Digital learning and technology has a short and turbulent history as creating cultural, social, generational, and socio-economic divides. The swiftness of change in society due to technological advances has disrupted just about everything we do, but in education, the disruption is perhaps the most important to consider.

There is a discontinuity in how education is evolving compared to the realities of career and society. Higher education attempts to be responsive to these changes, but the course corrections are often slow and/or don’t align well with the actual trajectory of the modern world. The solution is not clear-cut, but there are many ways higher education is trying to keep pace.

Here are 5 trends that are helping higher education to align better with the actual needs of students:

1. Online and hybrid classes have become a very popular part of the landscape at many institutions of higher education. The mix of flexibility and the infusion of technology such as video-conferencing software, cloud-based office suites such as Google’s Gsuite or Microsoft’s 365, and the use of learning management systems such as Blackboard or Desire to Learn. While the technology serves the purpose of adding flexibility and leveraging resources, the experiences students gain from working and learning in this environment align closely with the modern workplace.
2. Digital Delivery of learning materials is the obvious evolution for higher education, and one that has been painfully slow. While the ability to deliver what we used to think of as a “textbook” as a digital resource has long been possible, many programs still rely heavily on student and faculty use of printed media. It doesn’t have to be this way, and some schools are beginning to take a hard look at the way materials are used in courses. In many cases, the switch can be easy. For instance, Pearson Education is one of the leaders in providing access to digitally delivered learning materials. The digital catalogs available for students and faculty are massive and growing every day. At this point, any move toward digital delivery is a positive one. This transition would modernize the higher ed experience and probably save students some money.
3. Internships and outside experiential learning built into degree programs have continued to be a popular route due to the development of personal and social skills, but internships have a secondary yet powerful consequence: they also help instructors and program chairpeople stay current. There is a lot to be said for programs where internships, programming, and instruction are woven together in ways that a more traditional, sanitized, classroom experience cannot replicate.
4. Student voice and choice is changing the landscape of post-secondary education. There is a great power in programs willing to allow for a variety of student voice and choice in the learning experience, not just for the capstone, but throughout the learning journey of the students. This seems to be far more accepted in vocational and advanced degree programs, and I’d like to see it sweep through the undergraduate experience as well.
5. Embracing the learner, not the system, is really the key to the survival of many post-secondary programs. While the integration of learning technology, internships, diverse media delivery and student voice make for an increasingly intimate and individualized experience, it can’t survive in a vacuum. The evolution to embrace learner needs, especially when those needs run afoul of traditional practice, needs to be valued. Whether differentiated by time, place, pace, or method of delivery, individualized instruction can happen now in ways that would have been impossible or impractical even ten years ago. Not only can professors use their LMS platforms to deliver multimedia-rich learning options, but there are many options for curricula and review material already assembled and ready to use, such as Pearson’s Revel and MyLab/Mastering products.

Disruption is the constant today, and post-secondary programs will need to continue to find ways to attend to the gap between what they deliver and what students actually need. They need to be nimble and responsive to the world they are preparing students for.

While the familiar may have a certain nostalgia to some professors and instructors, these disruptions represent the best potential for future growth of programs, institutions, and the individuals. Unlike any other time in history, higher education faces a shift from tried and true to a constant reinvention to meet the fluid demands of both the working world and an ever-changing student body.

This article was originally published on Dr. VonBank’s LinkedIn Pulse page and has been reposted here with permission.

This series, produced with The Edtech Podcast, explores the implications of and questions around future tech for education. Listen for insights from experts — including contrarians — from across industry, research, and academia.

Technology is a part of almost every aspect of our lives: buildings can be 3D printed, cars can drive themselves, and algorithms can direct our education.

In the third episode of this series (catch episode 1 and episode 2), we explore how do we react to, interact with, and create with the tools of technology? It’s essential that we understand how these function and what the implications.

We also look into the changing world of work and how we can best prepare.

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For more information, check out the Pearson Future Skills report.

Subscribe to the Future Tech for Education on iTunes.

This series, produced with The Edtech Podcast, explores the implications of and questions around future tech for education. Listen for insights from experts — including contrarians — from across industry, research, and academia. Subscribe to the Future Tech for Education on iTunes here.

