Redefining Norms Critical to Sustained Relevance in the Changing Postsecondary Environment — from evolllution.com by Hunt Lambert
Sticking to the status quo will end in disaster for most postsecondary institutions. To stay relevant, institutions have to rethink all aspects of the higher education product, from programming to student support to organizational models.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Higher education has existed for over a millennium in an effectively unchanged state, but the impetus to transform has arrived. Fast-changing labor demands, evolving learner expectations and transformed market realities are forcing college and university leaders to rethink the traditional postsecondary model and find ways to serve the growing numbers of lifelong learners. This idea has been broadly articulated as the 60-Year Curriculum (60YC), and executing on this vision demands a fundamental change in how higher education institutions must operate to serve students. In this interview, Hunt Lambert expands on the 60YC vision and shares his insights into how the organizational models of postsecondary institutions need to evolve to adapt to this approach.

The 60YC proposes that higher education providers, who happen to be best in the world at knowledge creation and dissemination through well-designed curriculum, expand that curricula concept from the current two-year AA, four-year BA, two-year master’s and seven-year PhD learning models into a 60-year model inclusive of 15- to 75-year-old learners and, most likely, beyond.

 

 

The Rise of Do-It-Yourself Education — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder
Do it yourself is more than just a trend for crafts and home improvements — it is an ethos that has reached higher education.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

More than 50 percent of the DIY-ers are between 24 and 44 years of age, and the numbers are growing. This trend is immutable now; it is continuing to grow in numbers and expand into new fields every year.

The pervasive DIY mind-set has spilled over into independent learning online, as Dian Schaffhauser writes:

A do-it-yourself mindset is changing the face of education worldwide, according to new survey results. Learners are “patching together” their education from a “menu of options,” including self-teaching, short courses and bootcamps, and they believe that self-service instruction will become even more prevalent for lifelong learning. In the United States specifically, 84 percent of people said learning would become even more self-service the older they get.

Heutagogy is the study and practice of self-determined learning.

As enrollments decline nationally, so many individual universities continue to experience declines year after year. Is it not worth considering these broad societal changes that are moving students toward skilling and upskilling via DIY, rather than marketing the same degrees in the same structure that is producing losses year after year? Who is leading this initiative at your university?

 

2019 study of undergraduate students & information technology — from library.educause.edu

Excerpts:

Drawing on survey data from more than 40,000 students across 118 US institutions, this report highlights a number of important findings related to students’ technology preferences, supports, and experiences, with the goal of aiding technology and higher education professionals in improving student learning experiences and success.

But they want to be more than in-class spectators:

  • “I want my professors to stop reading PowerPoint slides word-for-word off of a screen, and to start using the technology at hand to create a different kind of lecture that will engage their students in the learning process.”
  • “I’d love for there to be more interactive polling and questions during class. Even though I don’t like the idea of being in lecture every day, that would keep me more engaged if the instructors were more dynamic with their tech use.”
  • “Integrate [technology] more into lectures. It’s very difficult to sit and watch you talk. Technology can be so beneficial to learning if used in the right ways to enhance and complement lectures. Use collaborative quizzes (Kahoot, etc.), let us research in class, etc.”
  • “Provide more online learning tools such as interactive lectures where people on laptops or tablets can also engage with the material being presented.”

 

Figure 2. Student learning environment preferences for specific course-related activities and assignments

Recommendations

  • Leverage analytics to gain a greater understanding of the student demographics that influence learning environment preferences.
  • Continue to promote online success tools and provide training to students on their use through orientations and advisement sessions.
  • Expand efforts to improve Wi-Fi reliability in campus housing and outdoor spaces.
  • Allow students to use the devices that are most important to their academic success in the classroom.
  • Establish a campus community to address accessibility issues and give “accessibility evangelists” a seat at the table.

 

From DSC:
Well students…you might find that you have a major surprise ahead of you — as a significant amount of your future learning/training will take place completely online. Go ask some folks who have graduated about their onboarding experiences. Then go ask people who have been in the workplace for over a decade. You’ll see what I mean.

 

The 20 top tech skills that employers want and that can help you find a job, according to recruiting site Indeed — from businessinsider.com by Rosalie Chan and Bani Sapra

Excerpt:

The job search site Indeed released a report this month about the top tech skills of 2019 based on job descriptions that are being posted.

