Educational Technology

eCampus News
Physical campuses are closed, and students have moved online—here are tips from online educators to help adjust to live virtual teaching.  At Relay Graduate School of Education, we run an online campus alongside our in-person campuses and came up with 10 practical tips from our veteran online faculty to support those making the switch to the online environment for live virtual teaching.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/10/23/10-things-to-try-during-live-virtual-teaching/

LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

The survey of 2,086 college students, from nonprofit Active Minds, reveals that 1 in 5 of surveyed students say their mental health has significantly worsened under COVID-19. The most common ways COVID-19 has impacted lives and student mental health are via stress or anxiety (91 percent), disappointment or sadness (81 percent), loneliness or isolation (80 percent), relocation (56 percent), and financial setbacks (48 percent).

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/10/22/critical-actions-to-support-student-mental-health/

Chris Burt, University Business

Distance learning options for Executive MBA programs have increased substantially since 2019 and female enrollment has increased to its highest level in 2020, according to new data being reported by the Executive MBA Council (EMBAC), the non-profit academic association that represents business industry leaders. In an annual survey done of its members, EMBAC says that online executive education programs being offered in some form by institutions jumped from 55.3% to nearly 74% year over year, largely fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic but also serving business leaders who are increasingly looking for more flexible options.

https://universitybusiness.com/executive-mba-report-shows-increase-in-online-learning-women/

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Education Dive

We break down where proposed legislation stands and what colleges should know about the aid available to them now. More money is needed for colleges to blunt the pandemic’s fallout, higher ed groups say. But whether that’s coming, and how much they will get, is uncertain. Here, we take a look at the current and future postsecondary relief.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/a-guide-to-higher-education-coronavirus-relief-funding/587495/

Sophie Nguyen, Rachel Fishman, Dustin Weeden; New America

New America and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) partnered to track responses of state higher education agencies and systems on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected state funding for public higher education. The pandemic has depressed economic activity and led to increased costs for states, both of which can affect the availability of funding for public higher education. We will periodically update the tracker as situations change within states.

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/state-budget-cuts/

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Education Dive

The pandemic forced disciplines such as medicine and law to make unforeseen and unprecedented adjustments that may stick around. These programs usually need to conduct much of the coursework face-to-face, as students must hone real-world skills, such as being in a courtroom or a hospital. Frequently, state regulators, accreditors and other oversight entities mandate that only a certain amount of the learning be digital.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/covid-19-could-change-how-professional-programs-teach-online/586829/

Natalie Schwartz Hallie Busta Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Education Dive

The past seven months have offered some answers and a glimpse at what challenges and opportunities may be ahead. That’s why Education Dive spoke with dozens of college officials, ed tech experts and other industry observers to learn how they’re responding to the crisis and gearing up for what comes next. Although their opinions vary, they can agree on one thing: Online learning will play a much larger role in the higher education sector going forward.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-covid-19-is-changing-the-business-of-online-learning-for-colleges/586828/

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

New numbers released last week from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. is down 4 percent this year, compared to last year and enrollment of students starting their college careers is down 16 percent. And that, mind you, is based on the beginning of the term. Robert Kelchen, a professor at Seton Hall University who studies higher education, says it’s too early to tell whether students who have started this semester are able to finish it. “And that’s something that could end up being a real concern,” he says.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-10-20-who-is-missing-from-college-during-the-pandemic-a-lot-of-students-actually

KIMBERLY COY, eCampus News

Leveraging Universal Design for Learning, or UDL, will help ensure effectiveness and a level of normalcy in an unexpected new learning reality. UDL comes from an educational framework first conceptualized in architecture with Universal Design – creating spaces that are accessible to all – and the challenges of special education, where learning and teaching based on the “average” student was not effective. A framework that considers wide differences in human behavior and teaches to every student is critical now more than ever. UDL provides a framework to reach every student through online teaching by utilizing neuroscience for learning and following the 3 main principles of engagement, representation, and action and expression.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/10/21/udls-essential-place-in-the-post-pandemic-learning-environment/

Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Now that Apple and Samsung have brought 5G to the masses with their recent release of new phones, it’s time to look past what has long been called a game-changing technology to what’s next — 10G. A new report on 10G networks laid out the economic benefits, including “the emergence of more secure, lower latency broadband connections with dramatically faster speeds that eventually will be capable of delivering near symmetrical download and upload speeds of up to 10 Gbps.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/10/19/10g-networks-on-2021-horizon-promise-millisecond-latency.aspx

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Becky Frankiewicz, Harvard Business Review

