You work hard to be ready for class.  You start with prayer, then read the textbook, take copious notes, pore over the syllabus, ponder the learning outcomes, scrutinize every assignment, post engaging video announcements, and...Continue Reading »

It is an expectation, especially in advanced degree programs, for students to use a peer-reviewed source for their research.  Students often do not even know what peer-reviewed means and especially how to be certain that...Continue Reading »

Two graduates visit beginning students to share their testimonies and offer themselves as mentors and prayer partners.  Reflecting on the power of relationship, the instructor deems the workshop one of the top two spiritual moments...Continue Reading »

Dr. Edward Palm grew to be more of a mentor and example than my own biological father. Of all his students, I was appointed to offer prayer at his funeral, which was one of the...Continue Reading »

Although they makeup a fraction of the teaching population in the College of Adult and Professional Studies, full-time faculty devote all of their energies to the many aspects of teaching.  Andragogy, curriculum, and Scholarship of...Continue Reading »

Faculty performance directly impacts student experience. For this reason, the College of Adult and Professional Studies embarked on a journey to define faculty expectations, thereby ensuring six bedrock characteristics for faculty to model. The following...Continue Reading »

Accreditors do not look favorably on a library that fills its shelves with textbooks. One of the purposes of the library is to provide lateral reading for students who are doing research.  A question often...Continue Reading »

Write lead... [Insert video] Question: Write here?  Please leave a comment below. Presenter: RB Kuhn / Associate Professor, Division of Liberal Arts Recorded: May 30, 2015 Related Videos RB Kuhn Stories: Unwarranted Adjustments [VIDEO] RB...Continue Reading »

Some teachers bless their students with distinctive giftings.  Although singing is not everyone's forte, one instructor struck a relationship chord with a cohort that demanded an encore. Like a fresh cup of coffee on a...Continue Reading »

I became a committed Christian while in graduate school, and felt called to serve God. I then studied theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. It was there that I met my finest teacher, Dr....Continue Reading »

During the Efficient, Effective and Edifying Grading simulcast, we asked attendees to participate in three concurrent chat sessions. During the first chat session, attendees responded to the following question: How do you think knowing the...Continue Reading »

Most libraries offer a service nationally known as interlibrary loan.  No library has every possible item that will be needed by a student or faculty member.  Interlibrary loan (ILL), allows libraries the ability to request...Continue Reading »

Are you ready for some football?  Are you ready for some integrity?  Get in the huddle with Bob Burchell, Director of Chaplain Ministries at Spiritcare, as he calls the play for living a life of...Continue Reading »

One way to look at grading is to see how outcomes, assignments, and rubrics work as complementary threads to form a cord not easily broken.  Follow Dr. Bart Bruehler, Associate Professor of New Testament in...Continue Reading »

What if you could cut your essay grading time in half?  Follow Dr. Jeff Boyce, Assistant Dean for Curriculum and Operations in the DeVoe School of Business as he demonstrates the efficiencies of Typeitin, a...Continue Reading »

Because I am a fellow sufferer of "HSMPTSD" (High School Math Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), my choice for "best ever" teacher may come as a bit of a surprise. In the Exceeding Expectations series, today's...Continue Reading »

Write lead... [Insert video] [Insert transcript] Question: Write here?  Please leave a comment below. Presenter: Bob Burchell / Director, Chaplain Ministries Spiritcare Broadcast: October 17, 2015 Related Videos [hyperlink video]

  Two findings stand out in WCET’s latest Managing Online Education survey: how course content is produced and acquired; and course completion rates. WCET (the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) conducted the 2013 survey in partnership with BCcampus, Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, and eCampusAlberta. Course content: limitations of the in-house model Results of their survey shows that the "vast majority of online courses use content that is developed in-house by faculty." Approximately "60 percent use open content, but it is used only in a small number of courses." The dependence on in-house content for online courses fits neatly with the traditional organization of higher education: faculty are charged with serving as one-person providers for most aspects of a student’s experience, including content. And this model reinforces and reflects the notion that faculty are not merely teachers, but subject matter experts. But of course, technology makes it increasingly simple and convenient to acquire content from other sources. This isn’t a new phenomenon; the process of unbundling the production and distribution of information begins with the printing press. The downside of this reliance on in-house content development is that it places an extraordinary cap on the kinds of materials that can be produced and subsequently used by students to learn. More sophisticated materials that draw on rich media, predictive modelling and other properties that are dependent on higher levels of investment and a true division of labor, simply can’t be produced economically via the in-house model. The relatively light take-up of open content is interesting on two levels. Open content initiatives have been around for a decade and a half. Increasing the frequency with which faculty share materials is logical. And we expect adoption of open content to continue to grow. But the growth will likely remain limited until the shared materials are consistently of higher quality, which in turn, is dependent on moving away from the aforementioned in-house production model. Institutions don’t know their course completion rates The focus in the study on course completion rates is smart. While the retention rates cited in the study are not particularly surprising, the authors rightly draw attention to what might be the more important issue: many institutions didn’t know their completion rates. "65 percent were not able to provide an on-campus rate and 55 percent did not report an online rate." Course completion rates are a particularly obvious marker of academic success. And it is information that is relatively simple to capture. It’s the low hanging fruit of institutional analytics. The apparent lack of attention to even the most obvious and important information is somewhat alarming. As the report notes, "if institutions wish to improve course completion, they will need to collect these statistics. It’s hard to improve what is not measured." The full report: Managing Online Education, 2013  

