News

How MIT Plans to Develop Scalable, Differentiated Instruction

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

Here’s how MIT and several partners are developing a Fly-by-Wire system to provide high-quality, differentiated instruction at scale and to better equip graduates to enter the workforce. SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. This was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants here. MIT, partnering with edX and Arapahoe and Quinsigamond Community Colleges, is developing a Fly-by-Wire system to provide high-quality, differentiated instruction at scale and to better equip graduates entering the workforce with skills valued by employers and industry. Funded by a $2.9 million FIPSE First in the World grant, the Fly-by-Wire system is a digitally-enabled, differentiated blended-instruction intervention that is both scalable and cost-effective enough to meet the needs of learners at a range of institutions. […]

How Spelman College Will Use Metacognitive Awareness to Improve Academic Performance

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

Metacognitive awareness (“thinking about thinking”) is a crucial skill to help students persist and succeed, and here’s how Spelman College hopes to help them master that skill. SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. This was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants here. Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” is a crucial skill to help students persist and succeed, but a Spelman College psychology professor noticed that her junior and senior students hadn’t yet mastered that skill. In response, assistant professor of psychology Jimmeka Guillory started using metacognitive instruction in her class and immediately noticed a difference. Students demonstrated improvement in their awareness and academic performance, and importantly, more students started coming to seek help during her office hours. […]

Creating a Faculty Leadership Development Program

by David Kiel (opens in new tab)

Effective faculty leadership development is important because faculty are the main stakeholders in the university who are committed to the core academic and democratic values that underpin higher education in the US. If faculty members are not effective leaders, then higher education at every level is ineffective and does not fully reflect these core values. While senior administrators, parents, trustees, students, and alumni are also important stakeholders, they may not be as fully committed to the core academic values as faculty, whose professional identity center on these values. Yet, few institutions offer effective support in developing faculty leaders. Offering leadership development is distinct from offering faculty development generally. In general, faculty development should be understood to include career-long support for the main activities that are required in the faculty role: teaching, research and public service. It also includes broad professional and career development services that impart the skills needed for faculty to be effective organizational actors and productive scholars. These include: managing their time effectively, working well with others, knowing how to be influential and persuasive, talking with the media, communicating with the public, presenting data, solving organizational problems and other skills. Leadership development is a specialized and crucially important […]

The Transformational Small College President

by Marcel J. Dumestre, Ed.D. (opens in new tab)

The recent Sweet Briar crisis highlighted the difficulties that at-risk institutions face in ensuring their basic survival. Not only has the feasibility of a women’s college been questioned, but also the viability of small colleges in general. Often, colleges respond to difficulties with incremental improvements and enhancements — short-term remedies that tend not to address the fundamental issues; stories about substantive change are harder to find. What are proven ways for a president to lead an at-risk institution back to long-term, sustainable financial health? Answers were to be found at a recent Academic Impressions conference, “Foundations for Innovation at Small Institutions.” (You can read the paper that sparked this conference here. The conference featured presidents of relatively small institutions who have led quite amazing turnarounds. I will share some of their stories — and insights that can be gleaned from them — below. A Diagnosis: What Makes the Small College Turnaround Difficult? Yet these turnarounds tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Why are so many at-risk institutions slow to react to their situation? The answer is that there is a clash of worldviews within the university, all competing for influence over the institution’s direction: It would be […]

Presidential Dialogues: The Changing Presidency in Higher Education

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

College President: An Impossible Job? The president of a college or university stands in the cross-hairs, operating in an environment where the challenges are complex, there are no clear answers and decisions come in all shades of gray. All eyes are on the institution’s chief executive to navigate the strategic dilemmas facing their institutions. And as today’s presidents try to balance the competing demands of an array of stakeholders, they can’t always count on the buy-in and support of the board—leading them to spend much of their time managing the board. With all this complexity, the presidents that succeed tomorrow won’t be the same as the presidents that were successful yesterday. In the first of our Presidential Dialogues, we speak with five highly successful chief executives, asking their advice for new presidents. In this paper, hear from: This is the first of the AI Presidential Dialogues. Through this ongoing series, we will continue to convene leading minds in higher education to uncover those skill sets and ways of rethinking the president’s work that will educate boards and inform and empower aspiring presidents. Watch for future papers from this series. Read the report. Contact Me If you would like to talk with us […]

