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I worked with a task force to develop learning outcomes that describe the breadth of our library instruction program

I talk about this, and our model, in the most recent Adventures in Library Instruction podcast.

I’m now working with our distance learning librarian and our newly-hired instructional designer to develop a two-tiered model for deploying learning objects (one for students to drill down to just the content that meets their information need and the other for faculty to easily embed learning objects — with suggested assessments and lesson plans — in their courses).

Culture -- in higher education, and in our society -- is at the heart of the matter.

We have reduced K-12 schooling to basic skill acquisition that effectively leaves most students underprepared for college-level learning. We have bastardized the bachelor’s degree by allowing it to morph into a ticket to a job (though, today, that ticket often doesn’t get you very far). The academy has adopted an increasingly consumer-based ethic that has produced costly and dangerous effects: the expectations and standards of a rigorous liberal education have been displaced by thinly disguised professional or job training curriculums; teaching and learning have been devalued, deprioritized, and replaced by an emphasis on magazine rankings; and increased enrollment, winning teams, bigger and better facilities, more revenue from sideline businesses, and more research grants have replaced learning as the primary touchstone for decision-making.

The current culture -- the shared norms, values, standards, expectations and priorities -- of teaching and learning in the academy is not powerful enough to support true higher learning. As a result, students do not experience the kind of integrated, holistic, developmental, rigorous undergraduate education that must exist as an absolute condition for truly transformative higher learning to occur.

The characteristics of “Flow” according to Czikszentmihalyi are: Completely involved, focused, concentrating – with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training Sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going Knowing the activity is doable – that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored Sense of serenity Timeliness – thoroughly focused on present, don’t notice time passing Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces “flow” becomes its own reward

(http://austega.com/education/articles/flow.htm)

Intellectual challenge was measured by Csikszentmilhalyi’s theory of flow. (Source for the following http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/sorting-students-learning)

“The technologies available are much more advanced than when we started OpenCourseWare,” Mr. Agarwal said. “We can provide pedagogical tools to self-assess, self-pace or create an online learning community.”

While access to the software will be free, there will most likely be an “affordable” charge, not yet determined, for a credential.

The certificate will not be a regular M.I.T. degree, but rather a credential bearing the name of a new not-for-profit body to be created within M.I.T; revenues from the credentialing, officials said, would go to support the M.I.T.x platform and to further M.I.T’s mission.

I’ve been fascinated with startup culture for a long time and as I considered all the changes happening in academic libraries (and higher ed) the parallels were quite stunning.

we are being required to rethink/rebuild/repurpose what a library is and what it does. The next twenty years are going to be an interestingly chaotic time for the history of our institutions.

In concise terms: startups are organizations dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This sounds exactly like an academic library to me. Not only are we trying to survive, but we’re also trying to transform our organizations into a viable service for 21st century scholars and learners.

Early last month Megan posted about recent research connecting academic libraries and student achievement. She mentioned that there are multiple projects in the U.S. currently underway to correlate library use and GPA, and I have results from just such a project to share with you all!

In a recently completed study at University of Wyoming I discovered a positive correlation between upper-division library instruction and higher GPA at graduation (by upper-division, I mean post-first-year). This is based on an analysis of 4,489 transcripts of graduating seniors at the University of Wyoming, and the transcript analysis was supplemented by focus groups with graduating seniors

Look for the article in the March or June 2012 issue of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. Here’s the citation: Bowles-Terry, M. (2012). Library instruction and academic success: A mixed-methods assessment of a library instruction program. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.

The two reports of interest are: The 2011-12 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers http://www.insidehighered.com/download?file=finalCAOsurveyreport.pdf Presidential Perspectives, the 2011 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Presidents http://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/archive/storage/files/SurveyBooklet.pdf

The CAO survey had 1081 participants, while the survey of Presidents had 956 participants.  There is no information that can confirm that both the CAO and President from the same institution were in the majority for the respondents. So, the respondents for each report could be from different institutions.

nly one category — library resources and services — did a majority of all presidents (and a bare majority at that: 51 percent) rate the technology investment as “’very effective.’”  You can read the entire article here:  http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/president2011

“Barriers to Adoption of Online Learning Systems in US Higher Education,” an Ithaka S+R report released today and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, highlights the challenges to be overcome by institutions so that they can take advantage of online learning technologies, and explores why highly interactive online systems have yet to take hold in any substantial way. 

“As online learning systems of this kind are developed, however, a critically important question will be who is going to control the student usage and performance data,” added Mr. Guthrie. “On the web, all actions and behaviors can be tracked and analyzed. These data are critical to refinement of these systems and to our overall understanding of how people learn. These data should not be privatized.”

“Barriers to adoption of these systems vary greatly. Perhaps most importantly, most current systems that are highly interactive do not allow faculty to customize content to suit their specific needs. Faculty are also concerned that online education might distance them from their students. Finally, very little good data exist on the effectiveness of existing highly interactive online systems.”

Faculty (post-instruction and end of term) and student survey instruments are available online.

An important deliverable of this project is that it creates an lasting, annualized archive of the cumulative efforts, learning objects, and outcomes related to a given instruction program on both the course and aggregate level

Portfolio projects of this nature also streamline group efforts and produce ready programmatic evidence of instructional effectiveness and outcomes, crucial to the processes of accreditation, review, and value demonstration

In simple terms students personal use of the internet is generally very effective for their education but they are nervous that their practices are not valid and don’t reveal them to their tutors.

The learning black market exists largely in the Personal area of the map. Our data from the Transitional education-stage (Late stage secondary school + first year undergraduate) is indicating that learning activity in this area has two main elements

I suspect that Facebook IM is used extensively for homework as it’s convenient and immediate. It’s also private and a very low risk way of collaborating with a fellow student.

And for my own account of the decision not to use term papers when I taught at Michigan State, you can check out a piece I published in Academe in Sept-Oct 2011.   In some ways, it is more assertive on this issue than Richtel's piece, and is highly critical of the establishment English Department that too-often forgets its own importance as society’s “keeper” of two of the three R’s of traditional literacy, namely “reading” and “‘writing.’”   I won’t rehearse my critique; here's the link:  http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2011/SO/Feat/davi.htm).

She is also working with composition teachers around the country who are documenting similar findings that, in fact, this generation comes in reading and writing more and better–and, yes, differently–than earlier ones, not worse.  Lunsford uses the same metrics to assess these students as were used to evaluate past ones.  Her website is:  http://www.stanford.edu/~lunsfor1/

We have a Word Press class website.  Students blog every week about the reading and project-based assignments they create.   The two students charged with leading the class that week have to respond to every blog.  The students respond to one another.