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George Bradford

Assessment and feedback - 0 views

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    Assessment and feedback Our work on assessment and feedback supports the sector, as we advise on policy and strategy, develop resources, and coordinate a series of activities to identify and share effective practice. We work with institutions and their students to improve their approaches to assessment and feedback, including setting criteria and emphasising the importance of assessment for learning. Our Academic Integrity Service exists to raise awareness and enhance understanding of academic integrity issues in higher education, including student plagiarism We have a range of resources, both generic and subject-specific, on feedback and assessment, which you will find valuable.
George Bradford

AZk12 - Professional Development for Educators - 0 views

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    "A Resource Supporting the Full Integration of Technology in Arizona Schools What is the Arizona Technology Integration Matrix? The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells. What is in each cell? Within each cell of the Matrix one will find two lessons plans with a short video of the lesson. Each lesson is designed to show the integration of technology in instruction and classrooms as well as the Arizona Educational Technology Standards."
George Bradford

Q&A with authors of book arguing that learning is waning in higher ed | Inside High... - 0 views

  • the agenda focused on the quality of learning
  • Richard P. Keeling and Richard H. Hersh, longtime scholars and administrators
  • complain that institutions have overemphasized rankings and enrollment growth and sports and research
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  • Instead, they make the case that too little of what happens in institutions of "higher education" deserves to be called "higher learning" -- "learning that prepares students to think creatively and critically, communicate effectively, and excel in responding to the challenges of life, work and citizenship."
  • most have focused on the rising price of college tuition and the declining productivity of the U.S. "system" of higher ed. Yours zeroes in on whether students are learning enough. Why is that the most important issue in your eyes?
  • A. There’s no question that high costs are a problem. But low value is a bigger problem. No matter what the cost is, higher education is overpriced if it fails to deliver on its most basic promise: learning.
  • We are facing a national crisis in higher learning, or, rather, in the lack thereof. Improving efficiency and lowering costs are just not enough; we need to improve value. And we can only improve value by increasing the quality and quantity of learning in college.
  • A: We know from both research and experience that the greater the amount of time, effort, and feedback, the greater the amount of higher learning. Logically, then, we want more students to stay in and complete college, and we would agree that promoting retention and completion are appropriate and needed public policy. But just being in college and getting through, accumulating enough credits to get a degree, are not sufficient. Access, retention, and completion are not -- or, at least, should not be -- considered ends in themselves. We should not uncouple them from the primary purpose of college, which is higher learning. So we suggest focusing on learning, because in fact the more success we have in promoting significant learning, the greater will be retention and completion.
  • Faculty were educated to be masters of a discipline and producers of new knowledge. Few were required in their graduate programs to learn about learning and teaching, or to practice and improve their teaching skills.
  • So faculty are behaving exactly as they have been educated, acculturated, and reinforced to do. The culture of higher education generally does not elevate teaching, and its intended purpose, learning, to high priority.
  • In our consulting work we regularly encounter dedicated faculty members who are interested in students, focused on learning, motivated to improve their teaching, and struggling to balance those commitments with the demands of promotion and tenure. On most campuses, faculty and institutional culture provide counter-incentives to faculty who want to hold students to higher standards, raise their expectations for student effort and work, and provide abundant and timely feedback. As we argue in our book, what is then needed is a fundamental cultural change on most campuses and in the field of higher education. Faculty must both lead and be at the center of such change.
  • Our concern is about how implementing a three-year undergraduate curriculum and degree would affect the quality and quantity of learning. Maintaining current curriculums, pedagogy, and levels of student effort, but compacting undergraduate education into three versus four years, might increase certain efficiencies, but will not improve educational value.
  • We know that achieving the key desired outcomes of higher learning is a cumulative, collective process that takes time and demands integration and synthesis from the learner.
  • Students come to college inadequately prepared for college-level work as it is; even four years may not be adequate for many to learn enough.
  • If reduction of time to degree is implemented, it will be essential to determine how it affects the efficacy of higher learning.
  • Q. The undergraduate program you outline for producing a true culture of "higher learning" includes a lot of elements -- across-the-board first-year seminars, comprehensive exams, capstone courses/experiences -- that can be costly to institute as broadly as you recommend. How big an impediment are institutional finances to your agenda, especially in an era of diminishing (or at least flattening) resources?
  • A. Budgets express institutional priorities. As it is, too many budgets reflect priorities that have little to do with learning -- high-priced varsity athletic coaches and programs, expensive and elaborate facilities, and, often, reduced teaching loads to allow professors to spend less time with undergraduates and more time on research.
  • what we are proposing should not be seen as additions to a currently dysfunctional system, but as reallocations of resources toward learning. More is not necessarily better; better is more.
  • Still missing, though, are two things: first, operational definitions of these outcomes adapted to the missions, contexts, and student bodies of individual institutions, and second, ways of knowing such learning when we see it. These needs speak to the imperative for appropriate assessment of learning -- not necessarily done by common exams across all colleges and universities (although doing so would allow for some useful peer-campus benchmarking) but certainly by diligent, rigorous assessment practices that document what learning is taking place on each campus.
  • We think it is reasonable to expect that each institution assess students’ learning of commonly agreed learning goals and make public how such assessment is taking place and what the results are. Over time, we would learn which learning and assessment methods are most effective. Without serious assessment, the establishment of core learning outcomes will be futile and unproductive.
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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).
George Bradford

