The Edge

I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering innovation in and around academe. For more than two years, I’ve been curating the weekly Re:Learning newsletter. Now I’ll be using it to share my observations on the people and ideas reshaping the higher-education landscape. Subscribe here. Here’s what’s on my mind this week:

Online learning is misunderstood. Here’s how.

One out of three college students takes at least one class online. But the medium is still often misunderstood by the general public, and even within higher education itself.

So what do the professionals who work in the trenches wish their colleagues knew about online education? You might be surprised. I certainly was.

I asked that question during a talk I gave last week during the Minnesota eLearning Summit at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus (where, by the way, the campus creamery makes some yummy chocolate ice cream).

From Glori Hinck, an instructional designer at the University of St. Thomas, I heard a reminder that the classes aren’t just a one-way, “passive transfer of information.” Even online, she pointed out, “students can have a learning community.” I’d like to hope that is true in all cases, but certainly she’s right that such connections are possible — and ideal.

Christine Mueller, senior executive associate dean for academic programs at the University of Minnesota’s School of Nursing, argued that online classes are often more carefully designed than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. “Our faculty are actually learning about how you construct courses and curriculum,” she said. “Honestly, most faculty, and I’m one of them, never learned that. We learned our discipline. But we didn’t learn how to teach.”

That sentiment has been around for a while. But it did make me wonder: When will that no longer be so true? I keep hearing that graduate programs are taking teaching more seriously as part of their training of the professoriate. Is that enough? And does that training equip new professors with the skills they’ll need to teach online?

My curiosity was also piqued by a concept introduced by Jane Sims, director of academic technology at the College of St. Scholastica. Online classes, she said, can bring together students from more diverse backgrounds — and allow them more chances to connect with each other — than many traditional classrooms do.

Traditional classrooms are often segregated

She elaborated in a follow-up email exchange. “Traditional classrooms are often segregated” by students’ age and life circumstances, she wrote, and they’re constrained by the clock. “There is not enough time for everyone to speak in a timed session, and often the extroverts are heard instead of introverts or people from other cultures or physical capabilities.”

I hadn’t thought a lot about how the 24/7 nature of an an online class — often with requirements to comment on discussion threads — could be a vehicle for more deeply exposing students to a broader set of perspectives from their fellow classmates. But clearly, Sims has. Online, she said, “there is an expectation that everyone adds a reflection and comments to others. There is ample time to ‘hear’ another person and form an articulate response. Reflection is an important component of challenging your assumptions and existing knowledge and incorporating new ideas.”

Appreciate access to education

I’ll share one more response, one I almost passed on writing about. When Martin Springborg, a faculty member and technologist at Hennepin Technical College, described how online education can broaden access to higher education, it sounded just too familiar for this readership. But when I followed up with him, I realized that even some of us familiar with online education don’t always appreciate what simple access to education can mean to some students, like those serving overseas.

For him, it’s a professional issue and a personal one. His mother, who lives in rural Minnesota, has multiple sclerosis, “and would not have been able to return to college later in life were it not for online education,” he said. His sister, who has two kids and works full time, also earned her degree online. “As a faculty member, I’ve seen my online classes become increasingly diverse in practically every way possible — in race, age, region, people with disabilities, veterans currently on active duty in other countries,” Springborg said.

On top of the ice cream, that was great food for thought. Is there anything you’d add? If you have direct experience in online education, what do you think is misunderstood? Please let me know, and I’ll share some of the best responses in a future newsletter.

The M&A wave rolls on.

Two trends are emerging in the business of higher education: the rise of mergers and acquisitions and for-profit colleges converting to nonprofit status. A deal announced last month embodies both.

The nonprofit National University System’s purchase of the for-profit, all-online Northcentral University is in some ways a mini-me version of the Purdue-Kaplan deal (just without the part where the acquired organization stays on to run the online programs). The 35,000-student National University, the system’s San Diego-based flagship, already offers dozens of online degree programs. The system’s purchase of the 10,000-student Northcentral will give it an immediate boost in online doctoral degrees, said a university spokesman.

National also just bought the technology platform and curriculum of another for-profit organization — an operation called UniversityNow, which had attracted millions in venture capital but very few students to its college, called Patten University.

National did not disclose what it paid. Northcentral, founded in 1996 and owned by private-equity firms since 2008, was headed by two veterans of the for-profit-college sector. (One, David Harpool, was once the provost at Kaplan University; the other, George A. Burnett, once ran the company that owned the controversial Westwood College chain.)

Pace of M&A activity has picked up

National has bought colleges before. There were nonprofits — John F. Kennedy University, in 2009, City University of Seattle, in 2013 — and the for-profit WestMed, in 2007. Back then, such deals were pretty unusual for nonprofit institutions. But in the past year, it seems, the pace of merger-and-acquisition activity in the sector has picked up. I expect that trend to continue.

I’m not the only one thinking that way. A Moody’s Investors Service “comment” on business models released last month also spotlighted the still-slow but rising trend of college mergers. It also noted that they “continue to be difficult to execute with many preliminary conversations not leading to consummation.”

While we’re on the subject of business models, consider how Paul Quinn College in Dallas (and as of last month, Plano) is upending work-study. It’s a creative approach that manages to both expand work opportunities for students and bring in additional revenue for the institution.

And for a deeper look at that model — and many other insights on business models — check out this just-published report on “Sustaining the College Business Model” by my colleague Scott Carlson.

Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know at goldie@chronicle.com.