From DSC:
For those who dog the “doomsayers” of higher ed…
- You need to realize many “doomsayers” are trying to get traditional institutions of higher education to change, experiment, lower their price tags, collaborate with K12 and/or with the corporate/vocational realms, and to innovate
- While many of those same institutions haven’t closed (at least not yet), there are many examples of budget cuts, downsizing, layoffs, early retirements, etc.
- Many of those same institutions are not the same as they were 20-30 years ago — not even close. This is becoming especially true for liberal arts colleges.
Here’s one example that made me post this reflection:
Why some rural universities are dropping dozens of programs — from npr.org by Ason Fuller, Lee Hale, and Sarah McCammon
NPR’s Sarah McCammon talks with Hechinger Report Author Jon Marcus about the financial woes of rural universities and why some are dropping dozens of programs.
Excerpt:
Many colleges and universities in rural America are slashing budgets as enrollment numbers continue to dwindle. And often, the first things to be cut are humanities programs like history and English. It’s forcing some students to consider transferring to other schools or leaving higher education altogether. Jon Marcus has been covering this erosion of funding at rural universities and its domino effects with The Hechinger Report, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.
From DSC:
Our son recently took a 3-day intensive course on the Business of Acting. It was offered by the folks at “My College Audition” — and importantly, the course was not offered by the university where he is currently working on a BFA in Acting. By the way, aspiring performing arts students may find this site very beneficial/helpful as well. (Example blog posting here.)
The course was actually three hours of learning on a Sunday night, a Monday night, and a Tuesday night from 6-9pm.
He learned things that he mentioned have not been taught in his undergrad program (at least not so far). When I asked him what he liked most about the course, he said:
- These people are out there doing this (DSC insert: To me, this sounds like the use of adjunct faculty in higher ed)
- There were 9 speakers in the 9 hours of classtime
- They relayed plenty of resources that were very helpful and practical. He’s looking forward to pursuing these leads further.
He didn’t like that there were no discussion avenues/forums available. And as a paying parent, I didn’t like that we had to pay for yet another course and content that he wasn’t getting at his university. It may be that the university that he’s studying at will offer such a course later in the curriculum. But after two years of college experience, he hasn’t come across anything this practical and he is eagerly seeking out this type of practical/future-focused information. In fact, it’s critical to him staying with acting…or not. He needs this information sooner in his program.
It made me reflect on the place of adjunct faculty within higher education — folks who are out there “doing” what they are teaching about. They tend to be more up-to-date in their real-world knowledge. Sabbaticals are helpful in this regard for full-time faculty, but they don’t come around nearly enough to keep one’s practical, career-oriented knowledgebase up-to-date.
Again, this dilemma is to be expected, given our current higher education learning ecosystem. Faculties’ plates are full. They don’t have time to pursue this kind of endeavor in addition to their daily responsibilities. Staff aren’t able to be out there “doing” these things either.
This brings me back to design thinking. We’ve got to come up with better ways of offering student-centered education, programming, and content/resources.
My son walked away shaking his head a bit regarding his current university. At a time when students and families are questioning the return on their investments in traditional institutions of higher education, this issue needs to be taken very seriously.
Also potentially relevant for some of the performing arts students out there:
- Voice Acting & Character Voices for Video Games & Animations — from udemy.com
Develop New Character Voices and Discover the Voice Acting Secrets of 10 Successful Voice Actors from Around The World!
Why College Students Turned From Being Down on Remote Learning to Mostly in Favor of It — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell
Excerpt:
Over time, with months of practice as the pandemic proceeded, instructors and students learned how to use remote tools. Continuously online, enormous numbers gained proficiency with digital learning software. “The quality of a well-run synchronous, online class can now rival—and in some respects exceed—the quality of the in-person equivalent,” observes John Villasenor at the Brookings Institution.
The good news is that online learning is no longer reviled and resented, but after a rocky tryout in the pandemic, it’s now just another higher ed choice in which students and faculty, after years of digital stress, have largely adapted to it.
