“Predict something that will happen this year regarding teaching, learning, technology, business of e-learning, policy, regulations, student behavior, or other related items.”
Given that broad request, it is not surprising that we received prognostications that were all over the map. Some were quite specific while others were vague visions of a utopian future, personal statements of belief (that’s the way things should be!), or fervent hopes disguised as predictions.
Luke Dowden of the University of Louisiana Lafayette proudly displays his “WCET Seeing the Future” award.
It’s a year later. How did you do? What do you predict for 2014?
The Top Prediction
Following our tradition, the person with the top prediction from last year holds the honor of selecting the top forecast for this year. Marie Cini, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at University of Maryland University of College, selected Luke Dowden, director of Distance Learning at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, as this year’s winner. Luke’s winning entry:
“Some company will monetize MOOCs and the fervor will shift to competency-based models.”
Marie’s reasoning:
“I chose ‘MOOCS Monetized’ because although all the predictions are solid, in most cases they did not have a metric associated that would give us a ‘yes/no’ answer. Most trends are moving at varying speeds across the educational landscape. But in 2013 Coursera announced their initial revenues to the tune of 1 million dollars…and the fervor over MOOCs has truly shifted to competency-based, with President Obama’s recent speech on affordable education. So congratulations, Luke Dowden, for his very specific prediction that came true.”
Honorable Mention
Other entries that displayed remarkable prescience include:
The faculty strike back by Gary Brown (AAEEBL): “The coming year will be one when faculty rise up in response to the completion agenda, more budget cuts, the implications of MOOCs on adjunct and even tenured faculty, credit for prior learning, and issues related to curriculum control and outsourcing.” What happened?:While not all of that happened, San Jose State’s faculty were certainly vocal about the MOOC experiment on their campus and the New Faculty Majority (which advocates for adjunct faculty) became more visible.
Competencies and credentialing by Sue Talley (Capella University): “Non-Degree offerings will change Master’s Degrees, particularly for professional degrees in Business, Technology, or Teaching where the workplace is no longer looking for a degree but need specialized competencies.” What happened?: While there was not a wholesale change on this front, the issues of badges and alternative credentialing kept appearing. Mozilla’s Open Badges experienced 1,400% growth and the emerging competency-based programs value demonstrated knowledge over seat time. Even MOOC providers seemed to realize that they needed to offer more meaningful credentials as credit-based and authenticated MOOC certificates emerged.
Student affordability forces changes in collegiate business models by Chad Maxson of Travecca Nazarene University: “In 2013, budget-minded, fiscally-conservative students will offer significant resistance to loan debt. This will lead to discount educators – a Walmart version of higher education. Mid-level schools will feel the financial strain.” What happened?: The rise of Straighterline, Khan Academy, and other low or no-cost providers did not start in 2013, but most of them were strengthened this year. What impact will these new providers have on traditional institutions?
State authorization goes away by Angela Auzenne of Dallas County Community College District: “The end of state authorization for online learning. Oops, I thought you were asking for our 2013 wish list.” What happened?: The State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement is well on its way.
Finally, my condolences to Mac Adkins of Smarter Services who used a sports analogy about coaches (or managers in their roles as coaches) paying attention to “process.” Such attention to detail lead to the recent success of the University of Alabama football team. That led him to predict a third straight national collegiate football championship for the Crimson Tide. Well…there was a third straight national collegiate football championship, but it was the North Dakota State University Bison (pronounced Bizon) that did the trick last Saturday.
Make Your Prediction for 2014 You are invited to join in the fun for 2014. Predict something that will happen this year regarding teaching, learning, technology, business of e-learning, policy, regulations, student behavior, or other related items. You can submit your entry as a comment to this blog post or by sending an email to me at rpoulin@wiche.edu with the subject “2013 Prediction” by Friday January 24.
Polish your crystal ball and join the fun.
Happy New Year from all of us at WCET.
Russ Poulin
WCET – WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies rpoulin@wiche.edu
WCET ends the year by looking back at the most popular blog posts from 2013 and in wishing you a very happy new year. Our offerings that received the most views include…
Is Your Distance Education Course Actually a Correspondence Course? Oddly enough, the most popular post was written in April 2012. It covered the U.S. Department of Education’s definitions of “correspondence” vs. “distance” courses. If you have too many of the former, then you might have an impact on your financial aid eligibility for your institution. The reason for the popularity is that this post was listed as a resource for a MOOC and some other courses regarding distance education. There’s more to this story and we will probably follow-up in 2014.
State Authorization Continues to Attract Attention Several posts on state authorization were viewed many times:
“New State Authorization ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter NOT Focused on Distance Ed” and a follow-up post were among the most popular state authorization postings. Even with the views on this post, I still talk to people every week who think that there is a July 1, 2014 federal deadline for state authorization for distance education programs. There is not. I’ll be following up on what is covered in the July 1 deadline in the next few weeks.
And Where Would 2013 Be Without MOOCs!?!? We asked for several guest opinions on MOOCs
Chuck Wight’s “Are Your Arms Too Short to Teach a MOOC?” highlighted his experience in a cryptography MOOC as he considered what it might be like to teach such a course.
Competency-based Education, CCRC Research, and the Cost of Online Courses
We invited guest blog posts from some of the new pioneers of competency-based learning. Fred Hurst’s entry about Northern Arizona’s experience was the third most popular blog post for the entire year.
If you have suggestions for topics that you would like to see covered in 2014, let me know. We look forward to a great 2014 and wish you great luck in it.
Happy New Year!!
Russ Poulin
Deputy Director, Research & Analysis
WCET
rpoulin@wiche.edu
Thank you to Colt Alton of Ednak for conducting this interview with Panagiotis Adamopoulos on his research regarding “What Makes a Great MOOC.”
