Dillard University CTLAT Blog: 06/22/10

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Dillard University 2010 SOAR: Request for Faculty to Facilitate Academic Roundtables

https://mydu.dillard.edu/ics

Greetings!

This is the second year that the Academic Roundtables (scheduled for Monday, August 23rd at noon in Kearny) will be included in the SOAR activities.

Roundtables offer our new students an opportunity to interact with faculty during their first week on campus, learn about (or even share their own!) various research areas and opportunities. Naturally, we want to recruit 100% of our faculty to expose students to one of Dillard’s strongest assets: undergraduate research. Each table seats approximately 8 people, including one professor.

Please provide the information below if you are interested in participating:
Your Name:
Title of Your Roundtable:
Majors That Might Be Interested:

Carla Morelon-Quainoo, PhD
Director of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment/Advising
National Director, Global Issues Honors Consortium
LOCATION: Dent Hall, Room 109
PHONE: 504-816-4788
cmorelon@dillard.edu

Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Race, Class, and College Access Explored in ‘Strivers’ Research

http://diverseeducation.com/article/13892/race-class-and-college-access-explored-in-strivers-research.html

June 18, 2010

by Michelle J. Nealy

WASHINGTON - Despite gains in college access by minorities, the top tiers of higher education are becoming more affluent and more White as the bottom tier and two-year colleges increasingly accommodate more low-income minority students, researchers declared Thursday during a luncheon centered on low-income students and college access.

“There is almost no way that you can use affirmative action to begin to equalize the tiers in this system,” said Dr. Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Work Force, during a lunchtime address at the National Press Club in Washington.

“Since we can’t move low-income and minority students en masse into high-quality systems, we have to move the high-quality systems and the money to pay for them toward the two-year schools and less selective colleges,” Carnevale noted.

The luncheon, focused on a new book published by The Century Foundation examining how better financial aid coupled with strong retention support can empower disadvantaged students to access highly-selective institutions, allowed book contributors to discuss significant points of their research.

The book, titled Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low Income Students Succeed in College, underscores the lack of socioeconomic diversity at highly-selective schools and includes a chapter by Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown Center on Education and the Work Force, on college access and inequality.

Researchers found that the socioeconomic barriers to accessing a highly-selective institution were greater than racial ones.

“Being severely socioeconomically disadvantaged predicts an SAT score on the math and verbal sections of 399 points lower than being the most economically advantaged,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at Century and the editor of Rewarding Strivers.

“By contrast, being African American predicts a score of 56 points lower. That is to say the impact of socioeconomic status is about seven times as large as the impact on race,” Kahlenberg added.

Researchers also found that a number of minority students with low socioeconomic backgrounds “undershot” their college prospects.

“Being fully capable of attending a highly-selective institution, many low-income minority students don’t go to college or they attend a community college or less selective institution,” Strohl said.

The problem with this, said Strohl, is that less selective institutions have less in the way of support mechanisms necessary to retain low-income students, allowing some students to fall through the cracks.

“The average graduation rate for a two-year college is about 22 percent,” said Strohl, noting that the graduation rates for top-tier schools range from 80 to 90 percent.

The study “America’s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education,” a precursor to Rewarding Strivers released in 2004, found that 74 percent of students at selective universities and colleges come from the richest quarter of the socioeconomic population while just 3 percent from the bottom quarter.

“On a selective campus, you are 25 times more likely to run into a rich kid as a poor kid,” said Kahlenberg. “Affirmative action programs have, essentially, tripled the representation of African-American and Latino students, but educators have done that by making sure that there were wealthy students of all races at selective institutions rather than trying to make sure that there were people of all colors of all socioeconomic groups.”

In order to increase socioeconomic diversity, universities also need to deal with the admissions component, researchers said.

“Financial aid by itself is not enough. If you have financial aid but don’t admit low-income students it doesn’t do them much good,” said Kahlenberg. “Most colleges don’t consider socioeconomic status in admissions. Being a legacy increases your chances of admissions by 20 percentage points. Being an underrepresented minority increases one’s chances by 28 percentage points. Being poor does not increase one’s position at all at the selective institution.”

As a model for best practices, researchers lauded the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's program Carolina Covenant, which provides financial aid and support to students and families earning below 200 percent of the poverty line.

The program provides both the financial aid and the academic and social support mechanisms such as peer and faculty mentors and rigorous monitoring for low-income students to be successful in college.

