OER Benefits Extend Beyond Price

As open education librarian at the City University of New York, Ann Fiddler and her colleagues have been working for the past year to help faculty members integrate open educational resources (OER) into their courses as part of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $8 million budget investment to provide OER to students at the 21 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the 64 campuses of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.

In an opinion piece for the education website The 74 Million (a reference to the number of children in the U.S. under the age of 18), Fiddler noted that by this coming fall, CUNY students in high-enrollment classes should have saved $8.1 million through use of OER. However, she added that the impact of open content goes beyond dollars and cents, citing four other powerful effects:

1) Faculty members become reinvigorated about their vocation as they retool their courses for OER, sometimes involving their students in the creation of new learning materials.

2) With OER, all students, no matter their financial situation, have their course materials and are prepared to learn on the first day of class. Previously, because of high textbook prices, some students waited until several weeks into the term to buy some materials or skipped purchasing them entirely.

3) Evidence is beginning to mount that OER can improve student outcomes. Fiddler noted that in one CUNY math course, students using OER scored 10 points higher on the final exam and were three times as likely to pass the course as their counterparts using traditional print materials. While still early days, she said she expects further positive data as OER are expanded to more campuses and more classes.

4) OER foster collaboration, not only within systems and within states but across state borders. SUNY and CUNY are collaborating on the launch of Open NYS, a community to showcase and support use of OER for those just getting started. The group is already sharing best practices with officials in Maryland, while learning from early adopters such as California.

Maybe Classrooms Should Be Phone-Free

While the debate over smartphone usage in the classroom rages, new research suggested that even having the device nearby can pose an issue. Experiments conducted jointly by the schools of management at the University of Texas, Austin; the University of California, San Diego; and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, found students who had no access to their phones outperformed those who had the phone on their desk or in their pocket.

“It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones,” said Adrian Ward, co-author of the report and assistant professor at UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. “The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.”

The study asked students to sit at a computer and take tests that required concentration. The first experiment split students into three groups that either left their phones outside the testing room, placed their phones face-down on their desk, or kept the phones in a pocket or bag. Students who didn’t have access to their phones outperformed both of the other groups on the tests.

The second experiment divided students into the same groups, but asked them to self-report their smartphone dependence when their phones weren’t handy. Students who admitted to being dependent on their phones did worse on the test, but only when the phones were on the desk or in their pockets.

“As educational institutions increasingly embrace ‘connected classrooms,’ the presence of students’ mobile devices in educational environments may undermine both learning and test performance—particularly when these devices are present but not in use,” the final report said.

New Guide Tries to Transform Transfers

Four-fifths of the students who first enroll in community colleges intend to move on to a four-year school to obtain a bachelor’s degree, yet just 32% make that transfer within six years and even fewer graduate. A new guide aims to help improve that rate.

The Columbia University Community College Research Center, working with the Aspen Institute and other research organizations, studied institutions with much higher rates of transfer and completion. “These colleges clearly made transfers a priority. They made transferring a default plan for every student, rather than optional,” researcher John Fink said in an Education Dive report.

The center’s guide identifies a number of actions institutions can take to assist transfer students. First, two- and four-year schools must communicate with each other about degree requirements so that curriculum can be designed to enable students to step up to a university without taking extra classes. As it is, too many community college students discover the course credits they earned won’t transfer.

Community colleges must also ensure students understand which courses they need to take in order to move on to a four-year school. It doesn’t always occur to students to find out degree requirements at their destination school before enrolling in community college. That means community colleges need to establish strong advising programs to guide students from the get-go, starting with determining their educational goals in order to clear a path to graduation.

Schools should also rethink their remedial classes. Students required to take these classes, which usually don’t count toward a degree, are more likely to drop out in frustration. Low-income students who may be among the first in their families to attend college may also need additional help in understanding the institution’s processes and how to apply for transfer.