U21 Rankings of National Higher Education Systems - 0 views

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    U21 Rankings of National Higher Education Systems A ranking of higher education systems based on resources, environment, connectivity and output. New research into national education systems gives the first ranking of countries and territories which are the 'best' at providing higher education. Universitas 21 has developed the ranking as a benchmark for governments, education institutions and individuals. It aims to highlight the importance of creating a strong environment for higher education institutions to contribute to economic and cultural development, provide a high-quality experience for students and help institutions compete for overseas applicants.
George Bradford

NSSE Home - 0 views

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    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.
George Bradford

Assessing Student Learning - about the project - 0 views

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    The Assessing Learning Project The Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) was commissioned by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee to develop the resources on the Assessing Learning in Australian Universities website. The site is designed to support Australian universities and academic staff in maintaining high quality assessment practices, in particular in responding effectively to new issues in student assessment. The ideas and strategies are focused on the practical educational issues surrounding the purposes and design of student assessment and reporting, in particular the way in which assessment might be planned to optimise student approaches to study.
George Bradford

Faculty Development Programming: If We Build It, Will They Come? (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) |... - 0 views

  • Designers of faculty development programs typically rely on commonly held assumptions about what faculty need to know—a constant guessing game regarding what topics to cover and what training formats to use. The resulting seminars, workshops, training materials, and other resources are typically hit-or-miss in terms of faculty participation and acceptance.
    • George Bradford
       
      This is a statement without warrants - Carol should know better.
  • Research Question 1: With which aspects of teaching online do faculty need assistance?
  • With regard to designing and developing online courses, faculty were most interested in the following topics: Choosing appropriate technologies to enhance their online course (55.9 percent). Converting course materials for online use (35.3 percent). Creating effective online assessment instruments (35.3 percent). Creating video clips (33.8 percent). Determining ways to assess student progress in an online course (33.8 percent). Course delivery topics that held the most interest included: Facilitating online discussion forums (47.1 percent). Building and enhancing professor-student relationships in the online classroom (39.7 percent). Facilitating web conferencing sessions (35.3 percent). Increasing interactions in an online course (35.3 percent). Managing online teaching workloads (33.8 percent). Providing meaningful feedback on assignments (32.4 percent).
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  • High-quality interaction and being there for the students is the best way to combat the commonly held misconceptions that online education is impersonal and that online instructors are unplugged from their students.
  • Research Question 2: What format do online faculty prefer for professional development experiences?
  • The format most faculty preferred was informal or self-paced learning. Self-paced materials were requested most often (42.6 percent), followed by informal face-to-face events (41.2 percent) and informal online events (33.8 percent). Requests for formal face-to-face training programs (30.9 percent) and online programs (29.4 percent) lagged behind the other formats. In addition, faculty indicated that the most helpful aspects of professional development events related to teaching online included opportunities to share real-life experiences with their colleagues, to use various technologies including the university's course management system, and to access specific examples and strategies.
  • Research Question 3: Do online faculty prefer certain lengths of professional development experiences?
  • The optimal length of time faculty are willing to spend in professional development for online teaching ranges between a series of short (less than one day) workshops over several weeks (preferred by 20.6 percent) to a single one-day workshop (19.1 percent) and self-paced materials that can be used on an as-needed basis (16.2 percent). When faculty were asked when they would prefer to participate in a professional development experience, they gave a similar range of responses to interest in attendance during the summer semester (preferred by 38.2 percent), the fall semester (33.8 percent), and the spring semester (33.8 percent). The break before the summer semester was also a popular choice (30.9 percent), while the responses for all other breaks between or during semesters ranged between 11.8 percent and 16.2 percent.
  • Research Question 4: What barriers inhibit faculty from participating in professional development experiences related to teaching online?
  • The barrier to participation in faculty development for online teaching cited most often was limited time to participate (61.8 percent). Another barrier was a lack of recognition toward promotion and tenure (26.5 percent). Other barriers to participation included a lack of incentive or reward (20.4 percent), a lack of awareness about professional development opportunities related to teaching online (18.4 percent), and little or no access to these opportunities (12.2 percent).
  • Research Question 5: What incentives do faculty wish to receive in return for participating in professional development experiences related to teaching online?
  • no single incentive captured a majority's interest.
  • Faculty require flexibility to fit professional development into already busy schedules. Of faculty surveyed, 86 percent reported having limited time, which precludes them from participating in some professional development experiences. They are concerned about the time it takes to design, develop, and manage online courses. They are also guarded about the time required to develop their abilities to complete those tasks more effectively.
  • Faculty responses indicate a desire for informal learning opportunities, flexible scheduling, short sessions, and one-on-one support for anytime, anywhere professional development.
    • George Bradford
       
