A new education landscape is emerging. Colleges are changing how they operate and how they teach, under pressure from lawmakers, parents, and students to respond to new economic realities.
And new players are emerging—start-ups backed by record Silicon Valley investment, deep-pocketed foundations set on reform, and academic outsiders using platforms that let anyone teach courses.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Re:Learning project provides stories and analysis about this change moment for learning.
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News
PathwayConnect, a yearlong program created by Brigham Young University-Idaho, has graduated nearly 24,000 students by cutting marketing costs, stacking credentials, and mixing online classes with real-world meetups. What can other colleges learn from the endeavor?
Facilities
As colleges tailor residences to the needs of first-year students, architects find that what works best isn’t what students say they want.
News
Here’s what we know about that question — and several others that have sprung up in the wake of the university’s surprising purchase of the for-profit institution.
News
Apprenticeships are no longer an alternative to the college path but a supplement that prepares students for careers while they earn a degree.
News
The career-focused programs were initially pitched as the antithesis of traditional colleges. But now several boot camps are discovering the value of a more direct connection to universities, and vice versa.
News
Jim Shelton, now heading up the education portfolio at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, isn’t giving any details yet. But in this podcast, he emphasizes the value of bringing learning scientists together with educators to improve learning and increase equality.
The Review
Is delivering video courses and short quizzes all it takes to develop knowledge and skills?
News
Sarah Short, who has taught some 44,000 students over a half-century at Syracuse University, wants to see more classroom interaction.
News
Investors in a Silicon Valley company called Rafter pulled the plug on it on Friday, and its college customers are now in what one described as “crisis-management mode.”
News
MOOCs may have been overhyped, but their impact is far from over, says Simon Nelson, of the online-learning provider FutureLearn. And traditional colleges have a huge opportunity if they’re just willing to think a little differently.
Innovator
Gordon Jones, who moved to Idaho after experience at Harvard and in business, explains how to avoid the “immunological rejection response” to change and why to take more responsibility for what happens to graduates.
Technology
In a Re:Learning podcast, The Chronicle talks with Joshua Cooper Ramo, who points to a shift in attitudes toward college and authority figures in general.
Technology
Developers of a “credentials registry” unveil a prototype of the tool. And six more colleges joined the 21st Century Skills Badging Challenge.
Technology
Colleges that have contracts with the online retailer stand to profit by pocketing 2 percent of every purchase delivered.
News
Shane Mauss, a stand-up comic who likes picking professors’ brains, has become an unlikely but engaging science educator.
Teaching Technology
A study of more than 900 colleges by Blackboard hints at the potential of harnessing data from learning-management systems as “a real-time indicator of student engagement.”
News
Academics and tech-company officials met earlier this year to hash out approaches for the ethical treatment of information collected via learning-management systems, online courseware, and other electronic sources.
Commentary
The hype has faded for the massive courses, and their leading commercial proponents have moved on to other gigs. But they’ve left a legacy of the transformative potential of online technology in teaching.
Teaching
Michael Wesch, an associate professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, joins his students for an unusual tour of their lives beyond the classroom.
Technology
A Chronicle reporter sits down with three generations of ed-tech insiders, including a founder of Western Governors University and the father-daughter team behind a new adult-education platform.
Teaching Technology
The approach, in use in a variety of subjects, is said to engage students in new ways and allow them to demonstrate their understanding of the material.
Teaching Technology
The leader of the Turing School of Software & Design says its mission is to promote social justice and help diversify computing fields.
Teaching
Only 6.6 percent of faculty members are “very aware” of open educational resources, a survey found, and many say they can’t find such materials, although their use in introductory courses is ticking up.
Technology
Jefferson Education, an incubator affiliated with the University of Virginia, has enlisted more than 100 educators, entrepreneurs, and experts to examine why neither companies nor their customers tend to rigorously evaluate their products.
Teaching Technology
A professor of chemical engineering and a communications professional have teamed up to teach an innovative course at the California Institute of Technology.
