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New Challenges for Universities: Why They Must Change. This chapter identifies the critical motivations and dimensions for change in today's universities. While the introduction of technology into teaching, learning, and research makes the necessity of change apparent, it is neither the only reason nor the only area in which universities will have to adopt new organizational models. The following questions are considered: what is the function of universities in today's societies? how can technology help the transfer to viable new futures of universities? why is the old culture of teaching and learning failing? what new forms of teaching and learning are needed for the twenty-first century? what is the prevailing culture of universities and why does this prevent necessary changes? how can the necessary changes be brought about?

great article on models and theories of teaching in the new media technology age

Moving from constructivist philosophy, psychology and epistemology to the characterization of constructivist learning environments presents the challenge of synthesizing a large spectrum of somewhat disparate concepts. An appropriate analogy for the way in which constructivist concepts have evolved is that of a prism with many facets. While the facets reflect the same light and form one part of a whole, they nonetheless each present distinct and finely delineated boundaries.

For example, Mel Riddile points out that when one conditions on various measures of poverty, instead of trailing other nations, the U.S. actually comes out on top! He concludes that "when it comes to school improvement, it's poverty not stupid." Poverty causes educational deficiency. Now, I like to actually have data to play around with, in part because people have been known to lie about politically charged issues and in part because I like to have nice graphs (which are not provided by Riddile). Anyway, it turns out that international poverty data is pretty hard to come by and fraught with interpretational difficulties. On the other hand, the National Assessment of Educational Progress provides test data for most of the states in the U.S., and the U.S. Census Bureau provides data on the percentage of people in poverty by state. I took the NAEP data for 8th grade science achievement and regressed on the percentage of people below the poverty line for the measured states. The two are negatively associated: as poverty increases, science achievement scores decrease according to the relationship in the plot below. (Alaska, Kansas, Nebraska, and Vermont did not meet NAEP reporting guidelines and are not included in the plot above.) The association is highly significant (p=9.98*10-6). I also took pilot NAEP data for 8th grade mathematics achievement and regressed on the percentage of people below the poverty line for the measured states. (Evidently, the NAEP has only just started testing for mathematics achievement, and only eleven states were included in their pilot.) Again, the two are negatively associated. The slope of the relation turns out to be almost exactly the same as for science achievement. The association is not as significant, but it is still significant (p=0.0186). (My guess is the association is less significant in this case because fewer states were measured.) Clearly there is an association between poverty and achievement in science and mathem

This article outlines many of the challenges that a teacher may face with online teaching but also provides insight on how to overcome these challenges.

Predicted to be America's first generation to exceed 100 million persons,1 the wave of Net Geners entering colleges and universities brings a blend of behaviors, attitudes, and expectations that creates opportunities-as well as challenges-for higher education.

"The challenge for instructors teaching online courses is to learn to use humor to create interesting and inviting virtual learning environments while minimizing any potential pitfalls of humor as an instructional device. In a commentary noting the need for humor in online courses, James (2004) observed that "Because humor is one of the major traits of the best, most effective teachers, it is a characteristic that all teachers should want to hone, practice, and nurture, regardless of medium" "

Thinking back to our conversation on humor. (I was only a lurker in that conversation, but maybe now I have time to revisit this idea). Hope this adds to your thoughts.

explain how instructors can incorporate humor in an online course, the enhancement humor can bring, guidelines for locating, selecting, developing, and integrating humor into an online courses, and examples of humor in various online components.