How can liberal education prepare students for the future? — NITLE

We conclude our blog conversation series on the future of liberal education, elicited by the recent AAC&U conference, with an appropriate nod to the future.

One panel* addressed an intriguing topic: how do we prepare students for a future that doesn’t yet exist?

Discussion hit on a series of topics, which we can abstract and summarize here:

There are two ways to prepare for events, reactive and creative (shaping new things).  What learning attributes do we associate with both of these?

  • Adaptability of beliefs, behaviors, assumptions
  • Imagination
  • Innovation (implementing new ideas) <– From DSC: There’s that word again

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From Campus Technology’s latest edition — quote below from Geoff Fletcher, Editorial Director

What do students want? -- from Campus Technology's February 2010 Ed.

Per Geoff: Innovation is in. Innovation has always been in, but it really is in these days: According to economists, innovation will be America’s [or substitute any nation — per DSC] hedge in an increasingly-competitive global economy, but only if our education system is good enough — is innovative enough — to foster the same creativity and inventiveness in our students.

Per DSC:
Wow…do we have our work cut out for us. From so many of the articles and postings I’ve seen over the last few years, innovation and change comes hard to those of us in the world of education. Are we giving the students the chances to be innovative and creative? Are we encouraging those traits in them? If not, what will it take to turn the tides here?

Also, I’d like to comment on students’ expectations — in that we should not underrate them! (Particularly in light of the higher costs of obtaining an education and the movement towards a more consumer-based mindset of our students.) I wonder how long will it be before prospective students take a good, long, hard look at what assistance/training/education an institution of higher education will offer them in developing their learning networks? What technologies does that institution support? What philosophies does that school have concerning how open to be here? Hmmm…

Finally, this edition sports a great article (starting on page 23) entitled, “Managing the Student for Life” — I’ve often thought that more colleges and universities should focus more heavily on lifelong learning possibilities, and then to market themselves as being able to assist a person from age 18 – until “death-do-we-part”.  🙂

Managing the student for life


Not Blogging in WordPress: Innovative Faculty Use of WordPress MU for Teaching and Scholarship (Learning Technology) — from Educause

“Faculty members and educational technologists have great ideas about new ways to enhance teaching and learning with technology. However, sometimes the available tools make these innovative ideas awkward or impossible to implement without customization. At St. Lawrence University, we have found WordPress MU to be surprisingly flexible, offering us the opportunity to use it in a variety of ways without any customization. In this session, we will look at current ways that a single instance of WPMU is being used for various purposes-sometimes bearing little or no resemblance to blogging-and meeting the needs of our faculty with no customization.”

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5 Ways To Enhance Instruction with Digital Narratives — from t|h|e by Chris Riedel
Tech vets go toe-to-toe on the latest tools that can improve instruction, boost productivity, or just help make users’ lives a bit more organized

“Over the last decade, advances in technology have made dreams of ubiquitous access to digital media a reality, both on the Web and off. From inexpensive cameras to iPods to cell phones to integrated Webcams, capturing, editing, and sharing digital audio and video has become push-button easy. And that, according to University of Central Florida (UCF) professors Robert Kenny and Glenda Gunter, is good news for K-12 educators.”

Here’s my vision of what a Smart Classroom should look like in the near future (please click on the image  below to see an enlarged image and to get some further details of my thoughts here):

My vision for what a Smart Classroom should look like -- 2009

Click image to see larger image w/ details

My thanks to Mr. Yohan Na for help with this graphic. The vision leverages the same idea as Steelcase’s Media:Scape product line:

"Pucks" on each table to "plug and play" various types of media

I need to catch up to many of you out there…but while reading Kirkpatricks’ Evaluating training programs: The four levels (3rd ed.) last night, I had the following thoughts:

4 Levels:

  • Reaction <– Hypothesis from DSC: K-12 and college/university students’ initial reactions will become immediately more positive if technology is used in effective, engaging ways. Start with a format/media/technique/game/simulation that interests the students the most about that topic (even if this “hook” is not going to be the focus of what you will be covering the majority of the time). For as the Kirkpatricks state on p. 22, “Positive reaction may not ensure learning, but negative reaction almost certainly reduces the possibility of its occurring” (p. 22).
  • Learning
  • Behavior <– In order for change to occur, four conditions are necessary:
    • The person must have a desire to change
    • The person must know what to do and how to do it
    • The person must work in the right climate <– speaks to job families in business world
    • The person must be rewarded for changing <– speaks to incentive systems. How can we build some powerful incentive systems for students? Perhaps use an online system whereby if the student successfully completes the learning objectives, they get whatever they want up to $_____ off of their tuition, or perhaps an iTunes gift certificate for K-12ers. Perhaps Apple and company would be willing to donate ___ songs or the Gates Foundation put forth $___ as a reward system here. Or perhaps if they meet ___ objectives, they earn the right to take another elective within a discipline that they are passionate about.
  • Results

Kirkpatrick, D. L., & Kirkpatrick, J. D. (2005). Evaluating training programs: The four levels (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

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