“Learning is one of the most personal things that people do; engineering provides problem-solving methods to enable learning at scale. How do we resolve this paradox?“
—Ellen Wagner
Wagner: Learning engineering offers us a process for figuring that out! If we think of learning engineering as a process that can transform research results into learning action there will be evidence to guide that decision-making at each point in the value chain. I want to get people to think of learning engineering as a process for applying research in practice settings, rather than as a professional identity. And by that I mean that learning engineering is a bigger process than what any one person can do on their own.
From DSC: Instructional Designers, Learning Experience Designers, Professors, Teachers, and Directors/Staff of Teaching & Learning Centers will be interested in this article. It made me think of the following graphic I created a while back: .
Picking the right projector for school can be a tough decision as the types and prices range pretty widely. From affordable options to professional grade pricing, there are many choices. The problem is that the performance is also hugely varied. This guide aims to be the solution by offering all you need to know about buying the right projector for school where you are.
Luke covers a variety of topics including:
Types of projectors
Screen quality
Light type
Connectivity
Pricing
From DSC: I posted this because Luke covered a variety of topics — and if you’re set on going with a projector, this is a solid article. But I hesitated to post this, as I’m not sure of the place that projectors will have in the future of our learning spaces. With voice-enabled apps and appliances continuing to be more prevalent — along with the presence of AI-based human-computer interactions and intelligent systems — will projectors be the way to go? Will enhanced interactive whiteboards be the way to go? Will there be new types of displays? I’m not sure. Time will tell.
Higher Education Has Not Been Forgotten by Generative AI — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder The generative AI (GenAI) revolution has not ignored higher education; a whole host of tools are available now and more revolutionary tools are on the way.
Some of the apps that have been developed for general use can be customized for specific topical areas in higher ed. For example, I created a version of GPT, “Ray’s EduAI Advisor,” that builds onto the current GPT-4o version with specific updates and perspectives on AI in higher education. It is freely available to users. With few tools and no knowledge of the programming involved, anyone can build their own GPT to supplement information for their classes or interest groups.
Excerpts from Ray’s EduAI Advisor bot:
AI’s global impact on higher education, particularly in at-scale classes and degree programs, is multifaceted, encompassing several key areas:
Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college, with most saying they feel the U.S. higher education system is headed in the “wrong direction,” according to a new poll.
Overall, only 36% of adults say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, according to the report released Monday by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. That confidence level has declined steadily from 57% in 2015.
Enrollment Planning in the Specter of Closure — from insidehighered.com by Mark Campbell and Rachel Schreiber; via GSV Misunderstandings about enrollment management and changing student needs can make a bad situation worse, Mark Campbell and Rachel Schreiber write.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
However, we find that many institutions provide little to no information to prospective students about actual outcomes for graduates. Examples include: What does applying to graduate school look like for graduates? Employment and earning potential? Average student loan debt? What do alumni say about their experience? What data do you have that is compelling to answer these and related questions? Families increasingly ask, “What is the ROI on this investment?”
… Another important issue relates to the unwillingness of leaders to evolve the institution to meet market demands. We have too often seen that storied, historic institutions have cultures that are change averse, and this seems to be particularly true in the liberal arts.This statement might appear to be controversial—but only if misunderstood.
To be clear, the humanities and the arts are vital, critical aspects of our institutions. But today’s prospective students are highly focused on career outcomes, given the financial investment they and their families are being asked to make. We believe that curricular offerings can place a high value on the core principles of the humanities and liberal arts while also preparing students for careers.
By contrast, curricular innovation, alterations to long-held marketing practices, openness to self-reflection regarding out-of-date programs, practices and policies—in short, a willingness to change and adapt—are all key. Finally, vital and successful institutions develop long-term strategic enrollment plans that are tactical, realistic and assessable and for which there is clarity about accountability. Putting these practices in place now can avert catastrophe down the road.
Mary Meeker has written her first report in over four years, focused on the relationship between artificial intelligence and U.S. higher education.
Why it matters: Meeker’s annual “Internet Trends” reports were among Silicon Valley’s most cited and consumed documents.
Each one dug deep into the new tech economy, with hundreds of pages of slides. The last one was published in 2019.
Meeker’s new effort is a shorter attempt (16 pages!) at reconciling tech’s brave new world and America’s economic vitality, with higher ed as the connective tissue.
Actions taken in the next five years will be consequential. It’s important for higher education to take a leadership role, in combination with industry and government. The ramp in artificial intelligence – which leverages the history of learning for learning – affects all forms of learning, teaching, understanding, and decision making. This should be the best of times…
Our first-pass observations on these topics follow. We begin with an overview, followed by thoughts on the unprecedented ramp in AI usage and the magnitude of investment in AI from America’s leading global technology companies. Then we explore ways that this rapidly changing AI landscape may drive transformations in higher education. We hope these add to the discussion.
