‘I like summary pondering and reasoning,’ claims Nationwide Benefit Scholarship Semi-finalist Erik Brodsky of Cortlandt Manor.
Together with 16,000 other U.S. substantial school college students, Erik A. Brodsky of Cortlandt Manor has been named a semi-finalist in the National Advantage Scholarship Opposition.
What sets Erik apart from most of the other Benefit-curious names on the list of semi-finalists is that when they are grouped less than their superior college, above Erik’s title is “Homeschool.”
Considering that preschool, the higher university senior has been taught by his mother and father, as has his brother David, who was a 2019 Nationwide Merit Finalist and is now a sophomore at College of Texas-Dallas, majoring in personal computer science.
Erik claims both of those he and his sibling needed to be residence schooled by their parents, Lucie Brodska (sic) and Tom Brodsky, natives of the Czech Republic (the place naming conventions differ by gender). Erik will be majoring in math in higher education.
***
For most of his substantial school decades, Erik has taken Sophisticated Placement (AP) and university classes, which includes math classes at Manhattanville College. Quite a few of his AP courses are administered via an organization called Pennsylvania Household Schoolers. He also participates in the Westchester Spot Math Circle.
Erik says his “proudest achievement” is getting named 1 of 18 Honorable Mentions nationwide in the United States of The united states Junior Mathematical Olympiad (United states JMO), sponsored by the Mathematical Association of The united states.
“I’m pretty into math,” claims Erik. “I like abstract contemplating and reasoning. The way I feel is effective perfectly with how math is effective. It is a natural matter for me. I think about myself blessed, Travel Tips.”
Erik enjoys being able to check out math “more in-depth” as a property schooler than he would be equipped to in a general public university. “Being superior schooled permit me to have a flexible education and learning,” he notes. ***
In addition to the freedom to focus far more intensely on subjects for which a pupil has the most affinity, a different benefit of household schooling is discovering how to take care of time, essential willpower in foreseeable future accomplishment.
Erik clarifies that “There’s a lot less formal construction due to the fact the vast majority of on the net courses is independent research. You have to have to figure out how to deal with it and do it at your rate. There is not an established block of time or the identical official structure as in a general public school working day.”
***
House schooled Erik Brodsky is an avid birder and Audubon member.
Socializing with other college students and participation in scholastic sports also is notably different for the residence schooled populace. With his brother, Erik made use of to enjoy racquetball at Premier Athletic Club in Montrose but has never wanted to engage in aggressive sports.
“Socially, I have a lot of close friends around the country I have fulfilled via online classes,” claims Erik. “We are excellent mates with other regional property schooled families, such as as a result of the Younger Scholars program, but it is been more difficult to maintain in touch [in person] or have entertaining or no matter what all through the pandemic.”
Erik’s been equipped to stay connected with like-minded pupils through “stuff I’m interested in,” these types of birding. He is vice president of New York Condition Younger Birders Club and has been lively as nicely in the _____for all of his teen decades.
“I like staying exterior a ton and hunting at birds. It is a whole lot of enjoyable.” If he had to select a favourite flier, it may well be the Bald Eagle. He’s monitored them coming to roost on the Hudson River for Bedford Audubon.
Of all the things about remaining homeschooled that sets Erik aside from his friends, there is a person thing they might envy the most: He’s never gotten a report card.
Bruce Apar is Editorial Director and Affiliate Publisher of River Towns Media LLC.
WARWICK — When the pandemic struck, the Neighborhood College of Rhode Island had a decision: shut down the institution for the duration or find a way to shift more than 2,400 lessons on-line.
The college decided to make remote mastering do the job, irrespective of the point that only 40{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of its faculty were comfortable using an on the web instruction platform.
The experiment has shifted the way students understand at CCRI, in which the normal pupil is 25, holding down a position, and, in some cases, raising kids.
In the fall of 2019, 21{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of students were being enrolled in at the very least a person on the internet class only 5{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} had been enrolled exclusively online.
