Online Learning Update

Modern Campus

In this report, Modern Campus identifies student engagement gaps educational providers are experiencing. Modern Campus surveyed 213 continuing education (CE) managers, academic executives and administrative executives in the U.S. (85%) and Canada (15%). The report offers recommendations on how to integrate alternative programming into course offerings, as well as technological outreach solutions designed to meet the engagement needs of students.

https://wfmonitor.com/2021/04/28/the-state-of-continuing-education-2021/

By Rebecca Koenig, EdSurge

The way college degree programs are currently organized, “a lot of students are not going to finish. Can we break learning into smaller units and into meaningful credentials along the way?” says Holly Zanville, a research professor and co-director of the Program on Skills, Credentials, and Workforce Policy at George Washington University. “Shouldn’t they get something for their learning?” She’s leading the “Credential As You Go” charge along with Nan Travers, director of the Center for Leadership in Credentialing Learning at SUNY Empire State College, and Larry Good, president and CEO of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-05-04-mapping-out-a-credential-as-you-go-movement-for-higher-education

Anthony Salcito, Vice President, Microsoft Education

A new whitepaper, “Reimagining higher education as a student-centered experience” by Microsoft Education, explores some post-covid trends impacting higher education, and how technology can help address them.

Trend 1: Students are becoming more diverse and so are their expectations of higher education’s role in their path to employment  Trend 2: Harnessing data and leveraging AI will increasingly help institutions provide more personalized experiences and operate with greater agility Trend 3: The integration of technology with pedagogy will enable more flexible, engaging, and inclusive learning experiences.

https://educationblog.microsoft.com/en-us/2021/04/engaging-all-higher-education-students-with-student-centric-approaches

University of Colorado Boulder

Provost Russ Moore and Chief Operating Officer Patrick O’Rourke today announced CU Boulder’s Online Education Team, a collaboration of university experts that will “support faculty with exciting new opportunities to offer innovative, accessible and impactful online learning experiences,” according to Moore. “Our Online Education Team will empower our faculty to leverage their research, scholarship, and creative work for the benefit of our current students, as well as for learners in all phases of life and at all points of career, anywhere on the globe,” Moore said.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/04/30/announcing-next-steps-cu-boulders-online-education-strategy

Tessa DeLaquil and Lizhou Wang, University World News

As national systems of higher education and individual higher education institutions grapple with loss of funds in this pandemic year, recent months have shown that the consequences may have dire implications, especially for doctoral education. By undervaluing the role of doctoral education in higher education, national higher education systems risk critical long-term damage, not only to higher education, but also to economic and human development.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210430131651833

Derek Newton, Hechinger Report

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is being used to shoot off these seemingly personal appeals and deliver pre-written information through chatbots and text personas meant to mimic human banter. It can help a university or college by boosting early deposit rates while cutting down on expensive and time-consuming calls to stretched admissions staffs. AI has long been quietly embedding itself into higher education in ways like these, often to save money — a need that’s been heightened by pandemic-related budget squeezes.

https://hechingerreport.org/from-admissions-to-teaching-to-grading-ai-is-infiltrating-higher-education/

University of Gronigen Library

Open Educational Resources (OER) are becoming more prominent in higher education. They facilitate a quicker transition to online teaching, help educators reuse and create innovative learner-centered materials, improve access to education, and save resources. This video introduces the topic of OER, explores their practical application in courses, and encourages teachers to use them with the support available at the UG Library. Explore the accompanying slides with additional information on OER in the slide notes.

https://www.rug.nl/library/home-news/how-you-can-use-open-educational-resources

Jennifer Brown and Christopher Lynch, Lompoc Record

Online instruction opens access to those who need flexibility in classes for childcare, for scheduling conflicts and because of socio-economic pressure. The pandemic has only increased the reasons remote access is needed, with many families having faced a dual pandemic of COVID-19 and economic loss. Many of our student parents no longer have childcare, or face other circumstances preventing them from immediately returning to campus. Online coursework must not be considered an inferior or cheaper option. Getting online right requires a significant investment in course development guided by professional course designers who focus on achieving and assessing learning outcomes. Best practices show that developing a quality online course takes about 10 weeks to build with the faculty member working closely alongside an instructional/course designer, and research has shown that in-person instruction improves after working with instructional designers.

