Kyle Peck: Re-thinking Higher Education in the age of the “Knowmad”

Re-thinking Higher Education in the

Age of the “Knowmad”

Kyle L. Peck Professor of Education

Co-Director, Center forOnline Innovation in Learning (COIL) The Pennsylvania State University

2/25/15

There are three kinds of people in the world…

• Those who watch thing happen

• Those who make things happen, and

• Those who wonder what happened.

“Big Changes” OUTSIDE Education

in the Past Decade (or so) More, better, faster, cheaper, smaller and...

Connected!

97 million mobile phones in 2000 / 293 million in 2010

Free wireless access at McD and Bagel shops (but $10/day at fancy hotel!)

FaceBook - 0 in 2000 / 116 million in 2010 / 845 million active users at end of ‘11

Twitter / Pinterest / Ning / etc!

Online Shopping - for real!

Amazon.com - started in 1994 / Q4 2010 sales “up 36% to $12.95 Billion”

Etsy.com gathers artists from around the world

Very different political / environmental / social climate

Economic Boom & Bust and MUCH, MUCH MORE!

“Mass customization”

“Big Changes” INSIDE Higher Education?

Increasing costs and student loan debt.

“Big Changes” INSIDE Higher Education?

Increasing costs and student loan debt.

Increasing acceptance and use of “Online Learning.”

Higher percentages of the population participating.

Changes in “the typical student.”

Why so little change in Higher Education?

• Because we got it right?

• “If it aint broke, don’t fix it?”

• Lack of competition?

• Or…

“Opportunities” That Will Change Higher Education in the Next Few Decades (or so)

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Competency-based Education

Digital Badges

“Personalization” / Adaptive Learning Systems

Prior Learning Assessment

Competitors willing to “re-invent” higher education based on logic, rather than tradition, and striving for effectiveness and efficiency rather than competition.

• Crazy time, Eh? A LOT going on.

• MOOCs, Digital Badges, Prior Learning Assessment, Competency-based Education

• Online Shopping, Social Media, Mass Customization

Wow!!!

Spoiler Alert!“Life” is changing.

I don’t believe our primary business will be selling “degrees” or “courses” (as now defined)

in 20 years.

The success of “Online Learning” has changed our thinking.

• Most faculty and administrators now realize that online learning can be as effective as face-to-face classrooms (and less expensive).

• Most administrators now believe that their online programs are crucial to the institution’s success.

• The population of college and university students will grow from 150 million in 2000 to 250 million by 2025.

• Access to technologies makes participation in even synchronous online classes possible from a distance.

Disruptive Innovations• New Technologies

• Inferior at First

• Get Better Quickly

• Displace Complacent Incumbent

• Examples:

•Digital Photography - Kodak

•Streaming Video - Blockbuster

•Online Commerce - Borders

•Blogs & Online Publishing – Newspapers and Magazines (in progress) Is Higher Education next?

Disruptive Innovations?• Open Educational Resources (OER)

Example: Khan Academy

• “MOOCS”

• “Digital Badges”

• Competency-based Learning

• Prior Learning Assessment

• Online Shopping?

MOOCs have changed our thinking.

• “We” (higher education) are (more) ready to give away content.

• Tools that will improve peer assessment and peer support are evolving and learners will be able to master increasingly difficult content without our help.

• Some students will learn what they can on their own and with peer support, for free.

• Then they will demonstrate their learning to receive course credit or to waive courses.

Competency-based Education (CBE)

Competency-based Education (CBE)

Competency-based Education (CBE) is gaining steam.

• Western Governors’ University and SNHU are growing at about 30% per year.

• Number of universities applying to employ CBE rose from 2 to 20 to 250 over the past three years.

• “Personalized” and “Flex” degrees are emerging at more traditional institutions (U of WI and UNA)

• Vendors are developing CBE software infrastructure and supporting “digital badging.”

Prior Learning Assessment• The evaluation and assessment of an individual’s

learning for college credit, certification, or advanced standing toward further education or training.

• Learning may be acquired through work, corporate training, military service, independent study, etc.

• In order to be considered “credit worthy” the learning must be “college-level” and include both theoretical and applied knowledge.

• Based on agreed upon learning outcomes.

Why Prior Learning Assessment?

• Fairness / Justice

• Reduce time to completion of degrees

• Efficiently fill gaps in the labor market

• Improve the chance that students WILL

complete the degree

Why Prior Learning Assessment?

From http://www.cael.org/pdfs/pla_executive-summary

http://www.cael.org/pdfs/pla_executive-summary

Online Shopping?• People have come to expect:

• Good information about all products

• Reviews from previous users

• Options. Lots of options.

• Quick access to products

• Will they continue to buy our degrees (Sheepskins), when they can’t see the value of the entire package?

• Will they continue to play by our (often self-serving ) rules? (i.e. “can only transfer in X credits”)

Badges and Microcredentials!Across Higher EducationChris Long!Associate Dean for Graduate and !Undergraduate Education!College of the Liberal [email protected]!

Kyle Bowen!Director, Education Technology [email protected]

“Compared with the new open badge systems, the standard college transcript looks like a sad and archaic thing.”!!

Kevin Carey, The Chronicle of Higher Education

What is a badge?