This tumble, 66{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of college students are enrolled in at minimum a single on the net class, and 34{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} are completely on line.
“The pandemic was the best disaster dealing with this college in its 60 a long time,” mentioned CCRI’s president, Meghan Hughes. “It has caused us to double down on serving the communities toughest hit by the pandemic and reaching equitable obtain.”
For 19-calendar year-outdated Talia Thibodeau, a recent Cranston West graduate, online mastering was a lifesaver. While she experienced her heart set on Stonehill Faculty, where by she was offered a scholarship, COVID made her rethink those plans.
After a basketball mentor from CCRI reached out to her, Thibodeau decided to give the college or university a attempt. She commenced there very last drop.
“I was completely on line my first calendar year,” she explained. “This yr, I am having one class on-line. I perform as a fulltime nanny. And I have basketball observe on major of that. I realized I’d be particularly fast paced.”
Thibodeau, who would like to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sports activities communication, took courses at her have pace, on her have program. Contacting herself extremely self-determined, she understands that this format wouldn’t work for every person.
Her professors had been very accommodating. Every 7 days, when her course began a new chapter, they would mail out an e mail or look at in to see how their students had been faring.
CCRI, with almost 12,000 learners, also presents its students synchronous mastering, exactly where you Zoom into a class in authentic time.
“Online learning is so versatile and gives you the ability to choose and decide on,” she explained. “It’s been a terrific knowledge general. “
Why CCRI was the final RI college to return to in-individual lessons
CCRI was the only Rhode Island university that didn’t return in particular person right up until this slide. There are a few of causes for that.
First, the college presented intense schooling to school, placing up an on the internet application in two months. 2nd, the college ordered hundreds of laptops for college students and presented engineering grants to help students buy their own.
“It wasn’t glamorous,” said Sara Enright, vice president for student affairs, of the unexpected pivot to distant instruction. “It looked like persons from the faculty managing out with laptops to students’ cars.”
CCRI also understood the wants of its scholar physique. This is a commuter campus with lots of initially-generation higher education students. COVID amplified whatsoever issues these college students have been facing to commence with.
“COVID had a disproportionate effects on our learners,” Enright claimed. “Our family members ended up toughest strike with COVID infections. If your job is on the entrance line, you cannot perform from household. Food insecurity, job insecurity, all disproportionately have an affect on reduced-income folks of coloration.”
From a rocky start to rising confidence
Ana Gomez is a mom of two youngsters who came listed here from the Dominican Republic eight yrs ago and lives in Woonsocket. Her first working experience with remote finding out was rocky. This is her second year at CCRI.
“When I began, I felt like I need to have a master’s degree in personal computers,” she said. “I had to do a lot on the computer that I did not know how to do. I experienced to discover another person to aid me.”
In a single course, she did not know she could retake the tests that damage her grade.
This semester she feels additional confidant.
“I observed that I was able to do my own schedule,” Gomez mentioned. “I have two little ones and I work full time. I go to school after my youngsters go to bed.”
Lacking speak to with professors and fellow pupils
Continue to, Gomez misses seeing her professors in human being. It’s easier to elevate your hand than to send an e mail, and she doesn’t want to stress her instructors with way too several issues.
Gomez stated there is only one particular professor, Maryhelen D. MacInnes, who checks in on her each 7 days, for which she is very grateful. The other people ship her assignments online.
“I undoubtedly would like them to test in more often and say, ‘Hey, is there everything I can enable you with?’” she stated. “This just one sociology professor is giving me 30 a lot more minutes for tests. This is the initially time I’m getting a class and someone is interested in asking me about translation apps.”
Gomez, who is 31, has a demanding agenda. She commences her classwork after her kids go to bed, sometime after 9 p.m., and performs right until midnight. Occasionally, she will get up around dawn to finish her work.
Nevertheless, Gomez misses the camaraderie that arrives with sitting in a class with other students or the chance to seize a espresso with classmates.
Even now, devoid of a remote schedule, she acknowledges that continuing with faculty would have been pretty much unachievable.
