My name is Irene Knokh and I’m the EDUCAUSE ambassador for U-M. I will provide articles of interest, upcoming trends, and generally be your advocate for EDUCAUSE.
Each month, I will share with you EDUCAUSE articles of interest, upcoming trends – and generally be your advocate for EDUCAUSE.
Digital transformation: Helping faculty adjust
In the article, “The Adjacent Possible for Higher Education: The Digital Transformation of Faculty,” Charles Hodges and Heather McCullough write that it is necessary to support professional development of faculty as they design online and blended courses.
Compared to last year, students’ view of online courses have improved. Success depends on interaction with the instructor, technical support, and course design.
Digital transformation of faculty is not only possible—it’s needed. Remote work, remote learning, blended and hybrid learning, are all possibilities for developing and supporting faculty.
The humble Learning Management System (LMS) becomes even more important—as it did when the pandemic caused the emergency cutover to online learning as a hub for students and faculty to get work done.
Several institutions in the U.S. focused on leveraging LMS to their fullest. The California State University System, for example, considered offering more online options and closing equity gaps. The University of North Carolina developed checklists for course design, wrote guidelines for using LMS to connect with students, and studied results from EDUCAUSE Horizon Reports as guides to make improvements in giving students and faculty an optimal learning experience.
Post-pandemic institution showcase: Change, adapt, learn
Review the downloadable guide for your school’s Digital Transformation Framework. View the Community Conversation Video with Astrid S. Tuminez, president of Utah Valley University, as she discusses the digital transformation on her campus—it’s about putting students in the center and prudent resource use. With the big cultural shift in U.S. higher education, “the transformation is long overdue.”
The most popular article for August-September 2021: Out of Crisis, Compassion: Using Instructional Technologies to Alleviate Student Stress.
Read the strategies faculty use to emphasize with the students and gauge their learning beyond tests. Compassionate learning covers everything from using digital collaborative tools, to engaging with options such as polls and breakout rooms, options for asynchronous video to save on bandwidth, and more. Compassionate learning isn’t just for teaching during a pandemic—it’s something faculty may adopt for physical classrooms as well.
Thank you, and “see you” next month!
Irene
If you have any questions about the content, tidbits you’d like to share, or anything EDUCAUSE related, email Irene Knokh, instructional design and technology consultant, Professional Development and Education for Nursing, or Chris Eagle, EDUCAUSE coordinator for U-M.
