As universities shift
toward competency and institutions cater more closely to learners’ specific
needs, the distinctions between high school, undergraduate college, and graduate
programs will dissolve. “Incentives will be given to students and institutions
to move students through at a faster rate [and] the home school movement will
lead to a home-college movement” (Dunn, 2000, p. 37). As leaders in
the effort to cater to learners’ needs, distance education programs
may be a dominant influence in this trend.
Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url
2More
1More
Social Networking To Save At-Risk Students -- THE Journal - 1 views
thejournal.com/...-to-save-at-risk-students.aspx
academic students teaching online education SocialNetworking social_media at_risk_students
shared by Danielle Melia on 03 Jul 12
- Cached
-
Maria Brennan has become pretty proficient at tracking down Everett School District students who are on the verge of dropping out. She's even snagged a few that have already crossed the line and helped them back into positive territory. As graduation success coordinator for Everett School District in Everett, WA, Brennan has used a combination of traditional methods (reaching out directly to the students and their families by phone, for example) and high-tech approaches to help improve graduation rates for the district's four high schools.
17More
Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Pl... - 1 views
-
-
Accreditation and program approval will be based more on educational outcomes. Testing programs will be put in place by discipline organizations, federal and state governments, corporations, and testing companies. Large corporations will develop their own approval systems. By 2025, there will not be one national accreditation system, although the U.S. Department of Education will provide a basic safety net for quality. (p. 37; see also Pond, 2003) Distance educators must plan to accommodate this emphasis on accountability if they are to maintain accreditation and meet consumer demands.
- ...11 more annotations...
-
the academically decentralized/administratively centralized model
-
Changes in the institutional landscape may magnify competition among educational providers and allow new models and leaders to emerge.
-
Knowledge proliferation may increase content-breadth demands on higher education, spreading distance education resources ever thinner and complicating development decisions.
-
An NEA survey reported that faculty members’ top concern about distance education was that they will do more work for the same amount of pay, apparently a merited concern.
-
As long as distance education contributions are not considered in tenure and promotion decisions, and as long as professors have their own, traditional ways of delivering their courses, many faculty members will be reluctant to participate in online courses (Oravec, 2003). Concerning this reluctance, Dunn has predicted that many faculty members will revolt against technological course delivery and the emerging expectations their institutions will have of faculty members. Dunn forecast that some of the resistance will even be manifest through unionization and strikes (Dunn, 2000). Some have suggested the labor-intensive and time-consuming demands required to develop online modules as reasons for faculty resistance (Brogden, 2002).
-
The results of de Alva’s 2000 survey support this trend: governors rated “maintaining traditional faculty roles and tenure” as the least desirable characteristic of a twenty-first century university (p. 34).
-
Faculty members tend initially to try to use their conventional classroom methods to teach at a distance and then become frustrated when attempts are unsuccessful (Dasher-Alston & Patton, p. 14). In Green’s (2002) survey of the role
-
Distance education teams include administrators, instructional designers, technologists, and instructors/facilitators (Miller, 2001; Williams, 2003). The functions of instructors and facilitators then include being a “facilitator, teacher, organizer, grader, mentor, role model, counselor, coach, supervisor, problem solver, and liaison” (Riffee, 2003, p. 1; see also Roberson, 2002; Scagnoli, 2001). The role of faculty members in distance education requires “some specialized skills and strategies. Distance education instructors must plan ahead, be highly organized, and communicate with learners in new ways. They need to be accessible to students [and] work in teams when appropriate” (PSU, 1998, p. 4). Distance faculty members must be experts in maintaining communication, because there is increased demand for student interaction in distance learning (NEA, 2000). Finally, they may have to assume more administrative responsibilities than is true in a residential model (PSU, 1998).
-
“Rather than incorporating the responsibility for all technology- and competency-based functions into a single concept of ‘faculty member,’ universities are disaggregating faculty instructional activities and [assigning] them to distinct professionals” (Paulson, 2002, p. 124). Doing this involves a “deliberate division of labor among the faculty, creating new kinds of instructional staff, or deploying nontenure-track instructional staff (such as adjunct faculty, graduate teaching assistants, or undergraduate assistants) in new ways” (Paulson, 2002, p. 126
-
Online students are becoming an entirely new subpopulation of higher-education learners. They are “generally older, have completed more college credit hours and more degree programs, and have a higher all-college GPA than their traditional counterparts” (Diaz, 2002, pp. 1-2). For example, Diaz has noted that online students received twice as many A’s as traditional students and half as many D’s and F’s.