Smarter digital tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), offer up the promise of learning that is more personalized, inclusive and flexible. Many see the benefits of AI, some are skeptical – but it’s crucial we understand what these tools can do and how they work.

In the first episode of this series, we talked about the how to navigate the challenges and opportunities tech brings to the future of education. In episode two, we explore: What is AI and what is it not? What’s the difference between narrow AI, general AI, and super-intelligence? What type of AI is used now in education? What type do people fear? What questions might teachers want to use when thinking about AI in education?

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For more information, check out the report, Intelligence Unleashed: An argument for AI in Education.

This series, produced with The Edtech Podcast, explores the implications of and questions around future tech for education. Listen for insights from experts — including contrarians — from across industry, research, and academia. Subscribe to the Future Tech for Education on iTunes.

In our first episode of the Future Tech for Education podcast series, we put “future-forecasting” in perspective through a few useful but simple models. We talk about the history of the future and mindful skepticism, and we delve into the four foci of edtech technologies — mixed reality, data science (AI), biosyncing, and human-machine relations — and their effect on education, teaching, and learning.

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Employ mindful skepticism. This means not accepting a new technology as inherently good or evil. But try to understand what the possibilities are. Try to understand what can it be used for; how can I make the most of this technology.

Gen Zers are the current generation to embark on their journey in higher education. They are present on your campus and in your classes, with many more enrolling every year. How well do you know them? Do you have the tools to shape these newcomers into successful and productive adults after just a few short years of schooling?

Born between 1997 and 2015, Generation Z accounts for 26% of all the total United States population, according to a Nielsen report. They’re currently the largest living generation and have the potential to reshape how we use technology and view the workplace, so you probably should.

Understanding what drives this generation can help you better tailor your coursework around tangible and transferable skills so students can better understand how it relates to their future. Barnes & Noble College conducted a survey of 1,300 Gen Zers, and more than 89% of respondents acknowledge that a college education is valuable.

For them, college is seen as the pathway to a good job. The study also states that Gen Z’s top criterion in selecting a college is how it will prepare them for their chosen careers, followed by interesting coursework and professors who care about student success.

Learning how to engage with this generation is just as important as learning what tools to use to engage them. Their comfort and trust in the online space will greatly determine how they interact with their educators. In fact, Gen Zers often prefer video content—with 85% of surveyed students reporting that they watched an online video to learn a new skill in the past week, according to The Center for Generational Kinetics.

And they have high hopes for their post-collegiate future, too. In fact, 88% of surveyed Gen Zers reported that they were optimistic about their own personal future—more than any other generation, according to a report by Vision Critical.

But that optimism is balanced by realistic expectations about their careers. When asked what matters most in their ideal jobs, in the same survey, they favored salary more and work-life balance less than their millennial counterparts.

Here’s just some of what you can expect to learn more about:

• Up-to-the-minute analysis of what’s happening in higher education
• Illuminating insights from multigenerational surveys about Gen Z behaviors and attitudes about education
• Eye-opening interviews and surveys about the individual experiences of hundreds of Gen Z students from Jean Twenge, author of iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood

In the meantime, dive deeper into the Gen-Z psyche, and read about their learning habits in the infographic, “Engage from A to Gen Z.” Learn more about this generation’s make-up, goals, and what makes them tick.

This year at Educause, Erick Jenkins, East Carolina University student and Pearson Campus Ambassador, and Jenn Rosenthal, community manager at Pearson, went behind the scenes to learn about what was top of mind for contributors to the best thinking in higher education IT.

Erick and Jenn spoke with digital learning advocates about the latest and greatest in digital learning and what exactly that means for students, educators, and institutions.

Together, they demystified Inclusive Access, discussed the importance of 21st century skills, engaged with cognitive tutor extraordinaire – IBM Watson, and dove into the world of AR and mixed reality.

Catch their interviews below and let us know what roles you see technology playing in the future (near or far) of education in the comments section.

Erick and Jenn talk with Jeff Erhlich, Director of Special Projects at Park University about what exactly Inclusive Access is (hint: it’s more than eText) and the benefits it brings to students, educators, and institutions.

