A New Era for Education — from linkedin.com by Amit Sevak, CEO of ETS and Timothy Knowles, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

It’s not every day you get to announce a revolution in your sector. But today, we’re doing exactly that. Together, we are setting out to overturn 117 years of educational tradition.

The fundamental assumption [of the Carnegie Unit] is that time spent in a classroom equals learning. This formula has the virtue of simplicity. Unfortunately, a century of research tells us that it’s woefully inadequate.


From DSC:
It’s more than interesting to think that the Carnegie Unit has outlived its usefulness and is breaking apart. In fact, the thought is very profound.

It's more than interesting to think that the Carnegie Unit has outlived its usefulness and is breaking apart. In fact, the thought is very profound.

If that turns out to be the case, the ramifications will be enormous and we will have the opportunity to radically reinvent/rethink/redesign what our lifelong learning ecosystems will look like and provide.

So I appreciate what Amit and Timothy are saying here and I appreciate their relaying what the new paradigm might look like. It goes with the idea of using design thinking to rethink how we build/reinvent our learning ecosystems. They assert:

It’s time to change the paradigm. That’s why ETS and the Carnegie Foundation have come together to design a new future of assessment.

    • Whereas the Carnegie Unit measures seat time, the new paradigm will measure skills—with a focus on the ones we know are most important for success in career and in life.
    • Whereas the Carnegie Unit never leaves the classroom, the new paradigm will capture learning wherever it takes place—whether that is in after-school activities, during a work-experience placement, in an internship, on an apprenticeship, and so on.
    • Whereas the Carnegie Unit offers only one data point—pass or fail—the new paradigm will generate insights throughout the learning process, the better to guide students, families, educators, and policymakers.

I could see this type of information being funneled into peoples’ cloud-based learner profiles — which we as individuals will own and determine who else can access them. I diagrammed this back in January of 2017 using blockchain as the underlying technology. That may or may not turn out to be the case. But the concept will still hold I think — regardless of the underlying technology(ies).

Perhaps blockchain will be the underlying technology to provide us with cloud-based learner profiles

For example, we are seeing a lot more articles regarding things like Comprehensive Learner Records (CLR) or Learning and Employment Records (LER; example here), and similar items.

LER — The Learning and Employment Record for a Skills-Based Economy


Speaking of reinventing our learning ecosystems, also see:

 

The top online learning statistics in 2023 — from Devlin Peck’s Online Learning Statistics: The Ultimate List in 2023

  • Worldwide, 49% of students have completed some sort of online learning
  • Online learning is the fastest-growing market in the education industry – it has grown 900% since its creation in 2000
  • 70% of students say online learning is better than traditional classroom learning
  • The number of online learning users is expected to increase to 57 million by 2027
  • 80% of businesses now offer online learning or training solutions
  • 63% of students in the US engage in online learning activities daily
  • Online learning can increase student and employee retention to as much as 50%
  • Online learning can reduce the time needed to learn a subject by 40% to 60%
  • The online learning industry is projected to be worth more than $370 billion by 2026
  • Online learning and training can improve employee performance by 15% to 25%

Trade programs — unlike other areas of higher education — are in hot demand — from hechingerreport.org by Olivia Sanchez
Many young people choose to pursue short-term credentials over traditional college because they see them as a quicker and a more affordable path to a good

Excerpt:

While almost every sector of higher education is seeing fewer students registering for classes, many trade school programs are booming. Jones and his classmates, seeking certificates and other short-term credentials, not associate degrees, are part of that upswing.

Mechanic and repair trade programs saw an enrollment increase of 11.5 percent from spring 2021 to 2022, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Enrollment in construction trades courses increased by 19.3 percent, while culinary program enrollment increased 12.7 percent, according to the Clearinghouse.


Death of a Traditional Lecture — from by

Excerpts:

However, some of the digital/remote content is better than what we can provide in the physical classroom. For example, in a biology course, instructors can watch students interact with thousands of 3D models, such as those found on Sketchfab or virtual programs such as BioDigital. Additionally, students can follow along virtually as instructors point out different structures. This approach is not possible in a physical classroom unless each student has their own physical model or they bring their computers.