-
One result of the highly competitive e-learning market will be institutions that specialize in meeting particular niches in the market (Gallagher, 2003). Morrison and Barone (2003, p. 4) observed, “We can see the beginnings of the trend toward the unbundling of courses, credits, services, and fee structures.” Dunn foresaw a similar trend, predicting that “courseware producers will sell courses and award credits directly to the end user and thus, through intermediation, bypass the institutional middleman” (Dunn, 2000, p. 37). The transition may also blur the distinction between two- and four-year colleges and universities (Carr, 1999). In this context of greater “portability,” more educational “brokers” (e.g., Western Governor’s University, Excelsior College, Charter Oak State College, etc.) will exist (Pond, 2003). Further, as de Alva has asserted, “Institutional success for any higher education enterprise will depend more on successful marketing, solid quality-assurance and control systems, and effective use of the new media than on production and communication of knowledge” (de Alva, 2000, p. 40).
1More
K-16 - 0 views
www.highered.nysed.gov/kiap
teachers TOC HEOP CSTEP STEP LPP urban urban youth retention rates graduation rates achievement gap poverty low income drop out rates teacher programs
shared by Donna Angley on 03 Jun 11
- No Cached
2More
At Waldorf School in Silicon Valley, Technology Can Wait - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
When asked for evidence of the schools’ effectiveness, the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America points to research by an affiliated group showing that 94 percent of students graduating from Waldorf high schools in the United States between 1994 and 2004 attended college, with many heading to prestigious institutions like Oberlin, Berkeley and Vassar.
College Results Online - 0 views
8More
JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching - 0 views
jolt.merlot.org/...chan_0912.htm
voicethread study amultimedia asynchronous tool module 4 assignment
shared by alexandra m. pickett on 17 Jul 13
- No Cached
-
In the second phase, 13 of the 22 respondents to the first phase were sent follow-up questions to elicit their perspectives as to whether the use of VoiceThread satisfied Chickering and Gamson's (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.
-
Results Out of a total of 61 students in two online sections of the business policy course, 22 students – 14 females and eight males – took part in the exam review and VoiceThread survey (i.e., the first phase of the study). The participants were graduating seniors, and as part of the course, they had participated in weekly discussion board activities within the University’s LMS, Blackboard. None of them had used VoiceThread prior to their involvement in the study. The survey results are presented in Tables 1, 2, and 3. Table 1. Survey responses – "yes/no" items (N = 22)
-
Question Yes No Comments 1. Did you comment on the VoiceThread? 22 0 2. Was it difficult to comment? 1 21 "A little, text box small." 3. Would you like to use VoiceThread for future exam reviews and discussion of chapter concepts? 14 8 "Yes. [It is] More interactive, [and involves] not just reading text, but actually listening, and picking up information that way." "Yes. By then I will know how to use the microphone." "No. [It] Take[s] less time to read answers on Blackboard's discussion board as opposed to listening to people's answers on VoiceThread. It was difficult to read the small text." (This student liked participating in the exam review on VoiceThread for the extra credit, and she would do it again if extra credit were given.) "No. I won't be able to use it with my other devices such as my iPad and iPhone." "No. It's easier to read the review questions and find the answers in the book." 4. Would you like to use VoiceThread to make a presentation for a course in the future? 14 8 "Yes. Sure! That would probably work out pretty well!" "Not really! Not unless I have to." 5. Would you suggest to your peers the use of VoiceThread for making their own presentations? 16 6
- ...2 more annotations...
