Educational Technology

UC Davis

UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (CPE) has reached one million enrollments in courses offered through Coursera, the leading Massive Open Online Course platform. “This milestone reflects the essential role that CPE and its faculty partners play in creating access to workforce development programs globally,” said Susan Catron, dean of UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. “Now more than ever, as the COVID-19 crisis continues to affect all aspects of life, and individuals find themselves sheltering in place, the need for quality online education is even more critical.”

https://cpe.ucdavis.edu/news/cpe-reaches-one-million-coursera-enrollments-and-counting

Andy Corbley, Good News Network

And what science says in response to “what does it mean to be happy” is rooted in decades of psychological research—all of which you can now learn about for free through the online “Science of Happiness” course available through the UC Berkeley website ad gratis. Written and led by UC Berkeley professors of psychology Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the course explores the fundamentals of a happy and meaningful life through established and avant-garde research into the nature of happiness.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/uc-berkeley-is-offering-up-their-popular-science-of-happiness-course-for-free-online/

Hallie Busta, Education Dive

Six leading higher education organizations this week issued a set of principles to guide their members in accepting academic credit in light of the coronavirus’s impact on instruction.  The eight principles include acknowledging that the situation is placing stress on students and intensifying historical inequities. Transparency about credit policies is critical, the groups said. The guidance comes as the coronavirus forces colleges to move courses online, which has led to more flexibility in assessments and grading.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/colleges-must-be-flexible-with-credit-acceptance-higher-ed-groups-say/576300/

Michael Feldstein, EdSurge

When our teaching practice is rooted in instinct, tradition and occasional trial-and-error experiments, we often bundle together different aspects of what we are doing without ever teasing out which teaching moves are the critical ones—and why. A radical switch to a new teaching environment, where many contextual factors change dramatically, causes many first-time online teachers to take a hard look at their assumptions. They may learn, for example, that the Q&A portion of their lecture class was actually the part where students learned the most, rather than from the meticulously crafted presentation from the lectern.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-04-16-learning-engineering-is-learning-about-learning-we-need-that-now-more-than-ever

Lewis Chongwony, Joel L. Gardner, Amie Tope; OJDLA

In this study, we explore and report on the competencies required of instructional design managers in higher education by analyzing 30 job descriptions posted by institutions of higher education. Results of this analysis identified major categories with 17 competencies. Communication skills, Instructional Design and Related Areas, and General Leadership and Management Expertise were the competencies noted most frequently within the job posts. We share the results of the study, including typical job titles, common job descriptions, and education and experience requirements. Finally, we briefly highlight the implications of these findings and provide recommendations for future research, practice, and training of future instructional designers and leaders.

https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring231/Chongwony_Gardner_Tope231.html

Ira Harkavy, Sjur Bergan, Tony Gallagher and Hilligje van’t Land, University World News

We contend that higher education must play a major role in helping to shape the post-COVID-19 world and do so by reshaping higher education itself. The post-COVID-19 world must be based on the values we cherish: democracy, human rights and the rule of law as well as social justice, inclusion and equity. Higher education can add momentum by renewing our commitment to our core values of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and engagement by students, faculty and staff, and re-emphasising the role of higher education institutions as societal actors for the public good.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200413152542750

BIANCA QUILANTAN, Politico

Some high school seniors are dropping their first-choice schools in favor of colleges that are cheaper. Others are taking a year off so they can help bail out their families. Some high school seniors are dropping their first-choice schools in favor of colleges that are cheaper and closer to home, early surveys have found. Others are thinking about going part-time, or taking a gap year so they can work and bail out families whose breadwinners are suddenly out of work.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/12/coronavirus-pandemic-shatter-college-dreams-179509

Georgia Tech University

What does at-scale mean now that we are all online? How do we support a horizontal scale versus vertical growth? How we do move forward with at-scale and affordable education in crisis? Join Georgia Tech Professional Education for an intensive virtual conversation on the current- and future-state of at-scale programs. Featured speakers include Associate Dean Yakut Gazi of Georgia Tech Professional Education, UPCEA immediate past board president Nelson Baker, and UPCEA board president Rovy Branon.

https://pe.gatech.edu/events/virtual-degrees-at-scale

Chandra Steele, PC Magazine

Everybody was supposed to be famous for 15 minutes in the future, but now you’re appearing on video 15 times a day and you want some anonymity. That’s not going to be the case for a while as social distancing continues, so you might as well make the best of your time in front of the camera. Whether you’re in Zoom meetings with colleagues or having virtual cocktail parties with friends, follow these steps so you can spend more time focusing on others and not anxiously checking how you look in the corner of the screen.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-look-good-on-video-calls

Connie Chen, Business Insider

Students who don’t come from a computer science background but want to enter the valuable and lucrative field of computer science can now do so with the help of UPenn’s online Master of Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) program.  The online version of the on-campus graduate-level course, it takes 16 to 40 months to complete, comprises 10 courses, and costs about $26,000 (one-third of the on-campus cost).

https://www.businessinsider.com/university-of-pennsylvania-online-masters-degree-computer-science-coursera

Erin Brothen, etal; Capella University
As the modes of course development in universities shift to be more team-based, librarians are now contributing core components of course development operations. This article outlines the ways that librarians at Capella University have been integrated systematically into course development. Adding librarians to specific points throughout the course development process has streamlined processes, saved materials costs, and better aligned research skills instruction with student needs. This systematic integration method is novel, compared to traditional models that pair librarians with individual faculty or offer ad hoc, or small pilot project assistance.

https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring231/brothen_staley_matson_smock_bennett231.html

Caitlin Brandt, Louise Sheiner, and Kadija Yilla, Brookings Institution

Forty-two million Americans, or one in every eight, have student loans, and they owe a total of $1.6 trillion, the second largest pool of consumer credit after mortgages. According to the Federal Reserve, 20 percent of adult borrowers who borrowed for their own educations were behind on their payments in 2018. Of those who are paying their loans, typical monthly payments are between $200 and $299. With unemployment soaring due to the coronavirus pandemic, some people may not be able to make their monthly loan payments. What has the government done to relieve the burden of student loans?

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/04/16/whats-the-government-done-to-relieve-student-loan-borrowers-of-their-burden-during-the-corona-crisis/