Resource Center: First-Year Experience

For all sorts of reasons, "first year" has become a good replacement for "freshman." Among them is the attention the status earns through the excellent work at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

The Center delivers on resources, as the name promises, as well as gateway to five listservs. Not so obvious but worth the experiment is the link to University 101, U of South Carolina's initiative that serves 80% of its new students and continues to offer support all the way to University 401, a senior capstone experience. (University 101 is responsible for much of the development of the Center.)

Low-cost publications are described on the site and a sample issue of the E-Source newsletter can be downloaded (requires clicking through a couple of web pages):

E-Source for College Transitions
6 issues $40; institutional subscription $100

Journal of the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition
semiannual, refereed
$45; institutional subscription $110

[The Higher Ed Assessment blog will be "off" next week for Thanksgiving. Back in December.]

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Online Education: Oversight Needed

Online education has become big business. Cross-border education (referring to the online variety) makes it global big business. Ten years ago, faculties debated whether to put a course or a program online; today, the question is simply, how fast? Regardless of the business model and fee structure, mounting online courses means keeping market share. Not mounting online courses means losing market share.

An Insider Higher Ed story about the continuing increases in online enrollment asks, will faculty follow? The question isn't just about faculty incentives to teach online but also about the basic business model (or not) adopted (or not) by institutions well before the first online class is scheduled. The question of quality comes next. No one can say for sure whether a heavily adjuncted online degree is the most efficient model just as no one can promise that course quality is higher when the teacher of record is on regular faculty.

The article from Insider Higher Ed relates a horror story or two about incentives run amok as well as a couple of business models that appear to be working. I would suggest that most discussions do not warn adequately about just how bad online education can be. (I am a distance educator. I consider the learning to be superior to face-to-face learning. But I am also a realist.)

1. Incentives may induce sign-ups by faculty but may not have a thing to do with the eventual course. Over an EDUCAUSE box lunch, a young instructional designer at a large state university confided to me that she had an ethical dilemma. "Faculty members get release time for two semesters to work with us on a new course. And they get paid a bonus, too. But I never see them after the first meeting and they just choose a textbook with a cartridge."

2. A graduate student at a Campus Technology conference told me of online courses for which senior professors log in once or not at all, perhaps hold a face-to-face seminar, and grant grades based on number of emails in the Inbox.

There is such a thing as a good course cartridge from a publisher and maybe the course quality is adequate at that instructional designer's institution. And university faculties have always included mediocre and even fatally flawed professors. The missing piece in these stories is oversight by administrators who (a) understand the processes of online education, and (b) care.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Resources: the Learning Sciences

At the Sloan-C conference in early November, a publisher recommended the Cambridge Handbook of Learning Sciences as a source for curriculum planning. The topic at the Sloan-C session was online collaborative learning, which commands a chapter in the Handbook. But the entire book speaks to what we have learned about learning in the past couple of decades. Foundational chapters address the "new science" of learning and the "interdisciplinary science" of learning.

Like any collection, the book crosses topics rapidly, from constructionism to project-based learning to "anytime, anywhere" computing devices. The thread running through the collection is the attention to scholarship.

Leading academic resources for Learning Sciences

U of Nottingham: Learning Sciences Research Institute
Carnegie Mellon U and U of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center
U of Illinois at Chicago: Learning Sciences Research Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology: Learning Sciences and Technology
Goergie Institute of Technology: Journal of the Learning Sciences

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Online Program: Big Central Texas College

Without purpose of promoting Blackboard (which doesn't need any promoting), this link to a Bb Case Study is nevertheless an endorsement—of the professionalism of Central Texas College (CTC) in managing tremendous growth in online learning enrollments.

I have met CTC faculty and administrators in seminar setting and followed their growth over the past several years. While the Bb narrative serves to explain how the LMS supports the community college's online programs, it also concisely relates the numbers story:

Enrollment in 2001-2002: 15,235
Enrollment in 2005-2006: 57,484
Estimated for 2008: 92,000

For the scope of CTC's online presence, visit the school's Distance Education web site. CTC ranks 20th in the nation as a "top producer" of Associate's degrees and certificates. It is also acknowledged as a leading provider for education for military service members.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Online Simulations for Ethics

EthicsGame.com produces corporate as well as higher ed ethics curricula, which can include bundling print textbooks with online simulations. The company also produces online-only options, such as the EthicsGame-Hot Topics. These are short, stand-alone modules that can include pre- and post-administrations for assessment purposes.

