This article was written by Brian Lamb, the CEO of Swivl, an eLearning provider, specialising in classroom management.

Creativity is involved at every stage of education, from young children in art class to higher ed students working on a research project. What used to be considered just a human process, creativity has now become a focus of new technology solutions like artificial intelligence. As the use of AI in education continues to evolve, so will the boundaries and possibilities of creativity.

When the World Wide Web was first released in 1993, many humans were unsure of this innovative technology. Since then, humans have adapted and become more knowledgeable of the internet’s uses. Now, it plays a vital role in our everyday lives, from academics to careers and personal use.

A similar movement is happening with AI, and we’re just scratching the surface. Undoubtedly, the recent development of AI has already and will continue to impact human’s creative future.

From being trained on dramatically more information at a faster rate than humans to making more and better connections, AI is causing us — especially educators — to change our definition of creativity. While much is still unknown about AI implementation in education, many educators and parents question its long-term implications on students’ creative abilities.

What’s the solution for the future? Higher-order creativity.

What is Higher-Order Creativity?

Starting off, higher-order thinking is the process where humans think about thinking while also regulating thinking, otherwise known as metacognition. In the case of creativity, those employing higher-order thinking can think about how they can simultaneously create, recognize, and overcome their impulses during the most challenging parts of creativity.

These challenging parts of the process are almost guaranteed and can include fear of criticism and a lack of motivation.

Creating new, innovative ideas is just the first step in creativity. Humans with higher-order creativity can take it further by honestly evaluating their ideas and making necessary adjustments, and in the process, building their resilience to the obstacles and developing a willingness to iterate and keep going in the creative process.

For most students, the potential of failure is one of the most significant factors that causes them to give up during any learning or creative process. A new study from the Annals of the New York Academy of Science showed that high school students’ mindsets impacted how likely they were to view an academic setback as a permanent failure. After interviewing 300 high school students from across the country, researchers found students’ most common responses to setbacks were so-called “high arousal emotions” such as anger, shame, and frustration. While these reactions may lead to venting from students, they can also negatively impact their energy and motivation.

Because the fear of failure can be so extreme, students now rely on technology, specifically AI, to make things easier in the classroom. However, becoming too reliant on technology to think for themselves can hurt the development of skills they need to build intrinsic motivation while in school and even succeed in life after school. Instead, they should focus on building a strong sense of self-awareness.

The Need for Higher Order Skills and Meta-Creativity

Making these changes can be difficult for educators and students alike, but meta-creativity can be achieved using reflective tools. These tools allow students to enhance their creativity and other critical skills to high order while they use AI for appropriate uses.

Routines that can help students fully engage with the creativity process can be something as simple as mindful breathing. When educators create an environment where students are encouraged to stop what they’re doing when they hit a setback and calm down and refocus with breathing exercises, this will not only have a positive impact on the assignment they’re currently working on — it will also start creating positive habits for projects further down the road. This practice is especially important because AI isn’t going anywhere, so the earlier students know how to adapt and use AI alongside reflective learning techniques intentionally, the better for their personal and academic success.

People, especially students, inherently don’t know how to reflect well. With higher-order thinking, students must learn to reflect on their thinking, process, and even how they connect with others in group settings. As AI continues to be used in the classroom, students must be ready to push past their initial thoughts and take the next steps to set goals and achieve them.

Many education thought leaders might think schools aim to lessen creativity in their students. However, I think the constraints schools provide during students’ early years, including strict schedules and emphasis on traditional grading success, will significantly benefit them when they enter the “real world” as adults. Suppose students are shown how to use technology and higher-order creativity as a routine part of their educational schedules. In that case, they will be more mindful, adaptable adults, thriving in an independent, innovative culture that will only be enhanced by more technology.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing every industry, and its impact on education has just scratched the surface. AI’s impact on creativity can become harmful if humans don’t learn to adjust their higher-order thinking and skills. By becoming more aware, flexible, and reflective with their routines and the tools they use, humans can have exponential limits of success when using AI in the classroom.

Academic success is traditionally tied to setting goals attached to a completed project or associated with perfectionism. Manage the impulse of giving up when confronted with failure or criticism, the image of academic success and the function of creativity as a higher-order skill will both change. Eventually, this academic success will lead to long-term growth and success when their school journey is over.

If you liked this article, check out How eLearning Transforms Education for Autistic Children. 

Featured image credit: dorian2013, iStock. 