Adamopoulos is a PhD Candidate of Information Systems at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has graduated with honors from the Department of Management Science and Technology of the Athens University of Economics and Business and worked as a Business Intelligent engineer and consultant for two years before pursuing his doctoral studies. His research interests focus on recommender systems, machine learning, and the phenomenon of MOOCs. His research methodology combines econometrics and machine learning techniques building both explanatory and predictive models.
Colt Alton is the founder of Ednak, a discovery engine that tracks trends, innovations, jobs, and events in education technology.
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Panagiotis Adamopoulous, author of the research document “What Makes a Great MOOC.”
Alton: The New York Times dubbed 2012 “The Year of the MOOC.” How has 2013 responded to that? What would you call this past year?
Adamopoulos: 2013 has definitely been a good year for MOOCs. Even though we haven’t yet experienced the disruption of higher education that many people envisioned and expected, we observe a sustaining but revolutionary innovation, enabled and accelerated by technology. In 2013, many prestigious universities from different parts of the globe started offering MOOCs in a wide range of topics through either the existing platforms or even their own initiatives. Besides, we see many of these players experimenting with different strategies while diverse business models are emerging. At the same time, many providers are working out the kinks of MOOCs focusing on transforming higher education in a way that will be good for our society. Another important milestone for MOOCs in 2013 was reached when the American Council on Education evaluated and recommended specific MOOCs for college credit. Thus, if I had to characterize 2013 with respect to MOOCs, I would probably dub 2013 as the year of MOOCs going mainstream.
Alton: In the introduction of your report, you mention that there is still plenty of room for improvement as far as MOOCs addressing the needs of students. What are the main take-aways from your research on MOOCs?
Adamopoulos: MOOCs are a great advancement of our era alleviating most of the economic and location barriers of traditional education and offering high quality content to any interested students around the globe. Because of the significance of their impact and the importance of the opportunities they offer, MOOC providers, instructors, and educational institutions should carefully engineer the courses they offer. Moreover, given their massive scale, designing MOOCs in the optimal way is of crucial importance and this research makes a step toward this direction. We identify some of their components that should be further improved, such as certifications and discussion forums, and we also propose some feasible and very simple solutions to these problems. Besides, we offer specific guidelines about which courses should be calendar-based and which self-paced, the ideal workload and length for different types of courses, the format of assignments and exams, etc.
Alton: Were there any aspects of your findings that surprised you? Can you elaborate on what were the biggest surprises from your research?
Adamopoulos: The biggest surprise to me was that the reputation of the university that offers the course doesn’t play a significant role in student retention in the current generation of MOOCs. The reputation of the university might be important in attracting more students but the actual content of the course and the professor that delivers it constitute the main factors that affect the decision of the students to complete a course or not.
Another surprising result is the impact of peer assessment on student engagement. There is a lot of discussion nowadays about fully automating the grading process and further refining the existing technological solutions. However, we tend to forget that peer assessment is also an important part of the learning experience. It helps the students better understand an assignment and, more importantly, offers a glimpse into how others are solving the exact same problem. Hence, apart from developing better solutions for automated feedback, we should also work on finding better ways to pair students and get the most out of each assignment.
Alton: What areas of MOOCs did your research find to be over-hyped and what areas are under-valued?
Adamopoulos: The most over-hyped aspect of the current generation of MOOCs is probably the certifications. In principle, certifications verify that a certain person is adequately qualified to perform a job or task. However, MOOC certifications, at least their current version, provide neither knowledge verification nor user identification. Thus, they are of limited usefulness to the users. However, there are certain ways in which we can solve this important problem.
On the other hand, one aspect on which we should put a lot of emphasis is the design of a MOOC and the delivery of the content. Not only professors are of extreme importance but also the way that a course is structured; how the educational material is allocated over the length of a course, or even what type of assignments and exams are offered have significant impact on the active engagement of students. Interestingly, we could also personalize each course and offer a better learning experience to each one of the participants.
Moreover, beyond specific courses, an important under-valued aspect of MOOCs is the acquisition of unexpected knowledge. Apart from helping MOOC users master popular topics such as data science, we have a tremendous opportunity to help them further explore their interests and talents by acquiring for free valuable and high quality knowledge about other areas and domains that they weren’t even aware of. By carefully offering them diverse information, we have the opportunity to burst some of the “filter bubbles” in higher education.
Colt Alton, founder of EdNak.
Alton: Panos, let me ask you to elaborate on the topic of MOOC certificates. The report states the current form of MOOC certificates provided limited usefulness to students. Is there a model that would be more useful for students and those looking to verify competence in a particular MOOC subject matter? How can MOOC providers make this aspect of MOOCs more compelling?
Adamopoulos: We have already seen Coursera implementing the “signature track”, a new type of certification aiming to alleviate some of the weaknesses of the previous generation of certifications, especially the issue of student identification. Apart from that, students interested in particular subjects, such as programming, nowadays, have the chance to create their own portfolios in order to demonstrate their abilities. One way to further enhance this aspect of MOOCs would be the providers or other third-party institutions to administer standardized tests similar to the professional certifications in various industries. This would also offer to MOOC participants a path to employment since it will allow companies to hire employees based on specific skills acquired through MOOCs.
Alton: Your research eluded to an interesting point related to discussion forums in MOOCs. The results suggest forums may in fact serve as a negative effect on student satisfaction and may contribute to attrition. Can you elaborate on this further?
Adamopoulos: Because of the plethora of participants in MOOCs, discussion forums have been used in order to facilitate the communication with the instructors and among students. We have found that discussion forums are attractive to students and actually influence their decision whether to enroll in a course and complete a part of it. However, they don’t contribute to further engaging the students and helping them successfully complete a course.
