It's About Learning

Innovations in Higher Education? Hah! – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

Ann Kirschner Dean of William E. Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York argues that College leaders need to move beyond talking about transformation to actually transforming Higher Education before it’s too late. After reading this article several times I have come to the conclusion any form of summary will not do it justice and suggest that this is an article everyone should read. Therefore, I am sharing the following quotes from the piece to provide a provocative motivation to read the full article:

…when observed from the 20,000-foot level, the basic building blocks of higher education—its priorities, governance, instructional design, and cost structure—have hardly budged.

Although e-learning has been around for nearly 20 years, technology in and out of the classroom is at the discretion of the professor, with rare institutional support or enthusiasm. Online learning has about as much credibility on some campuses as global warming at a Tea Party rally. About the only thing within academe that has moved rapidly is tuition.

…makes it crucially important to consider new approaches—like streamlining pathways to degrees, redesigning models of instruction, competency-based programs, better advising, shutting down or consolidating underperforming programs, and more comprehensive and efficient support services focused solely on getting students to graduation.

Widespread adoption of online courses is, however, just the most obvious next step. We should be agreeing on what standards of data collection make sense for advising our students and tracking their progress, and then moving rapidly at all levels of the university to adopt new technologies that demonstrate improved outcomes (e.g., mobile apps, tablet-based e-textbooks, and game-based learning).

Here again, an openness to change is an essential prerequisite to change. The next step is a consistent and broad-minded strategy that embraces technology and learning at all levels, beginning with faculty who teach with digital gusto, and who are themselves qualified to direct technology-rich projects that will characterize an exciting new generation of scholars and teachers.

Change only happens on the ground. Despite all the reasons to be gloomy, however, there is room for optimism. The American university, the place where new ideas are born and lives are transformed, will eventually focus that lens of innovation upon itself. It’s just a matter of time.

The above quotes have been taken out of context and on their own may seem much more provocative than necessary. This was my intent–to provoke the reader to read the full article…

Read the full article…