Topic: Teaching with technology
Case Study
March 13, 2020
Duke Kunshan University
A Case Study of Implementing Online Learning in Two Weeks
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has led a large number of residential, primarily face-to-face American colleges and universities to shift to remote courses for indefinite periods of time. This is a major disruption to normal activities, with pedagogical, social, and economic consequences. It is also a significant organizational and change-management challenge, with a short timeline and no safety net. Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China was one of the first US-affiliated institutions that had to deal with this, given the…
Past Event
July 6, 2020
Catharine Bond Hill at Transforming Teaching and Learning
An Inside Higher Ed Event
Catharine Bond Hill is speaking at Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching and Learning event in Minneapolis from July 6-8. To learn more and to register, please see the conference website. About the event Higher education is easily–and unfairly–caricatured as having changed little for 200 years. Experimentation is abundant in college and university classrooms, physical and otherwise. But as pressure builds to ensure that more people develop the education and skills that employers (and society) need, colleges and their…
Blog Post
December 17, 2019
Reflecting on the Lessons from a Technology Implementation Study in Maryland
Interviews on the ALiS Project
Ithaka S+R recently co-led the Adaptive Learning in Statistics (ALiS) study, a multi-year and multi-campus pilot initiative, which aimed to test whether changing the way introductory statistics is taught in college classrooms–by using adaptive learning technology and active learning pedagogy–would significantly improve course-level learning outcomes for students across a diverse set of two-year and four-year institutions in Maryland. In the interviews linked below, several participants in the ALiS study share their reflections on the project lessons from multiple perspectives,…
Blog Post
December 12, 2019
Teaching Business: New Report Explores the Needs of Business Faculty
Today Ithaka S+R is releasing the first report in a new program focused on supporting teaching practices. In it, we explore the needs of faculty teaching undergraduate business. We started with business as it is consistently one of the most popular majors in the United States, and understanding the needs of faculty in this field can have a large impact on undergraduate teaching and learning. Informed by interviews with 158 business…
Research Report
December 12, 2019
Teaching Business
Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors
Business represents the most popular undergraduate major at American colleges and universities and was seen as the ideal discipline to begin with, especially as the potential number of students to be positively impacted is correspondingly large. The goal of this report, therefore, is to provide actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the teaching practices of business educators. This report describes the teaching practices of business instructors, both those that are common to all college level instruction as…
Blog Post
November 7, 2019
Adaptive Learning Technology + Active Learning Pedagogy in Introductory Statistics
New Reports on Results and Lessons from a Multi-Year, Multi-Campus Pilot in Maryland
There is a general consensus that a quality postsecondary education and credential are critical to success in today’s rapidly changing economy. However, a growing body of evidence has shown that entry-level mathematics courses required to progress toward a degree constitute a formidable barrier to completion of postsecondary credentials, especially for underrepresented minority, first-generation, and lower-income students. Key reasons for this include the disconnected nature of these course offerings and their misalignment with students’ academic and career aspirations, as well as…
Research Report
November 7, 2019
Aligning Many Campuses and Instructors around a Common Adaptive Learning Courseware in Introductory Statistics
Lessons from a Multi-Year Pilot in Maryland
The Adaptive Learning in Statistics (ALiS) project was a multi-year pilot initiative in which faculty members from multiple two-year and four-year public institutions in Maryland used a common adaptive learning courseware in their introductory statistics courses and received training and instructional resources on an active learning and flipped classroom pedagogical approach. The project was organized and led by Ithaka S+R in collaboration with Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics (TPSE Math), the William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation at the…
Blog Post
July 29, 2019
Announcing Two New S+R Projects on Supporting Data Work
Evolving data practices are re-shaping the academic landscape. Here at Ithaka S+R we’ve been tracking how scholars’ data support needs are evolving more widely through our triennial U.S. faculty survey and through deep dives into specific disciplinary practices, such as our recent report on Civil and Environmental Engineering. We’ve also uncovered how scholars’ work in data communities challenges the traditional disciplinary and institutional siloing…
Past Event
June 5, 2019
Martin Kurzweil at Eduventures Summit 2019
Martin Kurzweil is taking part in Eduventures Summit 2019 in Boston from June 5-7. For more information, please see the event website. About the summit: The search for a truly new higher education business model must grapple with product, time, cost, and structure and address these important questions: Should most schools buy courses from the best rather than build their own? Could the value of a bachelor’s degree be packaged in 60 credits rather than 120? Could life off-campus…
Issue Brief
April 9, 2019
Challenges to Higher Education’s Most Essential Purposes
In his 2000 Romanes Lecture, entitled “At a Slight Angle to the Universe, the University in a Digitized, Commercialized Age,” William Bowen anticipated many of the challenges higher education faces today. His incisive summary of the most important purposes of higher education offers a useful framework for assessing how higher education is fulfilling its uniquely important role supporting a vibrant democratic society. Those responsible for higher education’s well-being, including presidents, administrators, trustees, faculty, and government policy makers, would do well…
