Online Learning Update

By Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Asked to explain how they balance financial and academic considerations, administrators and professors say quality is key but struggle to define it.  Justin Ortagus’ new study “‘Like Having a Tiger by the Tail’: A Qualitative Analysis of the Provision of Online Education in Higher Education,” published in Teachers College Record, examines (and tries to make sense of) the complicated and often conflicting perspectives of 22 administrators, professors and instructional designers at three research universities with significant online offerings.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/09/04/researcher-seeks-clarify-messy-conversation-around-online-cost

BY ADAM HUGHES AND STEFAN WOJCIK, Pew Fact Tank

Today, millions of Americans use Twitter to break and comment on news, disseminate official pronouncements, organize campaigns and protests or just let their friends know what’s on their minds. Here are 10 facts about Americans and Twitter, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys and other studies:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/02/10-facts-about-americans-and-twitter/

By Natalie Schwartz, Education Dive
Three prominent higher education associations serving almost 2,500 institutions have issued a joint statement calling on colleges to commit to using data and analytics “to make better strategic decisions.”  The Association for Institutional Research (AIR), Educause and the National Association of College and University Business Officers say data can be used to improve recruitment, student outcomes, institutional efficiency and cost-cutting efforts.  They urge quick action. “[T]he incremental approach used so often in higher education won’t be enough,” they write. “Tweaks won’t deliver the change we need in time to make a difference in the lives of the students enrolled in our institutions today.”

https://www.educationdive.com/news/3-higher-ed-groups-urge-colleges-to-speed-up-data-analytics-adoption/561694/

by KEITH RAJECKI, eCampus News

The human brain adapts and trains itself to its surroundings and is very capable of making decisions even though some of the decisions are unconscious responses. However, the inherent unconscious biases that exist within human behavior can also similarly affect human decision making. It has been noted (Anderson and Anderson 2007, Machine Ethics) that in self-learning AI systems these biases can seep through to the AI systems. Especially in conversational AI interfaces, these unconscious effects can get deep-rooted and skew the decisions making.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/08/26/unconscious-ai-in-higher-education/

By: Nicole Webber and Stephanie Wiegand, Faculty Focus
A common practice at many colleges and universities involves course faculty inviting librarians into their classrooms to teach research and information literacy skills and concepts customized to disciplinary or course needs. Library instruction varies in format but often manifests in the librarian teaching a single, isolated class session—what librarians refer to as a “one-shot.” Flipped Learning methods can help counter these challenges even when the overall course is not based on a flipped model. They liberate librarians and faculty from the one-shot model and expand opportunities for library instruction to occur at multiple times in a course, to be delivered virtually or in person, and to invoke a broader range of educational tools.

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/blended-flipped-learning/flipped-library-sessions/

EdScoop

“Many Wake Tech students take at least one online course, and it’s continuing to grow more and more all the time,” Shahid-El says. “That’s something that we’re thinking will really start to shape more and more how students experience not just their campus but the college community.” An introductory business course, which used OER developed by the class’ lead instructor and college’s instructional support team, saved students money on traditional textbook costs, she says. During the 2015-2016 grant cycle, Wake Tech received a $2.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to address the “achievement, success and withdrawal gaps for students of color and in online courses.”

https://edscoop.com/video/oer-cost-savings-wake-tech-community-college/

By ELIZABETH HERNANDEZ, Denver Post

Student, staff and faculty can keep updated on the situation through a new website and text message alerts.  The “external data security threat” prompted Regis to yank down its technology services — including its website and all phone lines, email services and online programs that students use to submit work and professors grade it. The Denver institution has been dealing with this disruption in the throes of wrapping up summer semester and welcoming fall students back to campus. The university has since created a supplementary web page, regisupdates.com, to communicate to its community about the ongoing inconvenience.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/23/regis-university-cyber-attack/

