Many students on the road to degree attainment are like travelers with no clear map, navigating at random, not always well informed about whether their daily and longer-term choices will result in the most successful path toward educational goals. Would certain study behaviors lead to better performance in a course? Should a student focus on mathematics or biology if she wants to work toward a medical degree?
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Today’s students are not experiencing the same thing. Textbook prices have skyrocketed since the 1980s. And in the 1990s, the problem was exacerbated by publishers who tried to squelch the used textbook market by putting out new editions of books every 18 months instead of once every six years, as had been the tradition since the 1950s. Even more frustrating for students has been that as prices continued to increase, faculty would still require students to purchase an expensive textbook but then only use a third of the chapters.
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In the past, those in the academy have been reluctant to quantify the value of a college education. In fact, it has long been argued that academic inquiry and other intangibles are what have made the college experience so valuable. While some might disagree with that claim, the reality is that in order for our system of higher education to survive in this era of limited funding and escalating costs, we need to prove that students are learning and that our colleges and universities are capable of driving innovation and creative thinking.
Today’s disruptive changes in education — from the proliferation of digital devices to the availability of open educational resources, online universities, and badge-based certification — have the field abuzz like never before. Recently I had the opportunity to give a talk at WNET’s Celebration of Teaching and Learning on creating the conditions for innovation in education.
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ISKME’s Teachers as Makers Academy stimulates teachers’ creation of Open Educational Resources (OER), freely available online learning materials, in a collaborative format that covers the basics of finding and evaluating OER; and leads teachers through the design and remix of new projects to share. We view teachers as makers of learning and strive to support innovation in their teaching by leading them through a dynamic two-day Academy that stretches their creativity in terms of how and what they teach.
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Next Wednesday, January 11th, from 6:30pm-8:30pm, the Internet Archive and ISKME will co-host a conversation that explores the concept of custom schooling, which is a model of individualized teaching and learning experienced in class sizes of one to four students.
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