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For institutions that, in response to this notice, submit letters of interest for the Competency-Based Education experiment, the Secretary's process for selecting participating institutions will remain the same as was described in the July 31, 2014, notice.

Under the Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers, the institution may include in its determination of a student's enrollment status competencies that begin prior to the start of the subscription period, as long as it does not include those competencies in enrollment status for two different payment periods. Institutions will disburse title IV aid based on the student's anticipated enrollment for a subscription period (which is equivalent to a payment period) rather than requiring completion of a specific number of competencies prior to making subsequent disbursements of title IV aid. While an institution will determine a student's title IV aid amounts based on the student's anticipated enrollment status, the institution will be required to perform a satisfactory academic progress evaluation for the student at the end of each subscription period (payment period) to ensure that the student has completed the appropriate number of competencies in that payment period, given the student's enrollment status.

For each payment period, students will be assigned by the institution an enrollment status (full-time, half-time, three-quarter time, less than half-time) based on the student's expected enrollment in and completion of competencies for the payment period. After consulting with the student, the institution will determine the student's enrollment status based on a realistic assessment by the institution of the number of competencies that the student will complete during the payment period

an institution will not be permitted to count a unique competency or course toward a student's enrollment status for more than one payment period

to use this set of waivers, an institution must have a mechanism for determining that a student has been participating in a competency during a payment period.

Subscription Period Disbursement set of waivers will modify the statutory and regulatory requirements for monitoring satisfactory academic progress so that an institution will be required to evaluate a student's pace by using competencies completed over calendar time, rather than by dividing a student's completed credit hours by attempted credit hours

he institution must evaluate a student's satisfactory academic progress after every subscription period (payment period), rather than at least once annually, even if the program is more than one academic year in length

he institution must evaluate a student's pace using two separate measures:

The student's progress for the payment period immediately prior to the evaluation, calculated using the number of credit hours or equivalents completed over the number of credit hours or equivalents included in the student's enrollment status for that payment period

he student's cumulative rate of progress, calculated by dividing the aggregate number of credit hours or equivalents completed as of the end of the payment period by the total number of credit hours or equivalents expected to be completed as of the end of that payment period in order for the student to complete the program within the maximum timeframe

r its evaluation of a student's cumulative rate of progress, the institution could use different standards for students on different enrollment tracks—for example, there could be a different maximum timeframe for a student on a half-time enrollment track, for whom the normal time for completion of the program is longer than for a student on a full-time enrollment track.

If a student fails either of the two satisfactory academic progress evaluations, the student will have failed to make satisfactory academic progress and will, based on the institution's satisfactory academic progress policies, either be assigned to a financial aid warning period or immediately lose eligibility for title IV funds. Institutions will have the same flexibility to establish options for appeals, probation periods, and academic plans as they do under the current regulations.

makes little sense to convert your narrated PowerPoint into a 360 video if you’re still not sure whether students walk away having learned from the content.

This is where instructional designers come in

ven if an instructional designer can get an expert to explain a concept clearly, this sometimes has little effect on student understanding

students bring their own prior knowledge and misconceptions to educational media

ideo presents concepts in a clear, well-illustrated way, students believe they are learning, but they do not engage with the media on a deep enough level to realize that what has been presented differs from their own prior knowledge,

ou need a little friction in your educational media to actually modify the viewer’s understanding of the world and get the new understanding to stick

talk through the steps that people will need to take to apply their learning or complete an assignment

Relate” videos get the student to feel connected to the instructor. They seek to establish instructor presence. They also prompt students to reflect on their own prior experiences with the topic and reasons for taking the course.

arrate” videos share stories, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate a concept or put the learning in context. They tap into the power of narrative to make learning sticky.

Demonstrate” videos illustrate how to do something in a step-by-step way.

“Debate” videos are perhaps the most important if you want students to actually change the way they think. These videos explicitly surface and address the misconceptions that students have about a domain and showcase competing points of view.

that social belonging interventions can be the key to helping students persis

coaching your experts to unfold their narratives in ways that will be riveting to an audience

A study by Columbia University School of Continuing Education found that videos in an online course that get the highest number of views have a direct connection to the course assignments

videos turn out best if I help the expert do four things: relate, narrate, demonstrate, and debate

focus on the places where people tend to make mistakes

gaps between novice understanding and expert knowledge

As the instructional designer, you should also be looking for controversies that might have surfaced about the expert’s work

minefields of misconceptions and asking the instructor to unpack them can yield rich pedagogical footage

o film a “debate” video, you can also invite someone else into the shoot—such as a colleague or a student—and have them discuss a topic with the instructor or receive feedback on a piece of work

alternative viewpoints or ways of doing things, you trigger higher cognitive load for viewers, but also prompt deeper engagement

tudents who watched a video dialogue involving alternative conceptions reported investing greater mental effort and achieved higher posttest scores than students who received a standard lecture-style presentation

based on data from DeVry University, a large, nonselective for-profit online college

DeVry online classes attempt to replicate traditional in-person classes, except that student-student and student-professor interactions are virtual and asynchronous

The study found that the negative associations with online courses are concentrated in lower-performing students

Mr. Mazur wondered whether lecturing was an ethical teaching choice.

a lecture is only as passive as the listener

Students learn when they think about what they’re hearing and organize it into salient points. "This places the responsibility for learning on the student,

modern zeitgeist places the responsibility on the instructor.

