WCET is the national leader in the practice, policy, & advocacy of technology-enhanced learning in higher education.
One of my favorite parts of my role here at WCET is learning about technology initiatives at colleges or universities, especially those that are not only helpful for students, but receive such rave reviews from faculty members and staff! That’s why I was thrilled when Dr. Ashley Nielsen, PhD, the Teaching Faculty & Title III […]
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Two new surveys show the reactions and resilience of students and faculty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic this spring. Overcoming conjecture and some bold (often unsupported) statements about the move to remote teaching, the survey results provide real insights into what happened. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Science Foundation […]
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In 1985 The Talking Heads released “Road to Nowhere.” That song, and that metaphor, have been on my mind a lot lately as I think about where higher education is going in the fall and beyond. It’s all too clear that we are going somewhere, but I’m not sure that any of us are very […]
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The COVID-19 pandemic forced colleges and universities to move their face-to-face courses to remote and online formats. Instructors heroically worked to ensure continuity of learning for their students. Considering this shift online, Mark Porcaro, the Executive Director of Online Learning at Wichita State University and WCET Steering Committee member, reflected that learning isn’t all about […]
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Even before the COVID-19 global pandemic, higher education was struggling to make sense of what David La Piana and Melissa Mendes call a VUCA world in The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World. Originally coined by the US military to describe a post-Cold War world, VUCA stands for: Volatile– The world […]
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I have long marveled at how quickly and effectively WCET pivots to support its members when we most need assistance. Remember the announcement of new guidelines that regional accreditors were going to use to evaluate distance education (CRAC-2001)? State authorization enforcement by the Department of Education? WCET helped us navigate around those icebergs. The Coronavirus […]
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I don’t know about you, but the last few weeks (months?) have felt surreal. Not only on a professional level, but on a personal one as well. That uncanny feeling I have about ‘these times’ has continued as our local and state leaders and our federal governments are discussing what it will take to start […]
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As an ongoing part of WCET’s efforts to help faculty and staff respond to the pandemic, today Dr. Tanya Spilovoy, our resident Open Educational Resources (OER) expert, takes a look at the role openness and OER can play as institutions move away from rushing to deliver remote instruction to more deliberately designed online courses for […]
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Today we provide our second installment of the “What’s Next” stories, featuring the experiences of colleges and universities moving from the initial rapid deployment phase to the next phase of planning for how to deal with the reality of medium-term impacts of COVID-19. Using Russ Poulin’s metaphor, just as we have just finished bailing out […]
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Much to everyone’s surprise, the Department of Education finally released the last set of regulations from last year’s negotiated rulemaking for public comment on April 1st (and it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke—we checked). This post will examine the proposed changes to the distance education and credit hour definitions. We’ll have another post early […]
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