Upcoming event on the changing pedagogy and economics of higher education
On April 9, 2014, UBC will be hosting Dr. Tony Bates, an e-learning and distance education expert, and Eric Grimson, the Chancellor for Academic Advancement and a professor of computer science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for a discussion on how developments around technology, learning research, student demographics, and macroeconomic forces are impacting higher education.
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What about the women?
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Coursera released the results of a demographic survey of over 250,000 Coursera students and estimated the fraction of Coursera’s students in each country who are female.
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EdX adds a second tier of members
edX recently announced an expanded membership structure and the addition of 12 new member institutions, including Colgate University and Hamilton College, as well as several non-academic institutions, such as the Linux Foundation and the International Monetary Fund.
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Does teaching presence matter in a MOOC?
Terry Anderson, a professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca University, discusses a recent study of a Coursera MOOC that concluded that teacher presence had no significant relation to course completion, the most badges awarded, an intent to register in subsequent MOOCs, or course satisfaction.
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Stanford President shares Stanford’s perspective on online learning
At a recent two-day summit on "How Technology Impacts the Pedagogy and Economics of Residential Higher Education," Stanford President John Hennessy stated that colleges and universities will be taking a more scientific approach to online learning than in the past and relying upon their schools of education to measure student learning and to provide feedback.
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Announcing Mozilla BadgeKit
Mozilla recently announced the release of BadgeKit, a set of foundational tools to support the badging process for organizations developing badges for their communities.
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The access compromise and the 5th R
David Wiley revisits his "4 R" framework (Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute) for understanding the spectrum of permissions that define an open education resource (OER).
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How to design an innovative course
Contact North examines the topic of innovation in teaching, which they define as "doing something differently that leads to major changes in how students learn, resulting in better learning."
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Course development by teams
A 13-minute video from Phil Hill who interviews George Washington University Chair Vanessa Perry about her experiences developing a flipped class, with a focus on the team course development effort.
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Short videos are better for learning, right? Maybe not
Justin Reich, a HarvardX Research Fellow, explores the research on video length and impacts on learning and finds that "while this notion of the optimal length of lecture as 5-15 minutes has a lot of traction, it perhaps is more received wisdom than well supported in the literature."
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