assessment strategies in two online courses in educational leadership, and surveyed students afterward on their impressions of each one. The students were asked to score the strategies using three criteria: 1) enjoyment, 2) engagement with the material, and 3) transferability of knowledge gained to practice. The resulting votes allowed investigators to rank the various strategies from least to most preferred by students.

Interestingly, scores for the three criteria were remarkably consistent within each strategy. Students who found an activity highly enjoyable normally found it engaging and with a high degree of transferability of knowledge and vice versa. Moreover, traditional forms of assessment tended to score near the bottom.

The rankings provide a guide for any faculty member looking to develop engaging online content. Below are the different strategies grouped from lowest to highest in preference.

State of Higher Ed LMS Market for US and Canada: Fall 2017 Edition [Hill]

On 11/02/2017, in adjunct faculty, Canada, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, education technology, faculty, higher education, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

State of Higher Ed LMS Market for US and Canada: Fall 2017 Edition — from mfeldstein.com by Phil Hill

Reading for delegates to the World Conference on Online Learning (taking place from 10/16/17 through 10/19/17 in Toronto, Canada)

Readings include:

QUANTUM LEAPS YOU CAN EXPECT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE – A ROADMAP AND MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS
EDU@2035 BIG SHIFTS ARE COMING! LOOKING BACK FROM 2035
Excerpt:
It’s hard for us to imagine a future that is not like the present. When looking at familiar terrain in the rear-view mirror, we must remind ourselves that – less than 50 years ago – two of the world’s biggest companies (Wal-Mart, Apple) had not yet incorporated or that 3 of the 5 largest companies in the world today are Chinese. Google is just preparing for its 20th anniversary, while global giants like Alibaba, Facebook and TenCent are not yet 15 years old! Worldwide, investors are pouring more than USD 3 Billion every year into educational technologies. How might innovations that flow from this investment change post-secondary education?
In 2035, will students choose among term-length and micro-courses from the Alibaba, Apple, Coursera, Sony, or YouTube catalogs? Will their instructors be at academies anywhere in the world, or might they be freelancers? Or chatbots? Will students wear prosthetic implants making it unnecessary to learn new languages? Will bionic devices give them augmented senses? Will we learn on campuses? In holodecks? At home? Using environmental scans, scenarios, probabilities and themes to fuel our imaginations, let’s envision what “automizing and digitizing” analysis, optimization, prophecy and customization might mean in and for post-secondary education’s mission!
From the rear-view mirror of 2035, our landscape might look as follows…
.
MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS, CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES IN ONLINE AND DISTANCE EDUCATION
LES LEARNING ANALYTICS : MODE OU OPPORTUNITÉ?
STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES FOR ONLINE LEARNING RE-IMAGINED AND RE-INVIGORATED: THEN, NOW AND WHAT’S TO COME
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM (CCC), THE LARGEST SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE U.S.A.
26 BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATIONS AT THE WORLD’S OPEN UNIVERSITIES YOU CAN ADOPT, ADAPT, AND APPLY TO YOUR OWN INSTITUTIONS
A SEPTEMBER 2017 SNAPSHOT
ON THE CUSP OF CHANGE IN APPROACHES TO TEACHING AND LEARNING
PERSPECTIVES OF PRESIDENTS OF ONTARIO’S COLLEGE ON THE FUTURE OF ONLINE LEARNING
A SNAPSHOT OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS, PLANS AND ASPIRATIONS
ON THE CUSP OF CHANGE IN APPROACHES TO TEACHING AND LEARNING
PERSPECTIVES OF PRESIDENTS OF ONTARIO’S UNIVERSITIES ON THE FUTURE OF ONLINE LEARNING
A SNAPSHOT OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS, PLANS AND ASPIRATIONS

Also see:

Emerging Tech Boosts Online Education Growth Over Next 4 Years — from edtechmagazine.com by Meghan Bogardus Cortez
A study finds that mobile devices, virtual reality and blending learning programs will spark innovation.
Excerpt:
With millions of students enrolling in at least one online course, it should be no surprise that a recent Technavio study found that the online education market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent until 2021. As enrollment and investment in online education increases, the report claims that the industry owes a lot of this growth to mobile devices and increased desire for blended learning opportunities.