AI & Universities – Will Masters of Learning Master New Learnings?
In a time of rapid technological change led by American companies, American universities must determine how best to optimize for the future. Many institutions have work to do to meet these changes in demand, per the Burning Glass Institute. As the AI challenge looms, they will need thoughtful plans that balance their rich traditions and research history with the needs of a rapidly evolving marketplace supercharged by innovation. Keeping an eye on the output and trends in various AI skunkworks, such as the team at AI Acceleration at Arizona State, may help universities determine the products and software tools that could transform the educational experience.
More colleges are breaching their debt requirements: S&P — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee Amid operating pressures, some institutions are struggling to meet financial metrics stipulated in their bond and loan covenants.
Dive Brief:
A growing number of colleges are breaching bond and loan stipulations, known as covenants, that require them to stay within certain financial health parameters, according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings.
The agency cited 12 colleges it rates that have breached covenants since last June. In most cases, bondholders waived the violation. Some covenants could allow debtholders to accelerate repayment, which could add to an institution’s liquidity and ratings risks.
S&P downgraded ratings for about half the institutions with violations, typically because of underlying financial issues. “We see continued credit quality divergence in the U.S. higher education sector, with weaker-positioned institutions experiencing budgetary pressure and covenant violations,” the analysts said.
After an unprecedented three-year timeout on federal student loan payments because of the pandemic, millions of borrowers began repaying their debt when billing resumed late last year. But nearly as many have not.
That reality, along with court decisions that regularly upend the rules, has complicated the government’s efforts to restart its system for collecting the $1.6 trillion it is owed.
Universities Investing in Microcredential Leadership — from insidehighered.com by Lauren Coffey As microcredential programs slowly gain traction, more universities are looking for leaders to coordinate the efforts.
Microcredentials—also known as digital badges, credentials, certificate, or alternative credentials—grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they are attracting renewed interest as institutions look to widen their nets for nontraditional students as an enrollment cliff looms.
In addition to backing these programs, some universities are going further by hiring staff solely to oversee microcredential efforts.
A Plan to Save Small Colleges — from insidehighered.com by Michael Alexander Small colleges could join forces through a supporting-organization model, Michael Alexander writes.
The challenges are significant. But there is a way to increase the probability of survival for many small colleges or spare them from a spartan existence. It involves groups of colleges affiliating under a particular structure that would facilitate both (1) a significant reduction in operating costs for each college and (2) a rationalization of each college’s academic offerings to concentrate on its strongest programs.
Meanwhile, a separate survey of faculty released Thursday by Ithaka S+R, a higher education consulting firm, showcased that faculty—while increasingly familiar with AI—often do not know how to use it in classrooms. Two out of five faculty members are familiar with AI, the Ithaka report found, but only 14 percent said they are confident in their ability to use AI in their teaching. Just slightly more (18 percent) said they understand the teaching implications of generative AI.
“Serious concerns about academic integrity, ethics, accessibility, and educational effectiveness are contributing to this uncertainty and hostility,” the Ithaka report said.
The diverging views about AI are causing friction. Nearly a third of students said they have been warned to not use generative AI by professors, and more than half (59 percent) are concerned they will be accused of cheating with generative AI, according to the Pearson report, which was conducted with Morning Consult and surveyed 800 students.
What teachers want from AI — from hechingerreport.org by Javeria Salman When teachers designed their own AI tools, they built math assistants, tools for improving student writing, and more
An AI chatbot that walks students through how to solve math problems. An AI instructional coach designed to help English teachers create lesson plans and project ideas. An AI tutor that helps middle and high schoolers become better writers.
These aren’t tools created by education technology companies. They were designed by teachers tasked with using AI to solve a problem their students were experiencing.
Over five weeks this spring, about 300 people – teachers, school and district leaders, higher ed faculty, education consultants and AI researchers – came together to learn how to use AI and develop their own basic AI tools and resources. The professional development opportunity was designed by technology nonprofit Playlab.ai and faculty at the Relay Graduate School of Education.
Next-Gen Classroom Observations, Powered by AI — from educationnext.org by Michael J. Petrilli The use of video recordings in classrooms to improve teacher performance is nothing new. But the advent of artificial intelligence could add a helpful evaluative tool for teachers, measuring instructional practice relative to common professional goals with chatbot feedback.