The online experience of about 2 hours is supported by the company to insure that technology is not a problem. Statistics on student time on task, ranking, and discussions are provided to the instructor. The instructor can weight the elements of participation to create a grading scale for the assignment.

The company web site also serves as subscribers' portal to the simulations through an icon labeled "Game Door." Visitors can take advantage of four free online orientations (each takes about an hour). These introductory sims are accessed through the menu item "Orientation" that appears throughout the web site.

A web page description of the online EthicsGame-Hot Topic gives sample costs per student and per module (base price is about $30 per student).

[No disclaimer for this blog...I don't have any association with the publisher and learned of the product last week at the Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning.]

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

B-School Online Simulation $12.50 a Pop

A recent release from Harvard Business Publishing was highlighted last week at the Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning: Root Beer Game, based on the classic (MIT) Beer Game from the 1960s.

The publisher dusted off the B-school classic and fashioned an online sim for students of Operations Management and Supply Chain Management. The Root Beer Game is not as complex as other sims but that's also its allure: basic principles that are highly digestible for undergraduate Business majors as well as MBA students.

Student access to this particular sim is $12.50 (full price $37.50) via credit card online or pre-payment by students' institution. Faculty can request full access to review sims in order to make selections.

Anyone can view a demo version of the Root Beer Game on the publisher web page. Click on the "Demo" link near the top of the description.

Descriptions of some other sims are located on the site and extensive curriculum materials can be searched by discipline, as well.

[No disclaimer for this blog entry....I don't have any association with the publisher and was introduced to the library of sims just last week.]

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Elections: Money for Higher Ed

Election news turned up the below list of successes for higher ed funding. A fair number involve gambling. The Chronicle is tracking a much fuller list of referenda, noting what voters have rejected, too.

Arkansas voters approved a lottery to support college scholarships.

California voters authorized bonds for children's hospitals, including facilities operated by the University of California.

Colorado voters increased hours of and maximum bets in casinos, with most of the resulting dollars going to community colleges.

Maryland voters OK'd slot machines with a portion of the revenues going to capital projects at higher ed institutions.

Missouri voters increased the percentage of casino revenues reserved for higher ed.

Montana voters renewed their property tax, which will include monies for higher ed.

New Mexico voters authorized bonds for construction projects for higher ed.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Geography and Acceptance Rates at Selective Schools

Fall 2008 numbers provide insight into the acceptance rates at selective institutions. The NYTimes story Geography (11/2/08) includes a handy chart with examples from Amherst, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, Spelman, and 36 others.

So, Carnegie Mellon accepted 50% of its applicants from Mississippi and only 29% of those from California. Meaning comes when you learn that applicants numbered 10 in Mississippi and 2,352 in California.

The NYTimes item identifies New York, California, and New Jersey as big feeder states for selective institutions. Smaller trends are also evident from the chart. It's worth a 10-minute perusal.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Probability of Grade by Class Size in Higher Education

I promised a colleague that I would locate the graphic above. It is one that I have carried in memory since 2005 and it may have the same effect on you. The source is The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement in Higher Education, a 2005 paper by E. C. Kokkelenberg, Michael Dillon, and Sean M. Christy of Binghamton University (published by CHERI).

Even without a good key or great clarity here, you can make out the major finding from the Binghamton University researchers: probability of A/A- grades (at bottom of graph) is much higher in smaller college classes. When class size rises above 20, the highest grades settle into a narrower band that holds as the lecture hall fills to hundreds of students.

The researchers resisted naming cause, satisfied to report on nearly a million observations that cross disciplines at a northeastern university (highly selective research institution). The data are clear, holding for all variables, that grades and class size are negatively associated in higher ed.

Perhaps smaller class size really does produce more learning (assumes that grades reflect learning). Perhaps enrollment in small classes reflects self-selection by high achieving students. Perhaps professors like to give high grades to the students they spend more up-close time with.

One more link about grades and their use in university assessment efforts: Why Not Grades? on the web site of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment at Old Dominion University.

Source published by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI), Cornell University:
Kokkelenberg, E. C., Dillon, M. & Christy, S. M. (2005) The effects of class size on student achievement in higher education (CHERI Working Paper #67). Retrieved November 3, 2008, from Cornell University, ILR School site: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/24/

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.