One of the main reasons is that many MOOCs are extremely imbalanced in terms of the background of the participants. Because of the open nature of MOOCs, some participants are much more advanced than others and hence we might need to create different sections and clusters in the forums for students to benefit more from the communication that takes place in forums. Also, another reason is that the right norms have not been established yet. For instance, initially there were some “bullying” incidents with a small but vocal number of participants openly supporting that specific courses are only for the elite of students and not everybody.
Fortunately, the MOOC providers are well aware of such incidents. One solution that some providers have been implementing the last month is to assign a larger number of teaching assistants to the forums in order to better help students and moderate the discussion. The introduction of wikis can also supplement and enhance the discussion forums by providing a reference for codified knowledge and separating the learning process from the miscellaneous communication among students. Local study groups can also help in further engaging students.
Alton: Some have suggested MOOCs could serve as a disruptor to the textbook industry. How do you see the relationship between MOOCs and textbooks unfolding in the future?
Adamopoulos: Even though the building block of most MOOCs is video lectures, it’s very hard for a series of videos to reach both the breadth and depth of a good textbook. This is one of the main reasons that many MOOCs also recommend the use of a combining textbook. Actually, we can also observe that MOOC students are still benefited by using textbooks and there is a strong complementarity effect between textbooks and MOOCs. Hence, even though textbooks might change format or be accompanied with multimedia such as videos, I don’t think that this industry will be disrupted because of the MOOCs.
Alton: The findings of your research suggests the content of a MOOC is becoming a more important factor in determining student persistence than the institution’s reputation. Could this change the landscape of how institutions offer MOOCs? Is there an opening for new higher ed players to emerge?
Adamopoulos: The institution’s reputation in traditional education does not affect student persistence in MOOCs as much as the actual content of a MOOC or the instructors do. This indicates both that there is an opening for new higher ed players and that institutions offering MOOCs now have the chance to build a better reputation specific to online learning. We should consider though that the MOOCs with the best content are usually associated with the institutions that already enjoy the highest reputation in traditional education. Moreover, some of these institutions are building on their extensive experience in distance learning and e-learning environments that have acquired based on related initiatives in the past. Thus, new players have to offer better content in order to succeed and build their own reputation.
Another strategy for new players would be to offer accreditation for MOOCs and more useful certificates. Such certifications could also change the role of institution’s reputation.
Nevertheless, it is very hard to predict with confidence how the higher education industry will evolve during the next years but I would expect the big players to remain the same as in traditional education and the second tier institutions to start facing price pressure and increasing competition from new players.
Alton: Time to dust off your crystal ball…where are we headed with MOOCs? What predictions would you venture to make about MOOCs in 2014?
Adamopoulos: I expect more universities to enter this new market of MOOCs and start offering courses online either through an existing platform or by starting their own ventures. In the meantime, existing providers will offer better courses through the use of analytics and tapping into the data they have been collecting. In addition, I expect technological companies to get involved and offer courses on the new technologies that they are building in an effort to expand and enhance their talent pool. 2014 might also be the year for highly specialized educational programs and institutions focused on special verticals, such as Data Science, to emerge.
December 9, 2013 We’re pleased to have Marshall Hill, Executive Director of the National Council for State Reciprocity Agreements update us on progress with SARA. WCET will host a free webcast featuring Marshall Hill updating us with more details about SARA on January 23 at 2:00 Eastern/1:00 Central/Noon Mountain/11:00 Pacific. Russ Poulin
I’m pleased to announce that SARA now has a website – www.nc-sara.org
On our site you’ll find complete information about SARA – history, context, key documents, FAQs, and so forth. I think you’ll find SARA’s Policies and Standards document and the FAQs of particular interest.
We also provide links to the regional education compacts (MHEC, NEBHE, SREB, and WICHE) and their SARA work so that you can keep abreast of SARA developments in your region. We provide contact information for both national and regional SARA staff and a spot where you can request the newsletter we will soon be providing.
Three of the regional compacts have announced SARA forums, where invited teams from the region’s states will assemble to learn how their states can join SARA. The first of those is on Dec. 10 (for the WICHE region), followed on January 10 (for MHEC), and January 21 (for SREB — watch for more information soon). A forum for the NEBHE region has not yet been scheduled.
The FAQs will expand over time. Right now they have the following general topics:
States belonging to each compact. ND and SD belong to both MHEC and WICHE. NJ, NY, and PA can join a compact for SARA purposes.
Where helpful, the FAQs refer to the Policies and Standards document. The individual SARA documents adopted by each of the regional compacts were drafted at different times and differ from one another in the degree to which they provide narrative context, a rationale for the need for SARA, and information about the compact itself. The Policies and Standards document eliminates those narratives and distills into one place the actual policies and standards of the initiative. It has been approved by the National Council for SARA.
The regional compacts will very soon begin accepting applications from their states for membership in SARA. Each compact will use the same application form; a generic example is on the website. Similarly, once states are accepted as SARA states, they will use a common form for institutions applying to operate under SARA; that form is on the website, as well.
The next several months will be busy ones, especially for the states and the regional compacts. Most states will need to make statutory changes to enable their participation in SARA. A lot of drafting work has begun in many of them. On our website, we’ll let you know as states and institutions join.
Thanks to our friends at WCET for asking me to contribute this update. They are great partners!
Best wishes and happy holidays.
Marshall Hill
Executive Director
National Council for State Authorization Agreements
mhill@nc-sara.org
The Department of Education took the next steps in reinstating the federal regulation requiring institutions to demonstrate that they have the proper authorization to serve distance students in other states. Earlier this week the Department announced in the Federal Register its intent to seat a Negotiated Rulemaking Committee that (among other items) will consider regulations for “state authorization for programs offered through distance education or correspondence education.”
There are also other regulations that will be considered that are of great interest to the distance education community. WCET testified at a hearing in June 2013 regarding the issues that are under consideration.