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Most college students who successfully go through accounting courses relish graduation and are very happy when they get to this stage. However, they all know that the next step is one of the most difficult ones for their careers. This involves the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exams.

Students graduating from accounting schools are encouraged to consider sitting for the CPA exams immediately instead of waiting for a later date. This is because it might be difficult to find time later on.

That notwithstanding, no matter the time you choose to prepare for your CPA exams, you will face the same challenges as anyone else. This is because the process involves things like studying, scheduling, assessments, and coming with a timeframe that best suits your life.

You need to create a learning schedule for your CPA exams and follow tips that help in passing professional exams if at all you are to make it in this career. You can follow these steps to create one that works for you;

Time To Pass CPA Exams

The main aim of taking the CPA exams is to get the CPA certification. However, you need to come up with a timeframe for your CPA exam. This will depend on the time that you have and anything else that you could be doing.

Every student wants to excel in all sections of the CPA exam when they sit for them. They do everything that they can to avoid failing. However, this depends on things such as schedules of their work, stages of their lives, and their familiarity with the course material.

You, therefore, need to evaluate these things to determine whether you need a flexible or intense learning schedule for your CPA exams. After that, you can look at the top CPA review courses and choose the one that meets your requirements.

Using a Study Planner

To make the most of your study sessions, you need to employ the use of a study planner. This planner plays an important role in streamlining your study sessions and aligning them to your lifestyle.

The right study planner needs you to provide it with things such as exam dates, study time in a day, and days you do not study for it to come up with an elaborate learning schedule. It also reminds you if you miss any sessions or have any examinations coming up.

Evaluating Your Personal Schedule

We all have personal schedules that consume most of our time. When creating a learning schedule for your CPA exam, you need to evaluate how you spend every single hour in a day.

For instance, you can come up with a chart showing the number of hours spent at work, in class, eating, sleeping, exercising, and sleeping every week. This will give you a clear picture of the number of hours you can use to prepare for your CPA exams.

After that, you can now adjust the number of hours allocated to each of these activities to accommodate your CPA exams preparation. Always make sure that you set a schedule that you can follow without any problems.

Get Time for Study Sessions

Now that you know the amount of time you need to pass your CPA exams, have employed the use of a study planner, and evaluated your personal schedule, you can come up with time for your study sessions.

Ensure that you have time dedicated to preparing for your CPA exams every day. In addition, try to make sure that any free time that you get is also dedicated to the preparation for the exams.

For instance, if you spend a considerable amount of time commuting, you can decide to listen to audio versions of your CPA course. Those that have an hour’s break for lunch at work can still have their lunch while at the same time reading sections of their CPA course.

This way, you will have come up with an effective method to make the most out of your CPA study sessions.

Conclusion

Creating a learning schedule for your CPA exam is the first step to making sure that you will pass your exams. It is also important in ensuring that you have set timeframes and allocated enough time for the preparation of the exams. If you follow this guide, you can be guaranteed a place among the best CPA exam performers.

Featured Image: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels. 

The post How to Create a Learning Schedule For a CPA Exam appeared first on eLearningInside News.

As Covid variants make the current school year for both K-12 and higher education a continued balance of hybrid and in-person learning, education institutions are staying firmly in the crosshairs of cyber attackers. Just recently, Stonington Public Schools in Connecticut was forced to bring in a wave of the third-party breach investigation, mitigation, and response experts — and even seek assistance from the FBI — after it fell victim to a ransomware attack. And before that, an attack on Howard University that compromised its network and rendered WiFi unusable forced the school to cancel all its online and hybrid undergraduate classes.

Indeed, when vulnerable schools fall into the hands of crafty cyberattackers, the fallout is often dismal from both a monetary and reputational standpoint, but also because of the severe inconvenience caused too. A concerning reality for teachers, administrators, and IT teams across the country as they seek to protect the post-Covid classroom, where distance learning will undoubtedly remain in some capacity for the foreseeable future.

And while the Biden Administration’s recently signed K-12 Cybersecurity Act is a positive step forward for schools preparing for the future, the state of cybersecurity in education is one with a lot of room for improvement. Because the reality is that every educational institution is under more pressure than ever before to protect its endpoints against attackers who are becoming harder and harder to detect. The number of U.S. educators who say hackers targeted their school or institution is multiplying year-over-year is evidence of this, with the number of K-12 schools attacked jumping from just 9% in 2020 to 21% in 2021.

