In general, each section of the report presents an opportunity to better understand gaps between faculty and student expectations. For example, significant portions are devoted to questions about AI tools, and it documents growing use by students. But it also shows that faculty “tend to overestimate its current use among students. This disconnect reinforces the opportunity for blended support strategies that pair human guidance with AI-enabled tools.”

Cathy Shaw, managing director at Tyton Partners and one of the co-authors of the report, says faculty who read Listening to Learners 2025 will hear from students who are more career savvy than they’re often given credit for, wary of AI replacing human judgment in grading, and eager for comprehensive, personal advising that connects academic progress with real-world goals. A common theme across all the major findings is that students want both technology and human connection. They value digital tools that make learning and advising more efficient, but they don’t want those tools to replace meaningful relationships with instructors and advisors.

Learners are career savvy

Shaw says one notable result from the survey is “the level of awareness learners conveyed about the value of being able to demonstrate skills.” For example, more than half of students are aware of non-degree credential options, nearly 90 percent express interest in NDCs, and they are four times more likely than advisors to want to discuss NDCs.

The results suggest a large gap between what students want and what institutions provide when it comes to flexible, career-aligned pathways beyond the traditional degree. “I thought that was surprising, maybe because I wasn’t that career focused when I was in my four-year college experience,” Shaw says. “I think our learners are more sophisticated than some educators would give them credit for.”

Students don’t want AI grading their work

A clear signal from the survey is that “students felt it doesn’t matter if students themselves use AI frequently or not,” Shaw says. “They just don’t want faculty to be using generative AI to grade. That’s probably where these results impact teaching and learning the most.”

Even among daily AI users about a third of students are against instructors using AI for grading. While institutions explore ways to use AI to ease faculty workloads, students — even those experimenting with AI themselves — strongly prefer that a human make the final call on their grades.

“We’re not talking about feedback, we’re talking about actually assigning a grade,” Shaw says.

Students show critical thinking by verifying AI outputs

High awareness does not automatically equal high trust. Students spend more time than faculty checking LLM outputs, “and it’s encouraging that they are mindful that they need to do so,” Shaw says.

The report proposes two possible explanations for this: “This verification gap may reflect students’ greater familiarity with genAI use and reinforces why genAI hasn’t fully displaced human-centered supports. Alternatively, this data may point to instructors’ greater subject matter expertise — when you’re confident in the right output, checking for it takes less time.”

Students want comprehensive advising

As noted above, students are much more likely than advisors to see non-degree credentials as an important topic of discussion in advising sessions. There are similar gaps between students and advisors on topics like campus safety and financial issues. While students are eager to discuss them, advisors are much less likely to prioritize those topics than course selection, registration, and degree progress.

Those gaps suggest universities should consider directing their limited resources toward technology that makes short advising meetings less transactional and more personal, says Shaw: “Registration or progress toward graduation are knowable by looking at a dashboard. An advisor or a student could plan for an advising meeting, with the right access to these kinds of tools, and then that session with an advisor could be a richer conversation.”

Faculty can play a vital role in connecting students to support services

The report notes that awareness of student support resources is particularly low among some students and that students cannot benefit from tutoring, financial aid help, or mental health resources they don’t know exist. Shaw encourages faculty to help close this gap. “It’s actively reminding them of what’s available since faculty get more face time with students than support providers themselves,” she says.

When instructors know how to point students toward campus resources, they can play an important part in keeping students on track. For institutions, this suggests investing in robust support services and making sure faculty are informed and empowered to refer students, extending the reach of those services without adding more staff.

Lasting change requires top-level leadership and trusted data

The report finds that over three-quarters of institutions do not report encouraging disaggregation of course-level data. Many lack clear responsibility for maintaining data quality, illuminating how effective change depends on leadership alignment and trustworthy data practices.

Shaw says, “You need the person at the top, the provost, to really say, ‘We need to make these changes.’ That top-down attention is the secret sauce.” She adds that for any data-driven initiative, “you need a CIO or CTO who can ensure data hygiene. If the data is unreliable, no amount of provost-level attention will change things.”

The post Students Want Both Technology and Human Connection: Listening to Learners 2025 appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“My mom likes to say I like things that are constantly new,” the Rhode Island native says. “I just get bored. And I remember my dad saying, ‘Well, you know, technology is a moving field that never stops.’ And I think hearing that made me extremely excited.”

Soon Smallwood was in computer science classes, and in an early one, she recounts, “the professor said, ‘I can teach you all I know about AI right now, but next year, when the course starts again, it’s going to be a completely different curriculum because it’s moving so fast.’”