      Again, unsubstantiated statement (ie without warrants): no argument is made that supports how the responses "indicate" these development venues.
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    Faculty Development Programming: If We Build It, Will They Come? © 2008 Ann Taylor and Carol McQuiggan. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 3 (July-September 2008) A faculty development survey analyzed what faculty want and need to be successful teaching online By Ann Taylor and Carol McQuiggan The number of courses offered online grows every year, resulting in an increasing number of higher education faculty entering a virtual classroom for the first time.1 It has been well documented that faculty need training and assistance to make the transition from teaching in a traditional face-to-face classroom to teaching online.2 Faculty professional development related to teaching online varies widely, from suggested readings to mandated training programs. Various combinations of technological and pedagogical skills are needed for faculty to become successful online educators, and lists of recommended competencies abound.
George Bradford

Literacies - Academic and Professional Books - Cambridge University Press - 0 views

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    Literacies Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois Bill Cope, University of Illinois Paperback ISBN:9781107402195 Publication date:May 2012 464pages Dimensions: 247 x 170 mm Weight: 0.84kg In stock £45.00 With the rise of new technologies and media, the way we communicate is rapidly changing. Literacies provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy pedagogy within today's new media environment. It focuses not only on reading and writing, but also on other modes of communication, including oral, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. This focus is designed to supplement, not replace, the enduringly important role of alphabetical literacy. Using real-world examples and illustrations, Literacies features the experiences of both teachers and students. It maps a range of methods that teachers can use to help their students develop their capacities to read, write and communicate. It also explores the wide range of literacies and the diversity of socio-cultural settings in today's workplace, public and community settings. With an emphasis on the 'how-to' practicalities of designing literacy learning experiences and assessing learner outcomes, this book is a contemporary and in-depth resource for literacy students.
George Bradford

Quality Framework - OLC - 0 views

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    "BECAUSE QUALITY AND EXCELLENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING MATTER The drive behind the Online Learning Consortium In 1997, Frank Mayadas, President of the Online Learning Consortium (renamed OLC), affirmed that any learner who engages in online education should have, at a minimum, an education that represents the quality of the provider's overall institutional quality. Any institution, he maintained, demonstrates its quality in five inter-related areas - learning effectiveness, access, scale (capacity enrollment achieved through cost-effectiveness and institutional commitment), faculty satisfaction, and student satisfaction. These five have become OLC's Five Pillars of Quality Online Education, the building blocks which provide the support for successful online learning. The intent of the quality framework, which is always a work in progress, is to help institutions identify goals and measure progress towards them"
George Bradford

Effective Practice Evaluation Criteria | Online Learning Consortium, Inc - 0 views

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    "EFFECTIVE PRACTICE EVALUATION CRITERIA"
George Bradford

Thinking collaboration: Top 10 skills for the future - 0 views

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    "Top 10 skills for the future A while ago, I came across a 'top 10 skills for the future' image, formed by the World Economic Forum following their Future of Jobs report. It really caught my attention and a lot of other people found it useful too. After recently experimenting with creating images for our Twitter page (@refthinking) and this blog, I loved the idea of mixing it up a little and adding some images. Feel free to share it, but please let us know by mentioning us if it's a tweet, as it's great to see it being shared even more! "
George Bradford

Standards - 0 views

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    AECT STANDARDS FOR INITIAL AND ADVANCED PROGRAMS IN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY (ECIT) The following text consists of excepts from the AECT document dealing with standards for instructional technology programs. Some minor editorial revisions have been made to the original text to allow concurrent discussion of the initial and advanced standards. Also, sections of the document that deal primarily with the institutional role, rather than the student role, have been omitted. These standards are concerned primarily with candidate competencies in the area of educational communications and instructional technologies (ECIT). Initial ECIT programs are defined as those which represent initial entry into the field. For example, a Baccalaureate or Master's program which prepares individuals for either initial school certification or entry level positions in business or industry may be considered an initial ECIT program. Advanced ECIT programs are defined as those which represent additional study in the field. A graduate program which advances knowledge and skills beyond the entry level for the profession constitutes an advanced ECIT program. It is expected that advanced candidates are able to demonstrate the competencies outlined in the initial program.
George Bradford