Unfortunately, there are warning signs that this is only going to get worse post-pandemic. Here are three lessons to help school districts and universities reverse this, and strengthen their classroom cybersecurity.

School Boards Need to Speak Up on the Cyber Threats Endangering Classrooms

The cybersecurity crisis has dominated headlines almost as long as Covid has. Yet, it seems like school boards have been relatively lax when pulling together a strategy to thwart attack attempts — or even talk to their teachers about the severity of the crisis. According to Morphisec’s 2021 Education Cybersecurity Threat Index, which surveyed 500 U.S. educators to gauge how increasing cyberattacks have impacted them, just 17% of superintendents or chancellors and 15% of school boards have expressed concern about the threat of ransomware to their institution.

This silence is placing students’ and teachers’ data at even greater risk, as school boards’ delay in educating their staff about the escalating consequences of cyberattacks means some educators are probably not aware of how damaging they have become. This silence also leaves their school or institution more susceptible to attack. Cybercriminals will likely have more vulnerabilities to exploit within a district or organization that doesn’t treat cybersecurity with the sense of urgency it deserves.

In the post-Covid classroom, where hybrid learning will be a long-term reality, superintendents, chancellors, and school boards must become more vocal on the cybersecurity issues threatening continuous learning and the safety of their most sensitive data. Failure to do so will undoubtedly have negative consequences, something the laxest districts and institutions shouldn’t wait to find out after they become a victim of a cyber attack.

IT Teams Must Call into Question Their Vendors’ Security Hygiene

This year’s supply chain attacks like the devastating SolarWinds and Kaseya breaches will go down in history as among the largest cyber attacks. They’re also becoming increasingly popular, due to how they allow attackers to target hundreds or even thousands of organizations by infiltrating just one. Data from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) shows that supply chain attacks increased 42% in the first quarter of 2021 and impacted about 7 million people in the U.S. This is why it’s unsurprising that 40% of U.S. educators believe third-party vendors pose the biggest cybersecurity risk to their school or institution, more dangerous, they say than students (31%), faculty (24%), and parents (5%).

These concerns are certainly substantiated, with a March attack on Austin ISD proving that schools remain vulnerable to their third-party vendors’ security flaws. Austin ISD was breached when one of its technology providers, PCS Revenue Control Systems, was hacked. Even the SolarWinds attack, which prompted a probe from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, affected several colleges and universities, including Kent State University, The University of Texas at San Antonio, and Iowa State University. Meanwhile, Kaseya’s breach disrupted learning and forced 11 schools in New Zealand offline.

With the frequency of these types of attacks likely to increase — alongside the damage, they have the potential to inflict — IT teams and education decision-makers need to put more pressure on their third-party vendors to boost their cybersecurity protocols.

Decision-Makers Need to Allocate More Cybersecurity Resources to IT

Schools and education institutions across the country have been trying for too long to fend off attackers with few resources. A reality that has disproportionately impacted public schools and state colleges, whose funding sources are far less prominent than larger, private institutions. As mentioned prior, this is something the current Administration is addressing through the K-12 Cybersecurity Act and also within its $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill, which has set aside money for state and local governments and school districts to protect themselves from worsening threats. Yet the question remains as to whether or not these districts and institutions will leverage this funding. As it turns out, some don’t have the best track record.

According to Morphisec, just 18% of U.S. educators say they’re aware of their educational institution or school inquiring about government grant programs and initiatives designed to assist them with implementing strong cybersecurity standards and protocols. This is despite 44% stating that they believe providing their IT department with more resources would be most valuable to their school to handle cybersecurity. The current cybersecurity landscape is far too dangerous for it not to be a top budget priority. And in truth, investing in an effective security strategy is a lot less costly than falling victim to ransomware, with the average victim spending more than $2 million on remediation costs alone.

However, tackling this crisis is most definitely a collaborative effort between school boards, administrators, educators, and students. They must all educate themselves on the specific threats targeting their counterparts across the country. There must be pressure from parents too, who have demanded little of their children’s educators until now. (Only 18% of K-12 and higher-ed educators say that more parents have inquired about their institutions’ cybersecurity policies over the past year-and-a-half of remote-first learning versus the prior 18 months). As these learning institutions prepare for the post-Covid classroom, reducing their attack surface within in-person and remote learning environments must be prioritized.

Featured Image: Sigmund, Unsplash

The post The State of Education Cybersecurity: 3 Lessons for Protecting the Post-Covid Classroom appeared first on eLearningInside News.