Multiple companies are pairing AI with inexpensive, ubiquitous video technology to provide feedback to educators through asynchronous, offsite observation. It’s an appealing idea, especially given the promise and popularity of instructional coaching, as well as the challenge of scaling it effectively (see “Taking Teacher Coaching To Scale,” research, Fall 2018).
…
Enter AI. Edthena is now offering an “AI Coach” chatbot that offers teachers specific prompts as they privately watch recordings of their lessons. The chatbot is designed to help teachers view their practice relative to common professional goals and to develop action plans to improve.
To be sure, an AI coach is no replacement for human coaching.
We need to shift our thinking about GenAI tutors serving only as personal learning tools. The above activities illustrate how these tools can be integrated into contemporary classroom instruction. The activities should not be seen as prescriptive but merely suggestive of how GenAI can be used to promote social learning. Although I specifically mention only one online activity (“Blended Learning”), all can be adapted to work well in online or blended classes to promote social interaction.
Stealth AI — from higherai.substack.com by Jason Gulya (a Professor of English at Berkeley College) talks to Zack Kinzler What happens when students use AI all the time, but aren’t allowed to talk about it?
In many ways, this comes back to one of my general rules: You cannot ban AI in the classroom. You can only issue a gag rule.
And if you do issue a gag rule, then it deprives students of the space they often need to make heads and tails of this technology.
We need to listen to actual students talking about actual uses, and reflecting on their actual feelings. No more abstraction.
In this conversation, Jason Gulya (a Professor of English at Berkeley College) talks to Zack Kinzler about what students are saying about Artificial Intelligence and education.
Welcome to our monthly update for Teams for Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! We’re thrilled to share over 20 updates and resources and show them in action next week at ISTELive 24 in Denver, Colorado, US.
… Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Educator features Guided Content Creation
Coming soon to Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a guided content generation experience to help educators get started with creating materials like assignments, lesson plans, lecture slides, and more. The content will be created based on the educator’s requirements with easy ways to customize the content to their exact needs. Standards alignment and creation Quiz generation through Copilot in Forms Suggested AI Feedback for Educators Teaching extension
To better support educators with their daily tasks, we’ll be launching a built-in Teaching extension to help guide them through relevant activities and provide contextual, educator-based support in Copilot. Education data integration
Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Student features Interactive practice experiences
Flashcards activity
Guided chat activity Learning extension in Copilot for Microsoft 365
…
New AI tools for Google Workspace for Education — from blog.google by Akshay Kirtikar and Brian Hendricks We’re bringing Gemini to teen students using their school accounts to help them learn responsibly and confidently in an AI-first future, and empowering educators with new tools to help create great learning experiences.
Many Americans, including the last wave of Gen Z-ers now entering high schools, want schools to offer more education and training options for young people like career and technical education, or CTE. They broadly agree that the K–12 goal of “college for all” over the last several decades has not served all students well. It should be replaced with “opportunity pluralism,” or the recognition that a college degree is one of many pathways to post-secondary success.
School-based CTE programs (there are also programs for adults) typically prepare middle and high school students for a range of high-wage, high-skill, and high-demand careers. These include fields like advanced manufacturing, health sciences, and information technology which often do not require a two- or four-year college degree. CTE programs award students recognized credentials like industry certifications and licenses.
The New Entry-Level Job (and Skill)
In a world where AI can perform entry-level tasks, and employers are prioritizing experienced candidates, how can recent college graduates and job seekers find a job?
AI is the new entry-level skill. As AI permeates every industry, it’s becoming increasingly common for employers to ask candidates how they think about applying AI to their jobs. (We’ve started asking this here at Reach ourselves.) Even if the job is not technical and doesn’t list AI as a skill, candidates would do well to prepare. Journalists, for instance, are warming up to using AI to transcribe interviews and suggest headlines.
So it’s not just AI that may take your entry-level role, but rather the person who knows how to use it. Candidates who are bracing for this technological shift and proactively building their AI literacy and expertise will have a leg up.
Leading school systems are incorporating AI tools such as tutoring, chatbots, and teacher assistants, and promoting AI literacy among teachers and students to adapt to the evolving role of AI in education.
According to Flighty, I logged more than 2,220 flight miles in the last 5 days traveling to three conferences to give keynotes and spend time with housing officers in Milwaukee, college presidents in Mackinac Island, MI, and enrollment and marketing leaders in Raleigh.
Before I rest, I wanted to post some quick thoughts about what I learned. Thank you to everyone who shared their wisdom these past few days:
We need to think about the “why” and “how” of AI in higher ed. The “why” shouldn’t be just because everyone else is doing it. Rather, the “why” is to reposition higher ed for a different future of competitors. The “how” shouldn’t be to just seek efficiency and cut jobs. Rather we should use AI to learn from its users to create a better experience going forward.
