bodner089

There is no question that lots of things are happening in higher education.   New programs and new strategies show up at a rapid clip.   As you think about the future, you will necessarily make choices about course and program delivery, and those choices will have a major impact on how attractive you are to prospective students. Consider this range of possibilities for delivery: ·       Face-to-face in a traditional classroom ·       Synchronous delivery with some students in the same classroom as the instructor and others participating through interactive video ·       Hybrid delivery, which may include asynchronous streaming videos, online elements, and occasional classroom meetings, which themselves can occur in a variety of forms; this might include use of the “flipped classroom,” which offers significant creative opportunities ·         What I’ll cal...

From Wikipedia:   “ A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and a belief from the customer that value will be experienced.”   What is your institution’s value proposition?   Does it distinguish you from your competitors? Take a look at some institutional web sites and surf the Internet to see what is available.   I swear it seems as if every institution in the country is offering an online criminal justice program.   Check out how many business degrees and RN to BSN completion programs are available online.   Students have many options, and as they become increasingly value conscious, it follows that you need to make sure that your messaging differentiates your institution from competitors. Now, consider the preferences of adult learners, who are a prime recruiting target:   We know they value the program they want, delivered flexibly and at an attractive price.   We know they care about how long it will take ...

I’ve written before about credit for prior learning.   Last week, Inside Higher Education had a piece about a significant partnership between 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State University System of Higher Education and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) that will facilitate the assessment of prior learning, through CAEL’s Learning Counts service. You can read about the initiative at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/23/pas-public-universities-open-doors-prior-learning-credits .   Note that, like most reputable prior learning assessment programs with which I’m familiar, it is portfolio based, and with CAEL’s strong reputation, there is no reason to doubt that prior learning can be matched to specific university courses in a reliable manner. Understanding how credit for prior learning fits into a comprehensive strategy to serve adult learners is important.   Remember, other than flagship public institutions and elite pr...

Are you familiar with the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)? The web address is www.cael.org. CAEL provides a variety of services, but I especially want to draw attention to their work with prior or experiential learning. Even as more faculty members and administrators become comfortable with online and hybrid delivery of programs, I find that there is a lot of misinformation about credit for prior learning. To be sure, there are institutions with low standards for awarding credit, but there also are best practices that, if examined, represent a legitimate assessment in support of awarding credit. In that regard, check out CAEL’s Learning Counts site, to see more on their assessment services, www.LearningCounts.org. When one looks at research on adult learners, such as Stamats’ “Adult Students Talk,” among the features of academic programs adults are seeking is credit for prior learning. Institutions can refuse to award or recognize such credit, but to the exten...