Curricular Badges

Curricular Badges

Curricular Badges Cross-curricular Badges Open-curricular Badges Curricular Badges

BADGESat Penn State

Be a Liberal Arts Citizen

Global Perspective

The Globalist

The Traveler

The Culturalist

Global Perspective

Excellence in Communication

Excellence in Communication

Courses

Visual Rhetoric

Oral Presentation

Public Discourse

Academic Writing

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“What we find much more exciting,

is this emergence out to the far

right – this category that we label

“student-‐paced models,” where we

are inverting the historic academic

model with someone up here like

me, lecturing on something to a

group of students all at the same

time, over the course of a semester,

with assessments at the end, and a

nice graded exam, to something

where the student actually dictates

the learning – where the student

can experience the learning at his

own pace, her own pace, and at her

own time.”



















































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“What is much more exciting, and

this is where we are much more

optimistic about the innovation

that is happening because of

MOOCs is this migration to the

right around competency-‐based

learning – around fundamentally

figuring out what skills a student

needs to learn in order to be

successful, developing learning

modules so that the student can

obtain those skills at his or her

pace, and develop credentials, or

badging or assessments to assess

those skills.”



















































We need to act on the changes we see.

• We need to understand and accept the “unbundling” of content and delivery from assessment and certification.

• We need to define and sell our products and services in units smaller than courses and degrees.

• We need to allow people to prove what they have learned on their own and with peer support and give them credit for it.

We need to act on the changes we see.

• Our primary business will not be content delivery. It will be support, assessment, and certification.

• (Others want to do that for us, but allowing that would be giving away the store.)

• We need to differentiate ourselves through:

• The types of learning communities and supports for student learning we create

• The rigor and quality of our learning outcomes and assessments

• The types of credentials we offer.

• Contribute Open Educational Resources to support learning of things we believe are important

• Give people credit for what they know and learn on their own

(or at least let them skip these things)

• Provide support and coaching to those who can afford it

• Create a flow of learners into certificate and degree programs, and

• Recover the investment it takes to make this happen?

So, how do we...

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Processes (Revised, 2001)

Remember

Understand

Evaluate

Create

Apply

Analyze

!Anderson, L.W., & Krathwohl, D.R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York:

Knowledge Acquisition

Comprehension

Evaluation

Creation

Application

Analysis

ABC 451 “Advanced ABC”


Comprehension

Evaluation

Creation

Application

Analysis



Comprehension

Evaluation

Creation

Application

Analysis

ABC 601 “Dissertation Research”

ABC 101 “Introduction to ABC”

?




Comprehension

Evaluation

Creation

Application

Analysis




Comprehension

Evaluation

Creation

Application

Analysis






Content Pool

“flex MOOC”

flex-MOOC

Personalized Learning Plan

Content Pool

Personalized Learning PlanPersonalized Learning PlanPersonalized Learning PlanPersonalized Learning Plan

“flex MOOC”

flex-MOOC


Content Pool


Test

Test

Test

Peer Review

Peer Review

TestTest

Test

Peer Review

Peer ReviewPeer

Review

TestOnline Portfolio

“flex MOOC”

flex-MOOC

“flex MOOC”


Content Pool


Test

Test

Test

Peer Review

Peer Review

TestTest

Test

Peer Review

Peer ReviewPeer

Review

TestOnline Portfolio

Report

Portfolio > Collections

! !


PLAPrior Learning Assessment

CEUsAccept Processing

Fee

Calculate Hours Spent

Award

# CEUs

Exam

Pass Exam?

StopTry again?

NoYes

Award CreditTranscript

Try Again

Pass Review?

StopTry again?

No

Yes

Associate Degree

Baccalaureate Degree

Doctoral Degree

Masters Degree

Submit Report / Protfolio and Fee

Portfolio Review

Oral Exam / Interview via Skype Review

PortfolioCourse Credit

Credit by Exam or Portfolio?

Certificates


Key Components:• Competency-based Learning

• Well-defined Learning Outcomes

• Assessments (Tests or Rubrics)

• Digital Badging

• Peer-Assessed (Bronze)

• PSU-Assessed (Gold)

• Prior Learning Assessment

• MOOC-style Peer Review and Peer Support Tools

“Carnegie Units”• The unit was developed in 1906 as

a measure of the amount of time a student has studied a subject.

• For example, a total of 120 hours in one subject—meeting 4 or 5 times a week for 40 to 60 minutes, for 36 to 40 weeks each year—earns the student one "unit" of high school credit.

• Fourteen units were deemed to constitute the minimum amount of preparation that could be interpreted as "four years of academic or high school preparation."

On October 23, 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont flew an aircraft a distance of 60 metres (197 ft) at a height of about five meters or less (15 ft).

April 18, 1906 - Following the Sanfrancisco Earthquake, fires ravaged

the city. Many were started when firefighters, untrained in the use of

dynamite, attempted to demolish buildings to create firebreaks.

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/carnegie-unit/

http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/carnegie-unit/

Kyle Peck (COIL)

Two Critical Questions…

• What will students need from us??

• WWRBD?

(What would/will Richard Branson do?)

Your turn! !

!

Reactions? Predictions?