Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts

In May 2014, CompetencyWorks brought together twenty-three technical assistance providers to examine their catalytic role in implementing next generation learning models, share each other's knowledge and expertise about blended learning and competency education, and discuss next steps to move the field forward with a focus on equity and quality. Our strategy maintains that by building the knowledge and networks of technical assistance providers, these groups can play an even more catalytic role in advancing the field. The objective of the convening was to help educate and level set the understanding of competency education and its design elements, as well as to build knowledge about using blended learning modalities within competency-based environments. This paper attempts to draw together the wide-ranging conversations from the convening to provide background knowledge for educators to understand what it will take to transform from traditional to personalized, competency-based systems that take full advantage of blended learning

Promising Practices in Veterans' Education: Outcomes and Recommendations from the Success for Veterans Award Grants

This is an evaluation of the Success for Veterans Awards program, and includes reports from 20 grantees

When the shoe doesn’t fit: supporting students who are challenged by online educational technologies

Taking an action research approach, this paper explores the experiences of graduate level students who found a technology enabled classroom challenging. After taking part in an online orientation activity, the students began their studies in a three week face-to-face residency, followed by two distance learning sessions. At the end of the second session, 15% of the students had either taken a leave of absence, or left the program permanently. Current literature focuses on several issues that have a negative influence on students’ ability to achieve their educational goals in an online environment. These issues include isolation, lack of preparedness, and feeling overwhelmed. Building on this, we explored the following question: How can educational technology be used to increase retention for students enrolled in an online course? Aimed at identifying approaches to overcoming some of the problems associated with studying online, we sought to examine the perceptions of MBA students by asking the participants to take part in a focus group discussion. This paper will discuss the challenges found by the graduate level students who worked in a computer-mediated educational environment, as well as highlight some of the solutions aimed at increasing student retention by enhancing the online classroom. Findings revealed that technologies aimed at encouraging student presence in the online classroom, as well as those that allow them to interact socially online could positively increase student retention. In addition, employing tools that support the students’ desire to repeat and reflect on material serves to improve the experience for those studying online. Finally, instructors who display comfort with the use of technology also have a positive impact on student learning. By providing a heightened awareness of the issues faced by graduate students working online, as well as spotlighting some key solutions, this study underscores the importance of targeting appropriate technologies when designing the online classroom. Further studies in this area could explore undergraduate engagement, generational differences, as well as learning preferences in the context of online learning

Managing projects for change: Contextualised project management

This paper will detail three projects which focussed on enhancing online learning at a large Australian distance education University within a School of Business,School of Health and School of Education. Each project had special funding and took quite distinctive project management approaches, which reflect the desire to embed innovation and ownership at the instructor and student interface. By responding to the stakeholder requirements these three projects provide insight into a) how integrated professional development serves to enable change in practice; b) why leadership at both junior and senior levels of the organisation is an important driver to support instructor engagement for real change; c) what role external private contractors can play; and, d) how instructors were integrated through the varied project management approaches. The integrating theme of the paper is instructor engagement for real change. Each project will be detailed as mini-cases and key lessons drawn out that describe and explain the challenges, opportunities and scope of varied project management approaches to suit the distinct four contexts. This paper builds on and brings together considerable investigation into how we can support and enhance dissemination of a variety of project-based models that respond to contextual needs and issues. The multiple school case study methodology serves to provide an approach that is both robust and cognisant of current trends in increased university investment through shortterm project funding. The final recommendations will highlight how different approaches to project management are both desirable and essential for successfully embedding change of instructor practices for enhancing student learning in distance education modes

Catching them is one thing, keeping them is something else: reflections on teaching first year university students

[Abstract]: This paper documents teaching practices that have been identified, by the teaching team, as improving student success rates in a first year tertiary level compulsory subject. Constructivism, scaffolding, social presence and reflective practice are the key concepts which have proved to be successful in transitioning students in this subject to university study. Outcomes have consisted of goal achievement by individual students, increased student retention and success rates

It's Not a Matter of Time: Highlights From the 2011 Competency-Based Learning Summit

