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With most critics of higher education focused on rising prices or on whether American colleges and universities are producing enough degree and certificate holders with sufficient skills to keep the U.S. economy vibrant and competitive -- the latter known in shorthand as the "completion agenda" -- a few analysts are homing in on the quality and rigor of what students are learning (or not) en route to those credentials. Last year's Academically Adrift set the tone, providing data suggesting that many colleges are imposing relatively minimal academic demands on their students and that, perhaps as a result, many students do not appear to gain in some measures of cognitive abilities as they move through college. The authors of We're Losing Our Minds (Palgrave MacMillan) add their own clamoring to the agenda focused on the quality of learning. Richard P. Keeling and Richard H. Hersh, longtime scholars and administrators, describe themselves as "friendly critics" of higher education, and unlike many of academe's naysayers, they don't spend a lot of time trashing the faculty as overpaid and underworked or bashing administrators as fat-cat corporatizers (though they do complain that institutions have overemphasized rankings and enrollment growth and sports and research -- take your pick depending on institution type).

How California's Online Education Pilot Will End College As We Know It GREGORY FERENSTEIN posted yesterday (Jan 15, 2013) Today, the largest university system in the world, the California State University system, announced a pilot for $150 lower-division online courses at one of its campuses - a move that spells the end of higher education as we know it. Lower-division courses are the financial backbone of many part-time faculty and departments (especially the humanities). As someone who has taught large courses at a University of California, I can assure readers that my job could have easily been automated. Most of college-the expansive campuses and large lecture halls-will crumble into ghost towns as budget-strapped schools herd students online.

National Survey of Student Engagement What is student engagement? Student engagement represents two critical features of collegiate quality. The first is the amount of time and effort students put into their studies and other educationally purposeful activities. The second is how the institution deploys its resources and organizes the curriculum and other learning opportunities to get students to participate in activities that decades of research studies show are linked to student learning. What does NSSE do? Through its student survey, The College Student Report, NSSE annually collects information at hundreds of four-year colleges and universities about student participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development. The results provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. NSSE provides participating institutions a variety of reports that compare their students' responses with those of students at self-selected groups of comparison institutions. Comparisons are available for individual survey questions and the five NSSE Benchmarks of Effective Educational Practice. Each November, NSSE also publishes its Annual Results, which reports topical research and trends in student engagement results. NSSE researchers also present and publish research findings throughout the year.

"The 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning reveals that enrollment rose by almost one million students from a year earlier. The survey of more than 2,500 colleges and universities nationwide finds approximately 5.6 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2009, the most recent term for which figures are available. "This represents the largest ever year-to-year increase in the number of students studying online," said study co-author I Elaine Allen, Co-Director of the Babson Survey Research Group and Professor of Statistics & Entrepreneurship at Babson College. "Nearly thirty percent of all college and university students now take at least one course online.""

Early Alert Program The Early Alert classroom assistance program at Sinclair Community College is an intervention program teaming faculty, counselors, and advisors together in order to promote the success of students facing challenges.   An Overview:    Early Alert is an intervention program that allows for faculty to notify advisors/counselors of issues that may affect the success of a student.  It is a simple way of assisting students in difficulty find the help they need while taking very little time. Web-based Early Alert notifications are easy ways to promote the retention efforts of the college and the success of students. Utilized currently in all DEV courses, English 111, select Math courses, and SCC 101 courses.  

"The California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative will hold its first statewide informational town hall events at the Campus Technology Forum 2014. Held on April 9 of the April 8-9 CT Forum event, the town halls were created to inform community college administration and technology leadership about this important initiative."

"Walk into any college classroom and you'll probably see students on their devices. Some are taking notes, but most are also simultaneously monitoring multiple social media feeds. Rather than fight this trend as a problem to be solved, the innovative folks at the Georgia Institute of Technology have figured out a way to turn it into an educational opportunity. Thanks to a recent initiative: students at Georgia Tech will earn college credit for their Internet use, automatically."

