Online: Trending Now

Not everyone agrees about what Web 3.0 will be, let alone how it will impact higher education, but the time to begin preparing is now.

One of higher ed’s challenges is to close the loop on relevancy for every student in every module of every class.

In 1997, Sylvia Manning, then VPAA of the University of Illinois system, later president of the Higher Learning Commission, declared, “The online learning train is leaving the station—get on board or be left behind!”

This is a challenging time to lead, as a provost, dean, director or department chair at a college or university. That is not to say that there are not successes and rewards to be achieved, but they come harder than in decades past.

This is a rather dark Dickensian time in higher education, caught in the storm of societal and economic sea change. Yet, there is hope for those institutions who recognize and respond to the changes that are upon us.

Too often we assess our own learning by how pleasant the learning experience is, rather than assessing retention as well as how authentically relevantly and meaningfully those experiences and outcomes apply to real-life situations.

An artifact of centuries of schooling history in agrarian cultures, our universities have been bound by semesters, quarters, terms and other rigid predefined calendar schedules. Likewise, we have been fenced in by regulations of states, campuses and other locational limitations.

Postsecondary education is broken. The signs are obvious and pervasive. Although not perfect and not a universal solution, Google has launched an alternative approach that illuminates the way to address many of the shortcomings that plague our current system.