Issue Brief
April 9, 2019
Technology, Georgia Tech, and the Future of Learning
An Interview with Charles Isbell
I invited Charles Isbell, Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech to join me at the October 2018 Bowen Colloquium, a forward-looking gathering of college and university presidents and other leaders. In addition to his work in Artificial Intelligence, Professor Isbell is the Associate Dean in the College of Computing responsible for overseeing Georgia Tech’s Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS). Our conversation covered a wide area, from the unsustainable costs of traditional modes of instruction to his…
Past Event
April 1, 2019
Jenna Joo and Martin Kurzweil at the TPSE Partners Meeting
On Monday, April 1, Jenna Joo and Martin Kurzweil will participate in the TPSE Partners Meeting in Miami, Florida. About the meeting TPSE Math aims to support the efforts of organizations working to effect change in post-secondary mathematics education. By understanding where priorities overlap and where they differ, what research and data are available and what additional information is needed, what innovations have been implemented and merit scaling up, and what additional resources are needed, TPSE is committed to enhancing…
Past Event
February 20, 2019
Martin Kurzweil Attending the ELI Annual Conference in Anaheim
Martin Kurzweil will be attending the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, on February 20 -21. For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the ELI website. About ELI The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation. The ELI Annual Meeting provides an opportunity for those interested in learning principles and practices, all dimensions of student success, and innovation…
Blog Post
September 19, 2018
Evaluating Online Instruction and Cross-Institutional Course Sharing
The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), in collaboration with Ithaka S+R, recently concluded its four-year initiative with the Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction (2014-18), which provided opportunities for two distinct cohorts of private liberal arts colleges to first design and teach online humanities courses in their own institutions and later to revise and offer the same courses to all students in the Consortium.[1] The second Consortium just completed its final year of work and participants shared valuable insights…
Research Report
September 19, 2018
CIC Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction II
Evaluation Report for the Second Course Iteration
Introduction The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction began in 2014 with the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to determine if small, independent colleges could collaborate in developing online, upper-level humanities courses that would give students at these institutions a broader range of courses from which to choose. The success of the first Consortium (2014–2016) motivated the Mellon Foundation to support a second Consortium that was formed in the summer of 2016 with…
Blog Post
May 8, 2018
Setting the Table: Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education
Martin Kurzweil and Mitchell Stevens in EDUCAUSE Review
Martin Kurzweil and Mitchell Stevens published “Setting the Table: Responsible Use of Student Data in Higher Education” in the May/June 2018 issue of EDUCAUSE Review. As they note, “Rapid movement at the cutting edge of edtech has far outpaced changes in the laws, institutional policies, and ethical frameworks that were crafted to inform responsible use of educational information in the twentieth century. This makes for a jarring recognition, but also an opportunity to revisit and rearticulate guiding ideals of…
Blog Post
February 28, 2018
Insights from the William G. Bowen Colloquium on Higher Education Leadership
Last November, we held the inaugural William G. Bowen Colloquium on Higher Education Leadership. Named for our late, founding board chair and president emeritus of Princeton University and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the event brought together 50 higher education leaders and experts to discuss several contemporary challenges including diversity and inclusiveness, free speech and student activism, and the role of technology in higher education. Today, Kevin Guthrie, Cappy Hill, and I are publishing three papers…
Research Report
February 28, 2018
Technology in Higher Education
Reflections from the Bowen Colloquium on Higher Education Leadership
“Properly conceived, information technology will enhance, but not replace, traditional modes of teaching and learning. It will also permit the delivery of educational content to a wider variety of others interested in subjects that lend themselves to distance learning – at home and at odd hours.” —William G. Bowen, “At a Slight Angle to the Universe: The University in a Digitized, Commercialized Age,” Romanes Lecture, Oxford University, October 17, 2000.
Blog Post
January 29, 2018
Facing Declining Enrollment, Liberal Arts Colleges Turn to New Modes of Instruction
Lessons from a Teagle Grant Program
Over each of the past five years, the total number of undergraduate students in the United States has declined. There are multiple potential reasons for this trend: rising tuition, questions about the value of a postsecondary education, and shifting demographics have all likely contributed. While the impact of this trend has been felt across higher education institutions, private liberal arts colleges have been hit particularly hard, as have liberal arts programs offered at public institutions, marked by a…
Research Report
January 29, 2018
Faculty Collaboration and Technology in the Liberal Arts
Lessons from a Teagle Grant Program
In response to enrollment and revenue declines, residential liberal arts programs are seeking ways to contain costs and build institutional capacity, while maintaining the quality of a liberal arts education. Some institutions have banded together to form robust consortia to share resources and distribute burdens. And some of these consortia have focused their efforts on the creation and use of online teaching resources and courses, hypothesizing that doing so will increase institutional capacity to provide educational offerings at a fraction…