Michael Norton, Vail Daily

“In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth, as the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” — Eric Hoffer.  And since it seems like the world is changing at the speed of thought, we will all do well to focus on the way we grow, evolve, and learn. One of the mantras that we hear with greater frequency these days is around the term continuous improvement. Typically, we hear the term continuous improvement when it comes to our efforts to continually strive to improve our products, services, and processes. However, we are now seeing the concept played out when it comes to people as well. The push to be better, faster, smarter, and stronger has many top achievers placing a focus on their own continuous improvement.

https://www.vaildaily.com/opinion/columns/norton-looking-for-continuous-improvement-focus-on-continuous-learning/

Marguerite Dennis, University World News

Africa has the fastest-growing middle class in the world. Despite recent revised forecasts, the African economy is predicted to grow at a faster rate than many other regions. More than 1.2 billion people currently live in Africa. By 2030, the continent’s population is estimated to be 1.7 billion and 2.2 billion in 2050. Sixty per cent of the African population (250 million people) are under the age of 25. Despite these statistics, less than 10% of Sub-Saharan African youth are enrolled in post-secondary education.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190816144515896

Leighsa Sharoff, Journal of Educators Online
Facilitating an online course in today’s student population requires an educator to be innovative and creative and to have an impactful online presence. In the current online learning environment (also known as e-learning), keeping students’ thoughtfully engaged and motivated while dispensing the required course content necessitates faculty enabling a safe, nonjudgmental environment whereby views, perspectives, and personal and professional experiences are encouraged. The educator must exhibit an educator-facilitated active, student-centered learning process, whereby students are held accountable for their active participation and self-directed learning while balancing a facilitator role to further enhance the learning process. This article explores one educator’s reflective practice process that has been developed over numerous years as a very early adopter of online education. It will explore the organizational aspect of teaching-facilitating a dynamic robust online course.

https://www.thejeo.com/archive/2019_16_2~2/sharoff

KURT SNIBBE, Orange County Register

Other than mortgages, the highest amount of debt is in student loans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank in 2018, the average monthly payment of students loans was $200-$300. More than 44 million Americans owed about $1.5 trillion on student loans at the end of March 2019, more than twice what they owed a decade earlier. The increase has come as historically high shares of kids go to college and the cost of higher education increases. In 1985, annual tuition and fees for University of California schools were about $1,295 for residents, which is about $3,087 in 2019 dollars. In 2011, the average tuition and fees for UC students were $14,460.https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/23/americans-have-1-5-trillion-in-student-loans-is-it-worth-it/

Stephen Gossett, Builtin

He based his hunch on American educator Edgar Dale’s well-known but controversially non-scientific theory dubbed the Cone of Experience, which posits that people remember far more about something through direct experience of it as opposed to just reading, seeing or hearing about it. And early research indicates that Chacon’s instincts about VR were correct. A Penn State University study found that students who used immersive virtual reality to accomplish a task did so more than twice as fast as students who used traditional computer programs.

https://builtin.com/edtech/virtual-reality-in-education

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

To customize learning for each of 30 or 40 students in a class, monitor their individual progress and provide meaningful feedback has been just too time-consuming. Now, machine learning can synthesize the huge volume of data needed to more fully deliver student-centered learning. It can assemble the background, take input from the individual learner regarding their self-determined needs and expectations, identify learning deficits and needs, and produce and present the learning path to best accomplish those goals. In this case, the role of the faculty member shifts from directly delivering materials and grading based on a single syllabus to advising, assisting and assessing personalized learning that meets the needs of both the individual and the prescribed outcomes of the program.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/adaptive-learning-personalized-learning

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

There’s an old rhetorical question that asks, “If you could keep only the alphabet or numbers, which would you choose and why?” The answer is numbers, of course, because in addition to describing quantities, numbers can do double duty as language. In fact, numbers have already become the language of education, in the form of algorithms. Long thought by many high school students to be a suspicious word, algorithms are a simple term for the steps taken in solving a problem. Algorithms are the efficiency experts in getting things done, especially when it comes to computers, and education relies on efficient systems.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-prevalence-of-algortihms-in-education/