Others came to know about Smallwood’s interest in AI and its disruptive potential, including the adviser for her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, who had seen the announcement that the fall 2025 cohort of Every Learner Everywhere’s interns would emphasize efforts to advance the effective use of AI in education. Smallwood decided to apply for the intern program, which brings five to eight students per year into conversations about digital learning in higher education, typically working with one of its network partners on group or individual projects that advance the field of evidence-based high-impact digital learning.

Embracing technology

One thing Smallwood says she has learned since beginning to study computer science is that the rapid pace of change in AI is contributing to confusion about how best to use it, with some in education embracing the possibilities of AI even as others resist it. She and her counterparts in the Every Learner internship are discussing attitudes about AI and how they as students are experiencing its use in their own courses.

The group also is reviewing materials related to AI, including those in Every Learner Everywhere’s resource library, and will participate in a panel discussion about AI in instruction. The goal is to promote the effective and responsible use of AI to improve learning outcomes.

“It’s intriguing for me,” says Smallwood. “Since it’s something everybody’s learning for the first time, it’s something fresh I really just can’t wait to get my hands on.”

She hopes the interns’ work will open doors for widespread use of AI and other digital technologies in academia, particularly among those who often face barriers to high-quality education. Her emphasis on inclusion in AI and other technology stems from what she encountered when she was new to computer science and observed the relatively small number of women pursuing that major.

Smallwood refused to let that deter her, and she also decided to work to make computer science more welcoming for others in underrepresented groups.

“Women are more likely to go into a field they know more about,” she says. “So, I just feel like getting out there and teaching people what technology is, and how AI can make advances is going to be a big step toward helping people of all genders and races be more included.”

Her efforts to help pave the way for others have included involvement in groups like Girls Who Code, the National Society of Black Engineers, and the National Council of Negro Women on her campus.

“I really don’t want other women in the future, maybe 10 years down the line, to say they’re unsure because this is a male-dominated field,” Smallwood says. “I don’t even want that to cross their minds.”

Strengthening AI knowledge

Smallwood says she has valued how the Every Learner internship has shown her opportunities to participate in the dialogue, which stems from the program’s student-centered principle of “nothing about us without us.”

“It gives me a little push because I do know the things [the people we work with] are talking about,” she says. “For instance, I already know the prompts you send to AI can either grow you as a learner or stunt your growth as a learner.”

These discussions with fellow interns are also helping Smallwood strengthen her ability to collaborate, something she hopes to combine with her interest and skills to pursue a career using AI or developing software for a company in the fashion industry.

“My goal,” she says, “is to just learn as much as I can, grasp as much information as I can about others and how others learn, and take that with me wherever I go.”

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That AI is rapidly evolving is a common observation, but it’s important to remember, says Rolando Méndez, Director of Education of Teach Access, that the field of accessibility in higher education is also “actively updating and advancing.”

Keeping up with the intersection of those two domains was the topic of Making AI Work for All: Enhancing Accessibility for Students in Higher Education, a webinar featuring Méndez presented October 15, 2025 by Every Learner Everywhere, Teach Access, and the Northwest Higher Education Accessibility Technology Group (NWHeat). Méndez outlined definitions of disability, ableism, and accessibility, then highlighted examples of how AI can both introduce barriers and expand access. The presentation ranged from the practical — including a framework for practical prompt design — to institutional considerations of policy and personnel.

Méndez was one of the contributors to Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, a toolkit published by Every Learner and Teach Access earlier in 2025, and many of the ideas he presented are also outlined there.

Built-in accessibility

About 1.3 billion people globally or one in four U.S. adults live with a disability. Méndez emphasized that disability is a spectrum, and can be visible, invisible, permanent, temporary, or situational.

But oftentimes, technology treats people with disabilities as a problem to “fix” rather than a design challenge to meet. When people with disabilities are excluded from AI development or underrepresented in training data, bias can enter systems invisibly. This results in AI tools that misinterpret language, generate inaccessible materials, or perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

“One size does not fit all,” Méndez said. “What is accessible to one person with a disability is not necessarily accessible to someone else with the same or a different disability.”

To make AI and other digital learning tools inclusive, accessibility must be built in. That means involving people with disabilities in the design and testing processes that shape their use in education. When educators and developers collaborate with students and professionals with disabilities, they create systems that reflect real-world diversity and serve a broader range of learners.