"Worth Reading" is a hand-picked weekly collection of new and not-so-new articles, ideas, events and other items for busy professionals in higher education that prefer to spend their reading wisely.  :: The Current Ecosystem of Learning Management Systems in Higher Education: Student, Faculty, and IT Perspectives Excerpt: "This study explores faculty and student perspectives on learning management systems in the context of current institutional investments. In 2013, nearly 800 institutions participated in the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) survey, sharing their current information technology practices and metrics across all IT service domains." Software Will Not ‘Eat’ Education Article challenges Marc Andreessen’s argument that . . . "Technology is not driving down costs in . . . education, but it should…[Access is] the critical thing. We need to get every kid on the planet access to what we consider today to be a top Ivy League education. The only way to do that is to apply technology." Why Federal College Ratings Won’t Rein In Tuition Excerpt: "College costs have been rising for decades. Slowing — or even better, reversing — that trend would get more people into college and help reduce student debt. The Obama administration is working on an ambitious plan intended to rein in college costs, and it deserves credit for tackling this tough job. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to work, at least not in controlling tuition at public colleges, which enroll a vast majority of students. The plan might dampen prices at expensive private colleges, but some of them may close if they can’t survive on lower tuition." University Innovation Alliance Excerpt: "By failing to produce enough graduates, our nation is failing to capitalize on its economic potential. In 2008, McKinsey and Company reported that the education achievement gap cost between $1.3 trillion and 2.3 trillion in lost gross domestic produce because "American workers are, on average, less able to develop, master and adapt tone productivity enhancing technologies." ::  Dr. Keith Hampson is Managing Director, Client Innovation at Acrobatiq, a Carnegie Mellon University venture born out of CMU’s long history in cognitive science, human-computer interaction, and software engineering. @Acrobatiq

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On a recent trip to my parents’ home, through miles of congested highway on the outskirts of a city that’s grown far too quickly, I was reminded of how the automobile market in the mid-20th century gave rise to the suburbs, or at the very least, played a central role. Of course, this wasn’t the intention. But technological innovation has a tendency to lead to unintended consequences. The same might prove to be true of competency-based education (CBE). The current focus on CBE will certainly lead to more competency-based programs, but it may also lead to a greater focus on the measurement of learning which, in turn, could ultimately have significant, long-term implications for all of higher education. The Rise and Rise of Competency-Based Education The excitement about CBE is justified. CBE gives shape and direction to the long overdue need to personalize learning in higher education; it allows students to progress at their own pace; it incorporates the practice of prior learning assessment (indirectly through self-paced learning or directly through credential recognition), and offers a logical framework for aligning the demands of the labour market with higher education. CBE works especially well for adults that are returning to school to complete programs of study, and it has the potential to reduce costs for students, institutions, and taxpayers by shortening the time to completion. Not too shabby. Nevertheless, CBE’s greatest impact may be derived from the fact that it is far more dependent on accurate, detailed and frequent measurement of student learning than most other instructional models. An instructional model that allows students to progress at different speeds and to cover different curriculum (as a result of existing knowledge), needs to be especially confident that the student has truly mastered the curriculum. Traditional instructional models may have their weaknesses, but they do minimize risk. Rigorous assessment is the means of managing this risk. The heightened emphasis on assessment in CBE also stems from the focus on demonstrable and measurable learning outcomes. Generally, the greater the emphasis on clearly defining learning objectives, the greater the commitment to measuring results. Politics is another factor. CBE, as well as any other emerging instructional model, must be especially rigorous if it is to be accepted by regulators and other stakeholders. Institutions at the forefront of CBE will attest the additional scrutiny. (Ginger Rogers not only had to match Fred Estaire’s dancing, but do it backwards and in heels.) CBE’s Ripple Effects Developing new and better means of assessment is not been a preoccupation of higher education. Energies have been directed elsewhere. But the growing pressure for accountability, and with new leadership from CBE, the tide may be turning. Impact could be felt in several ways. Increasing the emphasis placed on outcomes may modify how students and other stakeholders think of what constitute the "best" universities. Traditionally, great universities are those with the most academically skilled applicants, the most research-productive faculty, and the most exclusive admissions policies, and, ironically, those with the highest tuition (sticker-prices). (Lloyd Armstong has nicely described these and other inputs as "surrogates of quality".) A renewed focus on measuring learning outcomes will help us focus on the student’s actual learning gains. Someday we may come to believe that the "best" universities are not necessarily the most exclusive. CBE may also help to open the door a bit wider to alternative education providers and new forms of credentials. "Badges" and other emerging models will be aided by the rise of objective, measurable and reported learning outcomes (See, for example: The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Education Landscape, January 2015). Rigorous assessment enables students, regulators and other stakeholders to make more thoughtful comparisons of value. The most far-reaching and unpredictable impact, though, may be in stimulating new ideas and better approaches to instruction. Improved understanding of what works and what doesn’t in teaching and learning is the foundation of innovation; it’s the means by which we move beyond anecdotal evidence and ingrained assumptions about what constitutes effective instructional strategies. Insight is the first step, but we need substantial, rigorous information about the effects of our work to move forward. More Reading on Competency-Based Higher Education Credit For Actually Learning — Not Time In Class — Is Shaking Up Higher Education Accreditation in a Rapidly Changing World The Opportunities and Challenges of Competency-Based Education Getting Credit for What You Know    