2017 Campus Technology Impact Awards
The inaugural recipients of the CT Impact Awards are using tech to improve teaching and learning, streamline operations, build community and more.

Myths and Facts About Flipped Learning — from er.educause.edu by Robert Talbert

Key Takeaways

The combination of rapidly-accumulating research on the effectiveness of active learning combined with improvements in technology have created an ideal environment for almost any instructor to move their courses from a traditional to a flipped model.
Many articles on flipped learning contain misconceptions that can lead potential practitioners into error or away from using flipped learning entirely, to the detriment of their students and themselves.
This article looks at some of the myths about flipped learning and provides contradictory facts about this pedagogical approach.

Flipped learning, sometimes called the “flipped classroom,” is a pedagogical approach which uses time and space in a different way from the way courses are typically taught. In traditional instruction, students’ first contact with new ideas happens in class, usually through direct instruction from the professor; after exposure to the basics, students are turned out of the classroom to tackle the most difficult tasks in learning — those that involve application, analysis, synthesis, and creativity — in their individual spaces. Flipped learning reverses this, by moving first contact with new concepts to the individual space and using the newly-expanded time in class for students to pursue difficult, higher-level tasks together, with the instructor as a guide.

Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach whose time has come. The combination of rapidly-accumulating research on the effectiveness of active learning combined with improvements in technology have created an ideal environment for almost any instructor to move their courses from a traditional to a flipped model. At the same time, despite its popularity and the efforts of groups like the Flipped Learning Network to explain and operationalize flipped learning, it remains a somewhat poorly-understood concept among many. Many published articles on flipped learning contain misconceptions that can lead potential practitioners into error or away from using flipped learning entirely, to the detriment of their students and themselves.

Let’s take a look at some of the myths about flipped learning and try to find the facts.

Video on Its Way to Becoming Education Norm — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Video has become as ubiquitous in higher education classrooms as big screens in the fitness center and Hulu in residential halls. The use cases abound. The most popular use right now is to help with remote teaching and learning; 73 percent of institutions in a recent survey report the use of video for that purpose. That’s followed by the showing of video in classrooms (70 percent), as supplementary course material (66 percent) and for lecture capture (65 percent). But video is also gaining steam in student assignments, teaching skills and recording students as they practice them, recording campus events for on-demand viewing, as part of library media collections, to deliver personal introductions and to give feedback on student assignments and instructor teaching practices.

These examples aren’t the only ones cited in the latest results of Kaltura’s “The State of Video in Education.” The 2017 survey, done in May and June 2017, drew responses from more than a thousand people, 81 percent of whom work in higher ed (the rest from K–12 and other educational organizations). Most of the survey respondents hold one of four primary roles: instructional design, IT, faculty and media. Kaltura is a company that sells video products and services.

Also see:

Survey: Blended Learning on the Rise — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
Most faculty in our second annual Teaching with Technology Survey said they employ a mix of online and face-to-face instruction, and many are using the flipped model in their courses.

Excerpt:

In a nationwide survey on the use of technology for teaching and learning, an increasing number of higher education faculty members said they employ a mix of online and face-to-face learning in their courses. A full 73 percent of respondents said they use the blended model — that’s up from 71 percent in 2016. And while 15 percent of faculty are still teaching exclusively face-to-face, 12 percent have gone fully online (an increase from 10 percent teaching online in 2016).

Those findings came out of Campus Technology‘s 2017 Teaching with Technology Survey, in which we asked faculty to dish on their approach to teaching, use of technology, views of the future and more.

Best question I’ve heard in a while: “K-12 & higher education are considered separate systems. What if they converged?” [Young]

On 09/15/2017, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, career development, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, design, expectations, faculty, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, microlearning, pedagogy, social learning / networks, social media, society, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

K-12 and higher education are considered separate systems. What if they converged? — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young

Excerpt:

Education in America is a tale of two systems. There’s K-12 education policy and practice, but a separate set of rules—and a separate culture—for higher education. A new book argues that it doesn’t have to be that way.