A Brief Update and Clarifying Misconceptions
In October 2010, the Department of Education released new regulations included Chapter 34, § 600.9(c), which reads:
“If an institution is offering postsecondary education through distance or correspondence education to students in a State in which it is not physically located or in which it is otherwise subject to State jurisdiction as determined by the State, the institution must meet any State requirements for it to be legally offering distance or correspondence education in that State. An institution must be able to document to the Secretary the State’s approval upon request.”
In subsequent lawsuits, the federal courts vacated that regulation and that ruling was upheld on appeal. Based on that ruling, the Department agreed that it would not enforce the state authorization regulation. It’s important to note a few things from this outcome:
There is widespread mistaken believe that institutions don’t have to comply with state authorization. The RULING HAD NO IMPACT ON STATE REGULATIONS. Those regulations are still in effect and states expect you to follow their laws PRIOR TO advertising, recruiting, or serving students in their state. State regulations have been in place for decades and are still in force.
There is also widespread mistaken belief that there is a federal deadline for compliance with distance education state authorization. Currently, THERE IS NO FEDERAL DEADLINE, but states expect you to be in compliance immediately.
The courts vacated the regulation on technical grounds because it did not use the proper notification process for a pending rule. The Department’s right to issue such a regulation was upheld.
What Does the Current Announcement Mean? The courts vacated the regulation because the language was not included in previous negotiated rulemaking or public comment processes. By including state authorization for distance education in this rulemaking process, the Department is seeking to remedy the courts objections so that it can reinstate the regulation or some form of it.
The announcement seeks nominations for members of the negotiating committee. WCET and its State Authorization Network will be nominating candidates to serve on this committee. The deadline is December 20, so if you have suggestions for nominees let me know soon. It is disappointing that distance education was not considered to be one of the constituency groups since these regulations will have such a great impact on distance education operations.
As for a timeline for the state authorization regulation returning, the Committee they are establishing is scheduled to complete its work by April 25. After consideration of the outcomes of that work, the Department will post for public comment the regulations it proposes to propagate. The earliest that they might release new regulations would be next autumn. It is unclear what new deadline they would set for institutions to be in compliance. Since this issue has been well-publicized, my guess is that it won’t be a very long grace period after they release the final regulations. But that’s just a guess and will be affected by feedback that they receive.
What Other Distance Education Regulations Will Be Considered? There is a grab bag of regulations to be considered by the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, which is a bit of concern since it will be difficult to get negotiators with adequate knowledge of such a diverse set of issues. Additional issues of concern to distance education are:
“Cash management of funds provided under the title IV Federal Student Aid programs.” I believe this is a way of saying “financial aid fraud, especially in distance education.” They cite other actions that have been taken by the Department and say: “We believe that these non-regulatory efforts will mitigate the vulnerabilities identified…and will consider their results in deciding whether additional rule changes are needed in the future to address student fraud.” Both good and bad ideas (such as reducing Pell eligibility for distance students) have been put forward to solve fraud. We need to be vigilant in steering them toward good ideas.
“State authorization for foreign locations of institution located in a State.” This was announced earlier this year, but I have not been able to get a clear idea from the Department staff about what the real issue is. I have some suspicions, but we better watch this one.
We’ll continue to keep you informed of new developments. Thank you!
Russ
Russell Poulin
Deputy Director, Research & Analysis
WCET
rpoulin@wiche.edu
*Photo Credit: US Capitol Building by Jonathon Colman on Flickr.
In the last of our three blog posts on Walters State (TN) Community College’s ambitious initiative to implement mobile learning campus-wide, we learn about the IT needs required to support multiple devices for every faculty, staff, and student. If they can do it…how about you?
Russ Poulin
In our previous posts, our Vice President of Academic Affairs shared with you how our East Tennessee community college was completely transformed by a mobile learning revolution and our Dean of Online Instruction outlined the faculty and staff training that was required. This did not come without some serious challenges for our faculty and IT department. In this blog post, I will share with you four nuggets of wisdom we learned along our way that will hopefully prepare you to easily adopt a similar initiative at your own higher education institution.
President John F. Kennedy in his historic message to a joint session of the Congress, on May 25, 1961 declared, “…I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
4. Bring Your IT Group to the Table Early
It surprised no one that before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961 that President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of putting a man on the moon before the Soviets; but it did surprise many that he gave the space program an ambitious goal of doing it in nine years. It even surprised those in the highest levels at NASA.
For many in your IT department, it is a known fact that mobile devices and emerging technologies are proliferating their wireless networks. But, having the institution invest great time, money, and resources on a project to bring hundreds of these devices through the front door involves IT input very early on. By doing so, a partnership can be formed so that IT can evaluate and move lockstep with the institution’s goals.
Speaking as an IT professional, during these planning stages, we in IT need to change from the department of “No” to the department of “Yes”, or “Well, let’s give it a shot”, or “I’m not sure if that will work, but how about this instead?” We need to realize that even though these uncharted avenues can make us nervous, it is often the path less traveled that yields the highest rewards. We owe it to our faculty, and ultimately the student, to leave no rock unturned to reach their educational goals. We need to be about creating solutions, not stumbling blocks.
President Kennedy and NASA remind us that we can do incredible things when we come to the table together. If the President kept NASA in the dark, or if NASA refused the President’s ambitious goals, having a man on the moon would still be a dream.
3. Hire an Educational Technologist
Anyone can agree that faculty and IT speak two different languages. With new, untested technologies pouring into our campus and with our IT obligated to support each of them, a widening communication gap began occurring. IT did not understand what faculty needed and why they needed it and faculty did not understand why a $0.99 classroom polling app could not work on a multimillion dollar wireless infrastructure. Our institution desperately needed someone with both IT experience and an appreciation towards pedagogy and classroom technologies.