By Riia O’Donnell, HR Dive
In today’s talent market, employees are looking for real-time development, continuous feedback and open dialogue. Businesses are looking to accommodate workers but may struggle to keep pace with what employees want and what they can deliver. The challenge for employers is to create development programming that addresses immediate needs without overwhelming employees. The rise of online learning has made that easier, but often employees worry their remote access means learning has to happen off the clock. Accessing learning when needed — rather than when convenient — is a major trend largely enabled by new learning tech.

https://www.hrdive.com/news/how-to-build-a-real-time-development-program/561132/

By Dimitra Giannouplaki, Thrive Global

The main question is whether video games can be used in our learning process. Can they transform the ways we learn and make us enjoy the process and simultaneously help us develop as personalities through the acquisition of skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and empathy? My answer could be only positive, and I will mention just three examples coming from the digital world that can make us reconsider the potential of video games in education. When students are exposed for so many hours to their digital devices, what if we use this new lifestyle to channel and inspire a new kind of education to both kids and adults?

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/video-games-a-highway-to-learning-and-personal-growth/

By Jamie Merisotis, Inside Indiana Business

The worlds of work and learning are merging in powerful ways, driven by the exponential growth in human knowledge. This means the abilities needed in the workplace go beyond simple “job skills” that can be learned quickly through a short-term training program.

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/40947808/states-can-foster-job-growth-if-lifelong-learning-is-at-play

By Sean Gallagher, EdSurge

There’s a growing consensus that today’s economy is increasingly defined by the need for continuous learning. What hasn’t been worked out is who should bear the responsibility for this ongoing re-training—the employee or the employer, or some mix of the two? And what role should higher education play? The reality in the tech sector is that skills have a short shelf-life. Software engineers must re-develop their skills every 12 to 18 months.

John Byrne, Forbes

Graduating M.B.A. students this year have had no trouble landing very good jobs.  Yet, for the second consecutive year, even the highest ranked business schools in the U.S. are beginning to report significant declines in M.B.A. applications . Last year, the top ten business schools combined saw a drop of about 3,400 M.B.A. applicants, a 5.9% falloff to 53,907 candidates versus 57,311 a year earlier (see Acceptance Rates At The Top 50 Business Schools). The University of Michigan Ross School of Business experienced the worst drop, an 8.5% decline from 3,485 to 3,188 apps. Harvard fell 4.5%, UC-Berkeley Haas 7.5%, Wharton 6.7%, Stanford 4.6%, and Booth 8.2%.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/poetsandquants/2019/08/20/its-official-the-mba-degree-is-in-crisis/#7ff235452df7

By Hallie Busta, Education Dive
Capella University offers a look at the first five years of its direct assessment competency-based education program (CBE), FlexPath, in a report released Thursday that includes lessons learned so far and barriers to broader implementation of the model throughout higher ed. FlexPath participants finish bachelor’s degrees 59% faster and master’s degrees 42% faster than students in similar credit-hour programs, and they borrow 45% less financial aid than those in Capella’s equivalent credit-hour programs. They also persist over two years at higher rates. The data comes as regulators consider rules that intend to make it easier for colleges to explore alternative educational models and as a growing number of colleges adopt or express interest in CBE.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/capella-u-shares-lessons-from-5-years-of-competency-based-education/561421/

By Sara Friedman, THE Journal
Google is making improvements to its college search feature to provide students with more detailed information on their college options. The tool now offers data on two-year colleges and certificate- and associate-level programs at four-year institutions. In June 2018, Google added the ability to allow users to search for data on four-year institutions and get information on college acceptance and graduation rates, costs, SAT scores and rankings. The update to the college search feature adds more detailed information tailored to students at two-year institutions, such as in-state tuition rates and the total cost of books and housing.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2019/08/20/google-adds-data-to-college-search.aspx