Andrew Flowers, an economist at Indeed, says that in today’s job market, there are two major trends that drive the top skills in tech. The first is the rise of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. The second is the rise of cloud computing.

“Python has had explosive growth,” Flowers told Business Insider. “If I’m around the dinner table and a nephew asks what should I learn? Having done this report, I would say, learn Python.”

 

Explore the transformative power of education through the eyes of a dozen incarcerated men and women trying to earn college degrees – and a chance at new beginnings – from one of the country’s most rigorous prison education programs.

 

Also see:

  • College Behind Bars: The Necessity of Running A College Inside Prisons — from evolllution.com by Michael Budke
    “Our numbers for the College Inside program at Chemeketa Community College are even more striking. Since the program’s inception in 2007—we existed prior to the SCP grant—the recidivism rate for our 293 graduates is only 4.8%.”
 

Fully online courses are #1 requirement for many working learners — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

A recent report found that four out of five working learners do some of their learning online, and more than half (53 percent) are enrolled in courses that are entirely online. In fact, 42 percent of respondents said that “offering fully online classes and coursework” was their most important factor when choosing a school for continued education.

 

The importance of presence offline & online in higher education — from forbes.com by Martin Krislov

Excerpt:

But how can we maintain [human interaction] in the era of online instruction?

That question, it turns out, is a pressing one for distance-education professionals. And the answer, they say, is what the digital world calls “presence.”

Presence means, essentially, being there. It’s something that happens naturally in physical classrooms. But in online education, instructors have to work to create it. Poorly constructed online courses can feel cold and impersonal; online faculty can feel distant. But in a well-designed course, where faculty work to be present, students can thrive. Studies have shown that creating strong presence and engagement in an online class—mimicking that personal connection Gabelli and I so value—improves academic outcomes and student experience.

 

 

Instructional Design Basics — from facultyfocus.com by Kristin Ziska Strange

Excerpt:

Instructional designers can help with many different course-based problems and challenges, including helping you figure out where and how to start with your course design. When a course is new or needs a little design love, knowing where to start can be difficult. By starting with your main goals and then moving to assessments and content, it is easier for your course to stay in alignment with your goals than working from topics and assessments to objectives. Starting is as easy as asking yourself one simple question.

Start with a Question
In any course design, whether it is a brand-new course or a redesign, the best place to start is to write down what you hope your students will carry with them several years down the road. What do you want your students to be able to do, and what content is crucial for them to remember? It doesn’t have to be the formalized language of objectives and goals that you put into your syllabus but just a straightforward list.

We do this for a few reasons.

 

Conscious onboarding: 10 ways to support new online instructors — from evolllution.com by Rebecca Cooney
In the scramble of expanding online programs, colleges often neglect to establish a formal onboarding process to address the unique challenges of online instruction—putting faculty confidence and retention at risk.

Excerpt:

#1: Establish an Online Community of Practice Devoted to Faculty Teaching Online Courses

When executed well, a culture of community establishes a set of shared values and expectations that influence how a group interacts, functions, and collaborates. By developing a specific online community of practice for your instructors teaching online courses, you provide them with a real-time information hub they can refer to for topics and materials that directly impact the work they are doing every day. An online community of practice includes announcements and discussions, a shared files system, FAQs and how-to’s, templates, databanks for approved-to-use lecture slides, recorded lectures, tutorials, standard syllabus language, approved digital assets and rubrics.

Learn more and download a report about exploratory research in the value of developing online communities of practice. (Office of Educational Technology, n.d.)

 

 

Delivering learning across a lifetime: Higher education’s new paradigm — from evolllution.com with thanks to Mr. Amrit Ahluwalia for his work on this

Excerpt:

Higher education is no longer a single engagement in an individual’s life, or a stop-off point between high school and a career.
Today, and into the future, higher education’s role is ongoing as the demands of the future labor market will require individuals to continuously up-skill and re-skill to remain relevant. As such, while the traditional two- or four-year postsecondary model will continue to play an important role, colleges and universities must expand their repertoire to consciously deliver learning across individuals’ lifetimes.

