Practice
Realizing Students’ Dreams of Success: Harnessing Course Sharing through Grant Funding
Published by: Lindsey Downs | 4/19/2022 | 0 comments
Recently, the organization that I lead, the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas (DigiTex), was honored to receive a grant from Greater Texas Foundation to support a two-year project, Harnessing Course Sharing to Support Texas Pathways at Scale. The funding, in the amount of $645,405, will support a collaboration between us and the company Acadeum […]
Practice
Structure Your Accessibility Work
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 12/4/2020 | 0 comments
The following special topic paper originally appeared in the publication Pursuing Regulatory Compliance for Digital Instruction in Response to Covid-19: Policy Playbook, which was published by the Every Learner Everywhere Network and develop and edited by WCET. The Playbook gives background on several regulations, resources to understand them, and recommendations on how to comply. Today, we are featuring […]
Practice
Exemplars in the Fight against Syndicate Cheating
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 10/30/2020 | 0 comments
Over the past two weeks, Frontiers has featured its series on academic integrity and cheating syndicates. The first post considered the spectrum of threats facing higher education and our students and the second looked at the practices cheating sites use to entice (and trap?) students. To finish up the series, I’m happy to welcome Shannon […]
Practice
It is Time to Improve Higher Education Transfer
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 10/28/2020 | 1 comments
This week the Scaling Partners Network, on which I represent WCET, issued a “call to action” regarding transfer in higher education. It’s a bold request to educators and policy makers to rethink articulation among institutions. In this post, I outline their call and welcome Anna Galas who highlights a fantastic WICHE initiative that is addressing […]
Practice
An Equation at the Heart of Equity in Higher Education
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 10/9/2020 | 0 comments
WCET is thrilled to serve as the intermediary for Every Learner Everywhere, a network of twelve partner organizations with expertise in evaluating, implementing, scaling, and measuring the efficacy of education technologies, curriculum and course design strategies, teaching practices, and support services that personalize instruction for students in blended and online learning environments. Recently, Every Learner […]
Practice
Respond Before They Fail – Implementing Our New Alert System
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 7/24/2020 | 1 comments
One of my favorite parts of my role here at WCET is learning about technology initiatives at colleges or universities, especially those that are not only helpful for students, but receive such rave reviews from faculty members and staff! That’s why I was thrilled when Dr. Ashley Nielsen, PhD, the Teaching Faculty & Title III […]
Practice
Avoiding a “Road to Nowhere:” What We Must Do This Fall
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 6/22/2020 | 1 comments
In 1985 The Talking Heads released “Road to Nowhere.” That song, and that metaphor, have been on my mind a lot lately as I think about where higher education is going in the fall and beyond. It’s all too clear that we are going somewhere, but I’m not sure that any of us are very […]
Practice
Professional Licensure Student Disclosures – It’s the One Month Warning, with No Time-outs Remaining
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 5/29/2020 | 4 comments
Winning Isn’t Everything, but Wanting to Win is! – Vince Lombardi Excitement is in the air! There’s two minutes left in the game! You have the ball with no time outs left! What are you going to do? It is up to you! We just heard the horn for the two-minute (well…one-month) warning for the […]
Practice
Update on Federal Regulations Impacting Distance Education During the Pandemic
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 5/22/2020 | 0 comments
In Harold Ramis’ 1993 classic, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray portrays a television weatherman sent to cover Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day who ends up repeating the day over and over again. At first, Murray’s character, Phil Connors, uses the time loop to his advantage—binge eating, having one night stands, committing robbery, and manipulating local residents […]
Practice
Fall and Beyond: Higher Education in the Age of COVID-19 and Other Disasters
Published by: Lindsey Rae Downs | 5/8/2020 | 1 comments
Even before the COVID-19 global pandemic, higher education was struggling to make sense of what David La Piana and Melissa Mendes call a VUCA world in The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World. Originally coined by the US military to describe a post-Cold War world, VUCA stands for: Volatile– The world […]