Have you ever thought about what portion of your job you learned “informally” versus “formally”? You’ll probably be impressed (with yourself) when you realize that most of what you learned at your job was self-taught. You might even think, “my employer is lucky I’m so resourceful and smart and can figure out what I am doing on my own. In ... Read More »
The romantic notion that adults come back to higher education for personal enrichment and self-directed intellectual pursuits does not hold water. After nearly 25 years working with adult students, I have met only a very small number who are pursuing a degree for the pure satisfaction of it. Instead, the vast majority are in it for a better life, which ... Read More »
Depending on who you talk to, online education is either the big man on campus (BMOC, for the acronym-minded) or the elephant in the classroom. Colleges and universities are launching new or expanded online programs for a multitude of worthwhile—and sometimes hotly debated—reasons, but the basics come down to these: to attract new students, boost enrollments, diversify student populations and ... Read More »
Not long ago, I posted an entry on my own blog about the ways in which the instructor’s role might be able to be reinvented, rather than undermined, by the assimilation of online tools and process. My hypothesis was that with some readjustment, continued focus on quality and a research mindset, instructors who embrace innovations and look seriously at available ... Read More »
In my last post, I shared the results of my inquiry into what motivates faculty to teach online. To quickly recap: Based on my research conducted at St. Bonaventure University, the following factors heavily influence faculty’s interest in teaching online: • The ability to reach more students • The flexibility of teaching online • A belief in the effectiveness of ... Read More »
Inside Higher Ed technology reporter Ry Rivard’s recent in-depth post covers the process and challenges numerous state universities are experiencing as they incorporate Coursera online materials into their curricula. Rivard outlines a number of ways that schools may implement these tools; a synopsis of these, drawn from his post, indicates an intriguing range of opportunities: Some university officials say they ... Read More »
There has been a lot of discussion—and controversy—about “flipped classrooms” lately. For the uninitiated, the idea behind the flip teaching approach is that students do their course work—watching the professor deliver a lecture via video, doing research, writing, etc.—away from school, then come to the classroom for in-person discussion with teachers and classmates. The benefit, proponents say, is that classroom ... Read More »
It’s the best of times and the worst of times to be a student. On the one hand, technological advances have made online education more accessible and credible. Along with MOOCs, this represents a huge step forward in making higher education available and affordable to an exponentially wider student base than its traditional counterparts. On the other hand, those traditional ... Read More »