We should welcome the unfamiliarity of new and blended course designs and strive to build courses based on the best approach for the content regardless of the format, rather than revert to the comfort of analog lecturing.


How College Students Say They Learn Best— from insidehighered.com by Colleen Flaherty
In a new Student Voice survey, students share their preferences for class format, active learning strategies and note-taking. Interactive lectures and case studies are especially popular.


OPM Market Landscape And Dynamics: Spring 2023 Updates — from philhillaa.com by Phil Hill

Excerpt:

OPM Market Landscape

  • Market valuations of publicly-traded OPM companies have continued to drop, with 2U/edX, Coursera, and Keypath all down 75% or more from March 2021.
  • Pearson tapped out of the market, agreeing to sell its OPM business to private equity firm Regent.
  • Zovio is no more. It has ceased to be.
  • FutureLearn sold the remnants of its business to a for-profit system, and it now has the most obnoxious website of any OPM provider, past or present.
  • Byju’s, which (according to multiple media accounts) had been considering an acquisition of 2U/edX or Coursera, abandoned these plans to go off and deal with its own financial crisis.
  • Noodle acquired South Africa-based Hubble Studios.
  • The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on the OPM market, triggering (but not causing) official efforts to make massive regulatory changes.

Harvard and MIT Launch Nonprofit to Increase College Access — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young
The effort is backed by the $800 million sale of the online platform edX in 2021.

Excerpt:

What would you do if you had $800 million to build a new nonprofit to support innovation in online learning?

That’s the privileged question that officials at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have been mulling over for the last two years, and late last month they announced some answers.

The result is a new nonprofit named Axim Collaborative, and its focus will be on serving learners that higher education has historically left behind.

As the group’s new CEO, Stephanie Khurana, put it in an interview with EdSurge this week: “The focus of the mission is to really help postsecondary completion and issues of economic mobility.”


California helps college students cut their debt by paying them to help their communities — from hechingerreport.org by Gail Cornwall
Inspired by service programs from earlier eras, the College Corps program puts low-income, first-generation students to work in education, food insecurity and climate mitigation


‘The reckoning is here’: More than a third of community college students have vanished — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Among those who do enroll, red tape and a lack of support are crushing their ambition


The Importance of Student Agency and Self-Direction — from evolllution.com by Cathrael Kazin

Excerpt:

The traditional higher education model is not a one-size-fits all. And students are increasingly calling for adaptability and flexibility to meet their needs. The focus on student agency is a tactic that many leaders can leverage when looking to support these needs and thrive moving forward. In this interview, Cathrael Kazin discusses the need for student agency and self-direction, the challenges that come with it and how to improve student retention and success.

 




AutoGPT is the next big thing in AI— from therundown.ai by Rowan Cheung

Excerpt:

AutoGPT has been making waves on the internet recently, trending on both GitHub and Twitter. If you thought ChatGPT was crazy, AutoGPT is about to blow your mind.

AutoGPT creates AI “agents” that operate automatically on their own and complete tasks for you. In case you’ve missed our previous issues covering it, here’s a quick rundown:

    • It’s open-sourced [code]
    • It works by chaining together LLM “thoughts”
    • It has internet access, long-term and short-term memory, access to popular websites, and file storage

.



From DSC:
I want to highlight that paper from Stanford, as I’ve seen it cited several times recently:.

Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior -- a paper from Stanford from April 2023


From DSC:
And for a rather fun idea/application of these emerging technologies, see:

  • Quick Prompt: Kitchen Design — from linusekenstam.substack.com by Linus Ekenstam
    Midjourney Prompt. Create elegant kitchen photos using this starting prompt. Make it your own, experiment, add, remove and tinker to create new ideas.

…which made me wonder how we might use these techs in the development of new learning spaces (or in renovating current learning spaces).


From DSC:
On a much different — but still potential — note, also see:

A.I. could lead to a ‘nuclear-level catastrophe’ according to a third of researchers, a new Stanford report finds — from fortune.com by Tristan Bove

Excerpt:

Many experts in A.I. and computer science say the technology is likely a watershed moment for human society. But 36% don’t mean that as a positive, warning that decisions made by A.I. could lead to “nuclear-level catastrophe,” according to researchers surveyed in an annual report on the technology by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered A.I., published earlier this month.