AI as a tool for access

Despite the risk of creating more barriers to inclusion, Méndez said, AI holds tremendous promise for improving accessibility in higher education. With thoughtful use, it can support students with disabilities: For example:

• Students with ADHD or autism can use AI to break down tasks, structure ideas, or interpret tone in written communication.
• Students with dyslexia can refine structure and vocabulary with AI-powered writing support.
• Deaf or hard-of-hearing students can rely on AI-generated captions and transcripts for lectures or live discussions.
• Blind or low-vision students can use AI to describe and summarize visual materials.
• Students with motor disabilities can use voice-enabled AI to navigate systems and complete assignments hands free.

To ensure quality, educators must remain active participants in how AI is used. AI can draft captions, generate alt text, simplify complex content, create transcripts, and highlight the main ideas in those transcripts, but human review is essential to confirm accuracy, nuance, and context.

For example, Méndez said, because he is not a native English speaker, AI may not do as well transcribing his voice as it does with other users: “We can use them to help with the work but we must also always remember that we should review them to ensure accuracy and relevance.” In this way, AI can be a powerful collaborator for accessibility but not a replacement for it.

Prompting AI to be more accessible

Faculty and instructional designers can also strengthen their AI literacy by giving attention to prompt design: the art of giving clear, inclusive instructions to AI tools. Intentional, well-developed prompting ensures that AI-generated materials support, rather than hinder, inclusive learning.

To do this, Méndez recommends the C.R.E.A.T.E. framework:

• Character — Describe the perspective you want the AI to take.
• Request — Clearly explain the task for the AI to complete.
• Examples — Provide 1-2 examples to guide the AI.
• Adjustments — Provide feedback on early responses and adjust the prompt.
• Type of output — Specify how you want the final response formatted.
• Extras — Add special instructions or constraints.

Another effective method is to ask generative AI to act as a prompt generator, helping design better instructions for a given purpose. For example, users can request prompt patterns for different tasks, or even meta-prompts, which are prompts about how to build prompts. Or educators can ask AI to explain why a particular prompt works, training the tool to recognize what makes a prompt clear and goal oriented.

Building a culture of accessibility

Making AI accessible is an ongoing commitment rather than a one-time project. Institutions that prioritize accessibility in AI adoption strengthen their teaching practices, reduce legal risks, and model equity as a core institutional value.

To build a culture of accessibility in AI usage, institutions should involve people with disabilities in developing AI policies, ensure accessibility is a core priority, procure AI tools intentionally designed for accessibility, and carefully consider how these tools may create both opportunities and barriers for learners with disabilities.

“For example, one of the people who contributed to the ‘Where AI Meets Accessibility’ toolkit advised against not using blanket policy because sometimes these tools [generative AI] can be used as assistive technology when other assistive technology may not be available,” said Méndez.

In addition to the highlights summarized here, Méndez also gave a live demonstration of how varying roles, examples, and constraints can change the quality of AI outputs. He highlighted examples of AI tools supporting accessibility, such as generating structured explanations or drafting alt text. The session also touched on the relevance of Title II guidance, emerging international standards, and how accessibility can influence institutional sustainability.

Because both accessibility and AI are “actively updating and advancing,” Méndez emphasized that practices will continue to evolve. His full presentation is available in the archived recording on Every Learner’s YouTube channel.

The post Implementing AI for Every Learner: Considerations for Accessibility in Higher Education appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“I’m the type of person who has to know what I’m going to do,” says Robinson, a junior at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia. “There’s a lot I want to do, and it’s all going to impact the community.”

The daughter of pastors, Robinson plans to one day start a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that partners with churches to focus on human rights. Together, they would help people find assistance in education, legal aid, housing, job and food security, and immigration.

“I was praying on what I wanted to do,” Robinson says, “and this just kind of came to me as a way to be able to combine all of it together while still serving the community and being under the church and my faith.”

Robinson tailors each of her academic and professional moves to fit that long-term goal.

AI for education access

As one of five fall 2025 Every Learner digital learning interns, Robinson now is studying how artificial intelligence can make education more accessible.

She applied for the role after learning about it from a mentor, who recognized it as the perfect opportunity for someone who regularly uses AI and is driven to help level the playing field in education. Robinson relies on AI to help her complete educational and professional tasks such as planning and editing.

“I just want to educate people on the best ways to use AI efficiently in education and in life,” Robinson says, “including marginalized communities who may not know how to use AI in their day-to-day lives.”

Robinson and her colleagues began their internship by examining the ways educators and students currently are employing AI—and discussing the broad range of opinions about AI’s use to complete classwork. The group’s work will contribute to efforts to identify ways that AI can make education more readily available to all students.

