Topic: Student learning and outcomes
Blog Post
March 20, 2020
Communicating COVID-19 in Higher Ed: Student Edition
Given recent disruptive circumstances surrounding COVID-19, students more than ever are being flooded with vital and often-changing information to protect their health and safety as well as the future of their educational experiences and attainment. In an effort to aggregate the continual communications sent to students, colleges and universities are often creating hubs of information on their websites, which encompass everything students need to know about their institution’s status, policies, key dates, and resources available going forward.
Blog Post
March 20, 2020
When Online Isn’t an Option
Higher Education in Prisons During a Pandemic
As the announcements of campus closures continue unabated, colleges and universities across the country are struggling to figure out how to adjust their teaching and learning practices, with many moving their courses online. But what does this mean for students who are incarcerated? Building on Ithaka S+R’s ongoing research on how technology can be leveraged towards increasing access to higher education in prisons and more equitable learning experiences, today we are taking a look at how the COVID-19…
Blog Post
March 16, 2020
Dispatches from the Higher Ed #covidclassroom
Teaching and Learning Edition
As the response to COVID-19 intensifies across the US and Canada, higher education institutions are responding by shifting classes online and adjusting pedagogical expectations en masse. Comprehensive tracking of campus closures and academic library responses provides an essential birdseye view of the sector’s response to the pandemic and there are a wealth of resources and case studies about best practices but what is…
Blog Post
March 13, 2020
Getting Online: Lessons from Liberal Arts Colleges
Many of the colleges and universities that are transitioning away from face-to-face courses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are residential institutions that have not historically provided widespread online instruction. Through multi-year evaluations of the Council of Independent Colleges’ (CIC) Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction and the Teagle Foundation’s Hybrid Learning and the Residential Liberal Arts Experience program, Ithaka S+R has worked with similar…
Blog Post
March 13, 2020
COVID-19 and American Higher Education
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has led to many colleges and universities moving to remote courses for an indefinite period, including in many cases for the rest of the spring semester. Many residential colleges are sending students home, advising them to assume classes on campus will not resume this spring, but instead will continue online. Colleges and universities with more commuter students have also moved to remote learning. CUNY and SUNY college students were informed by New York State Governor…
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…
Blog Post
March 3, 2020
(Un)attending the #ELI2020Unconference
I was excitedly awaiting my first ELI Annual Meeting on Sunday afternoon when I received the disappointing news that it was called off. Due to growing concerns over COVID-19, the conference organizers made the difficult decision to cancel the meeting. Although an appropriate decision, many presenters, like me, were left with many hours worth of work with no way of presenting it. Personally, I was planning on presenting my poster—…
Blog Post
March 2, 2020
Second Convening on Improving College Opportunity for Veterans and Service Members
Hosted by The College Board and Ithaka S+R
Even though veterans are more likely to earn a certificate or degree than adult learners and have higher GPAs compared to traditional students, many do not attend institutions that would give them the greatest chance of succeeding. Currently, only 10 percent of veterans using GI bill benefits attend institutions with graduation rates above 70 percent, compared to 21 percent of the general student…
Keynote Address
March 2, 2020
Improving College Opportunity for Veterans
Robert Caslen, president of the University of South Carolina and former superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, delivered the following address at “Improving College Opportunity for Veterans and Service Members,” a convening hosted by The College Board and Ithaka S+R on February 10-11, 2020, at John Hopkins University. Only one in ten student veterans is enrolling in the colleges and universities with graduation rates of 70 percent or higher. But the evidence indicates that many more…
Past Event
March 12, 2020
Unbarring Access to Higher Education in Prison
Danielle Cooper and Meagan Wilson at SXSW EDU
This event has been cancelled. On Thursday, March 12, from 2:00-3:00 pm, Danielle Cooper and Meagan Wilson will be discussing “Unbarring Access to Higher Education in Prison” as part of a panel at SXSW EDU in Austin, Texas. They will be joined on the panel by Terrell Blount (Laughing Gull Foundation) and Jody Lewen (Prison University Project). For more information about the conference, please see the SXSW EDU website. About the panel Access to higher education in prison has…
Past Event
March 2, 2020
Martin Kurzweil at the Trusted Learner Network Unconference
Martin Kurzweil is participating in the inaugural gathering of the Trusted Learner Network (TLN) Community, taking place on March 2, in Scottsdale, Arizona The TLN is an effort Arizona State University has undertaken, through a technical collaboration with Salesforce, to build a secure, open-source approach to recording, curating, and sharing data on abilities plus skills across the learner’s lifespan. While new technologies like blockchain are sparking new possibilities, it will take human capacity (read: community) to advance significant, learner-centered…
Past Event
