Reinforcing ideas about course redesign

“Students like clear, firm solutions to academic problems, and pushing them to think beyond a single “right answer” takes work.”

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/why-change-our-approach-to-teaching/

 

Helpful post from Faculty Focus outlines general ideas about transforming classes.  Of interest are the reminders of what the research continues to tell us about the lecture format (Bok) and student expectations (Sloan).

 

Another key insight that we’ve experienced over and over again is student habits – they aren’t used to different formats and when challenged with such there is some adjustment needed. 

 

“Tradition has also made changing the format of classes more challenging. Students have grown accustomed to sitting passively in lectures, reviewing instructors’ notes or slides posted online, attending study sessions (again, passively), cramming for exams, and moving on. Many resent having to take an active role in class—isn’t that the professor’s job?—and in their learning in general.”

MOOCs in 2012: Dismantling the Status Quo |e-Literate
Phil Hill smartly digs straight to the point here with his insightful post on the real disruptive innovation of MOOCs.  It's not what you think.  Here's a bite, but worth a read at his site.

The real significance of xMOOCs, in my opinion, is that they are
acting as the foreign element triggering the end of the status quo. The
key method of this change was the removal of the core assumption that
online learning is necessarily inferior to face-to-face education.

This assumption changed when the elite of the elites – Stanford,
Harvard & MIT – publicly declared from the highest levels of the
administration that online learning and educational technology was here
to stay.

Songs in the shower...everyone's a great singer until they get on stage

Don't you hate it when someone really smart and famous steals your ideas!  And has the audacity to write them in a book?  It's like singing in the shower - I am a great shower singer, but my stage is just that small.  No one would, or probably should listen to my shower singing.  However, Mr. Khan has clearly hit upon a major future-forward idea here and even though I have been saying this in various meetings for a year or so, it's like singing in the shower for me.  Regardless, I think his comments are right on target and as is usual for his commentary, it is spot on.  Besides, he's apparently a much better singer!

Credentialing and teaching.  What should we hold and what should we drop as universities and colleges?  Read this small paragraph, excerpted from today's Chronicle of Higher Education website, in a story by Alisha Azevedo, to get a flavor for this idea.

Khan Academy Founder Proposes a New Type of College - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

In the book, Mr. Khan also advocates for a separation of universities’ teaching and credentialing roles, arguing that if students could take internationally recognized assessments to prove themselves, the playing field would be leveled between students pursuing different forms of higher education. Although students would not be graded in the imagined university he describes, they would compile a portfolio of their work and assessments from their mentors.

Competency-Based Education: A Primer for Today's Online Market

A nifty article in today's e-Literate blog brings us all up to speed on the competency based education discussion.  As the title suggests, it's a helpful primer and I commend it for your reading purposes.  I've shared a few of the most interesting points below, but read the entire article for context.

Competency-Based Education: A Primer for Today's Online Market |e-Literate

What actually is “competency-based education” and why has it taken so long to expand beyond Western Governors University?

Why has it taken so long? Although there is a newfound enthusiasm for CBE from the Obama administration, the biggest barrier thus far has been tacit resistance from financial aid and accreditation bodies.

In addition, I would add that the integration of self-paced programs not tied to credit hours into existing higher education models presents an enormous challenge. Colleges and universities have built up large bureaucracies – expensive administrative systems, complex business processes, large departments – to address financial aid and accreditation compliance, all based on fixed academic terms and credit hours. Registration systems, and even state funding models, are tied to the fixed semester, quarter or academic year – largely defined by numbers of credit hours.

Education badges - not like the one Barney Fife wore

Jeffrey Young writes a good summary of the badge concept - competency based learning - which seems to be taking hold (at least in publication and discussion if not in practice).  Comments from Belle Whelan and Kathy Davidson below provide a nice summary of where this issue rests in the higher education community.

'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas - College 2.0 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"The idea of badges hasn't risen to our radar as a concept, but I think we can't ignore it," says Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. "The whole idea of learning beyond high school has changed," she adds. "College used to indicate that not only did you have a skill set in a particular area, but that you gained a body of knowledge that made you a well-rounded person. People don't care about being well-rounded anymore, they just want to get a job."

Fundamentally, badges are all about perception, so it's difficult to predict whether the key players—employers and job applicants—will click the like button on the concept.

"The biggest hurdle is the one I had, which is prejudice," says Cathy Davidson, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Duke University and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. She says she initially viewed educational badges as frivolous, but is now a leading proponent as a co-founder of Hastac.

"People seem to think they know what school is and they know what work is," she says. "We live in a world where anyone can learn anything, anytime, anywhere, but we haven't remotely reorganized our workplace or school for this age."