Campus Technology HP and INTEL Informed: Exciting New Technologies for Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed

http://campustechnology.com/microsites/hp-informed_10A/home.aspx?pc=e106em01&utm_source=webmktg&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=e106em01

Free Blackboard Webinar: Mobile Learning: Empower Teaching and Learning without Limitation!

https://blackboard.webex.com/mw0306l/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&siteurl=blackboard&service=6&main_url=https%3A%2F%2Fblackboard.webex.com%2Fec0605l%2Feventcenter%2Fevent%2FeventAction.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26confViewID%3D610620720%26siteurl%3Dblackboard%26%26%26

Program: Blackboard Mobile

Panelist(s) Info: Craig DeVoe, Vice President, and John Dennett, Manager of Solutions Engineering

Duration: 1 hour

Description: Join us for a free, 60-minute webinar featuring our mobile team members Craig DeVoe, Vice President, and John Dennett, Manager of Solutions Engineering, who will share with you a candid view of the Blackboard Mobile Learn™ product. You should attend this event because you’ll have the opportunity to see Mobile Learn live, hear first-hand where this exciting technology is going and interact with our team of mobile experts.

Earlier this year we debuted Blackboard Mobile Learn, a two-way, interactive mobile learning solution that engages students and faculty in fresh new ways on the devices they use most. Blackboard Mobile Learn gives students and teachers instant access to their Blackboard Learn™ courses, content and organizations directly from their mobile devices, whenever and wherever they need to. Today we’ve taken the next big step in going mobile: the launch of native applications for the Android, BlackBerry® and Apple® iPhone® OS platforms.

Don’t miss out! Register to hear the Blackboard Mobile experts discuss the strategy and vision of Mobile Learn, the new expansion onto additional mobile devices enabling you to reach more of your campus community, as well as our partnership with Sprint and the tie-in with Mobile Central, Blackboard's industry-leading campus experience mobile app.

Faculty Focus: 5 Steps to Growing Your Online Program - Steps for Creating and Growing Your Online Program

http://www.facultyfocusmail.com/ls.cfm?r=241441965&sid=9829624&m=1028397&u=MAGNA_FF&s=http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/growing-successful-online-programs-at-a-small-school-2/?c=FF&t=F100616

By Mary Bart

When you think about all the reasons why a college or university would want to offer courses online, “Because it’s easy” isn’t one of them. Yes, it’s a smart way to grow your programs and reach a greater number of students. Yes, it can be an attractive revenue stream. And yes, in order to attract today’s learners – adult and traditional-aged students alike – you likely need an online offering.

Easy? No. Rewarding? Yes.
Fortunately, making the leap online programs today is a lot less painful than it used to be, in part because you have the benefit of learning from schools that have successfully transitioned some of their courses to an online delivery.

One such school is Abilene Christian University (ACU). In 2002 ACU began thinking of ways to increase its outreach through online courses. Carol Williams, PhD, then graduate dean and assistant provost for research, had distance education added to her responsibilities. ACU had more than 4,000 undergraduate students and about 400 residential graduate students. It had no “continuing education” unit or infrastructure. Now, some eight years later, ACU has nearly 500 online students in five master’s degrees and four certificates. Online programs are the fastest growing area for the university.

Williams shared the ACU story during the recent online seminar Growing Successful Online Programs at a Small School in which she told about her frustration over the lack of resources that address the unique needs of small schools looking to compete with the big dogs online. The ACU experience may hold some lessons for other small, private schools who are contemplating the leap to online.

1: Define your purpose for having an online program – High-quality online programs require a significant upfront investment, and should align with the mission of the university. As a result, it’s important that you’re able to articulate why you want to put a program online. As you develop your business plan and budget, be sure to include a timeline, a realistic assessment of available resources, and metrics for success.

2: Assign an administrative leader – The institution needs to designate an administrative leader who can manage all aspects of program development and delivery. This person needs to understand “the big picture” while coordinating with deans, faculty, instructional designers, support services, library personnel, and others who play a role in the online students’ learning experience, Williams says.
3: Create faculty buy-in – Many faculty feel teaching online is inferior to teaching face-to-face. Williams works hard to dispel those and other myths. She also recommends starting with faculty who are known as innovators on campus, and providing a workload and compensation plan that recognizes the additional time and effort required to design an online course. Providing support from instructional designers is critical as well, she says.
4: Build online student support services – Because many online students may never set foot on campus, all the normal functions related to financial aid, registration, billing, library, and technology support must be available online.
5: Consider outsourcing – Many smaller universities are stretched thin when it comes to marketing and admissions. Adding online programs to their job responsibilities may be a tough sell, and likely won’t get you the results you want. Williams suggests outsourcing these tasks to vendors who specialize in adult learners and online education.

