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Ken Graetz

Challenge and Change - 5 views

www.educause.edu/...challenge-and-change

change strategy disruption

shared by Ken Graetz on 20 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Very few institutions are truly distinctive, and far too many have taken on more roles than they can support. Christensen and Eyring conclude that higher education has created confused, multiple-purpose missions and unsustainable institutions and, as a result, is vulnerable to disruption.2
  • In 2009, former Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee proclaimed: "The choice for higher education during this critical juncture is reinvention or extinction."17 In the coming years, I think we'll see Gee's admonition come to pass, as some institutions redesign themselves and others fail.
  • Currently, the dominant course model in the United States is the cottage-industry model. Each course is designed, delivered, and assessed by an individual faculty member. One simple example illustrates the issue. The course Introduction to Psychology ("Intro Psych") is taught in nearly every higher education institution in the United States. If each of these institutions offers four sections of Intro Psych in the fall semester, at the more than 4,000 institutions in the United States, every fall 16,000 separate courses of Intro Psych are being designed, delivered, and assessed—as if this course had never been taught before. Each instructor designs his or her own course from scratch, alone, every semester. By not interacting with other instructors, none of these faculty members learn anything about the most-effective course content or most-effective teaching practices outside their own course. In the data-rich and networked world of the 21st century, this ancient course model stands in stark contrast to the large-scale courses, the collaborative courses, and the programmed courses that have now begun to appear.
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 21 Sep 12
       
      I love this example. It sounds so compelling and there is more than a kernel of truth here, But I think it's a very simple-minded and dangerous argument. There is a reason why diversity and choice exist in a free society. There are hundreds of breakfast cereals for sale at HyVee. Why don't we just have a few good ones?
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • This is not simply a difficult moment for higher education: it is the dawn of a very different era. The institutions that will succeed—indeed, thrive—in this era will be those that constantly innovate.
  • In "flipped courses," content is delivered as homework; class time is reserved for collaborating with others, increasing understanding, and addressing misperceptions. The flipped model transforms classrooms from a focus on the delivery of information to interaction and comprehension.
  • The flipped course raises a powerful question. With content everywhere, available on demand from almost any kind of device, why are colleges and universities still bringing students together in a traditional classroom?
  • rapidly growing field of educational videos
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 21 Sep 12
       
      It's odd that he focuses on educational videos. Videos are great, but there is so much more to putting your lectures online.
  • The time for experimentation, as well as for careful thinking about policy and practice, is now, before these new experiments in large and free classes overwhelm traditional institutions.
  • Changing a few courses will not change the university. We have to ask much more fundamental questions. What is a college or university? Is it a designer of learning environments? A facilitator of learning? An aggregator of learning credits? An assessor of learning outcomes? A certifier of degree completion? When many courses are free, and when the degree is being challenged by other forms of certification, what is the role of higher education institutions? What kind of business models work?
  • and where introductory courses are commodities offered free or close to free.
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 21 Sep 12
       
      Ugh, this makes it sound like introductory courses are "throw away" courses. Bad move I think.
  • Whatever shape institutions adopt in the future, two changes must be at the heart of any substantive transformation. First, we must do a better job of producing learning outcomes. We simply cannot have a system in which more than one-third of students who start college still don't have a degree after six years, or a system in which more than one-third of college graduates have not improved their critical thinking skills. We won't be able to solve the problems of our society or our planet with people who can't think more robustly than that.Second, the nature of faculty work must change. The model of the faculty member as the designer, deliverer, and assessor of an individual course is eroding. In this new era, some faculty may be specialists in online course delivery; others may be course designers. Some faculty may be MOOC stars; others may spend more time in entirely different faculty roles, supporting student engagement and learning in innovative ways. For some faculty, the change in roles will be a profound loss; for others, it will offer energizing opportunities.
  • Can we transform ourselves before we are disrupted? Higher education institutions have a confusion of purposes, distorted reward structures, limited success, high costs, massive inefficiencies, and profound resistance to change.
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 21 Sep 12
       
      Yea team! Now go out there and get em!
  • Surviving—indeed, thriving—in this new era is not an issue of technology, even though technology has been a powerful driver of change. Ultimately, the issue for traditional higher education is one of culture.
  • Examine every practice, every assumption. Be guided by data, not habit. Constantly collaborate. Innovate wherever possible. Develop a welcoming attitude to change. And never be satisfied with the status quo.
  • Yet there is a cautionary tale here: far too often in this transformational work, only one course is transformed while the rest of the courses at an institution remain largely the same. The NCAT concepts could be applied broadly if institutions are willing to make deep and substantive change to a large number of courses across many disciplines.
Ken Graetz

How to Jump Start a Flagging Discussion Class - ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of H... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...55653

discussion engagement

shared by Ken Graetz on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • if a wave of sleepiness is overtaking us due to the stifling heaters in our building
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 19 Feb 14
       
      Why is it too hot in your classroom? We need learning environments that help, not hinder, learning.
  • Sometimes I’ll just go sit in the back row of the room and tell my class they have to lead the discussion.
  • What are your favorite jump-start strategies for a flagging discussion class? let us know in the comments!
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 19 Feb 14
       
      I would guess that these are actually evidence-based and the the evidence is just not presented here. 
    • Ken Graetz
      Ken Graetz on 19 Feb 14
       
      Gamification of discussion?
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