Education Matters: College efficiency, skills vs. broad thinking, and adaptive learning

A focus on efficiency, for learning’s sake

The Evolllution began a series on operational efficiency at colleges and universities with an interview with Cathy Sandeen, vice president for educational attainment and efficiency at the American Council on Education. Sandeen lays out the right goals for cost efficiency, saying the process should aim at ways to help students learn and earn their degrees. “We need to work together to figure out how we can change and do things differently,” Sandeen says. “It’s not saying we’re doing things wrong in the past; it’s just how we can do things better in the future.”

During October, the Evolllution plans to tackle these questions:

• What impact does operational efficiency have on institutional growth and competitiveness?
• How can postsecondary leaders effectively communicate the value of efficiency-related changes to institution-wide stakeholders?
• Do students notice when institutions are efficient?
• How can institutions leverage technology tools to become more efficient?

Job skills vs. liberal education

Emmanuel Felton of The Hechinger Report writes about how City Colleges of Chicago remade themselves by aligning courses with the skills that were most in demand in the region. The change has helped City Colleges, a system of seven community colleges, improve abysmal graduation rates, at least somewhat. Felton interviewed several business leaders who espoused the benefits of tying education to skills that industry needs. One executive said higher education needed to take the same approach. That might serve some students and it would certainly serve industry in the short term. In the long term, though, we need a wide range of people who possess the critical-thinking and adaptive skills provided by a liberal education.

Keep an eye out for student mental health issues

Claire Shaw at The Guardian urges instructors to pay attention to students’ mental and physical state. She provides a list of warning signs that may indicate that students need assistance. She also offers several suggestions for instructors to help prepare themselves for struggling students.

A worldwide shortage of teachers

A new UNESCO report says that 93 countries face a chronic shortage of teachers and that many of them are recruiting people who lack any training in education.

An adaptive system that helps personalize learning

Stephen Downes of the National Research Council of Canada writes about beta testing of an adaptive learning system that combines customized materials from dozens of sources with data from learning, social environments and work environments. He calls this a “learning and performance support system.” Despite the stuffy name, it sounds fascinating.

Way cool: A tool for creating animated whiteboard videos

I’ve always been fascinated by animated whiteboard videos that show drawings being created in fast motion right before my eyes. I just came across a tool called VideoScribe that will help create those videos – for a price, of course. The software costs $198 a year. There’s a seven-day free trial, though. I’m going to have to give it a try. I’ll share my results.