Most Faculty Upbeat about EdTech

The majority of college and university faculty members feel positive about the impact of technology on education, with nearly three quarters saying it’s made their job “easier” or “much easier,” according to the results of Campus Technology’s second-annual Teaching with Technology Survey.

Even though that total remains high, it’s down four percentage points from the inaugural survey last year. The number of educators claiming tech has made their job more difficult remained consistent, but those who say it hasn’t affected them either way grew from 6% in 2016 to 10% this year.

Whatever its effect on their own work, more than 80% of faculty say they see technology having a positive impact on student learning, and about the same percentage view it having a “mostly positive” or “extremely positive” influence on higher education overall.

Individual respondents did point out that any classroom tech is only as good as the instructor using it and that faculty need to be provided the time to properly understand and adapt technology to their courses.

The complete results of the survey, which polled more than 230 faculty from across the country, are available in the July digital edition of Campus Technology.

Campus Adjustment Tough for Some Students

Many college students are in peril of not graduating within four years right from the first week of their freshman year. While money is often the culprit, some students experience difficulties settling into campus life and eventually decide to either drop out or transfer.

In an article in The Washington Post, admissions directors noted today’s freshmen are not as prepared to live independently as previous generations. This may be the first time they’ve had to share a room with anyone. They’re not as proficient at planning out their day and dividing their time among numerous responsibilities and activities.

Some students, especially if they’re among the first in their families to attend college, fear they’re less capable to handle classwork than their peers. That may cause them to forgo fun activities in order to spend all their time on studying, leading to academic burnout.

Social media can provide students with a lifeline back to their families and hometown friends when they need a little emotional boost, but it can also be a retreat to hang out with high school buddies instead of pushing themselves to meet new people and engage in new experiences. Social media can also set up too-high expectations and unrealistic comparisons.

Admissions directors also point to collegiate marketing messages and entertainment media as portraying the college experience as the “best years” of anyone’s life.

“The truth is college years are not the best of your life,” said one director. “They’re just incredibly unique. There’s a big difference.”

A High-Tech Helper for Students with ASD

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can have difficulty with basic social interactions, such as making eye contact, saying hello, or even deciphering what a smile or frown means. But thanks to a Dallas-based company, they can now add another member to their team at school who can help them learn, understand, and practice appropriate social behavior and build confidence in their skills. His name is Milo and he’s two feet tall with spiky brown hair and a superhero-style uniform.

He’s also a robot.

Milo’s face is covered with Frubber, a soft synthetic skin that’s pliant enough to replicate human expressions. Two versions are available: a walking, gesturing Milo and a less-expensive model with the same expressive head but a static body. Created by RoboKind, Milo models facial expressions, speaks—slowly, to help students process what he’s saying more easily—and displays symbols on a chest screen with cues from a tablet-equipped educator who lets Milo know when a child has responded correctly.

Since last fall, RoboKind has been partnering with the Autism Society of America on Robots4Autism, a nationwide school grant program to integrate curriculum delivered by Milo for children ages 5-17. The grants allow interested schools to complete the purchase of their own Milo.

It’s recommended that children spend 30-60 minutes with Milo and an instructor or therapist at least three times per week. One of Milo’s big advantages is that he can teach the same skills over and over with the positive consistency that autistic children need. He never gets tired or frustrated or impatient.

RoboKind has also brought out Robots4STEM, a K-12 curriculum to teach the basics of robotics and coding using Milo’s robot sibling, Jett, and the JettLingo visual programming language.

Future Higher Ed to Mix in Worker Training

Earning a degree in a major field of study may not be sufficient to qualify new graduates for good jobs in the future. Most likely, according to the results of a new survey, students will need to take a blend of educational programs to prepare them for employment as well as lifelong learning.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center and Elon University, asked 1,400 experts in higher education, research, government, and technology fields about the type of education that will be developed to properly train a massive workforce in the next decade.

More than 70% agreed new forms of education would probably emerge to teach the required skills. That wouldn’t spell the end of traditional higher education, but students would supplement their regular courses with more hands-on training and online content aimed at honing specific skill sets.