In “The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education: Policies and Programs in a Changing Era,” two education professors point out potential benefits of taking a more holistic view to American education (in a volume that collects essays from other academics). They acknowledge that there are potential pitfalls, noting that even well-intentioned systems can have negative consequences. But they argue that “now more than ever, K-12 and higher education need to converge on a shared mission and partner to advance the individual interests of American students and the collective interests of the nation.”

EdSurge recently talked with one of the book’s co-editors, Christopher Loss, associate professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt University. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Which is to say that we have tended not to think of the sector as most people actually experience it—which is one continuous ladder, one that often is missing rungs, and is sometimes difficult to climb, depending on a whole host of different factors. So, I think that the research agenda proposed by Pat and I and our collaborators is one that actually gets much closer to the experience that most people actually are having with the educational sector.

From DSC:
This is a great 50,000-foot level question and one that reminds me of a graphic I created a couple of years ago that speaks of the continuum that we need to more holistically address — especially as the topic of lifelong learning is increasingly critical to members of our workforce today.

Because in actuality, the lines between high school and college continue to blur. Many students are taking AP courses and/or are dually-enrolled at colleges/universities already. Some high school graduates already have enough credits to make serious headway in obtaining a college degree.

The other thing that I see over and over again is that K-12 is out innovating higher education and is better at communicating with other educators than most of higher education is. As an example, go look at some of the K-12 bloggers and educators out there on Twitter. They have tens of thousands of followers — and many of those followers being other K-12 educators. They are sharing content, best practices, questions, issues/solutions, new pedagogies, new technologies, live communication/training sessions, etc. with each other. Some examples include:

Eric Sheninger 127 K followers
Alice Keeler 110 K followers
Kyle Pace 63.6 K followers
Monica Burns 44.5 K
Lisa Nielsen 32.4 K followers

The vast majority of the top bloggers within higher ed — and those who regularly are out on social media within higher education — are not even close to those kinds of numbers.

What that tells me is that while many educators within K-12 are out on social media sharing knowledge with each other via these relatively new means, the vast majority of administrators/faculty members/staff working within higher education are not doing that. That is, they are not regularly contributing streams of content to Twitter.

But that said, there are few people who are trying to “cross over the lines” of the two systems and converse with folks from both higher ed and K-12. We need more of these folks who are attempting to pulse-check the other systems out there in order to create a more holistic, effective continuum.

I wonder about the corporate world here as well. Are folks from the training departments and from the learning & development groups pulse-checking the ways that today’s students are being educated within higher education? Within K-12? Do they have a good sense of what the changing expectations of their new employees look like (in terms of how they prefer to learn)?

We can do better. That’s why I appreciated the question raised within Jeff’s article.

Is is time to back up a major step and practice design thinking on the entire continuum of lifelong learning?

Daniel Christian

Smartwatches Deemed Least Valuable Technology in the Classroom — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
In our second annual Teaching with Technology Survey, faculty revealed what technologies they use in the classroom, the devices they most value, what they wish for and more.

Excerpts:

Smartwatches may be one of the hottest gadgets in the consumer market — making up nearly a third of all wearables sales this year — but the climate in the classroom is noticeably cooler for the wrist-worn devices. In our 2017 Teaching with Technology Survey, smartwatches came in dead last in the list of technologies faculty consider essential or valuable for teaching and learning. Just 9 percent of faculty called the devices “valuable” (an increase from 5 percent in 2016), and not a one deemed them “essential.” What’s more, 9 percent of respondents considered smartwatches “detrimental.”

When we asked faculty what computing devices were most valuable for teaching and learning, laptops came out on top, considered “essential” by 54 percent of respondents (up from 49 percent in 2016). Workstations (defined as higher-end computers with faster processors, more RAM, more storage and dedicated graphics cards) came in second, followed by all-in-one computers, traditional desktops and detachable tablets. (The lineup was similar last year.)