The above article linked to:
Noetel, M., Griffith, S., Delaney, O., Sanders, T., Parker, P., del Pozo Cruz, B., & Lonsdale, C. (2021). Video Improves Learning in Higher Education: A Systematic Review. Review of Educational Research, 91(2), 204–236. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654321990713
Conclusion
Online teaching allows for learning to be delivered affordably, at scale, and with fewer infrastructure constraints than face-to-face instruction—it does not require a university to have hundreds of people in the same room at the same time. As universities move content online, staff usually turn to teaching via asynchronous videos and synchronous videoconferences (Cook et al., 2010). Videoconferences may be more conducive to student–teacher interactivity (Al-Samarraie, 2019; Bernard et al., 2009), but most studies in our review had the same level of active learning in the video and comparison condition, meaning teachers can maintain active learning while shifting to video. When they do, videos lead to better student learning than many other teaching methods, even when compared with face-to-face teaching. We suggest that these results are because videos may provide students with control over their level of cognitive load, they allow authentic demonstrations of skills, and they enable teaching staff to edit according to multimedia learning principles. Pragmatically, videos allow students to fit learning around their other commitments, and are less reliant than videoconferences on stable, high-speed internet connections (Al-Samarraie, 2019), because they can be buffered to the user’s device. Many of these findings are still contingent on students having access to online learning (Warschauer & Matuchniak, 2010), so ensuring students have social and technical support is a critical challenge for universities around the world. Provided those supports are available, universities can effectively switch to video for efficient and scalable education. Video appears to have a range of benefits in higher education settings.
Online Tools and Web Applications — from schrockguide.net by Kathy Schrock
Excerpt:
Web tools and online utilities have become more full-featured and useful over the years.
Here are some links to various online tools to help both teaching and learning. The online tools all work with laptops and Chromebooks unless stated otherwise. The ones that have Chrome apps available have a link to the Chrome Web Store link.
Categories include:
-
- A.I. online tools
- Online graphic design tools
- Online video editors/creators/downloaders
- Online audio recorders/editors
- Online image editors/creators
- Online collage makers
- Online sketchnoting and drawing tools
- Online word processors
- Online animation creators
- …and many more!
Three Things to Know about AI Tools and Teaching — from derekbruff.org by Derek Bruff
Excerpt:
There’s lot more to say on this subject, of course, but I hope these three observations are useful as you make sense of this new technology landscape. Here they are again for easy reference:
-
- We are going to have to start teaching our students how AI generation tools work.
- When used intentionally, AI tools can augment and enhance student learning, even towards traditional learning goals.
- We will need to update our learning goals for students in light of new AI tools and that can be a good thing.
President Speaks: To put students first, colleges need to rethink the OPM model — from highereddive.com by Paul Pastorek
Paul Pastorek, president of the University of Arizona Global Campus, explains why his institution cut ties with Zovio, a former online program manager.
Following our separation from Zovio, UAGC has not only undertaken efforts that shift the structure and responsibility for critical decisions around enrollment, marketing and student advising to a fully in-house team, it unlocked resources that will enable us to make investments that better align with our mission: providing adult learners with affordable college credentials that prepare them for careers in a rapidly evolving global economy.
Savings from increased efficiency and reduced costs will be reinvested in the student experience — and entirely at our discretion. No longer stifled by the contractual obligations of a company primarily motivated by profit, our faculty and staff are already expressing they have greater freedom to innovate and find new ways to enhance student success. We are all aligned under one common goal, working together to move the institution in the same direction.
Colleges’ expenses rose 5.2% in FY22, the biggest increase since 2001 — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak
Dive Brief:
- The cost of running a college jumped 5.2% in the 2022 fiscal year, according to data from Commonfund, an asset management firm that tracks inflation in the higher education sector.
