I’ve lost count on the number of ITC conferences that I’ve been to over the years, but today began another. The location: Orlando, Florida. The first day is usually the pre-conference workshops, and this year I was a presenter. My session this year was iPad Apps for Teaching and Learning. I had 2.5 hours to engage the presenters, and man did I do the best I could. One of the things I’ve learned over the years (I actually relearn it every year) is to not doubt myself. I had prepared for this session for weeks, and I had plenty of content. Then, I found out about some additional apps that I wanted to show, just days before the presentation. I did my best to incorporate them, but with the amount of time that I had, something had to give. Unfortunately, it was the participant engagement. I have no idea whether the participants had a good time, but I’m sure I’ll find out when I send out an email with the evaluation.
Opening Keynote
What Every Student Needs: The 6 Ps – Sandy Shugart, Valencia College
Monsatic Model of Education
- Preservation and transmission of culture
- Bachelor’s were under tutelage of Masters
- Once Masters was attained, you replaced your master
- First institutions in US were Harvard, Yale, Princeton, William & Mary
- Professor was the priest / Student is novitiate – hoping to become priest
- Clerics (Clarks) were bureaucrats – considered administration
German Polytechnic Model
- Professor is researcher & innovator / student as apprentice scientist
- Institution as engine of economy
Industrial Model
- Production of graduates for the workforce
- Within 1 year of original GI bill was passed, over 3 million men went back to school
- Truman Commission is what formed “comprehensive community colleges.”
- Beginning of the baby boom generation started 19 years after veterans returned from war.
- When building schools for the influx of students, schools were built according to the Industrial Model
- Teacher is assemply-line worker / student as raw product, material, scrap
- Institution as national resource
- Not worried about precision – precision takes time
- Hourly labor/adjunct instructors didn’t exist before this time
Commerical/Retail Model
- Growth in enrollment, revenue, market share, and brand
- Student as customer / teacher as “client service coordinator?”
- Institution as business enterprise
New Cultural Model: The Learner at the Center
- Designing for the learners is best done with the help from the learners
What Every Student Needs
- Preparation
- Valencia improved retention rate from mid-50% to almost 90% with assessing preparation
- Before a student signs up for eLearning course, have student complete 1 hour of work to assess if they are ready for an online course
- Place
- Create communities for students – give them a sense of belonging
- Assess how students belong during course designs
- Pathway
- Best learners are in medical school – no flexibility in schedueling, instructors, courses, etc.
- Worst learners have too many options
- Not having students take class 1 & class 2 in subsequent semesters
- Should be fewer pathways
- Valencia is creating meta-majors – narrows choices early
- Plan
- How the pathway can be made their own
- New pathways should include an approved new plan
- First time students formally plan for graduation is when signing the Application for Graduation
- Valencia is requiring every new student to take a first-year seminar – requirement for completion of course is to have a formal plan for graduation
- Purpose
- Clear purpose for why students are at institution results in higher retention rates
- Purpose is constructed in social environment, in conversation
- Emerges over time – not settled in 1 conversation
- Person
- “I am a person” – not a number, not an FTE, etc.
- 90% of stories when students felt like person were when instructors broke the rule to serve the student
- What do you do to personalize the interactions that happen online?
- Students who made it against the odds credit their success to a person, not facilities, strategic plan, etc.
Overall, there wasn’t anything earth-shattering in this session, but I will say that it makes me miss the community college atmosphere.
Matthew Evins 