For more than a thousand years, students have been gathering in lecture halls to listen to the “sage on the stage.” But shorter attention spans, new technologies, and empirical testing of learning outcomes have led us to question the tried and true historical “transmission” model of education. In this episode, Ken Steele gives a brief lecture on “the Death of Lecture.” Check out how familiar a 14th-century lecture hall at the Universite di Bologne looks. Former Quest University president David Helfand ex
Trend usually implies that something is short term, like a one-hit wonder on the radio, but when we talk about educational technology, these trends are here to not only stay, but grow. While it is hard to choose the most important educational technology trends, we did our best to craft this list of ten.
I wrote a piece for University Business on the future of education technology. You can read it here.
UK HE is placing a higher priority on attracting international students than ever before. Indeed, my own institution, the University of the West of Scotland, has recently been rated as amongst the top 5% of universities worldwide. While this is an exciting development it also comes with its own challenges including tailoring teaching, research and the university’s procedures to ensure a fulfilling experience. Enabling all of this is the underpinning technical infrastructure.
By Tony Gurney, Lecturer, School of Computing, University of the West of Scotland
Is there more to teaching than the Socrative method? Of course there is. Good teachers are part expert, part counselor and part showman. If you’ve caught your class yawning perhaps the following paper might help.
This article discusses the qualities of inspirational teaching in higher education (HE). It starts by arguing how topical this subject is, given emphasis world-wide on quality assurance measures, such as the UK Government’s 2016 Teaching Excellence Framework TEF. The paper then moves to review the academic and practice literature in order to outline what comprises inspirational teaching in HE institutions. These components – in the form of key words – are extracted from the literature and then tested through primary research.
Lecturers, at an English University, agreed to circulate a short survey to final year social sciences undergraduates. Fifty-two student returns from 2010 were analysed. A comparative survey of 25 undergraduates – from the same disciplines – was repeated in 2016.
Three clear elements of inspirational undergraduate teaching emerge: First and foremost, undergraduates believe it to be motivating; second, and related – inspirational teaching is deemed encouraging and third such teaching flows from teachers’ passion for their subject. The paper presents exploratory and illustrative data and sets down a forward agenda for further research to explore aspects of inspirational university teaching linked to differing cultural expectations, potential impacts of gender, age and ethnicity.
English: Title page from Sarah Trimmer’s The Guardian of Education, vol. I, 1802 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The annual ritual of the publication of the National Student Survey (NSS) results has triggered fevered data dissection at universities across the UK this week. But the analysis, and the subsequent press releases and poster campaigns, represent merely a stage in a continual cycle of NSS-driven activity.
Universities now run ongoing campaigns to solicit student feedback, review practice in line with student demands, publicise changes made, and promote completion of the survey itself, in order to rank highly for satisfaction in league tables. All this time and effort comes at some expense to institutions; just the cost of rewarding survey-completers with vouchers would cover a lecturer’s salary at many institutions.The time has come to review what students, and higher education more broadly, gains from this considerable investment.
Technology Map – Tutornet (Photo credit: steven w)
Technology is changing at a rapid pace, so much so that it’s challenging to grasp.
While there is little uniformity in technology, there are some trends worth noting that have spurred tangent innovation, including speed (a shift from dial-up top broad band), size (from huge computers to small handheld devices), and connectivity (through always-on apps and social media).
In fact, we have some to expect nearly instant obsolescence—smartphone contracts that last a mere 24 months seem like ages. Whether this is a matter of trend or function is a matter of perspective, but it’s true that technology is changing—and not just as a matter of power, but tone.
In 2013, technology has become not just a tool, but a standard and matter of credibility. While learning by no means requires technology, to design learning without technology is an exercise in spite—proving a point at the cost of potential. And it’s difficult to forget how new this is.
Fifteen years ago, a current high school sophomore was born.