https://lompocrecord.com/opinion/columnists/jennifer-brown-and-christopher-lynch-quality-online-education-for-higher-ed-requires-public-investment/article_512e95ce-fae0-5d0b-917c-3a2f9232ad74.html

Jennifer Buckingham, Financial Review

Innovation is always on the agenda in education but the pandemic in 2020 made it a top priority. Many schools made a swift and more or less successful transition to online teaching.  Innovative methodologies can be simple and powerful. The schools that did so most successfully were largely those that were already high functioning, with strong collaborative teaching cultures and robust systems in place. The widespread adoption of technology for teaching was not a disruptive force that changed the traditional stratifications in education systems. Education still needs to be evidence-informed. Innovation is not an excuse to disregard everything we know about effective teaching and learning. Otherwise, doing something is not better than doing nothing.

https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/education-needs-to-be-evidence-informed-20210412-p57iku

Hosni Zaouali, eCampus News

Artificial intelligence will accelerate the evolution of teaching and learning. Overall, AI should allow students to get personalized instruction and teachers to have more free time to prepare classes and update their information. While it’s still too early to evaluate the extent of the change in the quality and scope of instruction that AI might achieve, what is certain is that it will cause a revolution. That is because educational systems around the world remain rooted in the foundations established in the 1800s. Most of all, AI will crush the idea that all students must learn in the same place, in the same way, and at the same speed.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/04/08/ai-is-revolutionizing-education/

Sanjit Sethi and Elliot Felix, University World News

We call these assumptions the six fallacies of higher education:

• There is a ‘traditional student’.
• Learning happens Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, in autumn and spring.
• The campus is for classes.
• We measure student success solely academically.
• Costs can increase faster than quality.
• Accreditation ensures excellence.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210405080338394

Ray Schroeder, Inisde Higher Ed

Learning before the 21st century was mostly about accessing and retaining theories, facts and figures; now it is mostly about applying theories, facts and figures in creative and critical ways to solve problems and advance society. Increasingly, higher education is less about memorization and more about problem solving. Over all, many students seem to do better in classes where the textbooks are open. It may not be that the OER materials are superior — rather it may be that when the class materials are free, students actually obtain and use them.  C. Edward Watson, CIO and associate vice president for curricular and pedagogical innovation at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and co-author Barbara Illowsky describe their “epiphany” in discovering the meaningfulness and impact on equity and affordability of using OER. “Yet one of the best-kept secrets for improving student equity and college affordability is within the hands of faculty: using Open Educational Resources (OER) in their courses instead of commercial textbooks and paid electronic materials.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/it%E2%80%99s-time-open-educational-resources

C. Edward Watson & Barbara Illowsky, AAU&P Liberal Ed Blog

As your institution looks to the 2021–22 academic year, what can you, your colleagues, and your institution do to further the goals of student equity and college affordability? How might you launch or accelerate efforts associated with OER? Now is an excellent time to learn more, plan for the future, become an OER advocate, and examine how you and your institution might add OER to your portfolio of student success and equity initiatives.

https://www.aacu.org/blog/our-oer-epiphany-advocating-open-educational-resources-tools-affordability-and-equity

Stephanie Fairchild, Buchtelite

The pandemic has abruptly changed the lives of both students and faculty here at The University of Akron. After writing an article last fall about how students were feeling about the transition to online learning, I wanted to give the faculty a chance to showcase how they have innovated within the shift.  Four UA professors discuss adjustments and achievements in the classroom.

https://buchtelite.com/40851/uncategorized/ua-faculty-shifts-to-online-education-in-innovative-ways-due-to-covid-19/