“Under the Hood: Learning Design Behind Georgia Tech’s Degrees at Scale” + “Learning How to Learn: Anatomy of a good MOOC”

On 09/12/2017, in adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education technology, elearning, faculty, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, new business models, online learning, platforms, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Under the Hood: Learning Design Behind Georgia Tech’s Degrees at Scale — from evolllution.com by Shabana Figueroa and Yakut Gazi

Excerpt:

Rolling out the MM program in May and the degree program in August meant design coordination and creation of eight new online courses in less than a year. We needed a new approach that employed strategies for efficiency and effectiveness.

The Learning Design Team
GTPE’s learning design team partners with faculty members to develop their online courses from start to end, providing the heavy lifting for course production. A director of learning design oversees both the instructional design and production aspects of the course production across the entire program. This cross-functional team approach eliminates the silos created by independent instructional design and studio production teams, which in turn, minimizes hand-off points, decreases friction among teams, allows for long-term thinking that leads to smarter course design and development decisions, provides fluidity of talent and roles within the team, and fuels productivity.

…

…the paradigm shift to a learner-focused, team-based approach to course production and delivery, and collaboration of campus partners and groups…

From DSC:
Note the use of a team-based approach here. I think that the team-based approach will be the most beneficial to the world at large. Those teams will be able to deliver a high-quality learning experience, with high production values and carefully planned/crafted instructional designs.

Also see:

Learning How to Learn: Anatomy of a good MOOC — from linkedin.com by Bill Ferster

Excerpts:

Barbara Oakley’s MOOC, Learning How to Learn [2] is the exception to this trend. It is well-produced, informative, and fully embraces the new medium. With over 2 million registered students and completion rates of over 20% [3], (the average MOOC completion rate is 5%), Learning How to Learn is clearly resonating with its audience.

The question is why is it so popular? Intrigued, I enrolled the short MOOC to understand why it was so popular, and what lessons it might have for other MOOC authors to make their offerings more effective their “filmed plays.”

…

Oakley has clearly bucked the overall MOOC trend and has made good use of the inexpensive technologies with well-lit scenes that are clearly edited and make use of the green screen overlay technologies found in her Adobe Premiere video editor. She used a large teleprompter to ensure a fluid delivery of her message and high-quality audio.

…

Learning to Learn is effective because Oakley put a significant amount of effort making it effective. Good content, coupled with high production values, and sound pedagogy take time to produce and clearly pays off in the final product.

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education [Blackboard, w/ a variety of contributors]

On 09/08/2017, in 21st century, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), change, changing business models, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, face-to-face, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning theories, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, pace of change, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education — from Blackboard with a variety of contributors

Excerpts:

As you read their reflections you’ll find several themes emerge over and over:

Our current system is unsustainable and ill-suited for a globally connected world that is constantly changing.
Colleges and universities will have to change their current business model to continue to thrive, boost revenue and drive enrollment.
The “sage on the stage” and the “doc in the box” aren’t sustainable; new technologies will allow faculty to shift their focus on the application of learning rather than the acquisition of knowledge.
Data and the ability to transform that data into action will be the new lifeblood of the institution.
Finally, the heart and soul of any institution are its people. Adopting new technologies is only a small piece of the puzzle; institutions must also work with faculty and staff to change institutional culture.

Some quotes are listed below.

“What’s more, next-generation digital learning environments must bridge the divide between the faculty-directed instructivist model our colleges and universities have always favored and the learner-centric constructivist paradigm their students have come to expect and the economy now demands.”

…

It will be at least 10 years before systems such as this become the standard rather than the exception. Yet to achieve this timeline, we will have to begin fostering a very different campus culture that embraces technology for its experiential value rather than its transactional expediency, while viewing education as a lifelong pursuit rather than a degree-driven activity.

Susan Aldridge

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think it is a difficult time for decisionmakers to know how to move boldly forward. It’s almost funny, nobody’s doing five-year strategic plans anymore. We used to do ten-year plans, but now it’s “What’s our guiding set of principles and then let’s sort of generally go towards that.” I think it’s really hard to move an entire institution, to know how to keep it sustainable and serving your core student population. Trying to figure out how to keep moving forward is not as simple as it used to be when you hired faculty and they showed up in the classroom. It’s time for a whole new leadership model. I’m not sure what that is, but we have to start reimagining our organizations and our institutions and even our leadership.