ISTE | NETS Standards - 0 views

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    ISTE developed the NETS with input from the field and pioneered their use among educators. The National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are the standards for learning, teaching, and leading in the digital age and are widely recognized and adopted worldwide. The family of NETS-NETS for Students (NETS*S), NETS for Teachers (NETS*T), NETS for Administrators (NETS*A), NETS for Coaches (NETS*C), and NETS for Computer Science Teachers (NETS*CSE)-work together to transform education.
George Bradford

Rice University announces open-source textbooks | Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

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    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.
George Bradford

University Strategies - 0 views

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    American Association for Higher Education ASSESSMENT FORUM 9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning The assessment of student learning begins with educational values. Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Its effective practice, then, begins with and enacts a vision of the kinds of learning we most value for students and strive to help them achieve. Educational values should drive not only what we choose to assess but also how we do so. Where questions about educational mission and values are skipped over, assessment threatens to be an exercise in measuring what's easy, rather than a process of improving what we really care about.
George Bradford

Academic Support - 0 views

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    Academic support is a vital component of higher education. Not only does it ensure that students are able to succeed in completing their degree, but it provides them with the confidence to develop their skills and give them a sense of belonging within the institution.   Good quality academic support which is relevant and focused on the individual has been proven to aid retention and students feel inspired to achieve and thrive academically.   NUS has produced a charter based on what good practice in academic support could look like, and is drawn from research from the NSS, HEFCE and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and current good practice from around the sector.   We hope you will be able to use these principles to influence the academic support provision in your institution and ensure that your students feel well supported in their studies as well as in their personal development.   You can download the charter here.
George Bradford

AAKASH INDIA'S $35 COMPUTER TABLET: 257 - Intel, 3 others to manufacture Aakash 4 for R... - 0 views

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    "WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014 257 - Intel, 3 others to manufacture Aakash 4 for Rs 3,500: Sibal - Free Press Journal Intel, 3 others to manufacture Aakash 4 for Rs 3,500: Sibal The new specifications mandate 2G/3G/4G connectivity with weight less than 500 gm, 4 GB storage capacity and Wi-Fi connectivity NEW DELHI : The government has finalised the tender for manufacture of Aakash 4 tablet with four companies, including chipmaker Intel Corp, selected for manufacturing the tablet at a cost of 3,500 rupees per tablet, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal said on the sidelines of an event."
George Bradford

Center for Computational Thinking, Carnegie Mellon - 0 views

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    "Computer science is having a revolutionary impact on scientific research and discovery. Simply put, it is nearly impossible to do scholarly research in any scientific or engineering discipline without an ability to think computationally. The impact of computing extends far beyond science, however, affecting all aspects of our lives. To flourish in today's world, everyone needs computational thinking.   The mission of the Center for Computational Thinking is to advance computing research and advocate for the widespread use of computational thinking to improve people's lives. The Center accomplishes this by seeding research activities, seminars, and symposia that lead to vivid demonstrations of the value of computational thinking in diverse areas of human life. "
George Bradford

Accessibility and Video Captions According to Google and YouTube - 0 views

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    "Why Google Captions Video Google's mission is to make all information universally accessible. Ellis and his team have embraced this directive by attempting to remove barriers to video captioning. Whether using captions to assist those with hearing disabilities, or because translated captions help international audiences, video accessibility is a priority to YouTube from the top down. Building Accessibility into YouTube YouTube has more than 1 billion unique visitors each month. So how does YouTube approach captioning on such a mind-numbingly large scale? "The captions team at YouTube doesn't actually go in and type in captions for anything. But we build a platform that allows anybody to upload captions in 20-plus different formats and then display those captions on all YouTube players," says Ellis. "We also build tools for people who are creating captions for their content on their own to easily and quickly create captions for their videos. Our goal is simply to make every video understandable to every user. A very long-term goal, but that's what we're aspiring to.""
George Bradford

Top 9 Competencies of an Informal-Social Learning Designer - 0 views

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    "Informal/Social learning is one of the major revolutions happening around us that demands a shift in the mere thinking of 'learning'. It requires us to unlearn and relearn some of the traditional notions related to the learning style/preference, and the dimensions and the elements of learning design. In this article, we'll take a quick look at the top 9 essential competencies that a learning designer is required to possess for designing effective informal/social learning interventions for today's workplaces."
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