So, they hired me. I am a licensed classroom teacher with many IT certifications and an Apple Distinguished Educator. In my professional career, I speak both languages fluently. My passion is to assist faculty with integrating technology into the classroom and serve as the liaison between them and IT. I make sure all of their educational technology needs are met and I ensure that a solid bridge is built between our IT team and the faculty. Many have credited a direct link and increased communication between faculty and IT with what we were able to accomplish and having an educational technologist on staff made this possible. We believe that all institutions need this vital link between technology and the classroom.
2. Evaluate Your Wireless Infrastructure
In the early to mid-2000s our campus could comfortably support our students bringing laptops to their classes. We were ill-prepared in 2011 for students to bring not only their laptops, but also their smart phones, tablets, and e-readers. We now had to view a single user as a consumer to 3-4 Internet connections. While our own institutional mobile devices were beginning to multiply, our wireless network was beginning to buckle. To cure this, our IT group redesigned the entire wireless network, switched vendors to obtain more powerful wireless technology, and (in essence) quadrupled the number of wireless access points for our faculty and students. During the rollout, our faculty and students saw immediate improvements as the new access points were activated throughout their buildings.
Yet, another problem also emerged. Many of these devices employ peer to peer technologies that do not work well with sophisticated enterprise networks. While using devices like Apple TV and certain apps on various platforms, faculty became frustrated that they could not “see” their students’ devices. To solve this problem, our Director of Network and Security had to employ some very creative solutions to cure this issue. Since these issues are bound to arise, it is vital that your campus’ wireless technology leader be involved as soon as possible to see what the hurdles may be and what it will take to overcome these challenges. Be prepared if he or she recommends a total network overhaul.
The mobile leadership from Walters State Community College, including WCET Executive Council member Robbie Melton, second from right.
1. Dream Big. Strategize Accordingly.
For an East Tennessee community college to have hundreds of mobile devices in its classrooms with students utilizing these devices to surpass their educational goals, we needed only two dreamers–our institution’s President and our Vice President of Academic Affairs. However, it took many individuals, meetings, and resources to pull it off in a very short amount of time.
While it may have appeared that we at Walters State did not have a pilot program and just jumped in with both feet ordering hundreds of iPads at a time, do not be mislead. Behind the scenes there were IT groups, our instructional design team, mobile learning task forces, individual faculty members crafting mobile learning plans, and several deans and faculty members huddled in conference rooms strategizing a plethora of factors on how this mobile learning initiative will work pedagogically and logistically. It was a huge team effort and we wanted our students to be the winners. As our Vice President has already shared in previous posts (implementing mobile learning across campus, training faculty and staff on mobile learning) we believe that this became a reality.
Kevin L. Fowler
Director of Educational and User Technologies
Walters State Community College
Kevin.Fowler@ws.edu
This is the second in a series of blog posts from our friends at Walters State Community College in Tennessee. The first post covered how they organized campus-wide implementation of their mobile learning initiative. This post focuses on steps in training faculty and staff– from basic tasks to redefining the student learning experience.
Russ Poulin
In January of 2011 on these pages, WCET Executive Director Ellen Wagner predicted “in all of its rich and nuanced forms [mobile learning] will finally become an obvious, self-evident solution for learning because we are finally focusing on meeting the needs of learners who are mobile.” In Fall of that same year, an Instructional Design Team (consisting of technical personnel, instructional support personnel, and faculty) at Walters State Community College did our best to make that prediction come true with help from our IT department.
Faculty and academic staff had iPads in hand at our institution. It was our job to help faculty enhance student learning outcomes and student engagement through mobile learning. We started with training, a fairly ordinary thing to do.
Initial Faculty and Staff Training Required “Meeting Them Where They Are”
Here is a sample of an early training session from Fall 2011:
“About,” “Passcode lock,” “Brightness and Wallpaper” “Location Services” and “Notifications”.
iPad “Mail,” Mail Settings, and “Contacts”.
“Calendar” Functions.
“WiFi,” “Choose a Network,” and “Forget this network”.
The “secret” menu bar and the tray.
Apps: Downloading, deleting, and moving apps.
Folders: making, naming, moving apps into and between folders, renaming and deleting folders.
Maybe not a very ambitious training outline, but it stood us in good stead as we stood in front of faculty and staff who were all over the place—those who could operate their iOS smart devices with the best of ‘em, those who had Android “flip phones” that they might be able to answer a call on (at best), and most who were somewhere in the middle.
The point was to meet faculty and staff where they were. For many it was one-on-one sessions focusing on how to use Safari, how to set up an iTunes account, and how to search for and download a free app. Other faculty did well in training sessions of 10 to 15 participants.
At that time, if we merely sent out an “all call” announcement for training, our sessions filled up quickly. Folks wanted to know how to operate the new devices in their hands and wondered if they might be able to use them with students. We underestimated the demands of showing faculty and staff the basics and how to set up and get started on the devices. We underestimated that huge gap between digital almost-natives and those faculty and staff who were entirely new to the iTunes/Apple world on our PC campus. A one-size fits all training model does not work effectively every time, but it did start getting the training done, with plenty of calls to invite faculty and staff to return for one-on-one sessions after a group training event.
After Two Years, Training Needs Delve Deeper Into Learning Theory and Outcomes Roll the clock forward two years later, and compare a training outline for a one-day session tailored for our nursing faculty, as we covered:
HESI app, NCLEX app—download from apps store.
Apple TV/AIRSERVER.
Apps across campus/Video streaming.
Presentation apps.
News aggregators and professional development apps.
iTunes U.
Operating the devices is now fairly well a given for faculty and staff. And they are ready to tackle bigger problems of fine-tuning connecting apps to student learning outcomes and engagement, as well as assessment of both. They are beginning to think about students creating their own classroom presentations using the huge array of apps that create, house, and distribute content.