Marie Cini

One of the things that is frustrating to me is the argument that online learning is just another modality. Online learning is much more than that. It’s arguably the most transformative development since the G.I. Bill and, before that, the establishment of land-grant universities.
…
I don’t think we should underestimate the profound impact online education has had and will continue to have on higher education. It’s not just another modality; it’s an entirely new industry.

Robert Hansen

From DSC:
And I would add (to Robert’s quote above) that not since the printing press was invented close to 500 years ago have we seen such an enormously powerful invention as the Internet. To bypass the Internet and the online-based learning opportunities that it can deliver is to move into a risky, potentially dangerous future. If your institution is doing that, your institution’s days could be numbered. As we move into the future — where numerous societies throughout the globe will be full of artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, algorithms, business’ digital transformations, and more — your institutions’ credibility could easily be at stake in a new, increasingly impactful way. Parents and students will want to know that there’s a solid ROI for them. They will want to know that a particular college or university has the foundational/core competencies and skills to prepare the learner for the future that the learner will encounter.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think the biggest challenge is the stubborn refusal of institutions to acknowledge that the 20th century university paradigm no longer works, or at least it doesn’t work anymore for the majority of our institutions. I’m not speaking on behalf of our members, but I think it’s fair to say that institutions are still almost entirely faculty-centered and not market-driven. Faculty, like so many university leaders today who come from faculty ranks, are so often ill-equipped to compete in the Wild West that we’re seeing today, and it’s not their fault. They’re trained to be biologists and historians and philosophers and musicians and English professors, and in the past there was very little need to be entrepreneurial. What’s required of university leadership now looks very much like what’s required in the fastpaced world of private industry.

…

If you are tuition dependent and you haven’t figured out how to serve the adult market yet, you’re in trouble.

Robert Hansen

It’s not just enough to put something online for autodidacts who already have the time, energy, and prior skills to be able to learn on their own. You really need to figure out how to embed all the supports that a student will need to be successful, and I don’t know if we’ve cracked that yet.

Amy Laitinen

The other company is Amazon. Their recent purchase of Whole Foods really surprised everybody. Now you have a massive digital retailer that has made billions staying in the online world going backwards into brick-and-mortar. I think if you look at what you can do on Amazon now, who’s to say in three years or five years, you won’t say, “You know what, I want to take this class. I want to purchase it through Amazon,” and it’s done through Amazon with their own LMS? Who’s to say they’re not already working on it?

Justin Louder

We are focused on four at Laureate. Probably in an increasing order of excitement to me are game-based learning (or gamification), adaptive learning, augmented and virtual reality, and cognitive tutoring.

Darrell Luzzo

I would wave my hand and have people lose their fear of change and recognize that you can innovate and do new things and still stay true to the core mission and values. My hope is that we harness our collective energy to help our students succeed and become fully engaged citizens.

Felice Nudelman

Making a MOOC — from harvardmagazine.com by Jonathan Shaw

Excerpts:

Now, as one of a small number of Harvard faculty members each year whose course is selected to become a MOOC (a massive, online, open course), he is about to go global. Just 20 new courses are chosen by a faculty review committee annually, all of them ultimately offered to learners in at least one free version—part of Harvard’s commitment to improve access to education globally through HarvardX (HX), the University’s online course initiative. Hernán’s course is based on Epidemiology (EPI) 289: “Models for Causal Inference,” the core offering he’s taught for 14 years at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). Harvard Magazine accompanied Hernán during the making of his MOOC to find out what it takes to produce one, and how that compares to creating a traditional course.
…
Faculty members typically spend 96 to 142 hours helping produce and run an eight-week MOOC, according to HarvardX estimates. …But when complete, it will free him from much of the time and expense of traveling to teach this fundamental introductory material.
…
It takes a team of skilled professionals—HX employs a staff of about 45, including managers, videographers, graphic designers, digital editors, and even a copyright attorney and an accessibility coordinator (who helps make the materials usable for sight- and hearing-impaired learners)—to make each MOOC, at a cost that ranges widely, depending on the nature of the course and the sites of location shoots. This one cost about $100,000 to make.
…
Among the University’s goals in supporting the production of courses like Hernán’s is maximizing their “reach” as part of “Harvard’s contribution to a rising tide of education globally,” says HX faculty director Robert Lue.
…
A video lecture therefore becomes a short unit in which to make one point, “not five. Because if I try to make five points, I need 50 minutes.” The hooks—the real-world applications—mean that “I start each lesson by telling students why this is important, why they should keep watching….You are in a competition for attention…

“For example, it seems obvious, but there’s only one Miguel Hernán. And he can either teach a class of 70” once a year, “or develop this course that reaches many more around the world and across different disciplines.”

