Struggling with low completion rates, some providers of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have launched a new strategy to increase student motivation. And it’s social. Social media platform LinkedIn announced this week it would begin a pilot program to allow students to display online courses they have completed on their LinkedIn profile. That way, students may be able to market themselves ... Read More »
Coursera, one of the higher-profile names in online education, has produced an infographic that showcases some pretty diversely impressive stats. It makes a strong case for proof of concept, regarding online education in general—and as a success story for Coursera in particular. Some of the figures are pretty stunning (more than 5,500 cumulative years of video-hours watched?!), and others serve ... Read More »
Leadership is clearly more than seniority, a title and power. It’s a multi-faceted topic that leaders themselves are interested in studying, including Teresa Goode, faculty member at Northeastern University College of Professional Studies. Here, she shares tips on how she’s been able to apply a modern model of leadership to real people. When scanning stories about Angelina Jolie over the ... Read More »
According to Bill Gates, flipped classrooms—a model that swaps the way homework and classwork are traditionally done—that incorporate outsourced lectures could help community college students. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that while speaking to community college leaders, the Microsoft giant also said that this model could make these schools function more efficiently. For more thoughts on this subject, check ... Read More »
As the conversation continues about tailoring academic curricula to meet private sector needs, a recent data set provides further food for thought. A national survey conducted by Northeastern University polled a sample of 1,000 people, along with more than 260 hiring decision-makers from small businesses to global corporations. The results indicate an ongoing preference for educational breadth, as opposed to ... Read More »
One of my dissertation advisors was very concerned when I accepted a full-time faculty appointment as an assistant academic specialist here at the Northeastern College of Professional Studies (CPS). The idea of academic specialists’ non-tenured faculty status can be perplexing and we are not always viewed as equal to tenured/tenure track faculty. My experience at CPS, however, has been that ... Read More »
As we move education into a realm that makes greater use of online learning and we ponder how we award traditional course credit for courses taken in the MOOC model, an important consideration is our ability to verify that the person receiving the credit truly is the person doing the work. An obvious advantage that the traditional face-to-face education model ... Read More »
The Boston Globe on Sunday highlighted a unique partnership between Northeastern University College of Professional Studies (CPS) and Boston Ballet that helps dancers prepare themselves for their post-dancing careers—careers that end all too soon, given the rigors and challenges of professional dancing. The partnership provides flexible and customized opportunities for dancers to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees and take advantage of ... Read More »
The following are excerpts from a paper I’ve been writing with my colleague Anne Hammer at the Northeastern College of Professional Studies (CPS). Experiential education is a holistic philosophy with carefully chosen experiences supported by reflection, critical analysis and syntheses. In more simplistic terms, experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make decisions and be accountable for ... Read More »
Over at the Reuters blog, political commentator and senior fellow at the Libertarian-inclined R Street Institute Reihan Salam has posted a column in which he contends (to quote his title) that “Online education can be good or cheap, but not both.” Salam cites the recent San Jose State partnership with Udacity; he observes that the initiative, intended “to create courses ... Read More »