Now, as we start talking about Bloom’s taxonomy and pushing out the “bottom” two layers on the Bloom’s taxonomy for mobile learning outside the classroom (and, yes, there’s an app for that—and, of course, more than just one), we are beginning to have faculty interested in the flipped classroom approach through mobile learning. We are beginning to offer training that shows faculty how to use mobile devices in order to have students create and share content inside the classroom, once content and learning at the recall/recognition and comprehension/understanding levels of Blooms are pushed outside the classroom.
The SAMR Model Helps Conceptualize Our Progress in Mobile Learning Now, we are using the SAMR model to guide us with how faculty progress in mobile learning. In training, we give examples of the SAMR levels and discuss activities faculty might carry out with their students that correspond to the various levels of the model.
To integrate teaching/learning activities, their relationship to Blooms Taxonomy, and to the SAMR model, we use the graphic produced by Alan Carrington. We have printed and mounted the graphic as a poster and are in the process of delivering the poster to each of our eight academic divisions and to all our campuses so that faculty, staff, and administrators can refer to the poster and search for apps and tools on their own.
As the SAMR model predicts, faculty seem to naturally begin at the Substitution level of the SAMR model and gravitate toward the higher levels as they become more comfortable with the technology, how it works, and how to integrate mobile learning into their on-going instruction and curriculum. We encourage faculty members to push their comfort level as much as possible without overwhelming them. As trainers, we notice that individual division/department leadership has a profound effect on the SAMR level of its constituent faculty. Also, the SAMR model becomes a scaffold inside our heads as trainers as we work with individual faculty one-on-one, again attempting to push faculty to the next level of the hierarchy as possible while still respecting their control of the classroom, student learning, curriculum, and assessment.
We are working toward most faculty members ultimately reaching the Redefinition level. It’s a start. It’s a work in progress. And, as the Apple people say, “Exciting times.”
David White
Assistant Dean of Online Instruction and Professor of English
Walters State Community College
david.white@ws.edu
The final post in this series will focus on the IT infrastructure and support required for a large scale mobile learning initiative.
We better be paying attention to mobile learning. A short while ago, I asked Robbie Melton, the Tennessee Board of Regents’ (and WCET’s) “Appologist” about examples in her state of successful implementation of mobile learning on campus. She introduced me to our friends at Walters State Community College who agreed to write a series of three blogs about their experience. Thank you to Robbie, Lori, and the leaders at Walters State who will share their stories in a series of three blog postings.
Russ Poulin
About our College
Walters State Community College (WSCC) is a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), the 6th largest system of higher education in the nation. We are a rural community college serving a 10 county region nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We have a current enrollment of around 6,500 students on four campuses.
Walters State is a premier community college, committed to increasing educational attainment and workforce preparedness through excellence in teaching and service. WSCC is currently ranked as the 6th most tech-savvy college among midsized community colleges in the nation by eRepublic’s Center for Digital Education.
In October 2012, TBR in collaboration with WSCC’s Natural Science Division (NSCI) was named a recipient of the WCET Outstanding Work Award. This award recognizes innovative uses of educational technologies in higher education. In 2013 WSCC earned the distinction of being an Apple Distinguished Education Program.
Mobile Learning Campus Relationships
Three Steps to Successfully Implementing Mobile Learning If, your institution is considering mobile learning, please keep three things in mind:
Strategic Planning is a must to create your road map for success.
Functional units of the college must all communicate and work together for the common goal.
Professional development for faculty members using these revolutionary devices for learning must be included in your planning and implementation.
The rewards your college will reap in better student engagement with content and gains in student learning outcome attainment are well worth the investment.
Strategic Planning Creates Your Road Map for Success
In spring 2011, the question at WSCC was not “why mobile learning?”; it was “why not?” Our faculty members wanted to better engage our millennial student population and due to generational gaps, it was frustrating them. I was searching, listening, and looking for the right thing that would aid faculty members in engaging their students.
Mobile learning made sense. Students were already on their mobile devices; why not put the educational content in their hands? It fit our faculty members’ desire to reach their students and engage them in learning anytime, anywhere. When the president announced we were going to go mobile with iPads, iPods and iPhones with our learning, there was palpable excitement in the air.
As we launched, an overall strategic plan was written for the academic mobile learning initiative (mEngage). Participation was and is voluntary. Any faculty member is able to receive an iPad as long as he or she is willing to write a mobile learning plan for how he or she will address and assess student learning outcomes in their courses. Two and a half years later 94% of faculty members have written plans, voluntarily.
Functional Units Must Communicate and Work Together
Mobilizing learning at the college has proven to be motivational for faculty, staff and students alike. Our faculty members now share in an open discourse about the art of teaching. Faculty members take every opportunity given to share their classroom best practices with each other as well as other higher education and K-12 colleagues.
In the two and a half years we have been involved in mobile learning, one of the most important functional and organizational changes that has taken place is the infrastructure for mobile learning support that has been created. Mobile Learning affects all aspects of your campus; and all aspects must be involved for success. Our president chairs the WSCC College-Wide Mobilization Task Force. This format provides a format for open discussion to see how mobilization initiatives effect and need support from different areas. There is also a Mobilization Sub-Committee, which is a faculty membership committee focused on evaluation of mobile learning plans and assessment of mobile learning throughout Academic Affairs. The complex structure of Mobile Learning at Walters State is best represented through a relationship diagram.
Professional Development for Faculty is Essential
Our mobile learning initiative has moved past its initial stages and has an infrastructure embedded within the college and Academic Affairs Division. There is a training structure through our Instructional Design Team (IDT), an assessment and evaluation structure through our Mobilization Sub-Committee, and a recognition structure through our Mobile Fellows Program. Through this structure within Academic Affairs, individual leaders are making their appearance across our institution.