Innovative Educators Webinar: Exceptional Front-Line Customer Service in Higher Education

Thursday, July 15th ~ 1:00-2:30pm EDT

http://www.innovativeeducators.org/retention_p/863.htm

Webinar Description

How do you define customer service? We may all define this differently, but there are basic principles and proven tips and techniques that can assist front line staff in providing exceptional customer service. This session will provide participants an overview of different philosophies of customer service and why exceptional customer service is important in higher education.

How do our customers (our students and their families) want to be treated? How do we know if we are living up to their customer service expectations? Learn about methods of benchmarking and setting customer service standards, as well how to evaluate customers in order to assess your level of customer satisfaction. Explore techniques that can help you develop positive customer relationships with your students and get motivated and geared up for the next incoming class of students.

Objectives
The participants will learn more about:
• customer service principles and tips and techniques that help provide exceptional service
• various ways to evaluate and assess levels of customer satisfaction
• benchmarking and setting service standards
• methods of evaluating customers and assessing customer service levels

Who Should Attend?
Front-line customer service or student services staff and their supervisors will benefit from the information presented in this webinar. Student workers and work study students who work in student services will also benefit.

Who is the Speaker?

Julie Selander, Senior Associate Director, One Stop Student Services, University of Minnesota

Julie Selander has worked in higher education administration and finance for over 22 years. Her experience includes student loan servicing operations, tuition payment plan sales and marketing, as well as management positions in student accounts receivable, billing, collections, financial aid, and customer service.
Julie is currently the senior associate director of the One Stop Student Services Office at the University of Minnesota providing seamless and integrated student services in the areas of enrollment, registration, financial aid, billing and student accounts receivable. Twenty-seven One Stop Counselors across three campus locations provide service via phone, e-mail, and in-person for over 51,000 students on the Twin Cities campus.
Julie presents frequently on various topics related to higher education student services and has written several articles for publication, including NACUBO's Student Centered Financial Services: Innovations That Succeed. She serves as a board member for Minnesota's College Goal Sunday initiative and is a founding member and on the board of directors for the Institute for Student Services Professionals. She has her undergraduate and master's degree from the University of Minnesota and is currently working on her dissertation as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota in the Higher Education Policy and Administration program.

Faculty Focus Free Report: Tips for Encouraging Student Participation in Classroom Discussions

http://www.facultyfocus.com/private/pdf_products/report_13.pdf

Gale Virtual Reference Library Re:sources Blog

http://blog.gale.com/resources/

The Kept-Up Academic Librarian: Helping Academic Librarians "Keep Up" With News and Developments In Higher Education

http://keptup.typepad.com/

Author Biography

Steven J. Bell is Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services at Temple University. Prior to that he was the Director of the Library at Philadelphia University and the Assistant Director of the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his Doctorate in Education in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Master of Science in Library Science from Drexel University in 1977. He writes and speaks frequently on topics such as online searching, library technology, and academic librarianship. An Adjunct Professor at the Drexel University College of Information Science and Technology, he teaches courses in online searching, academic librarianship and business information resources. For additional information about the author or to find links to the various web sites he publishes and maintains, point your browser to http://stevenbell.info

The African American Registry® is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit education organization established in 1999 by Benjamin Mchie

http://www.aaregistry.org/

African American Registry (the Registry) is a non-profit educational organization. Our mission is: “Uniting Communities through Education, Transforming Communities through Learning.” Founded by Benjamin Mchie, the Registry went online in the summer of 2000. We have the most comprehensive repository of African American heritage in the world. We (currently) produce two educational products; our wall calendar Black Heritage/365 and our ‘go fish’ card game Fishing the Registry for ages 8 and up.

Bill DeJohn, Director

Minitex

University of Minnesota

15 Andersen Library

Ph: 612.624.2839

E-mail: w-dejo@umn.edu

www.minitex.umn.edu

Distance Education Report: Online Effectiveness: Making Your Case

Date: Tuesday, 8/03/10

Time: 12:00-1:30 PM Central Daylight Time

Cost: $289 ($314 after 7/27/10)

Three easy ways to register!