 

Credentialed learning for all -- from Getting Smart

 

Why credential section -- from Getting Smart's Credentialed Learning for All

Credentialed Learning For All — from gettingsmart.com

Vision

Learning happens throughout life and is not isolated to the K-12 or higher education sectors. Yet, often, validations of learning only happen in these specific areas. The system of evaluation based on courses, grades, and credit serves as a poor proxy for communicating skills given the variation in course content, grade inflation, and inclusion of participation and extra credit within course grades.

Credentialed learning provides a way to accurately document human capability for all learners throughout their life. A lifetime credentialed learning ecosystem provides better granularity around learning, better documentation of the learning, and more relevance for both the credential recipient and reviewer. This improves the match between higher education and/or employment with the individual, while also providing a more clear and accurate lifetime learning pathway.

With a fully-credentialed system, individuals can own well-documented evidence of a lifetime of learning and choose what and when to share this data. This technology enables every learner to have more opportunities for finding the best career match without today’s existing barriers around cost, access, and proxies.


Addendum on 4/28/23 — speaking of credentials:

First Rung — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
New research shows stacking credentials pays off for low-income learners.

Stacking credentials pays off for many low-income students, new research finds, but only if learners move up the education ladder. Also, Kansas is hoping a new grant program will attract more companies to participate in microinternships.


 

The future of education in a world of AI — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
A positive vision for the transformation to come

Excerpt:

Imagine introducing high-quality AI tutors into the flipped classroom model. These AI-powered systems have the potential to significantly enhance the learning experience for students and make flipped classrooms even more effective. They provide personalized learning, where AI tutors can tailor instruction to each student’s unique needs while continually adjusting content based on performance. This means that students can engage with the content at home more effectively, ensuring they come to class better prepared and ready to dive into hands-on activities or discussions.

With AI tutors taking care of some of the content delivery outside of class, teachers can devote more time to fostering meaningful interactions with their students during class. They can also use insights from the AI tutors to identify areas where students might need extra support or guidance, enabling them to provide more personalized and effective instruction. And with AI assistance, they can design better active learning opportunities in class to make sure learnings stick.


Also relevant/see:

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it — from technologyreview.com by Will Douglas Heaven
The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.

Advanced chatbots could be used as powerful classroom aids that make lessons more interactive, teach students media literacy, generate personalized lesson plans, save teachers time on admin, and more.

Will ChatGPT Change How Professors Assess Learning? — from chronicle.com by Becky Supiano
It won’t be easy without their colleges’ support.

What the Past Can Teach Us About the Future of AI and Education — from campustechnology.com by Dr. David Wiley
Current attitudes toward generative AI hearken back to early skepticism about the impact of the internet on education. Both then and now, technology has created challenges but also opportunities that can’t be ignored.


 

Improve Objectives By Asking “Then What?” — from byrdseed.com by Ian Byrd

Excerpt:

As a new teacher, so many of my objectives stopped at a very low level of thinking.

  • Students will understand Z.
  • Students will know the difference between X and Y.
  • Students will be able to explain C.

When I look at these objectives now, they leave me asking, “then what?”

Ok. My students know the difference between X from Y. They can explain C. They understand fact Z. “What do they do now?”

 

How Easy Is It/Will It Be to Use AI to Design a Course? — from wallyboston.com by Wally Boston

Excerpt:

Last week I received a text message from a friend to check out a March 29th Campus Technology article about French AI startup, Nolej. Nolej (pronounced “Knowledge”) has developed an OpenAI-based instructional content generator for educators called NolejAI.

Access to NolejAI is through a browser. Users can upload video, audio, text documents, or a website url. NolejAI will generate an interactive micro-learning package which is a standalone digital lesson including content transcript, summaries, a glossary of terms, flashcards, and quizzes. All the lesson materials generated is based upon the uploaded materials.


From DSC:
I wonder if this will turn out to be the case:

I am sure it’s only a matter of time before NolejAI or another product becomes capable of generating a standard three credit hour college course. Whether that is six months or two years, it’s likely sooner than we think.


