Learning Ecosystems

[From DSC: In the posting below, when I say higher ed, I’m thinking here of traditional 4-year colleges and universities, whether for-profit or non-profit.]

Years ago…President Obama said to higher ed: “You’re getting too expensive. Please take steps to address this, will you?” And student debt continued to mount that year. Many families struggled with how to make getting degrees work within their budgets.

But the year passed, higher ed did little to nothing to address the issue of accessibility and pricing, so President Obama had to once again address higher ed: “Heh…did you all hear me, I said that you’re getting too expensive. Please take steps to address this, will you?”

Higher ed responded, “Yeh, yeh, yeh…we know…we’ve heard you say this before. Thanks…and have a nice day.” And what was unsaid — yet what was lived out — was “Let us run our own show. Please don’t bother us again.”

So another year passed, higher ed again did little to nothing to address the issue of accessibility and the rising cost of attending college. Therefore, even more families and students went into debt (an invisible reality that folks on campus often don’t really “see” being played out in real peoples’ lives). The amount of student debt continued to increase on a national level. At this point, more students and families started to question whether they wanted to go into that kind of debt — would they be ok with the decision to delay the start of their families? Would they be ok with not being able to purchase a home for a while after graduating? Or not being able to save for their retirements for a long while? (Re: this last item, financial advisers often stress how important time is — advising folks to put away money early on in their lives so that time and compound interest can be on their side, working positively on their investments.) So families and individuals begin to ask, “Is college really worth it?” (And I believe it is in most situations today, but that’s not the point of this posting.)

Yet again, higher ed doesn’t respond much…at least not for the most part. While a handful of experiments begin here and there, most of the traditional institutions of higher education pursue the status quo…all the while believing, “The gold ol’ days will return. The period we’re going through is an aberration. Let the status quo continue — it’s working very well for us.” But it wasn’t — and isn’t — an aberration. Student debt continued to mount. More families and students found higher education now out of reach for them.

Meanwhile, higher ed institutions said things like, “Our tuition increases were the smallest within our peer group” or “Our tuition increases were the smallest in years” or “We didn’t increase tuition nearly as much as the other institutions in our state.”

So fast forward and once again, President Obama had to address higher ed: “Heh!!! You’re too expensive! Are you guys hearing me or what?! If you don’t take steps to address this, the Federal Government’s going to get involved. Got it?!”

Then higher ed essentially responded in the same manner, “Yeh, yeh, yeh…we know…we’ve heard you say this before. Thanks…and, again, have a nice day.”

And so it went for the last several years.

Therefore, does anyone blame the President for taking matters to the next level? If traditional 4-year colleges and universities aren’t going to do much to address the accessibility/cost situation, then he and the Federal Government have to get seriously involved.

For others, a federal government that spends more than $140 billion a year on higher education is justified in attempting to get the right bang for its buck.

— from Ry Rivard’s article, New Higher Ed Federalism, at insidehighered.com on 1/12/15

So on January 8th, 2015, President Obama introduced his proposal for free community college for responsible students across the nation who are willing to work hard (see here , here, here, here, or here).

If this moves forward, it could have an enormous impact on those traditional 4-year colleges and universities who blew him off all of those years.

January 8, 2015

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Also see:

• ‘Nontraditional’ but increasingly common barriers to higher education –from huffingtonpost.com by Abby Miller
  Excerpt:
  At the heart of this country’s vast income inequality — an issue which has at last been gaining the urgent attention it deserves — is a growing educational divide. A college degree is the ticket to employment and better quality of life, yet it is more than ever unattainable for those who need it most: the growing number of low-income, first-generation college-going, adult, and immigrant populations; college students who until recently were referred to as “nontraditional”.

Tim Brown: How to Be a Creative Listener — from 99u.com by Stephanie Kaptein

Excerpt:

By actively listening, you can find valuable information to inspire new ideas. The podcasts are rich in examples where innovative ideas have come to light because they listened to more than what was being said. As writer G. K. Chesteron noted, “There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”

Also see:

• Become a more creative listener in 30 minutes — from linkedin.com by Tim Brown

Also see this free course:

Earth pic of the day. Lightning over Eyjafjallajökull volcano (Credit: Sigurdur Stefnisson) — from Observing Space

More Spectacular Aerial Shots of Iceland’s Volcanic Rivers

From DSC:
Is higher education on the same trajectory as Blockbuster, Kodak, & others who didn’t adapt?  Some items that prompted me to ask this question (again):

Private Distress — from insidehighered.com by Ry Rivard

Excerpt:

Some private colleges that managed to weather the recession are finding new troubles.

So they are announcing layoffs, cutting programs and more. Almost all of these small to mid-sized privates are tuition-dependent and lack large endowments. National declines in the number of traditional college-age population mean students just aren’t showing up to privates, which are facing competition from public colleges that are more stable now than a few years ago and the reality that privates cannot afford to indefinitely lure students by cutting prices with generous financial aid packages. And this could become a huge problem.

