Microcredentials aren’t new, but their potential is growing–and, in some cases, they may grow to be a preferred form of postsecondary education and training. Microcredentialing is among one of EDUCAUSE’s six key technologies and practices identified in its 2022 Horizon Report as having a significant impact on the future of postsecondary teaching and learning. The demand for upskilling and reskilling, driven in part by the growth of data- and analytics-based jobs, is also supporting the potential of microcredentials‘ impact.
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Monday, June 20, 2022
The macro impact of microcredentials - Susan Manning, eCampus News
The workforce is facing a shift in the recognition of skills and experiences as many individuals have left their jobs and are trying to switch roles completely, alongside millions of open job roles waiting to be filled by qualified candidates. The ability to demonstrate transferable skills provides immense value to individuals and their career path. This shift in the workforce emphasizes the need for intertwining learning, employment, and advancement opportunities more than ever before.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2022/06/06/the-macro-impact-of-microcredentials/
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Virtual TA Boosts Student Success at Georgia State University - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
In a recent study at Georgia State University, students who received timely messages about their coursework from a virtual teaching assistant demonstrated significant improvement in their academic success. Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial using artificial intelligence chatbot technology from Mainstay (formerly AdmitHub) in an Introduction to Government course to provide students with reminders about course requirements and deadlines; customized feedback on their progress; weekly digests with upcoming due dates and estimated time to complete tasks; practice quizzes; coaching and encouragement; and information on campus support systems, tools and resources.
Saturday, June 18, 2022
21st Century Skills: Preparing Students for Future Workforce Needs - Susan Fourtané, Fierce Education
College education should contribute to the development of the right skill set. Such a skill set has been identified by executives and hiring managers across a wide range of industries as necessary for on-demand careers today and in the future. Skills such as creativity and critical thinking are increasingly sought after by employers. But, is the current higher education offer in sync with these and other 21st century skills which are what the future workforce needs?
Friday, June 17, 2022
Everything Old is New Again: Rethinking the Socratic Method for the 21st Century - Jeremy Van Hof, Faculty Focus
Using technology for technology’s sake is rarely a path to deeper learning. It’s pedagogical practices that drive student engagement and student learning outcomes; edtech is successful when it complements best teaching practices. In fact, the most effective edtech tools are the ones that put a 21st-century spin on principles that have been the bedrock of education for centuries—or even longer. The Socratic method, for instance, is a 3,000-year-old teaching strategy that involves carefully questioning students until they discover answers on their own. A professor might ask, “How did you arrive at that answer?” Or “What could we assume instead?” Ideally, the questions prompt students to explore their own thought processes while they’re coming up with the answers.
Thursday, June 16, 2022
A Radical Change for Admissions - Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
Students don’t even fill out applications in this “flipped” system. And this system doesn’t really want the students bound for Harvard or its ilk. Imagine a new way for colleges to admit students: students don’t apply. They just create a single, basic portfolio, showing their grades, their interests and relevant information. They can include their test scores if they want to. Colleges would then look at the portfolios and make offers of admission, without even knowing the names of the students. And what about those students who want to go to Harvard University (or equally competitive colleges)? They would go on using the current system. This is not an admissions system for them.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Survey: The Majority of Faculty Keen to Use Technology - Liann Herder, Diverse Education
To find out how faculty felt about and used technology, CIN interviewed 402 faculty members at a range of higher education institutions and found that only 11% expressed a resistance to technology, the rest identifying as either EdTech leaders or enthusiastic followers. The majority of faculty (81%) said they felt confident adapting EdTech for their courses, and 88% of faculty said they anticipate teaching or leading more courses online in the future.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Dropping the Degree as a Hiring Requirement - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
The state of Maryland joins numerous employers in no longer requiring a bachelor’s degree for many jobs. What are the implications for colleges and universities? Bridgette Gray, chief customer officer at the nonprofit group Opportunity@Work, which is helping Maryland identify nondegreed workers to fill jobs in technology, administration and customer service, describes the market conditions that prompted the state’s decision and why equity was a primary factor behind its move. Maryland found itself now in the same space where degree inflation is happening. Think in terms of roles of end-user support roles in tech. It’s an entry-level role. It doesn’t need a bachelor’s degree, but you may need a credential.”