Online: http://www.magnapubs.com/calendar/449.html?s=tm&p=email

Phone: 800-433-0499 / 608-246-3590

Email: support@magnapubs.com

The controversial new study of distance education effectiveness released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research once again shows how crucial it is for distance educators to be prepared to make the most compelling case possible for online learning.

Join us on August 3 for Online Effectiveness: Making Your Case, a Magna Online Seminar that features a distinguished panel of distance education leaders sharing ideas on how to effectively enter the dialog about distance education that is taking place among students, employers, faculty, and educational administrators. In an interview with Distance Education Report, the panelists share some different ways to help shape attitudes toward distance education.

DER: What messages are employers hearing about distance education?
Orlando: Unfortunately, the press carries messages about the troubles of online, or predominantly online, institutions. These include illegal recruiting or diploma mill operations. Employers who read these slip from a message about an institution to a message about online education itself. In other words, the troubles of certain for-profit online institutions are putting online education itself in a bad light.
DER: How can we help employers become advocates for distance education and its part in employees’ professional development?
Orlando: We need to provide employers with information proving that online education can be just as good as face-to-face education. The best way is to approach employers who have employees with online degrees. They will see that the online/face-to-face distinction does not correlate to the quality of employees.
DER: How can you affect the perception of distance education among prospective students?
Anderson: The best way to ensure that students neither see for themselves, nor observe others involved in online work, or get any exposure to the quality of your online programming is to hide that work behind passwords and buried deep inside Learning Management Systems. The move to Open Access programming allows institutions to widely distribute the content and design of their programming, while retaining the value added counseling, group work, interaction and credentialing for enrolled students.
DER: Where do prospective online students get their information about distance education? What are the most important messages they are hearing?
Anderson: As in all major purchases and investments, word of mouth from friends, relatives and co-workers influence student behavior. Information gleaned from websites has become the most used and valued source of comparative information. More recently social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter create the buzz and the imitator behavior that drives students to make that initial search for, and final commitment to, an institution.
DER: What can we do to help academic administrators see distance education as part of the core mission of the institution?
Shearer: It is an education process to make them fully aware of what they are about to embark upon and the timing of the strategic initiative. Too many institutions have jumped into distance education thinking there were immediate gains only to find out that the initiative was underfunded and they didn't have the faculty buy-in.
They cannot assume that just because there is online learning taking place on campus that they have a distance education initiative. To move from an uncoordinated craft industry approach to a core strategic mission takes both political will at the top and faculty buy-in. There is no doubt that faculty will continue to experiment and integrate Web-based tools into their courses, but to move to the core needs a faculty and an administrative champion.
DER: What factors or experiences most significantly shape faculty attitudes toward distance education?
Boettcher: In order of importance, I think the most important factor is the culture of the institution first, and the culture of the discipline probably runs a close second. The attitudes prevalent in the culture can be influenced positively by some of the following types of experiences:
• Experience in some online learning or professional events such as conferences and research collaboration using the tools of distance learning, such as synchronous meetings or webcasts.
• Experience with some of the face-to-face tools such as Skype with far-flung friends and associates. I understand that the new iPad will support Skype "telephoning" and with a promised new camera will make conversing face-to-face via technology something that is broadly accepted and no big deal.
• Stories from colleagues who have explored and developed online learning and discovered its power, effectiveness and reach.

Our distance education leaders' round table consists of:
• Terry Anderson, Ph.D., Canada research chair in distance education at Athabasca University and director of the Canadian Institute for Distance Education Research
• Judith Boettcher, Ph.D., well-known distance education consultant, author of The Online Teaching Survival Guide, and editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Distance Learning
• Rick Shearer, Ph.D., assistant director of instructional design and development at the Pennsylvania State University’s World Campus
• John Orlando, Ph.D., instructional resource manager at the Norwich University School of Graduate Studies Online.

Who should attend
• general university administration
• distance education program administrators
• presidents
• vice-presidents
• governing board members
• provosts
• deans
• department chairs

Inside Higher Ed: Seed of Doubt: Is online education as good as traditional, face-to-face education?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/22/online

June 22, 2010
It is a loaded question. Online programs comprise the fastest-growing segment of higher education, with brick-and-mortar colleges — many ailing from budget cuts — seeing online as a way to make money and expand their footprints. Meanwhile, some politicians are eager for public institutions to embrace online education as a way to educate more people at a lower cost.

