Responses

Mia Discussion:

To stick on the theme of online education I looked into an article from Inside Higher Education, the article discusses how online education and in person education both have their own struggles. The article is titled What the Pandemic Should Have Taught Us About effective Teaching, By Steven Mintz. I feel online education is the future of education, not all programs are meant for online education, but some are capable of incorporating online education to the curriculum. 

Education is constantly evolving and finding ways to create the best possible outcome is important. Something the pandemic helped to shine a light on is online education. Finding a way to create an interactive and engaging platform for students to take part in online. In order to achieve this educators have to "make sure that the class’s structure is transparent, well organized and appropriately sequenced. Then there’s the pedagogical challenge: making sure that students have multiple ways to grasp the material" (Mintz, 2021, P # 3). Finding ways to incorporate the same parts of an in person classroom is an important element of online education. In order to create an online program that would be successful the school would need to "supplement lectures with detailed PowerPoint slides and tutorials, create activities to help students acquire essential knowledge and skills, and develop frequent low-stakes assessments to track students’ learning and confusions" (Mintz, 2021). Doing so can help create a smooth incorporation to an online education program.

As education progresses, online education will also continue to do so. It is important to see what education can do to improve what it has discovered already. The pandemic helped to shine a light on how difficult it would be to incorporate these types of changes. However, it also helped to how how it can be done, and how online education is important to incorporate into the programs at the college.

References

Mintz, S (2016). What the Pandemic Should Have Taught Us About effective Teaching. Retrieved July 5th, 2021 from: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/what-pandemic-should-have-taught-us-about-effective-teaching

Michael Discussion:

Hello everyone,

            Author Audrey Williams June wrote an article entitled Inside the Numbers of One State’s Plan to Consolidate Its Public System of Higher Ed for The Chronicle of Higher Education.  This is what I read this week for our discussion.  In the article, the author discusses the state of Pennsylvania’s move to merge 6 out of 14 universities within their state system into two schools.

            The author presents data of why the merger is happening and it includes a decline in enrollment since 2010, the planned reduction in cost of education after the merger, the number of jobs to be cut, and the money necessary from the state budget (Williams June, 2021).   All these factors are pertinent to other states and their higher education spending.  As Pennsylvania attempts to reduce cost to students and reduce state higher education costs, other states will likely pay attention to see if it is a model they can follow or recreate.

            Most states are seeing a drop in enrollment due to the pandemic and will continue to see it as the birth rates in the U.S. decline in a few short years.  Taking the steps to condense facilities and facility costs will likely be on the minds of all state budget writers at some point.  The plan as proposed also reduces costs to students which continues to be at the forefront of factors weighing on post-secondary decisions for students.  Pennsylvania is poised to vote on the measure in the month of July, and the plans would be implemented in the 2022-2023 academic year (Williams June, 2021).  While Pennsylvania votes, the rest of state budget makers watch with anticipation.

Reference

Williams June, A. (2021, June 29). Inside the numbers of one state’s plan to consolidate its public system of higher ed. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from: https://www.chronicle.com/article/inside-the-numbers-of-one-states-plan-to-consolidate-its-public-system-of-higher-ed