Enrollment down 12.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, mirroring other local community faculties nationwide
Hughes agrees that CCRI can never replicate the whole faculty knowledge on the net.
“For the young ones coming to university for the very first time, we go on to believe that bricks and mortar is exceptionally significant,” she said.
Enright problems that the pupils who most have to have to be there in individual didn’t make it to CCRI this drop.
Enrollment is down 12.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} this semester, which mirrors countrywide trends among the group colleges.
“Many pupils are still recovering from the challenges posed by the pandemic,” she claimed. “As it subsides, the students who are online will come back. ”
Gomez, meanwhile, is decided to get an associate’s degree in general education and learning and then, potentially, a bachelor’s.
“I would say it’s been demanding,” she said. “But distant is truly working for me now, with my daily life predicament.”
CHICAGO, Oct. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Everspring Inc., a top company of increased education technological innovation options and companies to universities trying to find to develop or expand their on-line abilities, declared that Tricia Lunt, good quality assurance manager at Everspring, and Dr. Jessica Ruiz, tutorial technologist at Clark Atlanta College, will current at the EDUCAUSE Annual Meeting, Thursday, Oct 28, 2021, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The joint presentation concerning Everspring and Dr. Ruiz explores how tutorial designers, technologists, matter issue professionals and instructors can leverage intentional discovering style and design procedures to strengthen engagement and guidance the achievement of diverse university student populations. The presenters will explore how to make the most of accessibility ideas to assistance inclusion and tactics for cultivating welcoming and inclusive on-line learning communities.
The presentation, entitled “Elevate Mastering Design and style: Greatly enhance DEI in On line Programs,” will begin at 2:15 p.m. ET Thursday, Oct 28.
“We’re thrilled to discuss how range, equity and inclusion boosts discovering for pupils, specifically in the on the net ecosystem,” says Lunt. “DEI is at the forefront of what we do at Everspring to drive outcomes for pupils in on line and hybrid packages.”
Everspring is a leader in developing discovering environments that center range, fairness and inclusion in on the internet schooling, with tutorial designers developing courses through the lens of DEI to assure accessibility and representation. This worthwhile perform aligns with the mission of larger training institutions throughout the globe to support pupil success and advertise professional accomplishment to generate a potential in which all individuals can arrive at their best probable.
As QA Manager and QA Principal, Tricia reviews on line program content material with an emphasis on the high-quality of college student experience and tends to make layout suggestions to aid student success. Tricia has intensive knowledge in increased education and learning as equally an academic librarian and a humanities instructor. She retains a BA in English from The Ohio State College, an MA in English from Cleveland Point out College, and an MLIS from Kent Point out College.
Dr. Jessica Ruiz, Educational Technologist, On the web Understanding
Dr. Ruiz is an Instructional Technologist, Online Mastering at Clark Atlanta University. Dr. Ruiz finished her bachelor’s diploma in psychology at DePaul University and acquired her Doctorate in Training with a focus on Educational Leadership for teaching and mastering. Jessica served as a traveling to professor at Universidad de La Salle in Bogota, and school in the education and learning office for Town Faculties of Chicago where by she produced curriculum and instruction for hybrid and on the internet programs.
About Everspring
Everspring is a primary provider of education engineering and expert services methods for bigger training. Our highly developed technological know-how, proven advertising and marketing strategy, and strong college support and educational design and style providers deliver excellent results for our college partners, powering their success on the net. Everspring delivers a assortment of comprehensive-services turnkey methods, as nicely as standalone payment-for-support choices, and revolutionary self-assistance solutions that permit universities to establish by themselves as leaders in the electronic supply of bigger education. Based mostly in Chicago, Everspring serves a escalating amount of colleges and universities, nationwide.
The landscape for digital learning has changed substantially due to the fact Robert Ubell published Going On-line in 2016: an explosion in outsourcing to on line program professionals, intensifying competition between would-be cheaters and technologies developed to thwart them — oh, and a international pandemic that turned practically every college student into an on-line learner and just about every professor into a technologist.
In a new ebook, Staying Online: How to Navigate Electronic Higher Education and learning (Routledge), Ubell, vice dean emeritus of on-line studying at New York University’s Tandon University of Engineering, delivers together his writings in Within Larger Ed and other publications about a wide range of topics.
He answered questions by means of e-mail about his new e book and the evolving landscape for on the internet discovering. An edited version of the exchange follows.
Q: As anyone who has led institutional technique around on-line education and learning and viewed the landscape closely considering that the late 1990s, do you feel the pressured experimentation of pupils, professors and institutions with remote instruction has appreciably (and forever) reshaped the standing and status of technological know-how-enabled mastering? And if so, in approaches that will maximize support for it?
A: Crisis online studying, regardless of its largely novice shipping last calendar year, was a genuinely huge offer — shock therapy for higher education and learning. According to a amount of latest experiences, remote instruction through the pandemic accelerated broader acceptance and growth of on the web mastering, revealing how immediately establishments have responded to extending on-line mastering and how unexpectedly positively learners and college have reacted. Just one survey this spring concluded that a greater part of college students are amazingly eager to continue to keep learning on line, though school say they now come to feel significantly much more confident about remote schooling than at any time.
But the nation’s headlong dive into digital schooling very last 12 months was not an solely radical departure. In excess of the past many years, on-line education and learning moved like an plane on a runway, getting off slowly and gradually at initially and then persistently, to occupy an ever increased share of increased instruction. If you seem at this eloquent graph, cleverly devised by the ed-tech guru Phil Hill from federal info, you are going to see how the on line wind has been blowing, with household enrollments sliding as on the internet steadily rises. These traits, obvious for many years, but etched in sharper reduction in the pandemic, are now more perilous than at any time.
Two realities account for these altered instructions: the campus downturn is mostly a direct final result of the nation’s skidding variety of high university graduates, whilst the online climb will come from the country’s vastly switching economy, swelling with fantastic numbers of learners who must function to go to school, filling virtual classes with nontraditional pupils.
To get paid digital degrees, midcareer adult learners are also enrolling in remote lessons to get a leg up on securing a far more fulfilling stake in our postindustrial overall economy. Together with fresh new batches of 19-yr-olds, educational leaders need to now go after nontraditional and midcareer pupils, Nowadays, digital schooling has a double obligation, not only critical in securing the continuation of larger instruction, but as an ethical exercise.
Q: If on line/electronic/virtual studying is heading to be a significant portion of a lot more (if not most) faculties and universities likely forward, what are the most significant problems they will have to confront? Are the difficulties additional technological, educational or organizational?
A: All 3, actually, considering that colleges that have not still joined the rush online will will need to get their ducks in a row, generating positive they have almost everything they require in place, with up-to-the-minute electronic magic, advanced pedagogy to keep learners glued to their screens and dynamic leaders, holding the online ship floating and flexible.
But there’s but a fourth necessity: industrial acumen. Colleges and universities confess they are not extremely excellent at it, but they will have to have to get up to pace to exploit electronic recruitment, at which for-profits and OPMs are considerably forward in any other case, even if they grasp the suitable digital abilities, they might be outmaneuvered. Helpful electronic recruitment involves nevertheless a different art that bigger education and learning has been hesitant to follow — investing really serious funds on internet marketing. To realize success, schools and universities will will need to crack some stuffy outdated behavior.
Q: You near your new guide with an admirably genuine chapter about previous assertions that, on 2nd assumed, you comprehend skipped the mark (at minimum partially). How did your intellect alter about large open up on the web courses and streaming movie instruction?
A: Transforming one’s brain is an necessary element of the human issue. If we get trapped in childhood, relatively than currently being open to experience, how would we ever master to adore olives or other foods most children uncover unappetizing? I dug my heels in opposing MOOCs and streaming video simply because they each lacked what I held as the gold common of top quality digital education — leaning forward in energetic college student engagement, somewhat than sitting down back again, passively viewing lessons.