:: The growing space accorded the topic of innovation in higher education has two sources: a recognition of the importance of the institution to 21st century modern economies and, simultaneously, a sense amongst some educators, pundits and government officials that the institutions isn’t necessarily prepared for the challenges that await it in the coming years.  Students and their families perceive a degree as a minimum requirement for entry (or maintenance) of a middle-class existence. For nations, higher education is a key means by which prosperity can be maintained in the face of growing international competition for jobs and investment.  However, tuition fees have increased faster than inflation for decades; student debt surpassed credit card and auto loans, and more public funds are being directed to cover growing health care costs. Maybe most troubling of all, there is a growing scepticism that higher education is producing adequate improvement in learning.  The concept of innovation has lost much of its value, though; stripped of a sufficiently precise meaning by overuse and hyperbole (we’re looking at you, content marketing-types). We may know innovation "when we see it", but a more tangible concept and measurable would be helpful as higher ed rallies its energies to rethink and rework how it serves students and the broader society.  In our small way, starting today, we want to bring some order and clarity back to the concept of innovation. We are producing a set of resources for professionals in higher education who want to take practical, concrete steps toward increasing the pace and quality of innovative work within their institutions.  This will require, first of all, addressing innovation specifically in terms relevant to higher education. Much of the literature about innovation comes from the world of business and, within that realm, tends to emphasize product innovation over process and service innovations - which are equally important. While the vast literature on innovation is helpful - providing us with concepts and processes that can be used across different industries - special care needs to be taken to tweak these theories, techniques and processes, to fit the unique characteristics of higher education.  Topics we’ll address in this series include:   Process versus product innovation; How to cultivate Innovation in your department; How innovations typically unfold over time and across different groups; Communication strategies you can use to help people make difficult changes; The growing importance of business model innovation to higher education; Common obstacles to innovation in higher education. Innovation Series Posts Change & Innovation in Online Higher Education