No clear alternative to universities has yet emerged, and while there’s no clear path to disrupting higher education, there are pain points which those of us in the education field and beyond could be confronting. At some point a viable alternative will likely emerge and we see six reasons that make the case for demanding something different:

https://hbr.org/2019/11/6-reasons-why-higher-education-needs-to-be-disrupted

Beverley Oliver, Campus Morning Mail

Certificates are marketed as career-focussed, affordable (go as fast as you like, pay only after a seven-day free trial), on demand (start when you’re ready) and “hands-on”. Most are provided by companies such as IBM, Google, SAS, Salesforce and Facebook, rather than traditional educators. Most are IT-related, though a few are in areas such as customer engagement and sales development, and many take less than six months. There is some evidence, particularly from Google, that their short courses enable learners to get jobs and launch new careers, including those who would been unlikely to enrol in higher education. By any measure, these certificates are relatively inexpensive as long as the learner can maintain commitment and pace.

https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/what-we-can-learn-from-coursera-professional-certificates-and-google-career-certificates/

Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed

A new study of enormous scale supports what numerous smaller studies have demonstrated throughout the pandemic: female academics are taking extended lockdowns on the chin, in terms of their comparative scholarly productivity. Yes, comparative productivity. While other studies using different metrics show that women are publishing much less now than they were before the pandemic, this new paper finds something different: at least in terms of submissions to academic journals from the mega-publisher Elsevier, both men and women’s productivity actually increased during the first few months of the pandemic, relative to the same period of time in 2018 and 2019. But women’s productivity didn’t increase as much as men’s, meaning that women are still trailing behind male peers as a result of pandemic-era increased caregiving responsibilities.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/20/large-scale-study-backs-other-research-showing-relative-declines-womens-research

JILL BARSHAY, Hechinger Report
In a Swiss experiment, women assigned to male-dominated study groups were more likely to drop an economics class.  As part of an introductory economics class, Swiss students had the option to work in study groups with their peers. Behind the scenes, a researcher randomly assigned them to groups with different gender ratios. Something interesting happened when a female was the sole woman and the other three group members were men: she was 10 percentage points more likely to drop the course.

https://hechingerreport.org/when-women-studied-with-women-they-persisted-study-finds/

Maurits Van Rooijen, University World News

The simple truth is that more than 95% of students in tertiary education are focused on a professional career and they (if not their sponsors, parents and taxpayers) tend to measure success primarily in terms of employment.  Though it would be unreasonable to assume that well-designed games offer the ultimate solution, there is now a wealth of evidence that diagnostic games can be effective in guiding individuals at any stage in life, in helping to clarify their learning and professional preferences.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201014062337394

Brendan O’Malley, University World News

The American Council on Education (ACE) has sent a letter on behalf of more than 50 other higher education associations to the White House asking United States President Donald Trump to withdraw the controversial executive order on ‘Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping’, arguing that it has caused ‘enormous confusion’ on campuses and in workplaces. The executive order, which applies to federal contractors and grantees, including colleges and universities, will prohibit contractors from using concepts the administration specifies as ‘divisive’ forms of race or sex ‘stereotyping’ or ‘scapegoating’ in their workplace training programmes.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201017110633690

Isha Trivedi and Vita Fellig, GW Hatchet
Professors said they have adapted well to virtual learning, but the threat of budget cuts has damaged their confidence in GW. Faculty said last semester that online learning forced them to adapt their teaching methods and develop new teaching strategies, and some struggled to replicate arts and science activities. At the start of this semester, professors said they were “excited” about the online fall semester, but almost halfway through the fall, they said they are bogged down by the stress of school-wide layoffs and other financial cuts.

https://www.gwhatchet.com/2020/10/18/we-need-more-communication-faculty-adapt-to-virtual-learning-but-worry-about-layoffs/

Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

Since March, Coursera has allowed any college to request free access to its library of course content for any of its students to use, with a free version of what it calls Coursera for Campus. And the giveaway led thousands of colleges to sign up, and “many tens of institutions” to start assigning parts of Coursera courses as part of for-credit classes, says Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO. “It’s a little like courseware,” he added. “I think that U.S. institutions are realizing, ‘Why am I trying to do this all myself?’” he adds. “They’re saying, ‘I can’t build this much online content. I can’t keep up with how fast things are changing. It’s a form of collaboration, I should actually take advantage of these other courses as part of my teaching program.’

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-10-15-will-the-pandemic-lead-more-colleges-to-offer-credit-for-moocs-coursera-is-pushing-for-it

LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

With a shifting landscape facing learners of all kinds, Arizona State University (ASU) is launching a new initiative to accelerate the university’s efforts to redesign American higher education and focus on innovation. The overall goal is to broaden access to world-class education methods and cutting-edge technological innovations that are tailored to empower students and be responsive to their specific needs and goals.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/10/16/asu-initiative-focuses-on-innovations-to-empower-learners/

by Columbia CTL

Columbia University has released an open online course, Learning Success, to provide students everywhere with learning strategies to be successful in higher education courses. The self-paced course is free and open to all on edX.org with an optional paid verified certificate program. The course provides students with foundational study skills, strategies for more effective reading, writing, test preparation and time management, and proven tips for students taking STEM and other technical courses. It also covers metacognition—the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes—in relation to learning, as well as growth vs. fixed mindsets, to provide students with a better understanding of how they learn.

https://ctl.columbia.edu/announcements/online-course-learning-success/