Managing an Aging Higher-Ed Workforce

by Lisa Cook, Academic Impressions As more faculty, administration, and staff approach retirement age, institutions must be ready to address the challenges that accompany an aging workforce. Most have already addressed financial planning, but many still struggle with other aging workforce concerns such as mental health issues, budgeting for an increase in disability accommodation requests, and how institutions can create possibilities for retirement that allow employees to exit gracefully. We talked to Susan Wheeler, University Counsel at James Madison University, to learn what institutions should be considering. Wheeler advises institutions to: Develop procedures to help support faculty suffering from mental health issues, and to define next steps if an intervention is not successful. Budget for increased employee ADA accommodations. Shape retirement or emeritus status plans to allow employees to maintain a relationship with the institution, thereby creating more possibilities for retirement. 1. What Can Institutions Do When Aging Employees Have Mental Health Issues? Although mental health issues affect both young and old, institutions might find themselves confronting one of the following scenarios as their employees grow older: A faculty member whose students begin reporting that she is falling asleep in class while guest lecturers lead the discussion, missing appointments, and beginning […]

A Plan to Build an Open Source Tool to Assess Student Skills and Predict Success

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. This was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants at the link here. Higher education for most students begins with proctored high-stakes placement exams that may not be the best approach, according to Jason Bryer, director of research and project evaluation at Excelsior College.  Proctored exams can be intimidating, especially at open-enrollment institutions where more than half of students are directed into non-credit remediation courses at an estimated cost of $4 billion per year. Excelsior College hopes to improve students’ early college experiences by developing an open-source assessment tool to measure student skills in academic and non-academic areas. They will use the $1.9 million First in the World grant to address the […]

What Starbucks Can Teach You about Equipping Your Staff as Ambassadors for Your Institution

by Tim Ponisciak (University of Notre Dame) Many annual giving departments have an employee program, or at the very least an annual employee appeal. While some schools are quite successful and have a high percentage of alumni making a gift, most struggle with convincing staff to contribute to their employer. But is this the best way to engage university employees in annual giving? Treating Employees as Ambassadors, Not Just Prospects Employees of a school can be the most important ambassadors of their institution. Often, staff are the first people that an alum or donor speaks to when they get to campus. They are the ones that solve problems for alumni when they call the campus. And some employees are the long-time connections to campus for alumni, regardless of what development officer they have been assigned to. Does your school have a brand ambassador program, guidelines, or annual training for staff? Many companies that place a strong emphasis on customer service know that this starts by making sure that their employees, whether they be administration or front line, are completely bought in to their company’s mission. There are lessons here that we can adapt from the corporate sector. Case Study: Starbucks […]

Math and the Liberal Arts: How the University System of Maryland Will Create New Math Pathways for Social Sciences and Liberal Arts Students

by Lisa Cook (opens in new tab)

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 18 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. This was the second year of the First in the World grants. You can read our interviews with the 24 institutions that received 2014 grants here. Both developmental and college-level math courses can often be a stumbling block for liberal arts and social sciences majors, who wonder if they’ll ever use college algebra in their future careers. While many institutions provide supplemental support for these students, officials at the University System of Maryland want to try a different approach. They plan to pilot new math pathways that are more relevant to the quantitative skills needed in arts and humanities disciplines. They will use their $2.98 million First in the World grant to introduce a new statistics curriculum that will provide more real-world applications than traditional remedial algebra courses […]

Do the USNWR Rankings Limit Innovation in Higher Education?

by Amit Mrig (opens in new tab)

Last month I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Ricardo Azziz, former president of Georgia Regents University, about the US News and World Report (USNWR) higher education rankings. The conversation is especially timely as millions of students and parents are knee deep in the college application season this fall. In our conversation we explored many inherent flaws with the rankings system – but in talking with a former college president, I was particularly interested in exploring how the importance and visibility of these rankings affect how university leaders make decisions. Do the rankings support the innovation and change needed in higher education or do they actually hinder our ability to take risks and try new things? Our conversation was wide-ranging, and we uncovered important insights for boards of trustees, policymakers, and university leaders. In the end, we concluded that the rankings do indeed inhibit innovation in higher education. This happens because the rankings: 1. Credit for Spending More, Not Doing More With Less 10% of an institution’s score in the rankings is driven directly by the amount of resources spent per student. An additional 20% of the score is driven by “faculty resources,” which includes items like the proportion […]

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