Our IDT team is dedicated to identifying and training faculty and staff on new academic technology. The team is comprised of seven core members ranging from our Asst. Dean for Online instruction; a full-time faculty trainer; a cutting edge computer science faculty member and four instructional support specialists located across three campuses. Members of this team are also connected to mobile learning mentors throughout our academic divisions and campuses who offer just in time training and support.
Our Mobilization Sub Committee is an officially sanctioned college committee with faculty member selected and lead by the Asst. Dean for Online Instruction. This committee is focused on assessing and evaluating mobile learning plans and new initiatives as well as moving new mobile learning initiatives forward.
The WSCC Mobilization Sub-Committee has selected the first two Mobile Fellows. This program is designed to encourage faculty members to explore new methods to increase student classroom involvement using mobile devices and emerging technologies. Both faculty members presented to fellow faculty members during the college’s Inaugural Week in August as well as led trainings in how they have integrated mobile learning in their instruction. These faculty members also presented to the WSCC Foundation Executive Board in advance of our annual report, which happens to be focused on mobile learning.
We Have Many Successes to Report
Through mobilizing learning our institution has seen special needs students achieve acclimation into the classroom environment previously unattainable; made it possible for a cancer survivor to thank the researchers from St. Jude’s who helped her as a child; bridged the generation gap between students and faculty and also by seeing millennial faculty members mentor 40+ year veteran faculty members and re-invigorate teaching; watched student learning outcomes improve at unprecedented levels; saved thousands of dollars; developed our college’s app; flipped a good number of our classrooms instruction and implemented challenge based learning.
This graph depicts the gains we have seen in student learning assessment from pre-mobile learning initiatives in the blue to during our mobile learning initiatives in the red. We have experienced significant increases in student learning outcomes in demanding subjects from the sciences, developmental writing, and the emergency medical field. We are also seeing gains in student retention from beginning to end of semester.
We have also surveyed our students to understand their perspective of our mobile learning initiative. Our students believe the iPad makes classes more engaging and increases student learning. The students also agreed this device is a learning tool and should be treated as such. Our students find the vast majority of their work could be completed on the iPad. We see book bags getting lighter as these devices begin replacing heavy textbooks and laptop computers.
Mobilizing learning at our college has been a truly revolutionary experience for our faculty, staff and students. We began by imagining the possibilities and found our way to make it happen.
Lori Campbell
Vice-President for Academic Affairs
Walters State Community College
Lori.Campbell@ws.edu
Watch for the next blog post from Walters State on training for mobile learning.
Today’s guest blogger is Karen Solomon of the Higher Learning Commission, one of the regional accrediting agencies. She shares some of the e-learning emerging issues that they are following. Karen also serves as the chair of WCET’s Steering Committee. Thank you Karen.
Weather is always a source of great conversation and stories. Just like the weather, the patterns of higher education are changing. Some events are predictable like the changing of the seasons and at times we find ourselves navigating through rough weather. The constantly changing environment is challenging for institutions and accreditors alike and while we like to talk about what we have seen and experienced, we must continue to monitor the forecast. There are several interesting issues developing on the horizon including the disaggregation of services, expectations for institutional and student success, and direct assessment.
Karen Solomon took this picture showing that both the weather and the future of e-learning are hard to predict.
Disaggregated Services The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) recently revised its Criteria for Accreditation and clearly set out expectations that institutions are responsible for providing “high quality education wherever and however” delivered. We then went on to explain that this includes all campuses and locations, modalities (including distance delivery), dual credit, and contractual or consortial arrangements.
While the disaggregation of services is reshaping the role of many institutions, we expect that faculty retain responsibility for the curriculum regardless of how it is delivered. Faculty or instructors with subject matter expertise should be integral in the oversight and approval of curriculum even when an institution develops a relationship with a contractual partner.
How does information gained from measuring student learning of the courses offered across the enterprise (and from partners) work into the institution’s assessment processes?
How do institutional systems and processes “talk” to one another so information flows from faculty evaluation of learning outcomes to the planning and budgeting cycles?
How can technology be used more effectively to develop stronger communication paths with students and personnel?
Success When discussing the term “success” I often wonder if we are talking about institutional or student success. Students are mobile. They earn credits across institutions and utilize many modalities along the cycle. An organization can document that a student completed a program of study while enrolled at the institution, but there may be several institutions that awarded credits to the student. Should this achievement be considered institutional success only by the institution awarding the degree? Should all other involved institutions also be able to consider the completion as success?
The 2012 National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Signature Report “Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates” noted that approximately 22.4% of students did not earn a degree at the first institution they attended. A deeper analysis of the data indicated that 23.6% of traditional aged students and 34.1% of students who began at two-year institutions completed degrees a different institution than where they started. Many institutions are beginning to incorporate data analytics into their decision processes and the WCET PAR project is one example of how datasets shared by a group of institutions can provide insight into factors of success across targeted groups of students in order to improve persistence and completion.
On the other hand, student success is achieved when they meet personal goals. It may be a few courses or an entire degree, but they often have difficulty identifying institutional programs and services that will support their needs. Current ranking structures and various transparency websites, including the U.S. Department of Education’s College Navigator, provide data, but a review across several sites does not provide consistent comparable data nor do they provide much information about student or institutional success.
So how does a student discern what institutions would be a good “fit” to reach personal goals? In the years ahead, accreditors expect that institutions will be able to provide evidence of initiatives taken to improve institutional and student success in terms of persistence and retention. At HLC, the revised Criteria and annual review of key indicators related to persistence and completion placed more emphasis on success. To support institutions efforts, we are launching an Academy for Student Persistence and Completion in early 2015. The multi-year experience will allow cohort groups of member institutions to focus on issues through a facilitated process with the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with other institutions and mentors. The Commission will collect and disseminate emerging practices as institutional initiatives are completed as part of our commitment to support the development of good practices.
