Curt Bonk Talks about Open Education
Open education really breaks into two forms: open courses and open resources. Open courses are the MOOCs hosted on Coursera, EdX, and elsewhere. Open courses allow higher education to advance its fundamental mandate of serving the public good by making its faculty expertise freely available to the world. By contrast,...
Friendship as a Teaching Strategy for Graduate Students
As graduate students, we find that developing friendships with professors results in increased learning and performance. In such an environment, one is not afraid to reveal weaknesses or academic shortcomings, and it erases (or minimizes) any insecurity that could result from unequal content authority. We feel secure in asking questions,...
Differentiating Instruction in an Online Classroom
Diversity is becoming common in our college classrooms. Not just diversity of race and ethnicity, but diversity of developmental levels and cognitive abilities. With our students’ diverse skills and experiences, faculty members find themselves teaching varied groups of students within one course. This raises the problem of finding a way...
Using Social Media for Learning
The power of social media comes from its ubiquity and its ease of use, making the various social media platforms ideal ways to engage students in learning outside the classroom or learning management system (LMS). This can make learning a much more immediate, 24/7 kind of experience.
Using Formal Program Review for Continuous Improvement
Drexel University uses a Program Alignment and Review (PAR) process to help ensure relevance, quality, and measurable achievement of its academic programs. It’s a formal review process that includes a self-study, external review, and action plan.
The (Surprising) Benefits of e-Textbooks: A Study
In recent years, the soaring cost of college textbooks has added a new and significant financial burden to the rising costs of tuition for students. In the face of this reality, many students simply forgo textbook purchases. One study found that fewer than half of students purchase textbooks for their...
The Research Process and Its Relevance to the Culture of Assessment
As higher education evolves, so too does the importance of assessing learning. New regulations, financial constraints, and accrediting agencies are stressing that colleges and universities should strengthen assessment organizationally. However, when assessment is discussed in large faculty forums, the concept often, strangely, becomes very foreign to them. Here is where...
Building a Pathway to Cultural Competence Through Academic Service Learning
As colleges and universities seek to prepare students for professional careers in a diverse, global society, the attainment of cultural competence is an essential capacity that can no longer be overlooked. Cultural competence involves the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to engage and collaborate meaningfully across differences through interactions that...
Core Curriculum Improves Academic Rigor, Identity, and Retention
Concordia University Irvine recently adopted a core curriculum as a way to increase academic rigor, strengthen the university’s identity, and improve student retention. In May, the university graduated its first students to experience the core. In an interview with Academic Leader, Scott Ashmon, director of the core curriculum, explained the...
Concerning Competency-Based Education
Competency-based education (CBE) is currently touted as an important innovation in higher education that has the potential to disrupt the traditional model and to radically transform the way students receive a postsecondary education. CBE is characterized by an individualized approach to education in which students learn at their own pace...