Outlines discussions about the potential and challenges of competency-based learning in transforming the current time-based system, including issues of accountability, equity, personalization, and aligning policy and practice. Includes case summaries

From Novelty to Expectation: Recommendations to Develop a System of Campus Support for Foster Youth

As longtime funders of efforts to promote educational opportunity for current and former foster youth, the Walter S. Johnson Foundation (WSJF) and Stuart Foundation have been in the forefront of efforts to replicate successful models of campus support programs for former foster youth at public institutions of higher education in the Bay Area and Northern California. This paper was commissioned to help the funders determine what additional investments could be made to help additional campuses implement support programs and to move the field toward a "tipping point" where temporary philanthropic support for a relatively small number of demonstration programs begins to be replaced by on-going public support for the widespread replication of CSPs throughout the state's public institutions of higher education. This paper examines the challenges and barriers faced by campuses that seek to replicate campus support programs for foster youth, determine what campuses need for effective replication, and the most useful ways in which support could be delivered. In also includes a potential design for a campus support program initiative and makes recommendations for the type of intermediary needed to manage the initiative

Synthesizing Middle Grades Research on Cultural Responsiveness: The Importance of a Shared Conceptual Framework

In conducting a literature review of 133 articles on cultural responsiveness in middle level education, we identified a lack of shared definitions, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and foci, which made it impossible to synthesize across articles. Using a conceptual framework that required: 1) clear definitions of terms; 2) a critically conscious stance; and 3) inclusion of the middle school concept, we identified 14 articles that met these criteria. We then mapped differences and convergences across these studies, which allowed us to identify the conceptual gaps that the field must address in order to have common definitions and understandings that enable synthesis across studies

Identifying innovation in higher education elearning strategies

There are many case studies of individual Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) devising distinctive eLearning strategies, reported by the HEI itself, journalists, or research observatories. An extraordinarily wide range of university-level eLearning programmes are rapidly becoming available from large numbers of HEIs across Europe, and there are strong attempts being made to identify and disseminate case studies of innovative eLearning practices (e.g. MENON, 2006). However, the vital research goal of obtaining more systematic evidence across countries in relation to HEIs' innovations in eLearning strategies represents a particular challenge for collectors of case studies, especially given the diverse processes in different countries for measuring pedagogical value and cost-effectiveness. By contrast, there are typically several reports a year of large-scale attempts to survey HEIs in relation to eLearning, sponsored, for example, by EU programmes or industry groups. Yet the factors that determine educational effectiveness are not, so far, well understood; and consequently it can be difficult to develop reliable quantitative survey items that simultaneously enable valid and insightful comparisons between essentially qualitative eLearning strategies. Moreover, such quantitative evidence is not collected systematically by the typical HEI; when collected, such evidence is commercially sensitive; and it is not easy for researchers to obtain independently of the HEI. So, claims are made, for example, that European universities plan to 'expand their use of eLearning' (BBC News, 2005), but it is not at all clear what measures of expansion are appropriate, and what kinds of strategies are associated with such expansion. The two-year research study described here attempted a mixed-method approach to the problem of identifying examples of innovation in relation to the eLearning strategies developed by HEIs. Where possible the study estimated the impact of the implemented eLearning programmes, but the emphasis was on illuminating a range of innovative eLearning strategy cases, rather than necessarily determining best practice. Two key research questions asked by the study are: 1. How can innovation in Higher Education eLearning strategies be identified? 2. What factors are critical to the success of these strategies? This research did not set out to obtain, directly, insight into why eLearning has not been more widely adopted by HEIs, why various eLearning projects have failed, why some eLearning projects have achieved less success than anticipated, or why some eLearning projects have achieved success more slowly than anticipated. However, by researching innovation, the challenges faced by the innovators, and how strategies needed to change over time, it is anticipated that the findings from this study might indirectly illuminate these crucial questions. It is not possible within the space available here to do more than outline the methodology and highlight a few key findings: fuller reports are available on the project website www.spi.pt/innounilearning

Technology skills and perceptions of online classes in the Social Studies Department at Merrill Senior High School as a foundation for organizational change

Includes bibliographical references