Direct Assessment Efforts to evaluate and document student learning becomes even more important as the method and measures for awarding credit continue to change. For years, students have been earning degrees based on the demonstration of certain previously defined competencies. The programs were designed with course-based units that were assigned academic credit. Most times, the credits were use as an equivalency measure primarily in order to meet requirements for federal or state aid, and to provide a commonly understood student transcript.
The Commission recently approved four institutions to offer degrees via direct assessment. These institutions will be offering competency-based degrees and an equivalency between competencies and credit hours is not present. Student completion will be documented through a list of competencies that have been met instead of courses taken and passed. The interaction between students, faculty, advisors, and peer reviewers will evolve. Much of the ongoing communication and evaluation will take place through technological environments and institutions needed to demonstrate that the infrastructure is up-to-date and sufficient to handle the changingenvironment.
Translation of this new form of degree credentialing to the broader public including employers and other institutions will be critical. It is a topic that will need broader discussion and the development of commonly understood practice so students utilizing this form of credentialing can be competitive in job searches and careers, transfer to other institutions or apply for admittance into advanced degree programs. Offering this alternative provides another option to support students in achieving success.
In Conclusion…
These issues (and many more) make for interesting staff meetings at accrediting agencies. We strive to find a balance between evaluating and recognizing academic quality, while providing space for innovative initiatives to be tested. I often find the conversations and discussion groups within the WCET membership to be invaluable by keeping me informed about changes on the horizon.
I hope that you have already registered for the WCET Annual Meeting to be held in Denver on November 13-15, 2013. We will reflect on the organization’s first 25 years and discuss how technology will continue to be a driving force in the evolution of higher education. Technology will play a big role in the years ahead and all of you bring a wealth of experiences to the discussions. Many of you will be the leaders shaping and driving the change. I look forward to learning more about emerging practices from you and other colleagues.
May the weather be calm and your travel plans uninterrupted when you join us in Denver, so we can continue the dialogue.
Karen J. Solomon, Ed.D.
Vice President for Accreditation Relations
Director, Standard Pathway
Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association
As a distance education administrator you will be working with all kinds of third party vendors. In higher education we use many vendors to run our business. For distance education there are the critical systems we use, such as our learning management system (LMS).
In this blog post I would like to address the relationships and partnerships that DE administrators build when looking for full service options. When starting out, many programs do not have the infrastructure to support their initial online program initiatives. So what should a DE administrator look for in a vendor to develop a partnership that is beneficial to both the institution and the vendor?
Choosing a vendor should be like choosing a partner
It is important to form a good partnership.
Step 1: Determine what you want and what you need As a DE administrator you should be sitting down with the academic unit delivering the program and doing some planning. Part of this discussion should include:
Is this a viable program to take online?
Do you know if there is a market for the program and how would you recruit the students?
How soon will the program move online?
What it will take to get there?
In your planning process you determine what you can support within the DE unit and what you think a vendor can assist you with their services.
Step 2: What is your institution’s process for acquiring vendor services? This is an area where I have seen programs get into issues. Before you start contacting vendors, contact your institution procurement office and find out what the guidelines are for whether a Request for Proposal (RFP) process is required. I will say this is not a quick process, whether you are doing an RFP or reviewing vendors yourself, most systems have extensive approval processes. Don’t forget that your IT department needs to be involved while looking at vendors so they can support your needs and the vender requirements.
Step 3: Have the right people reviewing the vendors with you and the academic program Be sure to invite all of the right parties to be part of your vendor review team. It should include the faculty from the program you are planning to deliver, DE unit staff, students, Admissions, Marketing, and others appropriate at your institution. You should have the team meet before reviewing the vendors and develop a rubric by which you will assess each vendor. If you can talk to others who may be working with some of the vendors (your peers at WCET are great resources for you) and, if appropriate, ask to do some testing or have access to the product for review.
Step 4:Negotiating the contract When you have gotten down to where you have made a decision, there are important steps to remember in moving forward with a contract. You need to work with your Procurement Office. They can help you understand if there are bidding laws in your state (if you are a state institution). Many states have contracts rebid every 3-5 years and often the vendors want long term contracts. What are the rules your regional accrediting agency have in place for third party vendor contracts and relationships? The accrediting agencies are the gatekeepers for the federal regulations and there are some federal regulations related to tuition sharing contracts. The accreditors are also questioning relationships that appear to be relinquishing “too much” control to the vendors. Your institution’s Legal Services office must be involved and approve the contract language. Be sure to include all the services you need for the life of the contract, support services and training come to mind.
Step 5: Implementing the Contract This will take resources from both the vendor and your institution. Depending on the type of vendor relationship you developed you will be working with Marketing and Admissions to start that process, course development and training for faculty. IT will be involved for getting technical pieces. If you have the vendor doing part of the student services, that will need to be established before the first classes of the program start. If you have selected a good partner, things will go smoothly.
I caution you to build a relationship where the vendor understands you are the client and do not allow a vendor to have you change your program to meet their goals or needs. This is another concern and I have seen it happen.
These five steps are simplified to all the actions you will actually take. I think there are a couple of key points you need to know and keep in mind during your planning and implementation:
Establish timelines. I mentioned in step one this takes time. You probably will not get through this process in a semester. You need to find out how long the RFP process takes, how long you want to take reviewing vendors, and how long it takes to have the contract finalized. Additionally, work with the vendor to establish how long implementation will be. Then develop a timeline for the project and stick to it.
Develop the appropriate team for the project.
Have a rubric for evaluation
Early on, know the rules for the accrediting agency, state system, and institution so there are no surprises.
This has been a quick overview of looking at vendor to help you with starting up an online program. There are so many reasons we all use third party vendors and so many different types of vendor relationships. It is important to select the right vendor for the project.
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