There’s no question that the price of college tuition in the U.S. is sky high. But while it has doubled among private institutions and tripled with public ones, savings for college among American students has decreased. That’s according to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Allianz Global Assistance.

For the annual Allianz Tuition Insurance College Confidence Index, the company surveyed a group of 2,000 American students–prospective and current–along with the parents of each.  Ipsos found that the college savings gap—or the difference between what families have saved vs. what they will pay for college—has only increased. A full 44% of parents and 45% of prospective students reported they have saved nothing to finance their degree.

The average savings stood at $12,937, which marks a 12% decline since the previous year. 

The so-called Snowflake Generation, meanwhile, did provide a silver lining to this storm cloud of student debt. Their average savings rose 17% from the previous year to $7,800.

Still, both averages are well below the average annual cost of college, which CNN found to be $23,757 in 2017.

American Students and Families Remain Unprepared to Fund a Degree

The bad news from the Allianz study does not, unfortunately, end there. A large chunk of respondents also report experiencing difficulty in filling out their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). 37% of parents and 41% of students had trouble with it.

Nevertheless, 71% of parents felt they were adequately prepared to pay for their kid’s college education.

“This year’s College Confidence Index draws a clearer picture of how many people overlook opportunities to manage one of the most important investments of their lives,” said Daniel Durazo, Marketing and Communications Director at Allianz Global Assistance, in a statement. “The data indicates financial aid officers at higher education institutions are an important ally for families, especially for those without access to financial advisors. A college financial aid officer can serve a critical role, helping families navigate costs, financing, and, in many situations, options for protecting their investment such as tuition insurance.”

There’s a Disconnect Somewhere

The survey indicates that some magical thinking continues to occur when it comes to funding undergraduate degrees. Average savings only put a small dent in the total sum that will be required of learners before they can earn their degree. And that assumes a four-year completion. A 2014 survey found that just 19% of learners at the public institutions surveyed graduated in 4 years.

With this gap between money set aside, expectations of ability to pay for college, and what the actual bottom line will prove to be, American students and families are set to borrow more.

Compounding this predicament, enrollment at many smaller liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and vocational schools has fallen drastically, especially in the Midwest. Meanwhile, applications at top-tier institutions remain strong.

As Forbes’ Richard Vedder writes, “A large part of the reason relates to the fact that college degrees are becoming less effective as screening devices, information helping employers separate the likely most productive, bright and disciplined prospective workers from others. When nearly everyone has some sort of post-secondary credential and posts high grades (because of grade inflation), a degree from Harvard or the University of Michigan still is highly respected, so their graduates mostly get decent jobs. That is distinctly less true of those graduating from less selective schools.”

Featured Image: Nicole Honeywill, Unsplash.

The post American Students Display Unrealistic Expectations for Funding College appeared first on eLearningInside News.

Once considered too low-brow for Ivy League universities, over the past decade, online degrees have been increasingly embraced by the nation’s top-ranked schools. In recent years, MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania have all launched rigorous online graduate degrees. What these schools have not done is explore the potential of offering online undergraduate degrees. There are now signs that the tide may be turning. On Wednesday, the University of Pennsylvania announced plans to start offering an online bachelor of applied arts and sciences in Fall 2019.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Online Bachelor’s Degree

The University of Pennsylvania has announced that the School of Arts and Sciences’ College of Liberal and Professional Studies will launch a bachelor’s degree on the Penn LPS Online platform in Fall 2019. The new Bachelor’s of Applied Arts and Sciences degree will include general-education courses and several different concentrations. Developed by an advisory board of UPenn faculty members, the degree aims to help students meet specific career goals.To ensure the degree is preparing students for today’s rapidly evolving economy, the university has established an additional advisory board made up of executives to guide decision-making about the new program.

University Leaders Are Optimistic

In a news release posted on the University of Pennsylvania website, Nora Lewis, Penn Arts and Sciences’ Vice Dean of Professional and Liberal Education, expressed enthusiasm for the new program and its potential impact. “The goal of this new platform is to make an Arts and Sciences education more accessible, flexible, and affordable for working adults,” says Lewis. “Penn LPS Online redefines the notion of who can get an Ivy League education by making it accessible to anyone who demonstrates the ambition and potential to earn it, without sacrificing the quality of the education offered.”

Steven J. Fluharty, Dean of Penn Arts and Sciences, is also optimistic about the university’s new online program. “This new degree is unique among our peers and places Penn at the forefront in creatively meeting the expanding need for adult education in the liberal arts,” says Fluharty, adding, “I’m proud that Penn’s innovative faculty are opening doors for more students to learn and to become empowered by education. In the United States today, only 30 percent of adults over the age of 25 have completed a bachelor’s degree, and with this new initiative LPS is moving forward to meet this educational need.”

Faculty Have Extensive Online Experience

While the University of Pennsylvania’s online bachelor’s degree may be new, the university is not new to delivering online courses at all levels. Classical studies professor, Peter Struck, has been teaching online at the university for the past 15 years. He observes, “We’re not just trying to replicate what happens in a live classroom but to innovate a different kind of education around the unique possibilities of an online environment.”

The University of Pennsylvania is also home to a notable pioneer of online education. Al Filreis, Kelly Family Professor of English, has been teaching online since the mid-1990s. Among his many contributions to online education, Filreis is responsible for creating ModPo, a popular literature course that is offered on the Coursera platform. Filreis notes that teaching online is not only good for students but also for faculty: “Teaching all-online courses has completely refreshed my pedagogy. My students are intergenerational, diverse in all ways, typically geographically far-flung, and often living in communities underserved by educational resources. They challenge me with intensely intellectual but often non-academic questions, bringing into being the best sort of ideas-based community.”

The Shift from Blended to Online Only

While the University of Pennsylvania’s online bachelor’s degree will be unique insofar that it will take place nearly entirely online (there are just two limited on-campus experiences), there is at least one other Ivy League online program targeting undergraduate students. Harvard University’s Extension School also offers a partially online Bachelors of Liberal Arts, but at Harvard, students still must come on to campus (usually in the summer) to complete 16 credits. The University of Pennsylvania’s new online program has intentionally reduced the on-campus requirement to ensure that all students, including working adults who wish to return to school to pursue a prestigious degree, can do so without sidelining their work or family commitments.

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In the past, sports scholarships were just for jocks and occasionally, for those brave souls who agreed to work as mascots throughout their college years. This meant that most couch potatoes also remained on the sidelines of the sports scholarship world. Now, the tide has finally turned. As “esports,” another way of talking about competitive video gaming, continues to gain ground on college campuses, esports scholarships for competitive gamers have finally arrived. One of the most ambitious esports programs yet is about to be launched on the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) campus.

SNHU Announces eSports Scholarship and Special Housing for Campus Gamers

Over the past decade, SNHU has not only successfully reversed its declining student numbers but also built up one of the nation’s most respected online programs. The institution is now consistently lauded as a university known for high-quality programs, innovation, and outstanding leadership. This week, SNHU once again proved that it is an institution committed to thinking outside the box.

Beginning in fall 2019, SNHU will offer esports scholarships to both new and current students to help gamers more easily pursue a college education. But that is not the only thing SNHU will be doing to attract and retain gamers. As stated on the SNHU website, they also intend to offer “gamer-specific housing.” Gamers will have the option of living with other gamers in one of the university’s existing residences. As they emphasize on their website, now gamers will “be able to eat, sleep, and breathe esports” at SNHU.

The institution’s varsity esports program will be the first program of its kind in New Hampshire and one of the few programs of its kind in New England. Once the program is up and running, about 20 members will represent SNHU at esport events across the country.

While varsity esports might sound a bit unusual and even antithetical to other educational pursuits, many top administrators at SNHU and researchers believe that in a digital age, esports are a vital part of young people’s lives and should be a vital part of campus life both in and beyond the classroom.

Tim Fowler, SNHU’s director of esports, recently told WMUR News 9, “SNHU has seen tremendous growth and interest from students in the gaming club over the past few years, so we felt strongly about taking this next step to officially launch a competitive esports team and continue the tradition that the students have begun at SNHU.”

The Educational Benefits of eSports

While the educational benefits of gaming continue to be debated, there is a growing body of evidence to support the conclusion that gaming can be used effectively in the classroom. To begin, read eLearning Inside News‘s recent interview with Carla Zeltzer, the founder of FazGame.  But gaming has also been shown to support the development of certain cognitive capacities.

The authors of a forthcoming study in Behavioural Brain Research, for example, report that recent evidence suggests, “an extensive gaming experience might positively impact cognitive and perceptual functioning.” The researchers do acknowledge, however, that these positive changes appear to be game-specific and further note that it remains unclear whether the benefits of extensive gaming persist once one stops gaming. Another recent study published in the Annals of Neurology, however, offers seemingly conflicting findings. While still concluding that gaming may hold certain benefits, specifically in children, in this case, the team of researchers concluded that moderation may be key. The team of researchers found, “Playing video games for 1 hour per week was associated with faster and more consistent psychomotor responses to visual stimulation,” but “no further change in motor speed was identified in children playing >2 hours per week.”

All this suggest that at the very least SNHU most recent educational experiment should provide a great opportunity for research, even if its primary aim is to provide a cohort of young gamers with an unique opportunity to learn, play, and live together on campus.

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In 2017, Purdue University acquired Kaplan in an attempt to expand its online programs. The acquisition shocked many people since Purdue University is an established public university while Kaplan is a private institution. In March 2018, Purdue University issued a press release indicating that the merged entity, Purdue Global, had received final approval from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) and was ready to launch, but even a year after the acquisition, not everyone at Purdue University was celebrating.

At the time of the launch, the Purdue’s Faculty Senate continued to raise questions about the acquisition. Now Purdue Global is back in the news again. According to an article published in the Journal & Courier on September 10, regulators are back on the Purdue University campus reviewing the earlier deal and given recent events, the timing of the regulators’ return visit couldn’t be worse.

A Second Look at Purdue Global

According to the Journal & Courier, the return of regulators to the Purdue University campus was not a surprise. When Purdue Global originally got the green light from the Higher Learning Commission, the go-ahead came with several conditions.

To begin, the agency asked for additional “evidence that Purdue Global University has mechanisms in place that monitor the representations made to continuing and prospective students related to program requirements, transfer and/or articulation within the Purdue University system and admission to graduate programs at Purdue University Global.” The commission’s trustees also wanted evidence that the university’s board was, in fact, autonomous and operating independently. Finally, the Higher Learning Commission said that within six months time, they would be returning to collect evidence that faculty, administrators, and staff were given an opportunity to weigh in on the new entity and its integration into the established Purdue University system.

As part of this week’s review, three evaluators from three other institutions–namely, University of Arizona, Northern Illinois and Walden University – reportedly visited Purdue University to meet with select faculty members from Purdue University and its online arm. While the review is standard practice, it is not insignificant. The Higher Learning Commission oversees accreditation and as a result, it also ultimately impacts which programs are eligible for federal student loans.

While it seems unlikely that the review will put the brakes on Purdue Global, in the wake of recent events, it also seems unlikely that the review will go entirely smoothly.

Other Recent Disputes

In addition to Purdue Global’s current six-month review, over the past month, the new online university has also been making headlines for other reasons. In late August, just before the new school year started, the American Association of University Professors published a statement condemning a demand that faculty members at Purdue Global sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before being permitted to teach.

The NDA states that any work product, including all curricular materials “or other intellectual property that arises in any part in the course of … employment at Purdue Global, is commissioned and owned by Purdue Global as a work-for-hire and may not be used, duplicated or distributed outside of Purdue Global.” This runs counter to practices at nearly all colleges and universities in the United States and certainly runs against the ethos at public universities.

In response, the American Association of University Professors issued a press release in which Greg Scholtz, director of the American Association of University Professors’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance, described Purdue Global’s NDA as “breathtakingly inappropriate in higher education.” In the press release, Scholtz further emphasized, “Asserting ownership over the faculty’s teaching-related materials undermines standard academic practice, violating faculty rights to their own intellectual property as well as their academic freedom. This type of agreement would be unprecedented for a public, non-profit university.” David Nalbone, a professor of psychology at Purdue University who also serves as Vice-president of the Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors agrees: “In just one semester Purdue Global has abandoned transparency, shared governance, and academic freedom, which are foundational tenets of American higher education.”

So, what’s next for Purdue’s new online entity? Given recent events, it seems likely that the future of Purdue Global will look a lot like its past, which has been marked by ongoing faculty disputes and controversies.

The post Evaluators Take a Second Look at Purdue Global as Controversy Lingers appeared first on eLearningInside News.

While online learning excels in certain areas, it chronically suffers in others. Among the latter, student engagement, personal connection, and student-teacher interaction have been areas of focus for educators and researchers practically since the birth of the digital learning environment. Engagement in all learning environments, furthermore, is a topic of ongoing concern. A recent study conducted by Yueting Xu, a researcher at the School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guanghzhou, China, purports to have found a piece of the puzzle. An instructor of a university level English language course decided that, instead of providing written feedback, she would use a popular social media platform WeChat to record her comments on student assignments verbally.