Monday, June 13, 2022
How to Really Fix Higher Ed - Ben Sasse, the Atlantic
Rather than wiping the slate clean on student debt, Washington should take a hard look at reforming a broken system. Most young Americans never earn a college degree, and far too many of those who do are poorly served by sclerotic institutions that offer regularly overpriced degrees producing too little life transformation, too little knowledge transmission, and too little pragmatic, real-world value. Well-meaning and incredibly gifted members of faculties, administrations, and boards of trustees genuinely want to help students move up the ladder, but the current incentives don’t encourage the kind of programmatic innovation and pluralism that can help poor and middle-class Americans build a sufficiently durable foundation.
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Is total in-person learning a thing of the past? - Laura Ascione, eCampus News
Fewer than 1 percent of higher ed leaders envision a return to only in-person learning, and they see socioeconomic barriers as one of the greatest obstacles for at-risk students, according to a new survey. Global learning technology company D2L‘s March 2022 Future of Education Reimagined webinar survey polled 346 higher education leaders across North America–including professors, deans, student success advisors, IT executives–to discuss challenges and opportunities with respect to the future of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2022/06/01/is-total-in-person-learning-a-thing-of-the-past/
Saturday, June 11, 2022
3 tips to align your microcredential programs to the remote workforce - Cecil Banhan, eCampus News
In this variable market, employees and employers are finding value in upskilling rather than the traditional route of a four-year degree or a master’s program — and many are turning to microcredential programs that can provide in-demand skills in a short period of time. Non-academic courses, trainings or certifications are the most popular options for adults considering additional education, according to the Strada Education Network — 36 percent of adults plan to enroll in such programs within the next five years. The demand for microcredentials presents a golden opportunity for higher education, but institutions need to catch up with changing skill sets or risk losing out on this growing market segment.
Friday, June 10, 2022
Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia? - Virginia Gewin, Nature
A wave of departures, many of them by mid-career scientists, calls attention to widespread discontent in universities. The level of unhappiness among academics was reflected in Nature’s 2021 annual careers survey. Mid-career researchers were consistently more dissatisfied than were either early- or late-career academics (see ‘Mid-career malcontent’). In the United Kingdom, pension cuts have worsened ongoing university-faculty strikes. Now, researchers in secure, long-term posts are quitting. “For mid-career individuals, it says something much more significant if they have got a mortgage, car and kids — and still are leaving,” Jackson adds.
Thursday, June 9, 2022
One university has a new college specifically to re-enroll adults who had dropped out - Olivia Sanchez, Hechinger Report
Morgan State’s applied liberal studies major targets adult students who have taken some college courses but dropped out before finishing. Begun five years ago, it has spurred the development of the College of Interdisciplinary and Continuing Studies, which launched this spring. It will offer many of the same things that helped adult students succeed after time away, but will now operate as an independent sector of the college, open to students from all over the country at in-state tuition prices. Many programs across the country are targeting the 39 million people who have taken some college classes but never finished.
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
A federal watchdog said OPMs need more oversight. Here’s how that will affect colleges and companies. - Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
“Perhaps some people were hoping there would be a blockbuster GAO report, finding fault with the OPM industry, but the GAO answers the specific questions that Congress asks it to answer,” said Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy and knowledge management at New America, a left-leaning think tank, and one of the most prominent critics of the college-OPM complex. “It’s a neutral, analytic and investigatory body that acts within the mandate that it’s given, and I think that’s what it did in this case.” Still, the report will likely kick off heightened monitoring of the sector and suggests regulatory changes are coming that could affect how OPMs work with colleges. And it remains to be seen how much any such changes would affect companies’ ability to use tuition-share agreements, the bedrock of some of their business models.
