Inside Higher Ed - Impact of Adjuncts...an interesting article

offtrack / 27 - Inside Higher Ed
Some fascinating observations about adjunct instruction and the implications.

"Like the rest of higher education, elite universities have grown increasingly reliant on non-tenure-track faculty members. Leaders of those institutions are frequently unaware of the role played by adjuncts or how they have come to make up a larger share of the teaching force. The causes for this shift -- while related to money -- go far beyond the savings from hiring off the tenure track, and the blame may need to be shared by senior professors and graduate student unions. At the most celebrated institutions of higher education in the United States, the teaching quality of the adjuncts is many times better than that of those on the tenure tack."

While the rationales vary, the authors stress that they found that most universities never considered the direction their hiring was headed at senior levels. Such trends don't get attention from boards of trustees or senior administrators. And while boards and senior officials may exercise tight control over certain relevant issues -- such as the creation of new tenure-track slots -- at leading universities, much more autonomy is given on other issues.

On the issue of cost, the authors wrote that the impact is most apparent not in the creation of adjunct positions, which usually isn't done to save money. Cost is a factor in moving away from adjuncts, they write. Whatever rationale has been given for the creation of the slot off the tenure-track, officials see a high cost to either converting the slot to one on the tenure track or eliminating the job, they write.

Another challenge that the authors say the use of adjuncts create for elite universities is an uncomfortable reality: those off the tenure track -- with lesser working conditions and less money -- are frequently better teachers."

This summary doesn't do justice to what the book must contain, so I'll be getting a copy and reading the whole text soon.


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Change Magazine - Breaking Higher Education's Iron Triangle: Access, Cost, and Quality

Change Magazine - Breaking Higher Education's Iron Triangle: Access, Cost, and Quality

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Thoughts on BB and Angel acquisition

More from Jon Mott at BYU...The End in Mind » A Post-LMS Manifesto

"While LMS providers are making laudable efforts to incrementally make their tools more social, open, modular, and interoperable, they remain embedded in the classroom paradigm. The paradigm—not the technology—is the problem. We need to build, bootstrap, cobble together, implement, support, and leverage something that is much more open and loosely structured such that learners can connect with other learners (sometimes called teachers) and content as they engage in the authentic behaviors, activities and work of learning.

Building a better, more feature-rich LMS won’t close the 2-sigma gap. We need to utilize technology to better connect people, content, and learning communities to facilitate authentic, personal, individualized learning."

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My two cents:  There is no doubt the landscape in technology, LMS and all related tools will continue to move.  That's why our focus needs to be on philosophy and goals (e.g. learner centered, personal learning networks, or whatever) first and foremost.  Who's to say that Blackboard won't next be bought by Microsoft or Sun or _____?  Vendor dependence vs. vendor relationship management presents interesting challenges but not new challenges.  This latest purchase of one company by another is not earthshattering in the sense of a new paradigm.  It simply should remind us all of the folly in placing institutional outcomes in the hands of vendors whose goals, performance, and incentives are not aligned with that of my institution.  Nor should they be.  What are the two phrases we all learned in economics class - "buyer beware - caveat emptor, and "there are no free lunches".  Good time to remember it.

More from Insider Higher Ed article about teaching online

This article is good enough that it gets two posts from me!

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that online teaching is easy once you get your course “set.” First of all, it will take you awhile to master the vicissitudes of whatever Web-based program your school uses. I’ve used four now and their logics are about as interchangeable as AC adaptors. Second, expect to spend more time preparing for an online course. You can’t “massage” anything online; every word you post must be clear, every assignment must be self-explanatory, and each learning module must be 100 percent self-contained. You don’t have the luxury of the routine self-adjustments that you can do in the classroom. You will also spend more time doing gate-keeping tasks such as checking to see who hasn’t logged in for awhile, contacting wayward students, and redirecting discussions. In addition you’ll burn more hours grading as students won’t be around to discuss their evaluations; hence your written feedback will be more extensive.

If you decide to give online teaching a try, here are some suggestions:

* Discuss pay upfront.
* Own what you post.
* Be careful of copyright law.
* Make sure your assignments are doable.
* Don’t plan on synchronous learning.
* Limit text-heavy lectures.
* Be very active in discussion.
* Set guidelines on posting.
* Have a plan to deal with inappropriate postings.

News: 'Show Me the Money' - Inside Higher Ed

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed

Rob Weir gives a good summary of teaching online. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do believe he gets most of it absolutely right. I encourage you to read the full article in Inside Higher Ed (May 11, 2009) but here are some nuggets:

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed:

"There are several seemingly counterintuitive experiences I’ve had with online courses. In summary:

-Older students generally perform better than younger ones.
-The range of achievement is much narrower.
-Online courses work best when they mirror live classes.
-Discussion is generally more robust online.
-An online course definitely will not run itself"