March 27, 2020
Comprehensive Advising for Student Success
Rayane Alamuddin and Martin Kurzweil at Institute for College Access & Success Convening
This event has been cancelled. On Friday, March 27, Rayane Alamuddin and Martin Kurzweil are taking part in the Comprehensive Advising for Student Success Convening hosted by the Institute for College Access & Success in Washington, DC. About the convening An increasing number of comprehensive student support strategies have demonstrated success in producing substantially higher rates of student progress and graduation. Join us in Washington, D.C. for an interactive day of discussion between researchers, practitioners, and policy professionals focused on…
Blog Post
February 19, 2020
American Talent Initiative on Track to Goal of 50,000 More Lower-Income Students by 2025
Comprehensive strategies at standout ATI schools point the way
The American Talent Initiative issued this press release today. Media Contacts: Keeley Smith, GMMB (keeley.smith@gmmb.com, 253.651.8416); Linda Perlstein (linda.perlstein@aspeninstitute.org, 202-339-7490) A national alliance of leading colleges and universities is on track to enroll 50,000 more students who receive federal Pell grants by 2025, a new report shows. The findings underscore the importance of the American Talent Initiative’s (ATI) collaborative push to expand opportunity for low- and moderate-income students across the country. Between 2015-16, the year before ATI launched, and…
Research Report
February 19, 2020
Expanding Opportunity for Lower-Income Students
Three Years of the American Talent Initiative
The American Talent Initiative (ATI) was formed in December 2016 to address a persistent issue—specifically, that the American colleges and universities with the greatest resources, and where students have the highest likelihood of graduating, have historically served far too few young people from low- and middle-income backgrounds. The American Talent Initiative has a goal to enroll an additional 50,000 low- and middle-income students at these institutions by the year 2025. ATI is on track to meet its goal. Between 2015-16,…
Blog Post
February 13, 2020
New Report and Forecasting Tool Shows States’ Progress towards Postsecondary Attainment Goals
A postsecondary credential has become a crucial qualification for individuals to pursue a meaningful career with a livable wage. As technology continues to reshape the nature of work, the core competencies gained through postsecondary education and strategic up-skilling by adult workers will be ever more important. States have a critical role to play in supporting their residents’ education and training, and a vested interest in seeing educational attainment increase. Recognizing this, and driven by initiatives of the Lumina Foundation and…
Research Report
February 13, 2020
Raising the Bar
What States Need to Do to Hit Their Ambitious Higher Education Attainment Goals
Over the past decade, there has been considerable attention placed on the role that state higher education systems play in preparing residents for a rapidly changing labor market. Given the increasing importance of a postsecondary degree in this market—both due to disproportionate growth in high skilled jobs and an influx of credentialization—educational attainment has become a focal point in discussions amongst researchers, policy advocates, and institutional actors. The attainment rate, calculated as the share of adults possessing a postsecondary credential,…
Blog Post
February 12, 2020
Now Available: Research Toolkit for Developing Services and Assessing Student Needs
Over the past three years, we partnered with a group of seven colleges looking to more effectively support their students by providing new and strengthened services from the library and beyond. Across these colleges, we interviewed dozens of students and later surveyed over 10,000 to examine their goals, challenges, and unmet needs. The project was led by Northern Virginia Community College and Ithaka S+R, with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)…
Blog Post
February 11, 2020
The Case for Academic Libraries and “College Fluency”
Students struggle with a variety of challenges outside of the classroom that affect their academic success–balancing family, household, work, and school responsibilities, having enough money to pay for courses and basic needs, and navigating college resources and services. When presented via survey with a series of possible interventions to address these needs, students expressed great interest in having more support in navigating information related to the college experience, as described in this service…
Upcoming Event
April 21, 2020
Examining the Effects of Performance-Based Funding on Efficiency of Degree Production
James Dean Ward at the AERA Annual Conference
The AERA is moving to a virtual conference. When we have details we will update this event. On Tuesday, April 21, James Dean Ward will be presenting on “Examining the Effects of Performance-Based Funding on Efficiency of Degree Production” at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference in San Francisco. His talk is part of a session on “The Carrots, Sticks, and Unintended Consequences of State Higher Education Policy,” taking place at 12:25. The session is being held in…
Blog Post
February 4, 2020
Student Success: One Goal, Many Definitions
While many colleges see enabling “student success” as a top priority, what actually defines the term can vary widely depending on who is defining it. As such, it is hard—perhaps impossible—to have a single, quantifiable, and operational definition. In this post, I unpack how a few key stakeholders—community college students and administrators—have conceptualized this seemingly loaded term in our research along with questions for further reflection as we embark on a new project. Over the past…