News
Coursera’s Daphne Koller discusses plans for the future of a format that some thought would never last this long.
Textbooks
Hal Plotkin, a longtime supporter of open educational resources, says efforts like the Zero Textbook Cost degree could save students billions of dollars.
Teaching
Researchers ponder the finding that at community colleges, online classes result in lower grades but more completed degrees.
The Review
More and more colleges have moved their learning-management software to “the cloud.” What they don’t realize is that it’s all on the same cloud.
Technology
Institutions collect startling amounts of information on students. Do the students have a right to know how it’s being used, and should they be able to opt out?
Learning
The evidence is largely anecdotal, and the research is inconclusive, but many professors say reading online clearly hampers students’ ability to take in what they study.
Teaching
As distance learning goes mainstream, colleges are rethinking how they train faculty members.
News
Decades after colleges embraced courses that students could take at their own pace, the trend is toward synchrony once again.
Commentary
A recent report attempts to determine whether the teaching technique actually helps students learn better than traditional methods do. Because of methodological challenges, the results are inconclusive.
News
Evolving virtual-reality technology holds great promise for higher education, reports A.J. Kelton, director of emerging and instructional technology at Montclair State University.
Technology
William Wendt, who teaches online and hybrid courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, says, “You have to go with the modern world, and things change.”
Technology
Some start-ups may well burn out, but at least two areas are still growing: career services and learning analytics.
News
Believe it or not, he says, traditional institutions have a long history of innovation. His university’s project on the future of higher education intends to continue that trend.
The Review
Professors are still skeptical of online education, but they’re more involved in it than ever.
Publishing
The move by the publishing giant caused a ruckus on social media.
Teaching
In an interview, the Stanford professor also shares some of her latest ideas about how to help students push forward when they have setbacks.
News
USA Funds is increasingly a player — to some, a suspect one — in efforts aimed at helping students make strong connections between college and their career.
Share Your Thoughts
We asked readers whom they’d like us to interview on our weekly podcast. Tell us your favorite.
News
In a new podcast, a prominent critic of education technology deconstructs what she calls the “Silicon Valley narrative.”
Teaching
Oregon State University is among colleges that are redesigning arena classrooms and bringing higher production values to how they use them, to help keep students engaged.
Commentary
Put aside your sense of irony. Here are some thoughtful ways to use technology to advance personalized learning.
Finance
The celebrity businessman and ed-tech mentor says education “is a mess.” He hopes to help turn it around with investments in start-ups and sharp criticism of bloated administration, glitzy facilities, and “easy money” in student loans.
News
Battushig Myanganbayar enrolled at MIT after crushing one of its first massive open online courses. And he has some ideas about how they could make a real difference in the developing world.
News
Three teaching experts offer color commentary on a classroom scene, and discuss the pros and cons of this enduring teaching format.
Technology
A Norwegian professor posts videos on the platform, even though it deletes them after 24 hours.
Technology
Mentorship tools and college-to-career services dominated the buzz at a gathering of ed-tech companies, investors, and educators.
The Review
A recent report from MIT about online education argues that the right way to use technology is to help professors do what they already do, but better.
News
Christine Ortiz explains how her radical project was sparked by interdisciplinary body-armor research and some time spent on a technology-free retreat.
Technology
The new program, for online classes at Thomas Edison State University, follows the model devised by Starbucks but goes further.
Technology
The economics blogger and George Mason University professor says the distinction between universities and non-university educators is “crumbling.” Just look at his Marginal Revolution University.
Publishing
A website called Library Genesis, apparently a sister site to the notorious Sci-Hub, has ripped off thousands of university-press titles.
News
Jaime Casap represents one of the country’s most powerful tech companies. He’s also a voice for minority students from poor families.
The Review
Product marketers are on the far end of a game of telephone that often starts with research findings that are both nuanced and provisional.
Technology
Khan Academy has become a force. Its founder, Salman Khan, talks about his vision for the future, and what he thinks the college of tomorrow should look like.
