scholarly journals Online Higher Education: Beyond the Hype Cycle

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. McPherson ◽  
Lawrence S. Bacow

When two Silicon Valley start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, embarked in 2012 on a bold effort to supply college-level courses for free over the Internet to learners worldwide, the notion of the Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) captured the nation's attention. Although MOOCs are an interesting experiment with a role to play in the future of higher education, they are a surprisingly small part of the online higher education scene. We believe that online education, at least online education that begins to take full advantage of the interactivity offered by the web, is still in its infancy. We begin by sketching out the several faces of online learning—asynchronous, partially asynchronous, the flipped classroom, and others—as well as how the use of online education differs across the spectrum of higher education. We consider how the growth of online education will affect cost and convenience, student learning, and the role of faculty and administrators. We argue that spread of online education through higher education is likely to be slower than many commenters expect. We hope that online education will bring substantial benefits. But less-attractive outcomes are also possible if, for instance, legislators use the existence of online education as an excuse for sharp cuts in higher education budgets that lead to lower-quality education for many students, at the same time that richer, more-selective schools are using online education as one more weapon in the arms race dynamic that is driving costs higher.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Acevedo

Abstract The purpose of this essay is to critically and philosophically explore the role of and impetus for quality assurance regimes in online education and their most salient manifestation, the Quality Matters program. The author argues that online courses are particularly vulnerable to autopsic quality examinations under neoliberal rationality as a result of their corporeal, digital nature. This essay will also consider the implications for faculty and others who must abide by and perform quality in online higher education and will consider ways in which those facing the incursion of quality assurance in online education can resist its threats and coercions, leveraging the promise of the liberatory aspects of distance education.


Author(s):  
Bernice Bain

Online education has grown to more than 6 million students with an average age of 33 years old (Kolowich, 2012; Selingo, 2012; Sheehy, 2012). Research indicates online programs are part of many institutions' strategic planning initiatives. Institutions are undergoing increased scrutiny from accrediting bodies, employers, and adult learners. To remain competitive and valid in this changing environment, a significant issue for leaders of online higher education institutions is how to effectively assess online cognitive learning outcomes, such as critical thinking. Adding to the challenge of online assessment of critical thinking is the contextual nature of critical thinking and two differing approaches to assessment. Leaders of online higher education institutions should seek a critical thinking assessment that is based on a theoretical framework of Transformative Learning and Adult Learning Theories. This is explored in this chapter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herena Torio

The role of faculty in higher education as knowledge disseminators within the knowledge and digital society can be completely redefined. This paper presents results from a video-based flipped classroom approach combined with a project-oriented learning arrangement. I show that videos combined with a project-based learning setting can be a powerful tool to facilitate the shift from knowledge dissemination to knowledge appropriation. Besides, results show a high level of student's satisfaction and achievement during the course. The competences obtained by the students during the course reach far beyond those possible in a similar course with a traditional teaching approach.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilde Basso-Aránguiz ◽  
Mario Bravo-Molina ◽  
Antonella Castro-Riquelme ◽  
César Moraga-Contreras

The Technology Model, called T-FliC is proposed for Flipped Classroom. The aim is to provide IT facilities to the aforementioned pedagogical model. This proposal may be implemented at different levels of higher education. T-FliC is primarily based on the use of free technology resources, especially Google applications such as Classroom, Drive, and YouTube, because they are widely used by students and teachers. This extensive use permits to replicate this model in different educational contexts. The T-FliC model incorporates five ICT phases, ranging from the planning of teaching-learning activities to continuous learning assessments. The implementation of the T-FliC Model includes the following phases: a digital class (learning outside the classroom) with asynchronous guidance of a virtual tutor; a workshop involving dynamic activities for collaborative work (classroom learning) guided by a tutor in person; and an ongoing technological tools evaluation process (clickers, portfolio, and forum) which will generate the digital records of the student learning path. This article includes a bibliographic review of the role of ICT in the education processes and the fundamentals of the Flipped Classroom (FC) methodology. In the paper are included FC implementation experiences in higher education, followed by the presentation of the T-FliC Model as a technological proposal for this methodology. Finally, the conclusions present reflections on the proposal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Turoff

Environmental forces influencing the future of higher education in the U.S. threaten to undermine the desirable role of faculty as arbiters of academic quality. For online learning to live up to its potential, institutional policies can return academic authority to faculty over degree programs in all modes and support the importance of education in promotion and tenure processes. Accreditation agencies traditionally have been a service to the institutions and the administration at higher education institutions; they will also have to become an equal service to the consumer of higher education. Consumerism will force all those concerned with the quality and utility of a higher education to focus on the quality and effectiveness of the instructors.


Author(s):  
Susan C. Aldridge ◽  
Mark L. Parker

A key component of quality assurance in online higher education is the periodic evaluation of fully online courses, by both internal and external reviewers, against standards developed by the offering institution. These standards can address a variety of quality areas including but not limited to: the organization and structure of the online course; the extent to which technology is used to foster learning and student engagement; and the use of available communication features to stimulate student discussion and interaction. In this paper the online evaluation processes and criteria of the two largest U.S. state universities involved in online education – University of Maryland University College and Troy University – are compared. It will be shown that the two institutions arrived independently at very similar quality standards for online courses, and that these standards are congruent with those developed and promulgated by nationwide higher education accreditation agencies in the U.S.


Author(s):  
Emad Ahmed Abu-Shanab ◽  
Laila Fawaz Anagreh

Educational institutions are striving for new methods for effective teaching. Flipped classroom (FC) method is one of the new trends spreading in higher education and attracting more instructors. This study aims at exploring the factors influencing the adoption of such a method and its benefits and challenges based on students' perceptions. The literature review suggested a few factors like benefits, enjoyment, innovation development, and social influence as major predictors of flipped classroom adoption. Responses from a sample of 200 students from Qatar University supported all predictors except the role of FC benefits in influencing the adoption. The model explained 62.9% of the adoption variance based on the coefficient of determination value. The authors conducted analysis on items and constructs levels to give more insights on the issues covered in this paper.


Author(s):  
Michael S. Hoffman

In the past decade, enrollments in distance education, and specifically online education, have grown dramatically in the United States. According to the 2009 Sloan Report (), enrollments in online courses increased from 9.6% of total postsecondary enrollments in 2002 to 25.3% in 2009. Unfortunately, a number of barriers exist that may result in an inability of higher education institutions to provide quality online education programming in sufficient scale to meet the expected student demand. The Managing Online Education report () identifies the resistance of faculty towards teaching in an online environment as foremost among ten factors that “impede institutional efforts to expand online education programs” (p. 1). An understanding of the factors that both motivate and discourage faculty member participation in online education programs is critical if institutions are to leverage their existing faculty to meet the current and future demand for online education. This case study first presents a number of motivating and inhibiting factors and then discusses how St. Bonaventure University leveraged these factors in an attempt to boost faculty participation in online education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Morton

In this paper, I reflect on the changing role of higher education by focusing on the case of online education. I consider the promise of online education as a means to mitigate educational inequalities. Based on the available empirical evidence, I argue that this promise is unlikely to be fulfilled because online education is not well-suited to develop the social and emotional skills needed by students from low-income and minority backgrounds for social mobility. Nonetheless, the changing social, political, and economic role of the university should lead us to revise the classical vision of the university’s aims. I argue that the aim of the university should be sensitive to its new social, political, and economic role without falling prey to coarse pragmatism. This third approach delicately navigates the middle-ground between idealism and pragmatism.


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