These movements have much invested in online education being equal or superior to the old-fashioned kind. And since a Department of Education meta-analysis last summer concluded that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” many advocates now consider the matter closed.

Not so fast, say researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Education Department’s study was deeply flawed and its implications have been overblown, say the authors of a working paper released this month by the bureau. “None of the studies cited in the widely-publicized meta-analysis released by the U.S. Department of Education included randomly-assigned students taking a full-term course, with live versus online delivery mechanisms, in settings that could be directly compared (i.e., similar instructional materials delivered by the same instructor),” they write. “The evidence base on the relative benefits of live versus online education is therefore tenuous at best.”

Mark Rush, an economics professor at the University of Florida and one of the study’s three co-authors, says he thinks the Education Department was under immense pressure to reassure online education’s many stakeholders, particularly cash-strapped state higher-education systems, that online education is just as good, if not better, than the classroom kind. But the fact that it “did not compare apples to apples” and severely lacked experimental data means that to treat the meta-study as a conclusive vote of confidence for online education would be scientifically irresponsible. “The conclusion that Internet-based and live classes are comparable might have been reached a little hastily,” Rush says.

Rush and his collaborators — Lu Yin, also of the University of Florida, and Northwestern University’s David N. Figlio, the lead author — sought to contribute to the online-education debate something they say it sorely lacks: reliable data collected via a controlled experiment. In spring 2007, they randomly assigned 327 volunteers enrolled in an introductory microeconomics course to either attend the class lectures live or watch them online. Both groups would have access to the same ancillary materials and access to office hours and graduate assistants; the only difference would be the mode of lecture delivery.

They found no statistically significant differences between the academic performances of the two groups generally. However, they did find that Hispanic students, male students, and low-achieving students in the online group fared significantly worse than their counterparts in the live-attendance group. These findings do not exactly refute the conclusions of the Education Department’s meta-analysis. Nor is the new study without flaws of its own, which the authors enumerate in detail — though not the most obvious, which is that videotaped lectures are a relatively primitive form of online teaching, and, where they are used, are usually only part of the package.But Rush says the main takeaway of the bureau’s experiment is not that he and his co-authors are right or that the Education Department’s study was wrong; just that there is much more work — much more precise work — to be done before any firm pronouncements can be made on the merits of online education relative to the face-to-face kind.

An Irrelevant Truth?
Barbara Means, director of the Center for Technology and Learning at SRI International and lead author of the Education Department’s meta-study, says the bureau's paper, in addition to being rife with erroneous claims, draws conclusions that are essentially irrelevant to the debate over online education. By taking pains to isolate the online-versus-classroom variable while keeping other variables constant, Means says Rush and his collaborators miss a crucial point: that what distinguishes online education from classroom education has little to do with the fact that one comes on a computer screen and the other does not. That narrow distinction “is something that most people in the field of technology feel is not particularly interesting,” Means says. Why? Because most online courses consist of more than just videotaped lectures. To the contrary, most modern online programs expressly try to present course content in a way that is unique to the online environment. If videotaped lectures are included, they are often a small part of a larger package. “The point of using the online technology," Means say, "is to do things that you cannot do face-to-face." In other words: Assessing all of the points of departure at once in a controlled experiment is an implausible task, and pretending that the online delivery mode is the only point of departure is an irrelevant one.

Accordingly, that was not what Education Department’s meta-analysis sought to do, Means says; rather, it sought to measure the relative “impact” of online programs, using a less scientific, but perhaps more practical, methodology. As for the question of the politics, Means says she was never felt any pressure to affirm the merits of online education, and was indeed "surprised" by the results — which, she noted, were reviewed independently before they were published.

For the latest technology news from Inside Higher Ed, follow Steve Kolowich on Twitter.
— Steve Kolowich

Welcome to the Dillard University Center for Teaching, Learning and Academic Technology Blog!

The Dillard University Center for Teaching, Learning and Academic Technology (DUCTLAT) http://www.ductlat.blogspot.com/ is essential in helping faculty effectively manage technology on and off campus. An important aspect of this initiative is achieved by bringing groups of faculty members together to learn the technology necessary to develop electronic resources for their courses and themselves, while planning and beginning the development of shared curricular materials. Cultivating faculty success at all levels reinforces the University's commitment to build premier faculty learning communities. All faculty, deans and academic administrators play a critical role in creating competitive and productive academic units in which expectations for faculty performance are clearly articulated and professional achievements are recognized and rewarded.

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