Re:Learning
MOOC sequences that lead to certificates can also be the ticket into some master’s programs. Educators say that’s one way of easing barriers and cutting costs for students.
Technology
For the second year in a row, innovators with very different notions of how to improve higher education brought us their pitches. Here’s how they fared.
News
Several contestants in The Chronicle’s 2015 “Shark Tank: Edu Edition” have made progress in developing their ideas over the past year.
The education landscape is changing. On The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Re:Learning podcast, you’ll meet the renegade teachers, ed-tech entrepreneurs, and longtime educators shaping the future of college. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is part of our broader coverage of the future of education. For updates, follow the Re:Learning project on Twitter, Facebook, and iTunes.
Commentary
Understanding the needs, interests, and technical proficiency of faculty members before jumping into features and solutions is an important way to improve the process.
Re:Learning
Should colleges be worried about this mammoth new education player? The Chronicle spoke with Michael Korcuska, LinkedIn’s vice president of management for learning, who says no.
Teaching and Learning
Hot topics at the gathering, an offshoot of the South by Southwest festival, centered on how technology is changing the college experience, and what that means for students, professors, and administrators.
Technology
Professors shouldn’t be so resistant to technology-driven change, says Michael Staton, an entrepreneur. They stand to benefit from it.
Commentary
Procurement is a dirty word that most academics don’t like to talk about. But if we want better products, we have to get better at choosing them.
News
Pretty much everybody agrees that grades are not an effective measure of learning. So what are they good for, and what might be better?
The Review
The numbers can be misleading, and the real question is whether the costs are still hurting vulnerable students’ chances to succeed.
News
Candace Thille says colleges shouldn’t let proprietary “black boxes” control the future of personalized learning.
Teaching
The new online-technologies commons will help faculty members find tools to use in their classrooms, and yield insights on which lead to positive student outcomes.
Technology
Academics are increasingly turning to renegade websites like Sci-Hub to view subscriber-only articles free. The trend is putting librarians in an awkward position.
The Review
Colleges have the capacity to create a valuable new public tool.
News
But advocates for adjunct faculty members worry it could become an additional burden for instructors who already carry a heavy load.
Technology
One student’s perspective: “It’s Thursday night and you have two big homeworks due Friday. Your friends are going out. You’re just like, I just want to finish this, I don’t really care how this gets done.”
News
At next month’s conference, we will again borrow a page from the TV show Shark Tank with a return of our “Shark Tank: Edu Edition.”
Re:Learning
Administrators at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and Hampshire College reflect on the challenges of shaking up the standard system.
Commentary
Colleges should start thinking of data about students as data that in some way belongs to the students. Let them make the call about sharing it.
News
Christine Ortiz, a dean of graduate education, envisions a new kind of college, built from scratch for today’s needs and with today’s technology.
Technology
Stanford University sees such integration as a way to bring in students who are drawn to the arts but feel that they need computing skills for their careers.
Technology
The Chronicle spoke with three experts about ways colleges can use technology to reduce instructional costs.
Online Education
Student-acquisition costs are lower and retention rates are higher for institutions that team up with companies to give tuition discounts to workers.
Curriculum
The effort’s successes and failures hold lessons for other colleges interested in transformation from within.
Technology
The MOOC provider Udacity pledges that graduates of its four most marketable courses will earn a job in their field within six months of completing the program.
Technology
At a vast consumer electronics show last week, student entrepreneurs matched their corporate counterparts in pitching products for teaching. Whether any of them catches on is anyone’s guess.
Teaching
By looking at who comes from where, geographers can explore gender imbalance, achievement, and even motivation in open online courses.
Data about how students learn could open new vistas in education, if only instructors can figure out how to use it.
Proprietary institutions were easy to track and regulate. The new companies are something else entirely.
News
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Share Your Thoughts
We asked readers which questions they’re curious for us to research in a future story for Re:Learning. Tell us your favorite.