From textbooks to laptops and white boards to smartboards, digital technologies continue to propel higher education forward. Instant access to information and various types of media and course materials create a more dynamic and collaborative learning experience.

Today’s tech-savvy learners are accustomed to instructors utilizing technology to bolster curriculum and coursework. In fact, a majority of surveyed students (84%) understand that digital materials help solve for issues facing higher education, according to “Digital appetitive vs. what’s on the table,” a recent report that surveyed student attitudes on digital course materials. And many (57%) also expect the onus to fall on the institution to shift from print to digital learning tools.

Many higher education institutions are looking for new ways to integrate technology into their coursework. Recently, Maryville University, a private institution in St. Louis, MO, developed a digital learning program that provided iPads to their students—with great results.

94% of faculty have integrated iPads into their courses, and 87% of students agree that technology has been instrumental in their success at the school. What’s more, enrollment increased by 17.7% over two years, in part due to the Digital Learning Program, reports Inside Higher Ed.

Learn more about how digital learning can strengthen higher education institutions with this infographic, “Digital Learning: Your best teacher’s assistant.”

We’ve heard from Emily Lai, Ph.D., twice before. Last year, she shared the story of her work in Jordan to improve learning opportunities for the children of Syrian refugees. More recently, she offered her tips for parents and teachers on helping students improve their information literacy.

The Components of Collaboration

“Most of us know what collaboration is, at least in its most basic sense,” says Emily Lai, Ph.D.

“It means working with others to achieve a common goal.”

Emily is Director of Formative Assessment and Feedback for Pearson. Her work is focused on improving the ways we assess learners’ knowledge and skills, and ensuring results support further learning and development.

“We’ve been reviewing the research, trying to figure out what we know about collaboration and how to support it. For example, we know that collaboration skills have an impact on how successful somebody is in all kinds of group situations—at school, on the job, and even working with others within a community to address social issues.”

Teaching Collaboration in the Classroom

Teaching collaboration skills in the classroom can be harder than expected, Emily says.

“When a teacher assigns a group project, oftentimes students will divide up the task into smaller pieces, work independently, and then just shove their parts together at the very end.”

“In that case, the teacher likely had good intentions to help develop collaboration skills in students. But it didn’t happen.”

Checking all the Boxes

“Tasks that are truly supportive of collaboration are not easy to create,” Emily says.

Digging deeper, Emily says there are three sub-components of successful collaboration:

Interpersonal communication – how you communicate verbally and non-verbally with your teammates.

Conflict resolution – your ability to acknowledge and resolve disagreements in a manner consistent with the best interest of the team.

Task management – your ability to set goals, organize tasks, track team progress against goals, and adjust the process along the way as needed.

Emily says she understands how difficult it can be for educators to check all three boxes.

Before beginning an assignment, Emily suggests teachers talk to students explicitly about collaboration: what makes a good team member versus what makes a difficult one, as well as strategies for working with others, sharing the load responsibly, and overcoming disagreements.

During group work, she says, observe students’ verbal and non-verbal behavior carefully and provide real-time feedback.

“Talk with them about how they’re making decisions as a group, sharing responsibility, and dealing with obstacles,” Emily says.

“In the classroom, it’s all about the combination of teaching collaboration skills explicitly, giving students opportunities to practice those skills, and providing feedback along the way so those skills continue to develop.”

“The research shows that students who develop strong collaboration skills get more out of those cooperative learning situations at school.”

Teaching Collaboration at Home

Emily is a mother of two daughters, 4 and 8.

At home, she says, there’s one part of collaboration that is especially valuable: conflict resolution.

“Most often, it comes in handy on movie nights.”

“The 8-year-old tends to gravitate towards movies that are a little too scary for the 4-year-old, and the 4-year-old tends to gravitate towards movies that are a little too babyish for the 8-year-old.”

“It would be easy to intervene and just pick a movie for them, but my husband and I do our best to stay out of it,” Emily says.

“We’ve established the procedure that they have to negotiate with each other and agree on a movie, and now they have a collaborative routine in place.”

“They know they get to watch a movie, and we know they’re learning along the way.”

“Taking turns in conversation is another big one for the four-year-old,” Emily says.

“She doesn’t like to yield the floor, but it’s something we’re working on.”