Each of us needs to be drawing from — and contributing to — streams of content [Christian]

On 08/24/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, career development, communications, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, faculty, generational differences, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online media, participation, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, tools, training / L&D, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Readers of this Learning Ecosystems blog will recognize the following graphic:

I have long believed that each of us needs to draw from the relevant streams of content that are constantly flowing by us — and also that we should be contributing content to those streams as well. Such content can come from blogs, websites, Twitter, LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube channels, Google Alerts, periodicals, and via other means.

I’m a big fan of blogging and using RSS feeds along with feed aggregators such as Feedly. I also find that Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Alerts to be excellent means of tapping into — and contributing to — these streams of content. (See Jane Hart’s compilations to tap into other tools/means of learning as well.)

This perspective is echoed in the following article at the Harvard Business Review:

Help Employees Create Knowledge — Not Just Share It — from hbr.org by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown
Excerpt:
Without diminishing the value of knowledge sharing, we would suggest that the most valuable form of learning today is actually creating new knowledge. Organizations are increasingly being confronted with new and unexpected situations that go beyond the textbooks and operating manuals and require leaders to improvise on the spot, coming up with new approaches that haven’t been tried before. In the process, they develop new knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work in specific situations. We believe the old, “scalable efficiency” approach to knowledge needs to be replaced with a new, more nimble kind of “scalable learning.” To foster the latter, managers should understand five essential distinctions…

We need to be constantly challenging our assumptions and beliefs about what is required to achieve impact because, as the world changes, what used to work in the past may no longer work.

— Hagel and Brown

So whether you are working or studying within the world of higher education, or whether you are in the corporate world, or working in a governmental office, or whether you are a student in K-12, you need to be drawing from — and contributing your voice/knowledge to — streams of content.

In fact, in my mind, that’s what Training/L&D Departments should shift their focus to, as employees are already self-motivated to build their own learning ecosystems. And in the world of higher education, that’s why I work to help students in my courses build their own online-based footprints, while encouraging them to draw from — contribute to — these streams of content. As more people are becoming freelancers and consultants, it makes even more sense to do this.

But when we recognize that the environment around us is rapidly changing, skills have a shorter and shorter half-life. While skills are still necessary for success, the focus should shift to cultivating the underlying capabilities that can accelerate learning so that new skills can be more rapidly acquired. These capabilities include curiosity, critical thinking, willingness to take risk, imagination, creativity, and social and emotional intelligence. If we can develop those learning capabilities, we should be able to rapidly evolve our skill sets in ways that keep us ahead of the game.

— Hagel and Brown

Create strong faculty & student relationships with student-recorded name pronunciations.

On 08/21/2017, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, digital audio, education technology, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, ideas, innovation, relationships, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, by Daniel Christian

NameCoach
Create strong faculty and student relationships with student-recorded name pronunciations.

Also see:

Software helps instructors stop mangling hard-to-pronounce student names — from edsurge.com by Tina Nazerian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Learning names at the beginning of the term has long been a challenge for instructors—especially when the names are ones professors have never encountered before. There are companies like NameCoach that give professors a way to hear and review the correct pronunciation before classes even begin.

The Redwood City, Calif.-based company lets students record their own names and pairs the recordings with campus systems so that professors can listen to them as they review their rosters. Stanford University and Northwestern University are among the higher education institutions that use NameCoach.

Learning Ecosystems

State of Higher Ed LMS Market for US and Canada: Fall 2017 Edition [Hill]

Making a MOOC [from Harvard Magazine by Jonathan Shaw]

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