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Sasha Thackaberry

Competency-based online program at Kentucky's community colleges @insidehighered - 0 views

www.insidehighered.com/...m-kentuckys-community-colleges

online program kentucky community colleges competency-based elearning

shared by Sasha Thackaberry on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Sometimes potentially “disruptive” approaches to higher education arrive on campuses with little fanfare. And they can become solid additions to traditional colleges rather than an existential threat. Take Kentucky’s two-year college system, which three years ago began an online offering aimed at working adults. The project, dubbed “Learn on Demand,” hits most of the buzzwords du jour, featuring modular courses that lead to stackable credentials, with both self-paced and competency-based elements. All that’s missing is a MOOC.
  • Roughly 1,000 students are enrolled in Learn on Demand at any one time, according to officials at the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. Many heard about it by word of mouth, and a growing number of the system’s 33,000 online students have been attracted to the convenience of the classes, which can be broken into modules that take as little as three weeks to complete.
  • On-campus students have also begun “plugging their schedules” with the courses, says Jay Box, the system’s chancellor.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “There was still an audience that we were missing, and that was working adults,” Box says. The problem was one of scheduling, because many “could not commit to a traditional semester.”
  • Under Learn on Demand, students can enroll whenever they want. There are no class schedules or assignment deadlines in the self-paced courses. And students can leave without facing problems when they re-enroll. As Box says, with modular courses, students have “exit points along the way.”
  • The program offers full, 15-week courses as well as ones that are broken into three or more “bite sized” pieces. Faculty course developers “determine the most logical competencies or learning outcomes to group together in a module,” Box says. Some of those modules come with a credit hour. Some don’t, and offer fractional credit. But all of them build toward a certificate or associate degree, including ones in business administration, information technology and nursing.
  • Each module is worth a half-credit, and the course is pay-as-you go, like other modular classes. Tuition is a flat $140 per credit. So in the management course, that’s $67.50 per module. With additional fees, such as charges for e-texts, the course’s modules range from $88 to $105, which is fairly standard across the program. So students can expect to drop no more than a c-note per credit.
  • The project also attempts to make remedial education more efficient.
  • The project, however, includes a college readiness course which enables a student to test out of individual modules -- breaking down their remedial requirements into small pieces. “A typical developmental education student who might test into the highest level of developmental math and would normally have to take a 16-week long course to get the credit for the course,” Box said via e-mail, “might only have to be enrolled through Learn on Demand in one three-week module.”
  • Faculty members at Kentucky’s two-year colleges studied the Western Governors model when they were building their new online program, officials said. They also took a long look at the University of Phoenix, mostly to try to duplicate how the for-profit runs its online programs all day, every day, with instructors and student services always on-call. Rio Salado College, an online two-year institution that is part of Arizona's Maricopa Community College System, also served as an example.
  • For example, the University of Wisconsin System and Northern Arizona University this year announced new degree programs with heavy competency elements. And Western Governors, a nonprofit, online institution that offers bachelor's and graduate degrees, keeps expanding.
anonymous

Technological Advances Demand Adaptation from Public Higher Education | The EvoLLLution - 0 views

www.evolllution.com/...tation-public-higher-education

higher education Change

shared by anonymous on 16 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • While MOOCS are hardly a step forward pedagogically, they have brought distance learning out of the shadows and into daily discourse about the future of higher education.
  • The lines between for-profit and not-for-profit are blurring as partnerships evolve between community colleges offering two-year diplomas and for-profit colleges awarding the bachelor’s degree. For-profit corporations now provide the platform and technical know-how for expanding the reach of not-for-profit master’s programs at many major universities.
  • Educational technologies will need to be employed for building new models of learning
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Creative ways of reaching new student audiences — those of all ages, background and locales — will expand the institutional footprint in exciting new ways. No future academic enterprise will be blessed with guaranteed support and students. All will be vulnerable. But the net result, through collective leadership, can take us into a new era of higher learning.
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