And like many innovations, the instructor struck upon the method by mistake. Xu refers to her in the study as Rosa.

The Eureka Moment

When asked how Rosa first used it, she replied, “I used it accidentally when one student sent me his group’s PowerPoint slides late at night. I was too tired to type my comments. I thought of a WeChat group. I reviewed his slides on my computer, and I talked into my phone and sent him four messages on the WeChat group. I directed the messages to him with the “@.” It just took me three minutes.”

Further questioning from Xu revealed other qualities of the medium.

Researcher: Did you learn about using audio feedback before?

Rosa: No.

Researcher: So you mean you just intuitively used audio feedback?

Rosa: Yes. Exactly. I am not sure whether I did it right, but it was quite convenient.

Through a range of methods, including numerous rounds of interviews with Rosa and her students, in-class observation, and in-depth analysis of the 35 hours of teacher-student dialogue (in transcribed form), Xu sought to investigate whether audio feedback worked and whether or not it had positive qualities.

Merits of Audio Feedback Via Social Media

The answer to the first question have already been discussed. WeChat is widely used throughout China, and Rosa received a response from her learners very quickly. (One might assume that use of WeChat was even more intuitive for the learners than for Rosa.)

Other researchers have also found audio feedback to be more positively received by students. It’s also more time-efficient.

But in the learning process, efficiency should always be secondary to engagement and efficacy. Luckily in the case of Rosa, these three qualities were not mutually exclusive.

Learners responded positively to the audio feedback.

“The audio feedback on WeChat is useful,” reported one learner. “We finally used WeChat for learning – not for chatting or killing time. I listened to every message, and sometimes I listened to some of them more than once. It’s not just listening to the teacher’s voice. I particularly like to hear how the teacher responded to some classmates’ questions. The interactions helped me think.”

As Xu concludes, audio feedback via social media creates much more of a dialogue between student and teacher. And this dialogue leads to a couple outcomes. It creates a greater bond between teacher and learner and it allows, as Xu writes, for “cognitive reinforcement with high levels of student engagement and feedback enactment.”

These findings have implications, arguably, for instruction in any field and at any level. But it should also serve as a lesson for any and every instructor who has taught online.

Whether it’s a MOOC or a small online cohort, the digital format by definition creates barriers between student and teacher. Numerous online instructors have highlighted the more human sensory aspects of learning to overcome these. Whether it’s highlighting voices from diverse backgrounds or live video streaming, many educators have begun to reach learners more and more personally. Audio feedback via social media can enhance the human aspect of online learning to an even greater degree.

Featured Image: Jose Aljovin, Unsplash.

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University faculties and and departments tend to gain the reputation of the ivory tower, where members have wandered too far into their research and, in doing so, lost touch with reality. But a new survey from the OER platform and curator Top Hat suggests that narrative is more myth than fact.

It marks Top Hat’s third annual Professor Pulse Survey. This year, nearly 2,000 instructors of higher education responded to questions regarding the sustainability of higher education, the value of a university, and challenges they face.

This year, attitudes reflected a reality with which learners and employers have been well acquainted—investing in a university degree doesn’t necessarily bring a reliable return on investment.

Results from the Top Hat Professor Pulse Survey

According the survey, nearly half of professors believe that a university education is not necessary for professional success. That figure is up from 33% just last year.

The cost of tuition, furthermore, is generally held to be too high. This point is less controversial. 87% of professors recognize the reality, again up from 80% in 2017.

Going further, many professors see troubling factors at their institutions. According to the survey,

• Forty-one (41) percent of professors believe that maintaining or increasing academic standards is a challenge at their institution. In 2017, only one in four professors believed that to be the case.

And in addition,

• Three out of four (74 percent) professors think the current U.S. federal administration is having a negative impact on the future of higher education.
• Insufficient funding is top of mind as the greatest institutional challenge for three out of five (60 percent) professors.
• Thirty-five (35) percent of professors also cited decreased enrollment as a top institutional challenge.

“As an educator, I’m constantly striving to provide students with the most effective and engaging learning experience,” said Dr. William Condee, professor of theater, Ohio University. “We need to find affordable and innovative ways to improve student outcomes. Improving quality and keeping higher education affordable is vital to our democracy.”

Under-Worked and Overpaid

Certain eLearning Inside headlines have occasionally thrown professors under the bus. But, like many other areas of education, lecture halls are filled with caring, hardworking individuals. And these professors also tend to be overworked and underpaid.