- That’s the highest rate of inflation the Higher Education Price Index, or HEPI, has tracked since 2001, when it hit 6%. It’s also a sharp increase from 2021, when the college inflation rate was 2.7%.
- But the HEPI increase was outpaced by inflation more broadly in the U.S., a rare occurrence according to Commonfund. The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, reached 7.2% in fiscal 2022.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to offer HR apprenticeships — from highereddive.com by Ginger Christ
“As demand for technology skills continues to grow across the region, UWM has a unique opportunity to solve two challenges at once: creating new pathways to high-wage jobs for our community, while also addressing a growing need for workers with those tech skills,” UWM Provost Scott Gronert said in a news release. “Together with Helios, we’re helping to address one of the most critical talent gaps faced by Wisconsin employers, and enabling our students and graduates to gain the skills that translate to success in today’s increasingly tech-driven labor market.”
Unusual majors help some colleges stand out from the crowd — and boost enrollment — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
A bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration has put a tiny Kansas school on the map
Excerpt:
That’s an unusual ambition for a small college — which is exactly the point. This particular small college has what it says is the country’s only four-year bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration, a major that combines engineering, history, business, communication, art and other disciplines.
It’s an example of the way a small regional higher education institution can stand out in a crowded field of competitors at a time when many other schools appear intent on trying to attract applicants by becoming more alike than different.
ChatGPT, Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Education — from ditchthattextbook.com by Matt Miller
AI just stormed into the classroom with the emergence of ChatGPT. How do we teach now that it exists? How can we use it? Here are some ideas.
Excerpt:
Now, we’re wondering …
- What is ChatGPT? And, more broadly, what are chatbots and AI?
- How is this going to impact education?
- How can I teach tomorrow knowing that this exists?
- Can I use this as a tool for teaching and learning?
- Should we block it through the school internet filter — or try to ban it?
Also relevant/see:
We gave ChatGPT a college-level microbiology quiz. It blew the quiz away. — from bigthink.com by Dr. Alex Berezow
ChatGPT’s capabilities are astonishing.
Key takeaways:
- The tech world is abuzz over ChatGPT, a chat bot that is said to be the most advanced ever made.
- It can create poems, songs, and even computer code. It convincingly constructed a passage of text on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR, in the voice of the King James Bible.
- As a PhD microbiologist, I devised a 10-question quiz that would be appropriate as a final exam for college-level microbiology students. ChatGPT blew it away.
ChatGPT Is Dumber Than You Think — from theatlantic.com by Ian Bogost
Treat it like a toy, not a tool.
Excerpt:
On the one hand, yes, ChatGPT is capable of producing prose that looks convincing. But on the other hand, what it means to be convincing depends on context. The kind of prose you might find engaging and even startling in the context of a generative encounter with an AI suddenly seems just terrible in the context of a professional essay published in a magazine such as The Atlantic. And, as Warner’s comments clarify, the writing you might find persuasive as a teacher (or marketing manager or lawyer or journalist or whatever else) might have been so by virtue of position rather than meaning: The essay was extant and competent; the report was in your inbox on time; the newspaper article communicated apparent facts that you were able to accept or reject.
I Would Have Cheated in College Using ChatGPT — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein
Excerpt:
These lines of demarcation—the lines between when a tool can do all of a job, some of it, or none of it—are both constantly moving and critical to watch. Because they define knowledge work and point to the future of work. We need to be teaching people how to do the kinds of knowledge work that computers can’t do well and are not likely to be able to do well in the near future. Much has been written about the economic implications to the AI revolution, some of which are problematic for the employment market. But we can put too much emphasis on that part. Learning about artificial intelligence can be a means for exploring, appreciating, and refining natural intelligence. These tools are fun. I learn from using them. Those two statements are connected.
Google to Rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT? New AI Bot for Chats in 2023, CEO Claims to Use it for Search — from techtimes.com by Isaiah Richard
Google to expand its Search engine with AI for 2023, but not in a creepy way.
