With China muscling its way into the first ranks as a global power in science and technology—building vast new academic complexes, climbing to the top ranks of the world’s elite universities, surpassing the U.S. in PhD graduates in science and engineering, and on its way to outperforming all other nations in science and technology academic citations—I was puzzled to discover that China is on hold in offering online higher ed degrees.
To expand the nation’s technical talent pool, Chinese universities are upgrading their capacity to offer more up-to-date science and technology courses, with universities just beginning to introduce degrees in artificial intelligence, machine learning, software engineering and other advanced specialties. For China, the move is a departure from its centuries-old tradition of favoring literature and the liberal arts.
China has come a long way from cinema-style instruction to adopt more common digital learning practices, often closely following U.S. advances in online pedagogy, such as flipped classrooms and MOOCs.
Curiously, China’s reluctance to offer online degrees parallels the attitude toward online degrees in the Ivy League in the U.S.—both have embraced MOOCs while turning away from virtual degrees out of concern that remote degrees will damage their reputations.
Our 2018-2019 Global State of Digital Learning research study revealed some interesting insights about instructional approaches. It was taken by 9,279 education professionals from all across the country in various roles and districts.
When we look at instructional approaches most frequently used, the top ones are differentiated instruction (73.5%), blended learning (54.8%), and individualized learning (47.8%). And while flipped learning, personalized learning, and gamification command the most press, they aren’t being practiced as much as one might think. In many ways, this makes a lot of sense. These approaches require more time and resources than many of the others.
Fidalgo-Blanco, A., Martinez-Nuñez, M., Borrás-Gene, O., & Sanchez-Medina, J. J. (2017). Micro flip teaching ‒ An innovative model to promote the active involvement of students. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 713–723. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.07.060
Flipped classrooms have become getting attention as a way for teachers to find more time for activities and individual support during the regular school day, but a new study cautions that the model could trade short-term gains for wider achievement gaps. https://t.co/4FBPiDigj9pic.twitter.com/AsEbUkgOJI
It’s much more likely that students will get lit up by learning if they come in for office hours and they present a very imperfect argument and the teacher says, the mentor says, that’s not really right. That’s not really where it should be, but come back again. Come back here again. I’ll be here for you again.
So many faculty are kind of going in the opposite direction or saying we’re putting things online and you can take the course online.
definition flipped classroom
In a flipped classroom the idea is the students are learning the technical material at home and then the classroom time is designed to be about discussion of the material and questions about the material.
part of the narrative of a flipped classroom is that it’s somehow responding to a crisis of a deadened classroom instead of an enlivened classroom and that isn’t necessarily true.
an open laptop or an open iPad opens up a kind of cone of silence and attentional disarray around itself because students’ attention has sort of been taken by the open device.
We’re not using the technology really the way we should. And I think that education is a tough case because so much has been pitched and so much has been sold. Schools have been told that this is the future, and parents are told that this is the future. Actually, it’s not clear, it’s not clear how much of this is the future and how much some of this is just our feeling
Colleges around the country have also started hiring staff members with titles like OER Coordinator and Affordable Content Librarian. Our series looked into how the movement is changing, and the research into the costsand benefits. You can even hear a podcast version here.
Flipped classrooms seem to be growing exponentially
Robert Talbert, a professor of mathematics at Grand Valley State University and author of the book Flipped Learning. Talbert recently tabulated how many scholarly articles are published each year about “flipping” instruction, meaning that traditional lecture-style material is delivered before class (often using videos) so that classroom time can be used for discussion and other more active learning.
More professors are looking to experts to help them teach. (Though some resist.)
By 2016, there were an estimated 13,000 instructional designers on U.S. campuses, according to a report by Intentional Futures. And that number seems to be growing.
There’s also a growing acceptance of the scholarly discipline known as “learning sciences,” a body of research across disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, psychology, anthropology and other fields trying to unlock secrets of how people learn and how to best teach.
Students are also finding their own new ways to learn online, by engaging in online activism. The era of a campus bubble seems over in the age of Twitter
Colleges are still struggling to find the best fit for online education
And what does it mean to teach an age of information overload and polarization?
Perhaps the toughest questions of all about teaching in the 21st century is what exactly is the professor’s role in the Internet age. Once upon a time the goal was to be the ‘sage on the stage,’ when lecturing was king. Today many people argue that the college instructor should be more of a ‘guide on the side.’ But as one popular teaching expert notes, even that may not quite fit.
And in an era of intense political polarization, colleges and professors are looking for best to train students to become digitally literate so they can play their roles as informed citizens. But just how to do that is up for debate, though some are looking for a nonpartisan solution.