Higher education: On a crash course for reinvention — huffingtonpost.com by Bob Kerrey

Obama to Higher Ed: Find Ways to Lower Costs, Maintain Quality — from aspireblog.org by Sara Jacobi

Excerpt:

 “The Secretary is particularly interested in experiments that will improve student persistence and academic success, result in shorter time to degree, and reduce student loan indebtedness,” reads the notice issued by the Department of Education.

Like trying to count the stars…if I were to try and thank the LORD for everything, some things I would be able to see and thank Him for…but many of His gifts I wouldn’t see.

 
From DSC:
I took these pictures at our CIT Retreat yesterday; there are some beautiful colors/scenes appearing throughout Michigan.

From DSC:
I find Chapters 38-42 from the Book of Job to be very humbling.  When I read those chapters, I often begin to try to answer the questions (and not get very far!) or I imagine others trying to explain how this or that thing occurs (and many, with an incredible amount of confidence in their perspectives). 

But the explanations seem trite in regards to the LORD’s overall lines of questioning therein. One of the messages I walk away with is that we live on this earth for such a short time — and there is much we don’t know from the past, the present, or from the future.   Below are some verses from Chapter 38.

Job 38 (NIV)

The Lord Speaks

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

² “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
³ Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶ On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
⁷ while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

…

²¹ Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

Traditional education beats online in key areas, opinion poll finds — from chronicle.com by Scott Carlson

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In early October, Gallup asked two groups, each composed of more than 1,000 adults, whether they thought “online education is better” in a series of categories. In terms of “providing a wide range of options for curriculum” and “good value for the money,” online education got slightly better scores than traditional classroom-based education.

But online education scored much worse in four areas: in delivering “instruction tailored to each individual,” in providing “high-quality instruction from well-qualified instructors,” in offering “rigorous testing and grading that can be trusted,” and—finally, worst of all—in dispensing “a degree that will be viewed positively by employers.”

From DSC:
As you are likely able to tell, it’s hard for me not to get sucked into squabbling about which method is more effective — i.e. online vs. face to face. But ultimately, I think where we need to get to is a blended or hybrid learning type of approach — i.e. taking the best of the face-to-face world and combining it with the best of the online world. I think that will be the Holy Grail of learning.

But in regards to these criticisms of online learning,  let’s take a closer look at those items from the opinion poll.
I’ll use my experience at Northwestern University to address these items.

In delivering “instruction tailored to each individual”
In K-12, that comment might hold some water.  However, in many collegiate settings where there are 50-100+ students in a face-to-face classroom, I don’t think that’s the case.  In fact, at Northwestern, I doubt that most of my professors even knew who I was, let alone ever tried to custom tailor any instruction for me in those face-to-face settings.  Granted, I need to own my part of this — that is, I should have taken more advantage of their office hours.  But I’m not sure that my professors even graded/assessed my work.  Often my work was graded by graduate students/TA’s who likely had 0 (zero) training or background in education.  For that matter, the professors I took courses from most likely did not have any background in teaching and learning, nor coursework in pedagogy/education. They were likely more concerned with how to present the material to 100+ people — not with tailoring it to each individual.

“In providing “high-quality instruction from well-qualified instructors”
See above. Also, my guess is that many face-to-face professors were hired at Northwestern for their research skills and what they brought to the table in that regard. They were screened, I’m quite sure, for how prospective professors’ reputations would contribute to Northwestern’s brand and bottom line.  Doing research is not the same thing as teaching students. Knowing something and being able to teach someone are also two different things. Teaching is both an art and a science (and learning is messy).

“In offering “rigorous testing and grading that can be trusted”  — this carries the most weight of the above concerns. However, there are an increasing amount of options here — from proctored tests to software tools (and in the future, most likely solutions will take the form of biometric security/scanning used in conjunction with webcams).  For those who decide to cheat, I give a heads-up:

“Consider for a moment — if you do cheat — how you are going to get by those interviews where the interviewer is going to want to see first-hand evidence of what you can actually do.   No…do yourself a favor and just do the work; you’ll be glad that you did.”

“In dispensing ‘a degree that will be viewed positively by employers.'”  It’s quickly becoming the case that employers won’t have a choice (already, 32% of UG’s have taken an online course).  Also, my guess is that the people who think this have never taken an online class themselves.  If they had, they would know that online learning takes a lot of work.  It takes very motivated, committed students — the type of “self-starters” most companies that I know of want to hire.

Final comment:

• I need to get down off my soap box now. But I do wish that folks would apply the same level of scrutiny to 100% face-to-face and blended learning courses as they do to 100% online courses.  (Can you imagine the increase in quality that many universities and colleges would experience!?)

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From DSC:
With thanks to Mr. Stephen Harris (@Stephen_H) for putting this out there on Twitter.