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Along these lines of innovation/experimentation (but this time within higher education):
College crackup and the online future — from bloomberg.com by Mark C. Taylor
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Illustration by Keith Shore
Excerpt:
In the coming decade, emerging technologies will thoroughly transform higher education. Although distance learning and computer-assisted education have been around since the 1960s, financial pressures are forcing institutions to develop aggressive online programs.
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These practical considerations shouldn’t overshadow one of the most promising innovations that online education will bring: The very structure of knowledge will change.
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As students mix and match courses online, pressure will increase for professors to develop classes that integrate different approaches and disciplines.
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Also see:
From DSC:
Creating “Innovation Labs” within each institution of higher education sounds like a good idea to me…we can experiment with things at smaller scales and see what works and what doesn’t.
Also see:
Take a lesson from Apple: A strategy to keep customers in your ecosystem — from forbes.com by Alonzo Canada
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
1. Set focused, strategic targets.
2. Create a portfolio of experiments. Like Apple or Mercedes Benz, once you have focused, strategic targets set, create a series of experiments. A general rule of thumb is the 7-2-1 rule: one experiment should be big and relatively safe. Two experiments should be slightly more risky and moderately sized. Then seven experiments should be highly risky and low cost. These experiments can be scaled accordingly across teams, business units, and the entire company. 3M is one of the first companies to mandate that its employees spend 20% of their time thinking up blue sky ideas beyond its current lines of business and this is how Post-It Notes were born. Art Fry, an engineer at 3M wanted to find a better way to manage notes in his hymnal on Sundays at church.
3. Leverage learnings to inform new experiments.
Average student debt climbs to $26,600 for Class of 2011 — from The Institute for College Access & Success
Report, website include state-by-state and campus-by-campus debt levels for 2011 graduates
Excerpt:
TICAS recently released Student Debt and the Class of 2011, our seventh annual report on the debt carried by new college graduates. Hundreds of news outlets around the country have already run stories featuring our findings, including The New York Times, USA Today, and PBS NewsHour.
We found that two-thirds of college seniors who graduated from public and private nonprofit four-year schools in 2011 carried an average of $26,600 in student loan debt, up 5% from the previous year. Private student loans comprised about one-fifth of the Class of 2011’s debt. Meanwhile, unemployment for recent graduates dipped from last year’s peak of 9.1% but remained high at 8.8% (still less than half the unemployment rate for young adults with only a high school diploma).
The report also shows that average student debt levels vary widely by state as well as by college. To view debt levels for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and more than 1,000 individual U.S. colleges and universities, visit our companion interactive map.
Read the press release
Read the report
Use the interactive map
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From DSC:
The above items support the need for greater experimentation within higher ed.
Also see:
