FeedbackFruits Higher Ed Weekly Digest 29/6

As we promised, on a weekly basis we bring you the most popular content of the higher education community for the past week. 

You can send your suggestions for future articles to elena@feedbackfruits.com. Enjoy!

Must-Read Articles

These are some of the issues debated in last week’s most popular worldwide content in the higher education community. 

1 - How Professors Are Planning for an Uncertain Fall Semester

How is the coming Fall semester going to look for the majority of U.S. colleges and universities? Are the courses going to take place on campus, fully online or in a hybrid format? The author, together with Stephen P. Beaudoin, vice chair of the University Senate at Purdue University and Robert Talbert, a professor in the mathematics department at Grand Valley State University, extensively discuss the safety of everyone if the teaching and learning experience will be held on campus while the pandemic might not be over yet. 

We recommend this article to deans, provosts, teachers, students, and everyone that will have to carry their activities on campus starting this coming September, as it touches upon relevant issues concerning the quality and safety of education on-campus on such challenging times. 

2 - What is active learning?

We published this article earlier this week to help teachers and instructional designers understand how they can support active learning for their students. We discuss why it is important for students and their learning curve to encourage an active learning experience. The piece starts with a short explanation of the difference between passive and active learning  Since the power of any valuable theoretical technique relies on practical implementation, the article focuses on the strategies and ingenious tools that are proved to support proper learning experience through well-designed activities.

3 - European universities should cooperate on online teaching

Universities worldwide are striving to create their own identity in order to differentiate themselves from the rest, as the educational market has become extremely competitive during the past decades. Indeed, the education system could benefit from an inter-university collaboration. As Alexandra Mihai accurately points out, if these institutions would gather their individual resources in terms of infrastructure and as well as pedagogical support, they could offer their students quality online learning. 

The ideas discussed in this piece show the potential of collaborations between European universities to better support online learning in these challenging times. We recommend this article to provosts and deans as a relevant solution that can bring benefits to the educational landscape, a purpose we all are driven by.

Must-Listen Podcasts

Is there anyone who is not following at least one podcast? See our top picks below.

1 - Bringing the case method online

Even though this podcast episode is a few months old, it is still valuable. The host, Brian Kenny, invited Srikant Datar, a professor at Harvard Business School, to share with everyone the hectic experience of turning the courses from offline to online in under two weeks time. 

How did Harvard Business School make this rapid transition possible for over 1800 MBA students and their 200 faculty for their MBA program? And even more important: how the university kept its participant-centered learning at the highest level? Professor Datar leads us through the whole process, sharing some of the most difficult challenges the faculty faced while answering many burning questions and praising the skills and focus of his colleagues that he defines as “a number of people willing to run towards the fire”.  

For everyone interested in how the Harvard Business School arose above the challenge of delivering high-quality online courses on a very strict time frame, this is the right content for you. 

2 - What a forgotten instructions fad from the ‘60s reveals about teaching

Have you ever heard of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI)? If you didn’t, you are not the only one. This was an experimental form of teaching taking place in the 60’ that people got excited about but didn’t manage to rise to the students’ expectations, and the system quickly burned to ashes. 

Why talking about this now? PSI's approach was to teach students without the presence of a teacher, giving them materials to read at their own pace, instead of attending lectures. Students would be allowed to move to the next part after they had passed a test on the previous component. 

Even though the idea behind was innovative at that time, it failed because the wants and needs of the students weren’t fully understood and because the reading and writing skills of a segment of students were not developed enough. Also, the system was extremely impersonal, as students were craving to see their teachers and build a personal connection with them: it was an aspect that they didn’t want to let go of. 

We recommend this podcast episode to teachers, instructional designers, as well as to everyone interested to learn more about how online teaching can be improved. The PSI teaching model has important similarities to online teaching and it can save us time because we can learn from what has already gone wrong, and we focus on what we can improve based on what history showed us so far. 

Events to Attend 

Continue learning about higher education through engaging events and conferences, for now in an online format.

1 - The power of Peer Learning in Business School / Friday, July 10th

Ever wondered what online education tools major universities implement to drive student engagement? Stay up to date on the innovative accomplishments that educational technology is heading for. 

Teachers, instructional designers and everyone else driven to support positive development of the educational system should definitely attend the Peer Learning at Business School webinar. Together with speakers from Wharton University, IE Business School, and FeedbackFruits experts on online education, you will discover how leading universities support their students’ learning experience and drive student engagement even in a challenging online environment. Discover the tool that enables students to give feedback on peer deliverables individually, among and even between groups.  Explore as well many other valuable tools that well-known universities already fell in love with. 

Don’t miss this remarkable webinar hosted by a young and innovative Edtech company, driven to improve education. 

2 - ASU LearningMan 2020 / July 20th - 27th

Ever missed the feeling of being in a summer camp? Then say no more. This event is a one week summer camp recommended for deans, educational directors, instructional designers, and anyone curious on how much the discourse can be pushed on how education serves students as well as on the advancement of their learning success. 

Release your academic adventurous side and attend this unique virtual event: don’t miss the exclusive blend of hands-on learning, storytelling and tech hacks.

Must-Watch Videos

The list will not be complete without this valuable video

1 - Nevada Week S2 Ep49 | The Future of Higher Ed

Last but not least, we want to close this week’s list of recommendations with this video from Nevada Week discussing various issues which took place so far this year in education, as well as how those challenges were resolved by some universities in Nevada State. 

The host, together with provosts, presidents, and vice presidents from three different universities will discuss numerous topics regarding the future of Higher Ed.

We recommend this friendly online discussion to teachers, instructional designers, and everyone else that is interested in how the educational landscape might look starting this coming fall semester. 

Final Words

As a lot is changing in the higher education community right now, we will try our best to keep you posted with some of the most popular content that we find helpful for the community. You can subscribe to our newsletter for more exclusive content. See you next week! 

Last but not least, we want to close this week’s list of recommendations with this video from Nevada Week discussing various issues which took place so far this year in education, as well as how those challenges were resolved by some universities in Nevada State. 

The host, together with provosts, presidents, and vice presidents from three different universities will discuss numerous topics regarding the future of Higher Ed.

We recommend this friendly online discussion to teachers, instructional designers, and everyone else that is interested in how the educational landscape might look starting this coming fall semester.