Read on to learn how the 100 Year Life is changing the fundamental learning needs of individuals across the labor market, and to understand how postsecondary institutions can evolve to fulfil their missions within this new paradigm.

 

From DSC:
This important perspective/trend reminds me of the graphic below…

 

Also see:

 

60 years of higher ed --really?

 

The employee of the future, he added, “typically will have a new job every five years, probably for 60 to 80 years, and probably every one of those will require skills you did not learn in college.”

 

DC: In the future…will there be a “JustWatch” or a “Suppose” for learning-related content?

DC: In the future...will there be a JustWatch or a Suppose for learning-related content?

 

5 good tools to create whiteboard animations — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

In short, whiteboard animation (also called video scribing or animated doodling) is a video clip in which the recorder records the process of drawing on a whiteboard while using audio comment. The final result is a beautiful synchronization of the drawings and the audio feedback. In education, whiteboard animation videos  are used in language teaching/learning, in professional development sessions, to create educational tutorials and presentations and many more. In today’s post, we are sharing with you some good web tools you can use to create whiteboard animation videos.

 

 

 

Preparing faculty for high-quality online programs — from campustechnology.com by Anne Frankel, Laurie Friedman, Jamie Mansell, Jennifer Ibrahim
Temple University’s College of Public Health is a diverse school experiencing significant growth online. Here’s how the institution is supporting the development and maintenance of high-quality online faculty.

Excerpt:

We recognized that faculty may be at different levels of preparedness and self-efficacy to start teaching in an online space — and we realized the challenges of organizing faculty in a single location at a given time. Therefore, we chose to deliver the training in a fully asynchronous environment, allowing faculty the time and space needed to digest the materials and practice with the content to build their confidence. Faculty are enrolled in the training during the semester prior to their assigned online class, and are asked to complete the training at least four weeks before the start of their online course to provide sufficient time for feedback to the faculty with lead time for changes to the course before launching, if needed.

We wanted the training to take the faculty member through the design of an entire online course, from syllabus creation, to choices in delivery style, to assessment techniques and more. Each of the nine modules included both pedagogical and technological pieces, encompassing everything from creating alignment (Module 3), to setting up your Canvas site (Module 4), to designing and delivering synchronous sessions (Module 8).

Within each module, there is an organized infrastructure to ensure a consistent experience for the faculty. The structure starts with a clear set of learning objectives, designed both to model best practices and to ensure alignment with activities and assessments. Following the objectives, there are diverse resources, including videos, instructional guides with screenshots, web links, journal articles and examples from our online classes. After the content, each module contains “assignments” for the faculty to complete. These assignments allow the faculty to demonstrate that they can incorporate both technological and pedagogical best practices within their own online course.

 

My Favorite Book about Teaching and Learning is…33 Books to Inspire You! — from linkedin.com by Barbi Honeycutt

Excerpt:

…I recently posted this fill-in-the-blank question to all of my social media pages:

My favorite book about teaching and learning is ______________.

The response has been fantastic! Professors, instructors, teachers, educators, and faculty development professionals from a variety of disciplines from around the world responded with their favorite book about teaching and learning.

I’ve compiled the list and here are the 33 books recommended by colleagues throughout my network (many books were recommended more than once).

 

In DC, teachers run the jail. It’s turning inmates into students. — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

That was before Amy Lopez showed up. In 2017, the petite Texan arrived at the jail with an armada of plans and the energy to launch them. She invited college professors to teach for-credit classes inside, in person. She purchased tablets to offer short-term learning opportunities to transient inmates. And she created a residential learning bloc named for the phoenix, the mythical bird who rises from its ashes to have a second chance at life.

“Every single person I talk to—staff members or incarcerated students—will say it was a game-changer when she arrived,” says Marc M. Howard, director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen an administration, a staff, an agency so supportive of programming for its incarcerated residents. I think they’re a model of what corrections officials around the country should be.”

It turns out, people in jail love TED Talks.

The videos are inspiring, informative and—perhaps most importantly—available any time on the tablets they can borrow for hours on end.

“A lot of people come to jail and just leave with nothing. They don’t know nothing but what they knew before they came,” he says. “If you had something to go out there and look forward to, there’s less chance you’ll be turned back.”

Also see:

 
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