June 25, 2012 Customization Is the Future of Teaching, Harvard Researcher Says Rick Friedman for The ChronicleChris Dede (shown here on screen), a professor of learning technologies at Harvard, says classrooms of the future will have "a more complicated model of teacher performance that, when they know how to do it, teachers are going to appreciate."Enlarge Image By Jeffrey R. Young Most college courses are one-size-fits-all-a lecturer delivers the same information to everyone in the room, regardless of whether some students already know the material or others are utterly lost. It doesn't have to be that way, says Chris Dede, a professor of learning technologies at Harvard University. He outlines a vision of how technology can help personalize learning in a new book that he co-edited, called Digital Teaching Platforms: Customizing Classroom Learning for Each Student. His research focuses on elementary- and high-school classrooms, but he says the approach has implications for colleges as well. The Chronicle talked with Mr. Dede about his strategy, and why he sees big changes on the horizon. An edited version of the conversation follows.

Graduation rates by state

"15 Ways to Reinvent College Infographic"

"A quote from my June 3 blog post appeared in the October 18 issue of the New York Times. I was thrilled until I read the beautifully written op-ed piece. It proposes more lecture and less active learning. My quote was used to illustrate the perspective of those of us who favor active learning. The author, a history prof, describes the various technology accoutrements found in her classroom, but she quests for what wasn't present-"a simple wooden lectern to hold my lecture notes." I loved this response from a community college faculty member: "Had I known Professor Worthen needed a lectern, I would have been happy to send one from the small community college in northern Wyoming where I teach English. After 20 years of teaching, … it [lecture] is a form I have largely abandoned.""

'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas By Jeffrey R. Young The spread of a seemingly playful alternative to traditional diplomas, inspired by Boy Scout achievement patches and video-game power-ups, suggests that the standard certification system no longer works in today's fast-changing job market.

DRAFT PARCC ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES AND ACCOMMODATIONS MANUAL Guidance for Districts and Decision-Making Teams to Ensure that PARCC MidYear, End-of-Year, and Performance-Based Assessments Produce Valid Results for All Students  FIRST EDITION Produced by: Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Pre-decisional. Updated June 19, 2013

""We got rid of tuition fees because we do not want higher education which depends on the wealth of the parents," Gabrielle Heinen-Kjajic, the minister for science and culture in Lower Saxony, said in a statement. "

"The tenth annual survey, a collaborative effort between the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board, is the leading barometer of online learning in the United States.  Based on responses from over 2,800 academic leaders, the complete survey report, "Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States" can be downloaded here. Read the press release"

"A Dozen Strategies for Improving Online Student Retention By: Al Infande, EdD in Online Education Add Comment Online student retention is one of the most critical components for the success of any college or university. The key to a successful online retention program is the realization that student retention is everybody's job. The main objective of a well-established online retention program is to maintain a student's enrollment and to keep him highly satisfied with the level of education he is acquiring in an online environment. This is not an easy task since there are many reasons why a student might need or want to withdraw or leave the program of study. Below are a dozen strategies for improving online student retention for administrators and faculty:"

February 5, 2012 Harvard Conference Seeks to Jolt University Teaching By Dan Berrett Cambridge, Mass. A growing body of evidence from the classroom, coupled with emerging research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, is lending insight into how people learn, but teaching on most college campuses has not changed much, several speakers said here at Harvard University at a daylong conference dedicated to teaching and learning.

Class Problem March 26, 2012 - 3:00am By Kaustuv Basu The YouTube video of a Florida Atlantic University student losing control last week in a classroom and threatening her classmates has gone viral, disturbing many who teach in college classrooms. Campus safety experts say that the clip reveals challenges faced by faculty members who are usually the first point of contact when it comes to disruption in the classroom -- and who sometimes may not be trained on how to respond.

June 25, 2012 A Conversation With Bill Gates About the Future of Higher Education By Jeffrey R. Young Bill Gates never finished college, but he is one of the single most powerful figures shaping higher education today. That influence comes through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, perhaps the world's richest philanthropy, which he co-chairs and which has made education one of its key missions.

But soon, introductory physics texts will have a new competitor, developed at Rice University. A free online physics book, peer-reviewed and designed to compete with major publishers' offerings, will debut next month through the non-profit publisher OpenStax College.