In academia, we often apply the term “lifelong learner” to mature or non-traditional students, but all students should reframe their higher education experience to include explorative, self-directed and self-initiated learning…
Educator
Unpacking Mixed Messages: Bridging the Institutional Messaging Gap
Ned Khatrichettri | Internship Coordinator in the College of Humanities, University of UtahAdvancements in technology have unequivocally influenced the nature of work and continue to contribute to the conversation surrounding the value of a bachelor’s degree and its necessity for employment. Higher…
Boeing has crashed and been burning in the media spotlight for months concerning engineering and business failures that have cost lives, but their influence on higher education should worry us…
Serious Games for Serious Learning
Dave Eng | Educational Technologist & Clinical Professor in the School of Professional Studies, New York UniversityGames and simulations are two things that often get discussed in the same circles. Sometimes they even get misinterpreted for one another. Games and simulations do share some of the…
In the 2018 book Land-Grant Universities for the Future: Higher Education for the Public Good, Ohio State professor Stephen Gavazzi and West Virginia president E. Gordon Gee sought to clarify…
The Expensive and Absolutely Necessary Pursuit of Rural Students
Andrew Koricich | Associate Professor of Higher Education, Appalachian State UniversityThe postsecondary needs of rural residents have gained increased attention in recent years. As part of this expanding conversation, it has become clear how difficult it is to reach out…
Program review is a systemic, ongoing process intended to impact educational quality within a program and also across an institution. This continual, reflective process, however, does not always transfer…
Postsecondary Marketing in the 21st Century: Tips and Common Mistakes
Russell Winer | William Joyce Professor of Marketing at the Stern School of Business, New York UniversityThe modern era demands more from marketers—more focus on customer demand, more focus on effective messaging, more creativity in channel use. Higher education marketers aren’t immune from this shift. Given…
Rick Singer’s brazen business channeling bribes from wealthy parents to coaches and test proctors has unleashed a wave of self reflection across the academic landscape. The backdoor has long existed—donations…
Low-Tech Teaching in a High-Tech World
Zoë Cohen | Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine Tucson, University of ArizonaOnline teaching isn’t new. In the 1960s, people took correspondence courses, where teachers would mail assignments to students to complete and return. In the computer age, these courses were moved…
Academic achievement is tied, inextricably, to mental health. But in a world of deadlines and course readings, mental health can be severely overlooked.In this interview, Kristen Lee talks about the…
Reality Education: Virtually the Future of Online and Distance Education
Andrew Afton Lawrence | Online Instructor, University of the PeopleWe are on the verge of crossing into the next wave of technological advancement where fantasy meets reality. My favorite memories from childhood are moments when I was engulfed in…
“Ski the slope, not the mountain,” a wise professor once told me—meaning don’t worry about everything you will encounter down the mountain, only focus on what is right in front…
Getting Social in 2019 and Beyond: Lessons for Postsecondary Marketers
Bhupesh Shah | Social Media Program Coordinator, Seneca CollegeSocial media is no longer a nice-to-have—it is an integral part of an overall marketing strategy for any organization. Yet the rate of change for social media presents a challenge…
As an instructional designer, I often make suggestions to faculty on how to make their online courses more engaging for students through project-based learning. I also advocate for building an…
The 60 Year Curriculum: Developing New Educational Models to Serve the Agile Labor Market
Chris Dede | Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard UniversityWith the sponsorship of Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education (DCE), I’m participating in an initiative centered on The Sixty Year Curriculum (60YC). The Dean of DCE, Hunt Lambert, is leading…
Many people often question whether online teaching in a competency-based education (CBE) program can have the same impact on students’ lives as face-to-face teaching or traditional online programs. My answer…
Small Changes, Large Rewards: How Individualized Emails Increase Classroom Performance
Zoë Cohen | Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine Tucson, University of Arizona“No professor has ever cared about me.” This was a sentence in an email I received from a struggling student in my Physiology of the Immune System course, an upper-division…
There is much existing advice on what higher education leaders should do to change the status quo: Find a faculty champion, compromise, wait, etc. Here I provide some other specific…
Tailor Teachers Use Personality Style and Multiple Intelligences to Help Students Thrive
Vaughn Bicehouse | Assistant Professor, Slippery Rock University of PennsylvaniaThose who teach can and do. Students need the doers, they need effective educators who are not only experts in instruction, but also cultivators of student assessment and student learning.…
In 2010, Mark Kretovics published Business Practices in Higher Education: A Guide for Today’s Administrators, a breakthrough guide offering higher education and student affairs professionals an understanding of the fundamental…
Thirty Years After Allan Bloom’s Classic The Closing of the American Mind: The Liberal Arts and What It Means to be College Educated in 2018
Robert Hill | Professor Emeritus, Nova Southeastern University and Higher Education Consultant, Leadership & Planning SpecialistsIt has been thirty years since Allan Bloom wrote the controversial 1987 runaway bestseller The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls…
The higher education space is evolving into a mature market, where institutions are competing fiercely for student enrollments and finding new approaches to programming that meets the demands of their…
The Growing Discussion in Higher Education of Transfer and Curricular Control
Alexandra Logue | Research Professor in the Center for Advanced Study in Education, CUNYThe following is excerpted from Pathways to Reform: Credits and Conflict at the City University of New York by Alexandra W. Logue (2017) and is reprinted by permission of Princeton…
No matter what institution you’re talking about, faculty play a massive role in the delivery of a world-class student experience. However, with so many priorities competing for their time—and so…
Collaborating to Meet an Emerging Need: The MA Teaching in STEM Success Story
Carolyn Callaghan | Acting Dean of Professional, Continuing and Distance Education, Shippensburg University Christine Anne RoyceAs many professional and continuing education units know, program development and success depends upon the unique blend of faculty champions, regional partnerships, process know-how and lots of communication, creativity and…
Employee engagement currently is an important topic in the for-profit business world for two primary reasons. One is that organizations that have been effective in developing employees who are engaged—“emotionally…
Affirming Online Faculty
Alexis Morton | Program Manager of Faculty Training and Development in the College of Online and Continuing Education, Southern New Hampshire University“I want to be part of your mission.” These are quite possibly the eight best words I’ve heard in a long time. Arguably, they are the most coveted words in…
I teach entirely online at a university, The University of Texas at Arlington, which is in the process of expanding online learning opportunities for students, including non-traditional, diverse learners. One…
Driving Evidence-Based Reform: Applying the Problem of Remedial Math Across the Institution
Alexandra Logue | Research Professor in the Center for Advanced Study in Education, CUNYTraditional mathematics remediation is the largest single academic block to college graduation. A majority of new freshmen in the United States are assessed as needing remediation, most often in math,…