Also relevant/see:

The Ultimate 100 AI Tools

The Ultimate 100 AI Tools -- as of 4-12-23


 

From DSC:
Before we get to Scott Belsky’s article, here’s an interesting/related item from Tobi Lutke:


Our World Shaken, Not Stirred: Synthetic entertainment, hybrid social experiences, syncing ourselves with apps, and more. — from implications.com by Scott Belsky
Things will get weird. And exciting.

Excerpts:

Recent advances in technology will stir shake the pot of culture and our day-to-day experiences. Examples? A new era of synthetic entertainment will emerge, online social dynamics will become “hybrid experiences” where AI personas are equal players, and we will sync ourselves with applications as opposed to using applications.

A new era of synthetic entertainment will emerge as the world’s video archives – as well as actors’ bodies and voices – will be used to train models. Expect sequels made without actor participation, a new era of ai-outfitted creative economy participants, a deluge of imaginative media that would have been cost prohibitive, and copyright wars and legislation.

Unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, some amazing stuff, and a legal dumpster fire: Now lets shift beyond Hollywood to the fast-growing long tail of prosumer-made entertainment. This is where entirely new genres of entertainment will emerge including the unauthorized sequels and spinoffs that I expect we will start seeing.


Also relevant/see:

Digital storytelling with generative AI: notes on the appearance of #AICinema — from bryanalexander.org by Bryan Alexander

Excerpt:

This is how I viewed a fascinating article about the so-called #AICinema movement.  Benj Edwards describes this nascent current and interviews one of its practitioners, Julie Wieland.  It’s a great example of people creating small stories using tech – in this case, generative AI, specifically the image creator Midjourney.

Bryan links to:

Artists astound with AI-generated film stills from a parallel universe — from arstechnica.com by Benj Edwards
A Q&A with “synthographer” Julie Wieland on the #aicinema movement.

An AI-generated image from an #aicinema still series called Vinyl Vengeance by Julie Wieland, created using Midjourney.


From DSC:
How will text-to-video impact the Learning and Development world? Teaching and learning? Those people communicating within communities of practice? Those creating presentations and/or offering webinars?

Hmmm…should be interesting!


 

How to Create Compelling Writing Assignments in a ChatGPT Age — from chronicle.com by James M. Lang
A recent book offers a road map to new kinds of assignments to inspire your students to write.

Excerpt:

A few days after I returned from the conference, I received a book in the mail that affirmed my newfound sense that 2023 has the potential to usher in an age of creative thinking about teaching and writing: Jessica Singer Early’s Next Generation Genres: Teaching Writing for Civic and Academic Engagement. Although her book doesn’t directly address ChatGPT, it offers exactly the kind of innovative ideas we need as we wrestle — or dance — with the implications of artificial intelligence for college teaching.

Clearly Jessica Singer Early has joined the leaning-into camp, seeing artificial intelligence as another invitation to reinvent ourselves in the classroom — just as she encourages readers to do in Next Generation Genres, and as this teacher plans to do in the fall.

 

AI Aids In Connecting Learning and Performance Ecosystems — from learningguild.com by Markus Bernhardt and Teresa Rose

Excerpt:

The ways in which employees access information, surface answers to questions, and find the right subject matter experts is shifting and drastically improving. With this, so is access to and potential efficiency of formal learning and training.

The question is, how do these elements fuse together in the reimagined ecosystem? What will performance support, formal learning and training, or upskilling and reskilling look like when we combine the best of digital and asynchronous tools, as well as synchronous and in-person endeavors.

Power Performance with Microlearning’s Purpose and Potential — from learningguild.com by Robyn Defelice

Excerpt:

Because we are dealing in performance-based microlearning, each campaign and product will have its own purpose and potential (P&P).

The P&P are not derived from the organization’s definition but by the goals of the campaign itself.

Performance Pathways (Purpose) and Use Cases (Potential) provide opportunity to think through the alignment to a campaign goal while preparing for the design of the microlearning products.

Augmented Reality: Your Next Step Into Immersive Learning — from learningguild.com by Bill Brandon

Excerpt:

I asked Debbie Richard for her thoughts on the uses of AR and immersive learning. Debbie is the founder and president of Creative Interactive Ideas, where she helps talent development professionals thrive and flourish in their careers.