“I know from the research that if my daughters learn these collaboration skills, they are more likely to be successful in their future careers.”

Sharing the Latest Research

This week, Emily and two of her colleagues are releasing a research paper entitled “Skills for Today: What We Know about Teaching and Assessing Collaboration.”

The paper will be jointly released by Pearson and The Partnership for 21^st Century Learning (P21), a Washington, DC-based coalition that includes leaders from the business, education, and government sectors.

“We teamed up on this paper because we both believe collaboration is too important for college, career, and life to leave to chance,” Emily says.

It is the first in a four-part series on what is known about teaching and assessing “the Four Cs”: collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication.

“P21 is the perfect partner for this effort,” Emily says.

“Our partnership signifies a joint commitment to helping stakeholders—educators, parents, policy-makers, and employers—understand what skills are needed to be successful today, and how to teach them effectively at any age.”

To download the full version of “Skills for Today: What We Know about Teaching and Assessing Collaboration,” click here.

Three executive summaries of the paper are also available:

• For employers
• For educators
• For policymakers

Pearson LearnEd originally published this article on April 24th, 2017, and it was re-posted here with permission.

SUCCESS STORY

World-class support for 5,000+ busy adult learners

To make higher education work for its students, many of whom are working professionals, Golden Gate University (GGU) offers flexible programs both online and at four campuses. Even its in-person courses are extensively enhanced with robust web components, and some have evolved towards flipped learning models.

Both GGU’s students and its instructors are deeply reliant on the university’s online LMS and other systems. However, they have diverse expertise, and equally diverse hardware, ranging from old laptops to the newest smartphones.

Students with full-time jobs often set aside nights and weekends for schoolwork. Most GGU faculty work professionally in the fields where they teach, bringing a wealth of experience and enthusiasm. Both students and teachers often need help desk support, especially as GGU has integrated more robust web functionality into courses—and neither group has time to wait for answers.

As Doug Geier, GGU’s Director of eLearning and Instructional Design, puts it, “We provide really good support for our instructors and students, but we rely on the help desk to fill a critical need.”

GGU’s small internal help desk responds during weekday business hours, focusing not only on technical help, but also calls requiring involvement from administrative offices. To fill the gaps, GGU chose Pearson, which seamlessly extends GGU’s own help desk, presenting its services as part of GGU. Through this close partnership, the help desk delivers 24x7x365 support for virtually any technical problem, regardless of location or device.

GGU chooses to pay on a per inquiry basis, smoothly ramping up whenever it needs more help—for example, at the start of each trimester, when new students must quickly solve login or compatibility issues.

Pearson’s reporting helps both partners identify emerging trends in support calls and escalations, flag individuals who need more training, find opportunities to improve, uncover student or faculty retention issues, and improve course quality to support GGU’s teaching mission.

GGU’s Pearson help desk consistently exceeds 90% first-call resolution, so students and faculty can quickly move forward with their work. GGU’s Geier notes that some calls the help desk can’t resolve are due to issues it can’t control. “When that happens, Pearson can take the calls, offer some assurance as to when it’ll be fixed, and make sure our students and faculty don’t feel like they’re all alone. And sometimes Pearson’s help desk is first to know of a problem, and [they] tell us so we can follow up more rapidly.”

Working together for more than six years, Pearson and GGU have built a trusted collaborative partnership with multiple benefits. “We reached out to Pearson as we integrated Turnitin to improve student writing and prevent plagiarism, and when we recently deployed a new video platform,” says Geier. “Pearson’s wide higher education support capabilities are becoming ever more critical as we continually expand the utility of our LMS and online course environment.”

“Pearson’s help desk is incredibly responsive,” Geier concludes. “Their service is top-notch, it’s customizable, and it’s helped us come a long way in how we work with students and faculty. Pearson does more than just provide services: this is a true partnership.”

Pearson’s help desk is incredibly responsive. Their service is top-notch, it’s customizable, and it’s helped us come a long way in how we work with students and faculty. Pearson does more than just provide services: this is a true partnership.

Doug Geier, Director of eLearning and Instructional Design
Golden Gate University

To learn more about Golden Gate University’s help desk services, read the full success story.

Read the full success story