-
Table 2. Survey responses – rating-scale item (N = 22) Question Very Easy (1) Easy (2) No Problems (3) Some Issues (4) Very Difficult (5) 6. How difficult was it to create your VoiceThread account? 19 3 0 0
-
Table 3.Survey responses – open-ended item (N = 18) Question Comments 7. Anything you would like to share about VoiceThread? Positive comments (n = 12) "Very easy and convenient." "I think that once I was able to get into the system it was easy to use. Now I need to understand why the mic[rophone] does not work, maybe my laptop." "It was actually very interesting to learning [sic] how to use VoiceThread. It was something different." "I like the way I can participate by using text. As English is my second language, speaking is really difficult for me. Also, VoiceThread is really easy and simple to use." "It was really easy to navigate and use." "VoiceThread was very easy to use and it could be beneficial in the future." "VoiceThread is easy and pretty interesting!" "I like that it is very easy to use." "It seems like a good tool to utilize for some classes." "Easy to navigate and good review before the exam." "Never done it before but I think it's pretty good tool." "Seems like a great tool we can use." Comments expressing reservations (n = 4) "I think it was very easy to figure out. My hesitation about using in the future for a course to do a presentation or recommending my peers to use it is that I don't really know much about it so that is why I responded no to those questions. I don't know how to add graphics and things of that nature like on PowerPoint." "VoiceThread is easy to register [on]. However, I'm not too sure about making a presentation." "I think it's a good form of technology. It's not my first choice of communication though. Plus if you're typing your answer the font is super small, not sure if I can change this setting." "[There needs to be a] bigger text box" Unfavorable comments (n = 2) "I do not like the interface of the VoiceThread ... [The interface] makes it hard to use on anything besides a computer." One student found it slightly difficult to "figure out how to answer the questions or how to comment on others' answers."
8More
Study hits 'grade inflation' in New York state testing of pupils | SILive.com - 0 views
-
middle-school students who passed their math and English Language Arts tests are likely to struggle on their high school Regents exams
-
tudents who scored a Level 3 on their state tests -- which is considered passing -- would likely earn a 65 on their Regents exams, but that a score of 80 was typically needed to earn college credit for a course, according to the News.
-
Steiner is also calling for longer tests with more rigorous questions.
- ...3 more annotations...
-
Critics have long been saying the tests appeared to be getting easier, and have wondered whether the scoring was adjusted to make politicians look better.
-
-
"But by any measure -- including the highly respected NAEP exams, state tests, and graduation rates -- due to the bold reform agenda implemented by this administration, the significant progress made by New York City students has far outpaced that of students in the rest of New York state."
32More
Tools for Teaching - Fast Feedback - 0 views
- ...29 more annotations...
-
focus on what can be changed during the semester--for example, the pace of the course, turnaround time on exams and assignments, or the level of difficulty of the material
-
teaching a course for the first time or have significantly revised a course you have taught previously, you may want to canvass students as early as three or four weeks after the semester begins
-
issues posed should be ones you can respond to during the term; otherwise your students may develop false expectations about the remainder of the course
-
Consider asking students to list the one or two specific behaviors or incidents that weighed most heavily in their ratings
-
Select a spokesperson who will also write down the groups' comments. Name something in the course that they find helpful or worthwhile or that has helped their learning. Name something that has hindered their learning and that they would like to see changed. Suggest how the course could be improved
18More
ETAP640student FIR reflections - 1 views
-
Fook and +Askeland (2007) explore the benefits of critical reflections. They point out that reflection is an intentional practice of exploring underlying assumptions in thought processes, for the purpose of achieving growth. They explain that this practice is useful for an individual to be able to understand their own thinking, and gain better insight into what drives their behaviors.
-
Did You Know Video
- ...8 more annotations...
-
It has taken nearly 2 years for the administration on our campus to support the request of one of our faculty members to provide infrastructure and equipment to use Elluminate. Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com) is a web based tool that provides opportunities for distance learners to stay in their location and participate in synchronous, real time lectures, seminars, or presentations with other members in a different location.
-
Furnborough and Truman (2009)
-
-
June 20th, 2011
-
it is ideal to make the online environment as effective as possible to meet the learning objectives, and the learners needs.
-
Yes, very good point - and as I'm learning week after week, there are many technologies out there to help with meeting the objectives. What I've realized in the past 2 weeks or so is that I didn't have very clear objectives. Once I clarified those, I found it easier to begin to build my course and visualize the modules.
-
-
This includes the feedback I so diligently write on their assignments.
-
I honestly don’t see how all of this technology has necessarily improved life for the poor, the hungry, and the uneducated
-
I agree that perhaps these populations aren't benefiting from the technology yet, but the potential is huge. Imagine being able to reach out to poorer communities via online learning. Urban schools have a really difficult time recruiting and retaining quality teachers. It's not unheard of for an uncertified teacher to teach in an urban school, because they are so desperate for teachers to man the classrooms. If some of the learning can happen online, or if they could offer blended classes, it could have real potential to raise graduation rates. Online learning is still fairly new in the grand scheme, but it is spreading like wildfire. More people will come on board, great minds will (have) come together for Best Practices, and the proof will be in the student outcomes.
-
-