Excerpt:
Google is planning to create a new AI feature for its Search engine, one that would rival the recently released and controversial ChatGPT from OpenAI. The company revealed this after a recent Google executive meeting that involved the likes of its CEO Sundar Pichai and AI head, Jeff Dean, that talked about the technology that the internet company already has, soon for development.
Employees from the Mountain View giant were concerned that it was behind the current AI trends to the likes of OpenAI despite already having a similar technology laying around.
And more focused on the business/vocational/corporate training worlds:
Sana raises $34M for its AI-based knowledge management and learning platform for workplaces — from techcrunch.com by Ingrid Lunden
There are a lot of knowledge management, enterprise learning and enterprise search products on the market today, but what Sana believes it has struck on uniquely is a platform that combines all three to work together: a knowledge management-meets-enterprise-search-meets-e-learning platform.
Exclusive: ChatGPT owner OpenAI projects $1 billion in revenue by 2024 — from reuters.com by Jeffrey Dastin, Krystal Hu, and Paresh Dave
Excerpt:
Three sources briefed on OpenAI’s recent pitch to investors said the organization expects $200 million in revenue next year and $1 billion by 2024.
The forecast, first reported by Reuters, represents how some in Silicon Valley are betting the underlying technology will go far beyond splashy and sometimes flawed public demos.
“We’re going to see advances in 2023 that people two years ago would have expected in 2033. It’s going to be extremely important not just for Microsoft’s future, but for everyone’s future,” he said in an interview this week.
Addendum on 12/21/22:
ChatGPT and higher education: last week and this week — from bryanalexander.org by Bryan Alexander
From DSC:
I was watching a sermon the other day, and I’m always amazed when the pastor doesn’t need to read their notes (or hardly ever refers to them). And they can still do this in a much longer sermon too. Not me man.
It got me wondering about the idea of having a teleprompter on our future Augmented Reality (AR) glasses and/or on our Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. Or perhaps such functionality will be provided on our mobile devices as well (i.e., our smartphones, tablets, laptops, other) via cloud-based applications.
One could see one’s presentation, sermon, main points for the meeting, what charges are being brought against the defendant, etc. and the system would know to scroll down as you said the words (via Natural Language Processing (NLP)). If you went off script, the system would stop scrolling and you might need to scroll down manually or just begin where you left off.
For that matter, I suppose a faculty member could turn on and off a feed for an AI-based stream of content on where a topic is in the textbook. Or a CEO or University President could get prompted to refer to a particular section of the Strategic Plan. Hmmm…I don’t know…it might be too much cognitive load/overload…I’d have to try it out.
And/or perhaps this is a feature in our future videoconferencing applications.
But I just wanted to throw these ideas out there in case someone wanted to run with one or more of them.
Along these lines, see:
Tell me you’re not going to want a pair of #AR glasses ?
? @TechAmazing #AugmentedReality #Wearables #5G #CES2023 #FutureOfWork #AI #cloud
pic.twitter.com/He5d1bSnQK— Glen Gilmore | ?? #CES2023 (@GlenGilmore) December 3, 2022
.
One of the best decisions I’ve ever made as a prof is to start building my classes to start with 1 week of onboarding followed by just 12 weeks of content. Last 2 weeks are just catchup and reassessment. Course is basically over at Thanksgiving.
— Robert Talbert (@RobertTalbert) November 28, 2022
From DSC:
With a shout out to Beth McMurtrie’s Teaching Newsletter for pointing this Tweet out from Robert Talbert. Nice work Robert and Beth!
2023 Higher Education Trend Watch — from educause.edu
Also see:
2023 Strategic Trends Glossary — from educause.edu
Excerpts:
- Closer alignment of higher education with workforce needs and skills-based learning
- Continuation and normalization of hybrid and online learning
- Continued adoption and normalization of hybrid and remote work arrangements
- Continued resignation and migration of leaders and staff from higher education institutions
- Declining public funding for higher education
- …and more