But immediately after decades of adhering to how students essentially participated on-line, I discovered that electronic instruction is not a a single-sizing-fits-all garment, but a coat of numerous colors. It turned out that even even though learning science tells us that energetic participation is the most successful way of discovering, MOOCs and streaming videos can be a useful substitute to conventional training. Certainty is the bullheaded enemy of thoughts-altering conduct.
Significant graduate businesses are inquiring regardless of whether they can headhunt pupils enrolled on skills programs on on the net studying platforms instead than recruiting graduates straight out of university, a convention has read.
John Schwartz, head of business advancement at edX, an on the net class provider created by Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technological know-how (MIT) in 2012 which now has 44 million learners, told Instances Increased Training’s Emerging Economies Summit that various main international companies experienced contacted his corporation to see how they could accessibility details on learners or latest graduates from classes relevant to their organisations.
“Some of the most significant organisations in the entire world are now targeting us and saying, ‘We are interested in providing [learners] an interview,” reported Mr Schwartz who additional that lots of companies had been “quite prescriptive” about the training supplied to their employees, which often meant they favoured bespoke on the internet programs developed in partnership with market than traditional undergraduate degrees.
“I am not declaring that the diploma is not critical but the expertise hole [between what employers demand and graduates offer] is certainly receiving wider and organizations are a lot more than willing to take into consideration alternatives to levels,” insisted Mr Schwartz at THE’s first in-individual global summit for just about two years, which was being held in Dubai in affiliation with United Arab Emirates College
By “mining their new employees” from online course companies, companies and governments could “cut down on the costs of [staff] acquisition and minimize the time spent” on the recruitment procedure, discussed Mr Schwartz, whose enterprise was a short while ago bought out in a $800 million (£560 million) offer by for-gain edtech 2U and is aiming to expand to at minimum 100 million learners.
Talking to THE, Mr Schwartz stated his corporation was exploring the lawful concerns, like details and privateness, close to facilitating direct obtain for businesses to on the web learners, but considered most college students would be receptive to the thought of being approached by sector for a position.
That might finally see edX and Coursera, the world’s major on line course provider with 87 million lively learners in 2021, turn into “brokers for graduate talent” as perfectly as suppliers of study course information and credentials.
“I sit on the frontline with businesses and governments globally and every person is challenged when hoping to come across graduates with the requisite techniques essential for the job,” claimed Mr Schwartz, who argued that the determination by Google to make a $1,000 teaching system indicated some of the dissatisfaction in the teaching presented by universities.
“If universities globally have been turning out properly capable career candidates, enterprises [like Google] would not be acquiring in the mix,” he claimed.
Any residual scepticism about the value of on line or blended learning identified in some nations had largely disappeared through the pandemic when a huge quantity of universities had turned to edX, which supplied 3,000 online courses for free of charge, and other on-line platforms to offer the high-quality material that learners demanded.
His enterprise was now “a device that any governing administration, enterprise or college will have to utilise, for motives of time effectiveness, expense effectiveness and the scale at which tech is modifying the total worldwide landscape”, reported Mr Schwartz, who argued that “blended studying is right here to stay.”
He also defended the sale of edX to a for-income company, which has been criticised by some MIT staff, expressing access to new investment and skills would be a “huge benefit” in serving to the firm develop.
“We had been managing as rapid as we could, and while we experienced some of the most talented people today I’ve ever been included with, we have been generally minimal by dimension and scope,” reported Mr Schwartz.
The education sector was among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools across the globe were forced to shutter their campuses in the spring of 2020 and rapidly shift to online instruction. For many higher education institutions, this meant delivering standard courses and the “traditional” classroom experience through videoconferencing and various connectivity tools.
The approach worked to support students through a period of acute crisis but stands in contrast to the offerings of online education pioneers. These institutions use AI and advanced analytics to provide personalized learning and on-demand student support, and to accommodate student preferences for varying digital formats.