• Three out of 10 professors work more than 50 hours per week, and one-third of them work more than 60 hours.
• Two out of five (39 percent) professors earn between $41,000 and $80,000 annually.
• Meanwhile, when professors are asked what a fair salary would be for their work, the most popular answer is $81,000 to $100,000.

“The greatest payoff of higher education is a smart citizenry,” said Professor Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Center for Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. “It’s creating an informed electorate, people with critical-thinking skills, people with empathy, people who can understand and relate to people who are not like themselves, people who can argue civilly and change their minds as often as they change the minds of others.”

As more individuals begin to recognize the issues in higher education, the question of what to do about it soon follows. Leveraging OER to break up the high costs of textbooks—as Top Hat and other companies do—might be a piece of the puzzle. 

“Changes to the educational infrastructure are continually dominating headlines with proposed federal budget cuts, rising financial costs of higher education, and decreasing student enrollment, among other unsustainable changes,” said Mike Silagadze, co-founder and CEO, Top Hat. “At the same time, college and university professors are increasingly challenged to foster active learning and support student success inside and outside the classroom – and they wouldn’t have it any other way. They love what they do, and as an industry, we need to empower them with everything they need to make their job easier and achieve real results for their students.”

Read the full report here.

Cover Image: Tra Nguyen, Unsplash.

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Since Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential run in 2016, liberal and progressive Americans have added another initiative to their platform: free college. Promise programs, which generally cover college tuition and fees for certain populations, are now in effect in 19 states. Opposition to adopting these measures frequently meets the same roadblocks as other social welfare programs. Fiscal conservatives say they’re too expensive and unsustainable. But a new report from The Century Foundation’s Senior Fellow Jen Mishory paints a more nuanced picture of promise programs’ popularity and political viability.

Debate around promise programs tends to treat them as ex nihilo political experiments. But several free college programs have been around for several years, and they can serve as an example to others. In her study, Mishory looked at six promise programs during “what would have been the greatest test of fiscal sustainability in recent decades: the Great Recession.”

6 Promise Programs That Work

Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Oklahoma all had promise programs in place before the fall of 2007. In the fallout, states did all they could to shave the fat off their budgets.

Education especially took a hit. Resources allocated per full-time equivalent student (FTE) in higher education fell in 48 states throughout the recession. Some of the states in the study saw exceptional reductions. Delaware decreased their higher education funding by 29.8%, Missouri cut back by 29.4%, and Louisiana—the state with arguably the most liberal program of the six—cut back by 38.1%.

One might reasonably expect those cuts to result in reduced funding for promise programs, but that is not the case.

Between FY 2007 and FY 2013, “The funding per full-time equivalent (“FTE”) student for all six existing Promise programs grew between 12 and 142 percent, while overall appropriations per FTE student for higher education fell in each state between 18 and 38 percent,” Mishory writes.

That doesn’t necessarily speak to issues of balancing the budget, but it does indicate that these programs have strong staying power, even in periods of financial turmoil.

According to Mishory, who conducted interviews with lawmakers from the six states who had a hand in this programs, four strategies contributed to their longevity.

These are: presenting the program as a contract between the state and its citizens; using budgetary mechanics to protect these programs; opening up aid to financially and geographically diverse communities; and using a defined benefit structure to help individuals and schools pave the way for learners to benefit.

Each Program Employs Unique Features

Still, while these programs all survived the Great Recession, they vary in other areas. One of the most important restrictions is the household income cap for who can get tuition covered. Mississippi had the lowest at $39,500. Meanwhile, Delaware, Missouri, and Louisiana had no cap at all.

Eligibility restrictions in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri, require recipients to pass a threshold with their GPA, and standardized tests, must be old enough, and must be studying full time. In Oklahoma, recipients must merely have a given GPA and be old enough.

“In other words,” Mishory writes, “none of these programs are truly universal, and so the design features that each state includes impacts who benefits the most. The disparate program designs can help provide lessons learned on how the varying definitions of “universality” might impact sustainability, and whether a free college plan structured to reach more low- and middle-income families retains support.”

Mishory’s report effectively dispels the myth that promise programs are not viable or sustainable funding solutions for states. But the report also describes how finding the correct fit can be a difficult process. In the end, the promise programs described vary widely in scope. If free college is a priority, lawmakers need to divine what measures will benefit their constituents the most.

Read the full report here. 

Cover Image: Jules Marchioni, Unsplash.

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