Debbie offered this reply:

“Developing an augmented reality experience is a great way for instructional designers to get started with immersive learning. There are a number of AR development applications that require little to no programming skills. All the learner will need to access the experience is a smart device.

Some great examples of using augmented reality in immersive learning are:

    • Performance support…
    • Language support…
    • Visualizations…
 

Why some college professors are adopting ChatGPT AI as quickly as students — from cnbc.com by Carolyn Chun

Key Points:

  • A recent analysis by researchers at NYU, Princeton and the Wharton School finds that many of the jobs that will be most “exposed” to generative AI such as ChatGPT are in the college teaching profession.
  • One of the first narratives to emerge from the sudden explosion in usage of ChatGPT is the risk of students cheating on writing assignments.
  • But use by college teachers is growing quickly too, and adoption by educators may be critical to making the case that AI will augment the jobs humans are doing rather than replace them.

Also relevant/see:


 


Also relevant/see:


Learning Designers will have to adapt or die. 10 ways to UPSKILL to AI…. — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Learning Designers need to upskill


From Ethan Mollick on LinkedIn:

Take a look at this simulated negotiation, with grading and feedback. Prompt: “I want to do deliberate practice about how to conduct negotiations. You will be my negotiation teacher. You will simulate a detailed scenario in which I have to engage in a negotiation. You will fill the role of one party, I will fill the role of the other. You will ask for my response to in each step of the scenario and wait until you receive it. After getting my response, you will give me details of what the other party does and says. You will grade my response and give me detailed feedback about what to do better using the science of negotiation. You will give me a harder scenario if I do well, and an easier one if I fail.”

Samples from Bing Creative mode and ChatGPT-4 (3.5, the free version, does not work as well)


I’m having a blast with ChatGPT – it’s testing ME! — from by Mark Mrohs
Using ChatGPT as an agent for asynchronous active learning

I have been experimenting with possible ways to incorporate interactions with ChatGPT into instruction. And I’m blown away. I want to show you some of what I’ve come up with.

 

The Secret to Great Learning Design? Focus on Problems, not Solutions — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
What a recent resurgence of research into problem-based learning has taught us about the value & impact of problem-based approaches

Excerpts:

Problem-based learning is an instructional approach that engages students in active, collaborative, and self-directed learning by exploring complex, real-world problems (rather than sitting and listening to a stage on the stage).

In a Problem-based learning scenario, students work in small groups and, under the guidance of a facilitator or instructor, identify, research, and analyse a problem before proposing and evaluating potential solutions and reaching a resolution.

Here are five of the most interesting research projects published on problem-based learning in the last few months:

 

Teaching: What You Can Learn From Students About ChatGPT — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Like a lot of you, I have been wondering how students are reacting to the rapid launch of generative AI tools. And I wanted to point you to creative ways in which professors and teaching experts have helped involve them in research and policymaking.

At Kalamazoo College, Autumn Hostetter, a psychology professor, and six of her students surveyed faculty members and students to determine whether they could detect an AI-written essay, and what they thought of the ethics of using various AI tools in writing. You can read their research paper here.

Next, participants were asked about a range of scenarios, such as using Grammarly, using AI to make an outline for a paper, using AI to write a section of a paper, looking up a concept on Google and copying it directly into a paper, and using AI to write an entire paper. As expected, commonly used tools like Grammarly were considered the most ethical, while writing a paper entirely with AI was considered the least. But researchers found variation in how people approached the in-between scenarios. Perhaps most interesting: Students and faculty members shared very similar views with each scenario.

 


Also relevant/see:

This Was Written By a Human: A Real Educator’s Thoughts on Teaching in the Age of ChatGPT — from er.educause.edu educause.org by Jered Borup
The well-founded concerns surrounding ChatGPT shouldn’t distract us from considering how it might be useful.


 

What’s Different Between the Life of a Classroom Teacher vs. Instructional Designer? — from tedcurran.net by Ted Curran

Excerpt:

How is the day-to-day life of an Instructional Designer different than that of a K12 classroom teacher?

Many classroom teachers are looking to make the switch into instructional design, and even though it’s all still teaching and learning, there are some big differences in the way you’ll work in an ID role.

This post attempts to outline the large changes you might find as you transition outside the classroom and into the world of ID.

 
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