Colleges and universities can take a cue from the early adopters of online education, those companies and institutions that have been refining their online teaching models for more than a decade, as well as the edtechs that have entered the sector more recently. The latter organizations use educational technology to deliver online education services.
To better understand what these institutions are doing well, we surveyed academic research as well as the reported practices of more than 30 institutions, including both regulated degree-granting universities and nonregulated lifelong education providers. We also conducted ethnographic market research, during which we followed the learning journeys of 29 students in the United States and in Brazil, two of the largest online higher education markets in the world, with more than 3.3 million
and 2.3 million
online higher education students, respectively.
We found that, to engage most effectively with students, the leading online higher education institutions focus on eight dimensions of the learning experience. We have organized these into three overarching principles: create a seamless journey for students, adopt an engaging approach to teaching, and build a caring network (exhibit). In this article, we talk about these principles in the context of programs that are fully online, but they may be just as effective within hybrid programs in which students complete some courses online and some in person.
Exhibit
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Create a seamless journey for students
The performance of the early adopters of online education points to the importance of a seamless journey for students, easily navigable learning platforms accessible from any device, and content that is engaging, and whenever possible, personalized. Some early adopters have even integrated their learning platforms with their institution’s other services and resources, such as libraries and financial-aid offices.
1. Build the education road map
In our conversations with students and experts, we learned that students in online programs—precisely because they are physically disconnected from traditional classroom settings—may need more direction, motivation, and discipline than students in in-person programs. The online higher education programs that we looked at help students build their own education road map using standardized tests, digital alerts, and time-management tools to regularly reinforce students’ progress and remind them of their goals.
Brazil’s Cogna Educação, for instance, encourages students to assess their baseline knowledge at the start of the course.
Such up-front diagnostics could be helpful in highlighting knowledge gaps and pointing students to relevant tools and resources, and may be especially helpful to students who have had unequal educational opportunities. A web-based knowledge assessment allows Cogna students to confirm their mastery of certain parts of a course, which, according to our research, can potentially boost their confidence and allow them to move faster through the course material.
At the outset of a course, leaders in online higher education can help students clearly understand the format and content, how they will use what they learn, how much time and effort is required, and how prepared they are for its demands.
The University of Michigan’s online Atlas platform, for instance, gives students detailed information about courses and curricula, including profiles of past students, sample reports and evaluations, and grade distributions, so they can make informed decisions about their studies.
Another provider, Pluralsight, shares movie-trailer-style overviews of its course content and offers trial options so students can get a sense of what to expect before making financial commitments.
Meanwhile, some of the online doctoral students we interviewed have access to an interactive timeline and graduation calculator for each course, which help students understand each of the milestones and requirements for completing their dissertations. Breaking up the education process into manageable tasks this way can potentially ease anxiety, according to our interviews with education experts.
2. Enable seamless connections
Students may struggle to learn if they aren’t able to connect to learning platforms. Online higher education pioneers provide a single sign-on through which students can interact with professors and classmates and gain access to critical support services. Traditional institutions considering a similar model should remember that because high-speed and reliable internet are not always available, courses and program content should be structured so they can be accessed even in low-bandwidth situations or downloaded for offline use.
The technology is just one element of creating seamless connections. Since remote students may face a range of distractions, online-course content could benefit them by being more engaging than in-person courses. Online higher education pioneers allow students to study at their own pace through a range of channels and media, anytime and anywhere—including during otherwise unproductive periods, such as while in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Coursera, for example, invites students to log into a personalized home page where they can review the status of their coursework, complete unfinished lessons, and access recommended “next content to learn” units. Brazilian online university Ampli Pitagoras offers content optimized for mobile devices that allows students to listen to lessons, contact tutors for help, or do quizzes from wherever they happen to be.
Adopt an engaging approach to teaching
The pioneers in online higher education we researched pair the “right” course content with the “right” formats to capture students’ attention. They incorporate real-world applications into their lesson plans, use adaptive learning tools to personalize their courses, and offer easily accessible platforms for group learning.