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Online education and the mental health of faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan - Yosuke Kita, Shoko Yasuda & Claudia Gherghel, Nature
While the negative impact of the pandemic on students’ mental health has been studied around the world, very little is known about the mental health of faculty and staff. This research aims to examine mental health among Japanese faculty members who taught online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. A binomial logistic regression analysis revealed two significant risk factors for mental illness—faculty members were more at risk for mental illness when they experienced difficulty in using IT for online classes, and were unsatisfied with the administrative support for online education. The deterioration of mental health during the COVID-19 was not predicted by workload, such as the number of online lectures and preparation time. These results suggest the importance of improving workplace support services, especially IT support, to prevent mental health deterioration among faculty teaching online.
Monday, June 6, 2022
Editorial: The problem with college debt is that we never fix the causes - LA Times
There’s no doubt that student debt has mired many Americans — about 43 million — in debt. Not all of those are unable to meet their obligations and not all of the debt involves federally guaranteed loans. But economists have shown that the added financial strain keeps many borrowers from buying homes and cars and starting families — a trickle-down effect on the economy and social structure of the nation. Total debt has climbed precipitously, nearly doubling in the decade from 2011 to 2021. No matter what course Biden takes at this point, though, what’s missing is a plan to permanently reduce student debt through basic college reform. After all, today’s college graduates might get relief, but what about next year’s grads, and those in the years and decades to come?
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Marketing in the metaverse: An opportunity for innovation and experimentation - Eric Hazen, et al; McKinsey Quarterly
We believe that the metaverse is best characterized as an evolution of today’s internet—it is something we are immersed in instead of something we look at. It may realize the promise of vast digital worlds to parallel our physical one. For marketers, the metaverse represents an opportunity to engage consumers in entirely new ways while pushing internal capabilities and brand innovation in new directions.
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Student Debt’s Impact on Perceived Value of College - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Consistent with previous iterations of the survey, a majority of Americans who went to college (52 percent) said that the lifetime benefits of a higher education outweighed the financial costs. Nineteen percent said the benefits did not exceed the costs, and the rest were ambivalent. The differences in perceived value were sharp based on various traits. Fewer than a third (31 percent) of those with some college but no degree said the benefits exceeded the costs, as did 46 percent of those with an associate degree and 67 percent of Americans with a bachelor’s degree or more.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/05/25/young-americans-and-those-debt-see-less-value-college
Friday, June 3, 2022
Gen Z Students Want More Practical Higher Ed Options - Annie Galvin Teich, Fierce Education
A new survey from the College Savings Foundation found that Gen Z high school students are saving and working toward paying part or all of their higher education expenses. They want more pragmatic options tied to real work experience and want to finish their requirements faster. 82% plan to work—full-(23%) or part-time (59%) while attending higher ed. When asked to define their ideal higher education path, the following were the top three answers:
Classes based on practical work experience
Classes with competency-based testing
Getting credit for work experience in conjunction with a higher ed institution.
Thursday, June 2, 2022
OPINION: With college enrollment tumbling, new strategies are urgently needed - Josh Wyner, Hechinger Report
U.S. college enrollments have declined by 3 million students over the past decade. While the decrease has been concentrated in community colleges, it’s coming soon to many four-year institutions. Demographers predict an “enrollment cliff” beginning in 2025, when the traditional college-age population will start shrinking for the foreseeable future. Unless they bring in more students, colleges will struggle financially, and some could shut their doors. Some are already doing so.
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Defense tech companies have latched on to the metaverse hype—but what they’re building will be a far cry from Meta’s virtual world. - Will Knight, Wired
The key technologies needed for the metaverse—augmented and virtual reality, headmounted displays, 3D simulations and virtual environments built by artificial intelligence—are already found in the defense world. The result is a lot less polished, cutesy, and spacious than Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual world vision, but that’s partly the point. And there’s a good chance that the underlying tech could take off, even if it stutters in the civilian realm.
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