The Challenge of Technology

Future Technologies and Globalization Trends Foundational Material

Overarching Question• Finding the balance between want and

need– Students– Faculty– Institution (i.e. resources, mission)– Outside factors (i.e. accreditation

agencies)

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CollegiateExpectation

Chrystal Denmark Porter, Ph.D., Ed.S.

The purpose of the study was to describe the expectations that millennial generation students had regarding their collegiate experiences, focusing on student responses about student-faculty interaction and course learning (Porter, 2007).

-Continuation of research about teaching excellence within a discipline (Denmark, 2002).

The Research• Using traditional methods to design a course and deliver

course content through traditional formats may not, many cases, be the best method instructors should use if they are truly interested in the students learning process (Oblinger, 2003).

• Students view of their position– Students may have the expectation that education owes

them in some manner for participating in the higher learning process. According to Sacks (1996) the notion of success is increasingly treated as a quasi-negotiable exchange...some consumers of education seem to invest no more personal responsibility in the transaction than a McDonald’s customer buying a Quarter Pounder with cheese.

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The Research (2)• Issue of Entitlement– As more colleges & universities implement

business-like strategies to attract students to their institutions, students are becoming more keenly aware of their return-on-investment (Levine & Cureton, 1998; Spiegler, 1998).

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The Research (3)• Role of Entertainment in Education

– Among the top three choices identified by students as characteristics values in a college teacher, the instructor should be entertaining, friendly and warm, and challenging. Many students place a high value on being entertained (Sacks, 1996).

– If effective teachers are entertaining teachers, and today’s media-saturated students expect to be entertained and cannot tolerate boredom, then it is time to underscore the need for entertainment in the classroom (Sacks, 1996).

– The term “edutainment” has been coined to describe the phenomenon of combining traditional education with entertainment activities. There is a growing group of instructors who purposefully intend to provide entertaining activities as a means to relay information to their students. Contemporary trends may support edutainment (Porter, 2007).

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The Research (4)• Edutainment (continued)– The modern system of higher education includes

salient features: an open and flexible system, direct and easy access to every learner, a broad based and futuristic visionary stream of learning, edutainment and infotainment and student-centered learning, that is more emphasis on insight and knowledge than mere information collection, new knowledge with a personal touch and need and utility-oriented learning (Popli, 2005).

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College Student Attitudes• Stressed• Disappointed• Unstructured Activities– Sleeping is a form of recreation, #1

activity – Fun is in the club-and-bar scene

• Worried About Academics, but Bored• Special

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College Student Development Theory

• Chickering’s Seven Vectors of Student Development– Linear progression that students experience as they are

developing their sense of self and their identity• Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual & Ethical Development

– Describes how students relate meaning to their experience• Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

– Designates three levels of moral reasoning or cognitive processes that an individual may be operating in when he or she is obliged to make decisions

• King and Kitchener’s Reflective Judgment– Succession of events as students identify their personal

trusts, beliefs, and opinions

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Classroom Strategies• Creating Significant Learning Experiences – Design of instruction is most crucial in

creating valuable and significant learning environments (Fink, 2003).

– This is the area that few instructors receive instruction.

– The way instructors approach their teaching, the attitudes and behaviors they specify, is related to student’s motivation to learn (Archer & Scevak, 1998).

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Classroom Strategies (2)• Fink (2003) proposed that instruction

and course design should be motivated by methods that encourage significant learning.

• The goal the instructor has for students in the course will likely dictate the components that should be incorporated in the course design (Fink, 2003).

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Course Design Outcomes• Foundational knowledge• Application• Human dimension (learn something

about the self and societal complications)

• Caring and learning

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Porter (2007) Results• Conversations

– Expectations were based on conversations with individuals they trusted (i.e. peers, family, administrators, faculty)

• Challenging Course Requirements– Self-assurance was gained as they successfully completed

challenging courses by learning new tactics that worked to complete assignments with least effort and time

• Instructors– Anticipated inability to relate, intellectual inferiority made

them uncomfortable and uneasy• Technology

– No initial expectations, preferred format included entertaining activities

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“It’s amazing, yet we are not amazed.” Kevin Kelly

"We have to get better at believing in the impossible.“

Kevin Kelly

Change is About People, Not Technology

Higher Education Dynamics

Top Down Bottom Up

Student’s Perspective

Instructional Perspective

Institutional Perspective

Now It’s Your Turn to Describe the Impossible