“Plenty of respondents foresee potential for alternate credentialing systems,” noted a summary of the survey in Campus Technology.

The survey also identified a number of impediments to shifting to such a scenario, including lack of funding, reluctance of leaders to institute change, pushback from current workers who need retraining or updated skills, and ongoing difficulties in teaching competence in soft skills.

More Reading Devices = Less Reading

The more access young students have to electronic reading devices, whether Kindles, iPads, personal computers, or mobile phones, the less likely they are to read. That was the finding of a recent study by Margaret Merga of Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, and Saiyidi Mat Roni of Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, and Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

In their study of almost 1,000 children aged 4-6, even those respondents who were daily book readers tended to underutilize electronic devices for recreational reading. The greater the range of devices to which the youngsters had access, the lower their reading frequency.

This is a concern as more children use reading devices in the classroom, either provided by their school or through "bring your own device" initiatives. In addition, many schools and libraries are enlarging their   e-book collections, frequently at the expense of print books.

“Reading on Internet-enabled devices, such as tablets, also opens up easy opportunity for distraction,” the report stated, “allowing engagement in the practice of media multitasking, which has been found to detrimentally impact on student comprehension and concentration.”

Research on Adaptive Learning in MOOCs

According to a research paper, students taking a HarvardX massive open online course learned more using adaptive assessments than their classmates who didn't have that opportunity. The study focused on the course Super-Earths and Life, which ran in in the current academic year.

The adaptive-learning group was provided interactive content and assistance crafted to suit their individual learning level through TutorGen’s Student Centered Adaptive Learning Engine (SCALE). Assessments were added for both the experimental and control groups to gauge the effect of the adaptive experience on students’ mastery of the material.

The knowledge gain of the students in the experimental group was 19% higher than their peers in the control group. They also moved through the class material more quickly and demonstrated greater persistence in assessments. Despite this, the study found “no statistically significant differences” between the two groups’ course-completion or certification rates.

edX Survey Charts MOOC Growth

At the end of last year, Isaac Chuang, senior associate dean of digital learning, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and professor of physics at MIT, and Andrew Ho, professor of education and chair of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning Research Committee at Harvard University, released one of the largest surveys of massive open online courses (MOOCs) to date. Their report, HarvardX and MITx: Four Years of Open Online Courses—Fall 2012-Summer 2016, draws on 290 courses, 245,000 certificates (both free and paid), 4.5 million participants, and 2.3 billion events logged online on edX, the MOOC platform established by Harvard and MIT.

The survey revealed that the typical participant in an edX MOOC is a 20something male from outside the U.S., who already has a bachelor’s degree and is taking the course for certification. The number of participants has grown steadily since edX launched in 2012, with more than 1,500 people registering for a course every day.

While the median number of participants in an edX course is about 7,900, only 500 end up becoming certified. The report noted that not all courses offer free certificates and not all participants sign up in pursuit of certification.

The complete report is available on publisher Elsevier's Social Science Research Network site.

K-12 Issues May Impact Higher Ed, Too

As the new year approaches, predictions for the state of education in 2017 and beyond are starting to pop up. District Administration magazine asked a number of experts to name those issues in K-12 education that could have the most impact on student outcomes. Their answers might apply to higher education as well.

Using new technologies appropriately topped the list, in particular, a need for education leaders to receive more professional development in understanding how to evaluate and deploy tech tools. School administrators should also act “more like coaches” in utilizing technology.

Another high-impact issue is taking advantage of social media to help teachers connect with each other, share best practices, and provide feedback. Most instructors work in relative isolation and need more interaction with their peers when it comes to teaching. In higher ed, for example, many adjunct instructors don’t even have a permanent office where they might get to know other faculty.

The third issue seen as having the most potential effect on student success is ensuring racial diversity in classrooms. Some are concerned other issues, especially financial matters, have diminished diversity efforts.