3. Offer a range of learning formats
The online higher education programs we reviewed incorporate group activities and collaboration with classmates—important hallmarks of the higher education experience—into their mix of course formats, offering both live classes and self-guided, on-demand lessons.
The Georgia Institute of Technology, for example, augments live lessons from faculty members in its online graduate program in data analytics with a collaboration platform where students can interact outside of class, according to a student we interviewed. Instructors can provide immediate answers to students’ questions via the platform or endorse students’ responses to questions from their peers. Instructors at Zhejiang University in China use live videoconferencing and chat rooms to communicate with more than 300 participants, assign and collect homework assignments, and
set goals.
The element of personalization is another area in which online programs can consider upping their ante, even in large student groups. Institutions could offer customized ways of learning online, whether via digital textbook, podcast, or video, ensuring that these materials are high quality and that the cost of their production is spread among large student populations.
Some institutions have invested in bespoke tools to facilitate various learning modes. The University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation embeds custom-designed software into its courses to enhance the experience for both students and professors.
The school’s ECoach platform helps students in large classes navigate content when one-on-one interaction with instructors is difficult because of the sheer number of students. It also sends students reminders, motivational tips, performance reviews, and exam-preparation materials.
Meanwhile, Minerva University focuses on a real-time online-class model that supports higher student participation and feedback and has built a platform with a “talk time” feature that lets instructors balance class participation and engage “back-row students” who may be inclined to participate less.
4. Ensure captivating experiences
Delivering education on digital platforms opens the potential to turn curricula into engaging and interactive journeys, and online education leaders are investing in content whose quality is on a par with high-end entertainment. Strayer University, for example, has recruited Emmy Award–winning film producers and established an in-house production unit to create multimedia lessons. The university’s initial findings show that this investment is paying off in increased student engagement, with 85 percent of learners reporting that they watch lessons from beginning to end, and also shows a 10 percent reduction in the student dropout rate.
Other educators are attracting students not only with high-production values but influential personalities. Outlier provides courses in the form of high-quality videos that feature charismatic Ivy League professors and are shot in a format that reduces eye strain.
The course content follows a storyline, and each course is presented as a crucial piece in an overall learning journey.
5. Utilize adaptive learning tools
Online higher education pioneers deliver adaptive learning using AI and analytics to detect and address individual students’ needs and offer real-time feedback and support. They can also predict students’ requirements, based on individuals’ past searches and questions, and respond with relevant content. This should be conducted according to the applicable personal data privacy regulations of the country where the institution is operating.
Cogna Educação, for example, developed a system that delivers real-time, personalized tutoring to more than 500,000 online students, paired with exercises customized to address specific knowledge gaps.
Minerva University used analytics to devise a highly personalized feedback model, which allows instructors to comment and provide feedback on students’ online learning assignments and provide access to test scores during one-on-one feedback sessions.
According to our research, instructors can also access recorded lessons during one-on-one sessions and provide feedback on student participation during class.
6. Include real-world application of skills
The online higher education pioneers use virtual reality (VR) laboratories, simulations, and games for students to practice skills in real-world scenarios within controlled virtual environments. This type of hands-on instruction, our research shows, has traditionally been a challenge for online institutions.
Arizona State University, for example, has partnered with several companies to develop a biology degree that can be obtained completely online. The program leverages VR technology that gives online students in its biological-sciences program access to a state-of-the-art lab. Students can zoom in to molecules and repeat experiments as many times as needed—all from the comfort of wherever they happen to be.
Meanwhile, students at Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas are using 3-D games to find innovative solutions to real-world problems—for instance, designing the post-COVID-19 campus experience.
Some institutions have expanded the real-world experience by introducing online internships. Columbia University’s Virtual Internship Program, for example, was developed in partnership with employers across the United States and offers skills workshops and resources, as well as one-on-one career counseling.
Create a caring network
Establishing interpersonal connections may be more difficult in online settings. Leading online education programs provide dedicated channels to help students with academic, personal, technological, administrative, and financial challenges and to provide a means for students to connect with each other for peer-to-peer support. Such programs are also using technologies to recognize signs of student distress and to extend just-in-time support.
7. Provide academic and nonacademic support
Online education pioneers combine automation and analytics with one-on-one personal interactions to give students the support they need.
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), for example, uses a system of alerts and communication nudges when its digital platform detects low student engagement. Meanwhile, AI-powered chatbots provide quick responses to common student requests and questions.
Strayer University has a virtual assistant named Irving that is accessible from every page of the university’s online campus website and offers 24/7 administrative support to students, from recommending courses to making personalized graduation projections.
Many of these pioneer institutions augment that digital assistance with human support. SNHU, for example, matches students in distress with personal coaches and tutors who can follow the students’ progress and provide regular check-ins. In this way, they can help students navigate the program and help cultivate a sense of belonging.
Similarly, Arizona State University pairs students with “success coaches” who give personalized guidance and counseling.
8. Foster a strong community
The majority of students we interviewed have a strong sense of belonging to their academic community. Building a strong network of peers and professors, however, may be challenging in online settings.
To alleviate this challenge, leading online programs often combine virtual social events with optional in-person gatherings. Minerva University, for example, hosts exclusive online events that promote school rituals and traditions for online students, and encourages online students to visit its various locations for in-person gatherings where they can meet members of its diverse, dispersed student population.
SNHU’s Connect social gateway gives online-activity access to more than 15,000 members, and helps them interact within an exclusive university social network. Students can also join student organizations and affinity clubs virtually.
Getting started: Designing the online journey
Building a distinctive online student experience requires significant time, effort, and investment. Most institutions whose practices we reviewed in this article took several years to understand student needs and refine their approaches to online education.
For those institutions in the early stages of rethinking their online offerings, the following three steps may be useful. Each will typically involve various functions within the institution, including but not necessarily limited to, academic management, IT, and marketing.
Assess your current online offerings. An initial diagnosis could provide an understanding of how satisfied students are with the existing online experience, their expectations and preferences, and the competitive landscape.
The diagnosis could be performed through a combination of focus groups and quantitative surveys, for example. It’s important that participants represent various student segments, which are likely to have different expectations, including young-adult full-time undergraduate students, working-adult part-time undergraduate students, and graduate students. The eight key dimensions outlined above may be helpful for structuring groups and surveys, in addition to self-evaluation of institution performance and potential benchmarks.
Set a strategic vision for your online learning experience. The vision should be student-centric and link tightly to the institution’s overarching manifesto. The function leaders could evaluate the costs/benefits of each part of the online experience to ensure that the costs are realistic. The online model may vary depending on each school’s market, target audience, and tuition price point. An institution with high tuition, for example, is more likely to afford and provide one-on-one live coaching and student support, while an institution with lower tuition may need to rely more on automated tools and asynchronous interactions with students.
Design the transformation journey. Institutions should expect a multiyear journey. Some may opt to outsource the program design and delivery to dedicated program-management companies. But in our experience, an increasing number of institutions are developing these capabilities internally, especially as online learning moves further into the mainstream and becomes a source of long-term strategic advantage.
We have found that leading organizations often begin with quick wins that significantly raise student experiences, such as stronger student support, integrated technology platforms, and structured course road maps. In parallel, they begin the incremental redesign of courses and delivery models, often focusing on key programs with the largest enrollments and tapping into advanced analytics for insights to refine these experiences.
Finally, institutions tackle key enabling factors, such as instructor onboarding and online-teaching training, robust technology infrastructure, and advanced-analytics programs that enable the institutions to understand which features of online education are performing well and generating exceptional learning experiences for their students.
The question is no longer whether the move to online will outlive the COVID-19 lockdowns but when online learning will become the dominant means for delivering higher education. As digital transformation accelerates across all industries, higher education institutions will need to consider how to develop their own online strategies.
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