Residence halls are not just infrastructure. They are part and parcel of the student experience and critical to student success. Almost half of students living on campus say it increases their sense of belonging, according to research by the Association of College & University Housing Officers.
How do we extend the “residential experience”? More than half of traditional undergraduates who live on campus now take at least once course online. As students increasingly spend time off campus – or move off campus as early as their second year in college – we need to help continue to make the connections for them that they would in a dorm. Why? 47% of college students believe living in a college residence hall enhanced their ability to resolve conflicts.
Career must be at the core of the student experience for colleges to thrive in the future, says Andy Chan. Yes, some people might see that as too narrow of a view of higher ed or might not want to provide cogs for the wheel of the workforce, but without the job, none of the other benefits of college follow–citizenship, health, engagement.
A “triple threat grad”–someone who has an internship, a semester-long project, and an industry credential (think Salesforce or Adobe in addition to their degree–matters more in the job market than major or institution, says Brandon Busteed.
Every faculty member should think of themselves as an ambassador for the institution. Yes, care about their discipline/department, but that doesn’t survive if the rest of the institution falls down around them.
Presidents need to place bigger bets rather than spend pennies and dimes on a bunch of new strategies. That means to free up resources they need to stop doing things.
Higher ed needs a new business model. Institutions can’t make money just from tuition, and new products like certificates, are pennies on the dollars of degrees.
Boards aren’t ready for the future. They are over-indexed on philanthropy and alumni and not enough on the expertise needed for leading higher ed.
That’s the percentage of high school graduates going right on to college. A decade ago it was around 70%. So for all the bellyaching about the demographic cliff in higher ed, just imagine if today we were close to that 70% number? We’d be talking a few hundred thousand more students in the system.
As I told a gathering of presidents of small colleges and universities last night on Mackinac Island — the first time I had to take [numerous modes of transportation] to get to a conference — being small isn’t distinctive anymore.
There are many reasons undergrad enrollment is down, but they all come down to two interrelated trends: jobs and affordability.
The job has become so central to what students want out of the experience. It’s almost as if colleges now need to guarantee a job.
These institutions will need to rethink the learner relationship with work. Instead of college with work on the side, we might need to move to more of a mindset of work with college on the side by:
Making campus jobs more meaningful. Why can’t we have accounting and finance majors work in the CFO office, liberal arts majors work in IT on platforms such as Salesforce and Workday, which are skills needed in the workplace, etc.?
Apprenticeships are not just for the trades anymore. Integrate work-based learning into the undergrad experience in a much bigger way than internships and even co-ops.
Credentials within the degree. Every graduate should leave college with more than just a BA but also a certified credential in things like data viz, project management, the Adobe suite, Alteryx, etc.
The curriculum needs to be more flexible for students to combine work and learning — not only for the experience but also money for college — so more availability of online courses, hybrid courses, and flexible semesters.
We have to provide instructors the support they need to leverage educational technologies like generative AI effectively in the service of learning. Given the amount of benefit that could accrue to students if powerful tools like generative AI were used effectively by instructors, it seems unethical not to provide instructors with professional development that helps them better understand how learning occurs and what effective teaching looks like. Without more training and support for instructors, the amount of student learning higher education will collectively “leave on the table” will only increase as generative AI gets more and more capable. And that’s a problem.
From DSC: As is often the case, David put together a solid posting here. A few comments/reflections on it:
I agree that more training/professional development is needed, especially regarding generative AI. This would help achieve a far greater ROI and impact.
The pace of change makes it difficult to see where the sand is settling…and thus what to focus on
The Teaching & Learning Groups out there are also trying to learn and grow in their knowledge (so that they can train others)
The administrators out there are also trying to figure out what all of this generative AI stuff is all about; and so are the faculty members. It takes time for educational technologies’ impact to roll out and be integrated into how people teach.
As we’re talking about multiple disciplines here, I think we need more team-based content creation and delivery.
There needs to be more research on how best to use AI — again, it would be helpful if the sand settled a bit first, so as not to waste time and $$. But then that research needs to be piped into the classrooms far better. .
From DSC: I’ve been wondering about collaborations, consortiums, and other forms of pooling resources within higher education for quite some time. As such, this an interesting item to me.
Survey: Most Students Approve of Education Quality, Climate — from insidehighered.com by Colleen Flaherty Initial findings from Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey challenge popular narratives about how college is failing students, while also pointing to areas for improvement.
Public doubts about higher education may be increasing, but three in four current students rate the quality of education they’re receiving as good (46 percent) or excellent (27 percent), according to just-in results from Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey. This is relatively consistent across institution types.