Julien Barbier, University World News

The team-based project approach, meanwhile, is well suited to teaching students professional skills. Increasingly, employers are dropping the requirement of a college degree and are looking at student portfolios instead. “The real magic in an educational programme like this is in the project design,” said Michael Feldstein, CEO of Empirical Educator Project and publisher of e-Literate, an online journal about higher education. “Finding relevant content is the easy part.”The assumption of 19th century education was that building a student’s knowledge base is everything. But, today, with the biggest library that has ever existed at everyone’s fingertips (the internet), skills are what matter. The OS of education approach shifts 90% to 95% of a typical student’s time to applied learning. Content is not the problem. Learning how to learn is the future of education.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210329143743399

Kenneth Ronkowitz Lynnette Condro Ronkowitz, Wiley Online Library

A number of lessons were learned from the pandemic about online learning. If an online course is built with integrity, meaning that it is well constructed using all of the design elements, it can be delivered using other modalities, including F2F. During the pandemic, students and faculty understood that they needed to become more digitally literate.  Some observers have called the coronavirus a “black swan” moment—an unforeseen event that could change everything for higher education. Investments were made to shift education online, and that shift could be transformational. But we question whether the changes will be permanent, and if past is precedent, it still will be left up to the individual institutions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.12377

JEAN-PAUL BOUDREAU, University Affairs

While our 20th-century models of education celebrated specialization, it is becoming clear that no one profession or technology or set of skills is capable of navigating the inscrutable way ahead. Instead, I believe the 21st century belongs to the thinkers: the agile, inquisitive, empathetic, and counterintuitive collaborators who embrace a diversity of knowledge. These are tomorrow’s changemakers and entrepreneurs, who both ask, “What if?” and answer, “Here’s how.” So where will we find these minds? Primarily, in undergraduate liberal arts institutions across this country: the place where ideas are our lifeblood and critical and creative thinking our consequence.

https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/now-is-the-time-to-rethink-undergraduate-education-in-the-liberal-arts/

Ed Glantz, et al; EDUCAUSE Review

For higher education amid the COVID-19 pandemic, spring break 2020 heralded a sharp increase in the scope and pace of change, including social distancing and other controls to limit the spread of the coronavirus. In the span of a mere few days, faculty—in an unprecedented manner—supplanted traditional face-to- face instruction with remote synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning experiences. Out of necessity, teaching practices rapidly embraced technology-based prototypical teaching methods. Faculty and students actively began the largest-ever nontraditional teaching experiment. The question now is, should any of these innovations and adaptations be retained to form the “next normal” in higher education?  Five pandemic-introduced innovative teaching adaptations can improve student engagement in the next normal for higher education.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/3/improved-student-engagement-in-higher-educations-next-normal

Reviewed by Ramona M. Cutri, Teachers College Record

The second edition historically contextualizes eLearning and provides needed attention to issues of diversity and equity. The majority of the book was written prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the authors eerily speak to issues that have only intensified as a result of the dramatic pivot to emergency remote teaching caused by the closure of universities worldwide in efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. A statement by Karen Swan sums up the gravity of the current state of academia and its modus apparatus: “[I]t isn’t clear that higher education will survive in its current form” (p. 293)…. An assertion by Raymond Schroeder further questions the centralized authority of institutions of higher education to not only quantify learning but also to keep track of what is learned.

https://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=23639

Maria Elena Hurtado, University World News
Female enrolment in higher education has tripled globally between 1995 and 2018. However, recent research has provided evidence that the gender gap in higher education has declined very little in recent decades and closely matches the continued gender inequality in the labour market. Furthermore, the ‘equal access’ to an academic education and career that women have enjoyed for the past years has not thus far led to ‘equal outcome’ in terms of leadership and academic positions, pay, research and publications in a higher education setting, according to a new report.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210312130746862

Jill Dunlap, Iris Palmer, Alexa Wesley; New America

The use of student data to inform decision-making and communication is still evolving in higher education. Often missing from campus conversations about use of student data are student voices about their preferences and needs. NASPA and New America engaged in a joint research effort to better understand student perceptions of data use within higher education. Insights from these discussions with students led to a set of recommendations for campus administrators about the uses of different types of data, the tools for collecting and sharing that data, the areas of data-related training for faculty and staff, and the framing and delivery of outreach messages informed by student data.

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/keeping-student-trust/