Lecturing, he says, serves another important purpose. It reaffirms the importance of expertise and allows students to see how an expert role-models the process of working through a problem.

Learning is not a spectator sport,"

Lectures are inexpensive for institutions, allowing hundreds of students to be assigned to one faculty member.

Mr. Mazur often likes to cite education research suggesting that students overestimate how much they learn from a smoothly delivered lecture.

The lecture creates the perfect illusion

Students read material before class on an online platform

Students post comments on the reading and respond to one another’s annotations

comments drive the next class.

o answer each problem, students do four things: articulate the problem in their own words, devise a plan to answer it, execute it, and evaluate how well it worked.

omplete the problem sets alone before class and work in teams during it to correct errors

not graded on how correct their answers are but on their effort and their accuracy in judging how well they understood the problem.

udents do complete five hourlong "Readiness Assurance Activities" during the semester. In the first half-hour they solve the problems alone; they can consult the internet but not one another. In the second, they go over the problems again, this time with their teams. Their scores reflect individual mastery and collective contribution.

Project-based learning is the center of the new course. Students work in teams. Many projects have low-stakes competitions attached to them, like constructing the most secure safe by using magnets as locks. Other projects have an explicit social benefit, like building musical instruments for an orchestra for poor children in Venezuela.

Mr. Mazur has moved himself far offstage; he missed about 40 percent of the meetings this past semester. Class just rolls on without him.

Peers, Mr. Mazur says, are a far greater source of motivation than a professor.

His syllabus dedicates two paragraphs to the virtues of failure

They should see failures, he writes, as "learning opportunities, not negatives, as steppingstones to success."

Repeated failure, as he has learned, is necessary for success.

release a notice inviting applications this week for a $1.5 million grant to study online education which will contribute to the growing body of evidence about what works in online education, especially for low-income and first-generation students.

verwhelmingly positive, with the ­retention rate in the unit now 90 per cent

student satisfaction averaged 4.44/5, which was well above the average at the university of 3.9/5.

features such as audio note and video note had made a difference to the quality and the amount of feedback

e have easily doubled the amount of feedback that students are getting, which is obviously really good for them

ESULT: Improved retention rates in the unit to 90 per cent, with greater student satisfaction, increased the feedback amount and quality

privacy regulations are an obstacle

he material needs to be organized by degree of difficulty and learning objectives. It has to be grouped into modules and tagged to identify the information that is intended for experts, the material students are expected to learn, and the material that is primarily meant to provoke thought.

Students need to be able to rate content and view others’ ratings and reviews.

he system might determine early on that a given student will find it difficult to pass a test. It could then offer materials to enhance that student’s understanding.

How well the team works together is also assessed.

But if I have upwards of 5,000 students, a certain dynamism is created. Suddenly I have 100 or 200 people in the “first row of the lecture hall” who are very active and serve to motivate the rest of the group. It’s fascinating to see how that works in the online environment.

Step 2, institutions further collaborate through shared contracts on resources, like learning-management systems

The first step is for state institutions to collaborate to establish a searchable clearinghouse of online courses and degree

report identifies five cumulative steps that build toward State U Online and gives an example of a state or system at each step

Step 3, systems also provide shared student-support services, such as advising, that can be used by students at all institutions in the system,

Step 4, an entire state, or a system of public higher-education institutions within the state, achieves all the previous levels of collaboration and in addition makes it easy for students to transfer credit among institutions.

enroll in a program at their "home" institution, but can easily take classes at any institution within the consortium.

Step 5 carries that concept beyond state borders. Students can take courses at any institution in such a multistate consortium and not worry about whether their credits will transfer, because institutional agreements within the consortium make that automatic.

offers practical suggestions about concerns like building sustainable revenue streams that are less dependent on allocations from legislatures, and on providing incentives and support for faculty members to offer online courses.

will allow Southern Methodist to see how well online courses work for its students without committing resources to building its own

students will be allowed to take a maximum of four courses through 2U

prevent cannibalizing enrollment from its own courses

will allow each student to take only one Semester Online course this fall

courses have already passed through a faculty review.

during their time at Southern Methodist

U has increasingly pitched itself as the anti-MOOC online provider.

teach the courses live, via Webcam, to virtual classrooms of no more than 20 students.

4,200 per student per course.

purposefully exclusive.

teaching institutions supply high-quality courses, while the affiliates supply high-quality students.

key to succeeding is to incentivize faculty and senior staff.

sharing of tuition revenue generated from online courses and/or financial support for scholarly activities

same individuals must be engaged in defining and ensuring the highest level of quality of the online student experience

houghtful use of both internal and external resources, including independent marketing research

student-faculty engagement

measurable retention strategy

baseline for retention must be established

retention “dashboard” created to enable the provost to monitor all online programs

course development standards, teaching expectations, proper advisement and support services

careful use of third-party vendors and consultants to properly assess your institution’s market niche is typically a good expense.

more personalized, technologically advanced and affordable online degree program.

with headsets covering their entire field of view, the students were unable to take notes in the real world.

ou activate more of your brain because…it’s not a single channel [sense]

llow users to toggle between modes, hiding and then revealing the reconstructed parts

could, however, help universities to optimise their use of space, reserving real labs for when they are truly needed.