:: We like to think of ourselves as open to change. Indeed, we often see ourselves as one of the "change agents" in our organization, not the person that needs to be constantly prodded to do things differently. But the truth is less flattering. All of us resist change more often than not. The greater the perceived change, the stronger our resistance. Why? Because change is uncomfortable and occasionally threatening. Change can affect our status, reduce our level of control and, worst of all, makes us look bad. Although we’re just as likely to benefit from the change as not, history suggests that we will work harder to hang on to what we currently have than to obtain something new. Our efforts to innovate in online higher education runs headlong into our resistance to change. Technology tends to provoke an especially fierce resistance — for good reason. First, because technology is unfolding and shifting so quickly and, more to the point, because it has the capacity to reconfigure the world of work — an area of obvious importance to anyone with a family to support. The benefit of technology is also our source of anxiety. Advances in technology typically replace lower level tasks, allowing us to focus on higher, knowledge-intensive responsibilities. The subsequent improvement in productivity can raise the standard of living. But in the process, technology upsets the existing labour market. Sometimes this means jobs are eliminated outright; more often, though, it simply changes the range of duties required for existing positions. (There are, apparently, more bank tellers in 2015 than there were when ATM’s were first introduced.) Change in online higher education has been slow. Despite forecasts of "transformation", "revolution" and (God help us) "disruption", the vast majority of our institutions continue to operate more or less as they did when "distant education" first became a going concern and 56.6k modems were the norm. The literature on innovation can help us understand our current predicament and offer tactics to stimulate faster and hopefully better quality innovation. But the bulk of this literature comes from the world of business - in particular, consumer and technology industries. Higher education, as is often stated, is unique. The institution operates by its own set of rules; consequently, we need to develop theories and practices around innovation that suit the character of the institution. Selected Principles of Innovation As a first step, we can consider a few of the more useful principles of innovation in terms of how they relate to higher education. The Free Flow of Ideas Organizations stagnate without regular exposure to ideas and information from a range of sources (the same might be said of societies.) It’s oxygen for innovation. While higher education has good processes in place to encourage the free flow of information, we’ve been less successful with respect to teaching and learning. A minority of academics regularly attend conferences and other events on teaching and learning. Few make the study of pedagogy a standard part of their workflow. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for academics in a single department to have never witnessed classes offered by their colleagues. (This was one of my greatest surprises when I joined faculty.) Derek Bok went further: "A remarkable feature of American colleges is the lack of attention that most faculties pay to the growing body of research about how much students are learning and how they could be taught to learn more. Hundreds of studies have accumulated on how undergraduates develop during college and what effects different methods of teaching have on improving critical thinking, moral reasoning, quantitative literacy, and other skills vital to undergraduate education. One would think faculties would receive these findings eagerly. Yet one investigator has found that fewer than 10 percent of college professors pay any attention to such work when they prepare for their classes." The limited flow of information about instruction in our institutions appears to have two distinct origins: a lack of rewards for effective teaching (for the instructor, certainly, but also for the institution) and the degree of autonomy afforded higher education professionals, which supports - albeit unintentionally - impenetrable one-person silos. Freedom to Fail Innovation involves risk. If we try something new, it may not work out as hoped. But without the freedom to screw up, innovation has little chance to take hold. It’s true that the meaning of failure has undergone some modification of late; it’s no longer the end of the world, according to some. The romanticization of entrepreneurialism and "start-ups" in North America during the past couple of decades brought with it the notion that we ought not to fear failure, but "fail fast, fail often". Failure, here, is a symptom of a robust and sufficiently innovative economy. But it would be overstating the case to suggest that this logic has taken hold in our larger, more well-established organisations. Universities like many other mature organizations still treat failure as something to avoid at all costs. If you’re going to fail, best keep it to yourself. More optimistically, the relatively high degree of autonomy afforded many educational professionals may make it easier for new instructional approaches and technology to be tested on a small, less risky scale. A Sense of Urgency John Kotter popularized the idea that leaders need to create a "sense of urgency" within the organization in order to drive substantial change. The degree to which this tactic maps effectively to higher education is an open question, though. The tactic of creating a sense of urgency implies a top-down leadership model: the leaders are in a position to foster a set of beliefs widely across the organization that leads to a particular orientation and set of behaviours. Higher education, however, has a far less centralized and formal management structure than most other types of organisations. University presidents may have plans, but faculty - as a result of culture and a shared governance structure - aren’t always especially concerned. CEO’s in other organizations are not subject to non-confidence votes and the like. Second, despite the very real challenges facing higher education, the fact remains that demand for post-secondary education has been growing for decades, despite tuition increases above inflation rates. The notion that young adults should aspire to attend college has never been more widely accepted. The sense of urgency, then, will need to come from concerns other than a belief that the institution is under threat. :: In the next installment in our "Innovation Series" we will look at the obstacles in the way of innovation in higher education and how we might best navigate them. The introduction to the series can be found here.  

:: Five Ways Universities Have Already Changed in the 21st Century "Global higher education underwent a period of remarkable change in the first 15 years of the 21st century. Five key trends affecting universities around the world illustrate how, despite increased access to information, our understanding of higher education remains limited." Read the full article.  :: Platinum Pay in Ivory Towers "Ideally, higher education is dedicated to values different from those that govern Wall Street and corporate America. It supposedly calls students to more soulful concerns, even to sacrifice.But that message is muddled when some of the people who run colleges wallow in payments and perks that would once have been considered vulgar." Read the full article.  :: What’s the Point of a Professor? "For a majority of undergraduates, beyond the two and a half hours per week in class, contact ranges from negligible to nonexistent. In their first year, 33 percent of students report that they never talk with professors outside of class, while 42 percent do so only sometimes. Seniors lower that disengagement rate only a bit, with 25 percent never talking to professors, and 40 percent sometimes." Read the full article. :: The Category of Digital Courseware: Emerging Trends "Time for Class: Lessons for the Future of Digital Courseware in Higher Education" is a new three-part series from education consultants Tyton Partners that considers the current state of the digital courseware market. Read the full article.