Preparing for the future

Robinson has embarked on a variety of other educational and professional endeavors that will help her pursue her dream of establishing a nonprofit. Her interest in providing immigration assistance, for example, is rooted in a childhood spent in a Spanish immersion program that taught her a second language and exposed her to other cultures.

“I’ve been studying Spanish since kindergarten, and I became friends with a lot of people of that culture,” she says. “I think that’s why it’s a bigger part of me than it would be for somebody who doesn’t really know it personally.”

Majoring in business administration with a concentration in management at Clark Atlanta is informing Robinson’s future as an organizational leader, and she plans to earn a law degree.

Additionally, she recently became a real estate agent in Atlanta to learn about entrepreneurship, negotiation, and community engagement while also pursuing her degree. She has already closed her first deal.

“I decided to go into real estate because one of the sectors of my nonprofit is going to be low-income housing,” Robinson says. “So, I just put it as part of my plan, and I executed it.”

Robinson is a coach for others at Clark Atlanta who want to earn their real estate licenses, and works part time as a human resources coordinator for Atlanta Botanical Garden. She manages her work and academic commitments with the help of digital learning, with much of her classwork conducted online.

“I don’t know how I’d be able to handle everything if it was all in person,” Robinson says, “so I’m happy that’s not my testimony.”

Robinson has found other ways to prepare for a future as a nonprofit leader in her collaboration with the other interns, who represent a variety of backgrounds and cultures, and in the Every Learner Everywhere materials, which are inspiring her as she builds her own real estate website.

“I just want to be able to learn, to be able to add my ideas,” she says. “But also learn from other perspectives.”

The post How This Student Uses Her Digital Learning Internship to Prepare For a Career of Service appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Igartua is an Every Learner Everywhere intern dedicating her studies and her career planning to ensuring digital tools reach their full potential to help, rather than hinder. “Technology is definitely not made for everyone, even though it should be,” she says.

“As I’ve learned about STEM and computer science in general, I’ve realized you can solve a lot of problems happening in communities by using technology,” she explains. “However, introducing it to those who could benefit from it is not that simple.”

Creating opportunity through technology

As a teenager in Chiapas, Mexico — an area she describes as “one of the most marginalized regions” of the country — Igartua, driven by curiosity and looking for opportunities to learn more about STEM, conducted an online search that led her to Kode With Klossy, a program that encourages gender equality in technology education and careers. She received a scholarship to complete a summer camp through that program in Los Angeles, and a passion for using technology to improve the lives of others was born.

This year Igartua is a junior at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., with a double major in French and computer science, focusing on data analytics and society. And, as one of the fall 2025 cohort of Every Learner interns, she is studying the use of AI in education and contributing to the conversation about wise implementation of digital learning technology in academic settings.

“That early experience opened my eyes a lot to the opportunities I could have in the U.S. regarding a career in tech as a woman,” she says. “Technology completely transformed my life.”

But the bootcamp and Kode With Klossy also revealed another side of technology to Igartua: Some populations have challenges accessing and using it, and she saw many in her community struggle to adapt to digital tools’ use. For example, her mother, a kindergarten teacher, told her about barriers digitized services can create for parents as they try to get required documents for their children, a task they must complete online.

“Many in this community don’t have access to the internet, and they don’t have access to smartphones,” Igartua says. “You start seeing how, as society starts driving toward digitization, they don’t really think about the people who are far behind that.”

She kept this experience in mind during coursework and other internships with the American Foundation for the Blind, whose constituents are often not considered when learning technology is designed, and the Public Interest Technology University Network. She has worked on projects such as creating virtual reality tools to study bias and racial interaction, and designing user-friendly social media content to foster community and inclusion, and she founded an initiative to support immigrant women and children through digital channels.

Making digital learning accessible

Igartua also used digital learning tools to tutor children in Chiapas. That work, along with her own experiences as a student, sparked an interest in how to effectively and ethically use AI in coursework, and how to help instructors and students make the most of AI tools.

“I was always thinking about, ‘Oh, you could definitely use ‘x’ technology to solve ‘y,’ but people wouldn’t understand how to use it,” she says. “So I started thinking a lot about user experience.”

When Igartua saw that a post in her LinkedIn feed announcing the Every Learner internship opportunity emphasized efforts to advance the effective use of AI in education, she recognized it as a fit. “AI is an emerging technology that has this big potential,” she says. “But there are so many technologies and resources that are not used for the social good, for the benefit of the public.”

Igartua hopes her education and work with organizations like Every Learner will be a springboard for a career as a digital accessibility technologist, a role in which she would work with people to determine how to make digital spaces more accessible to others. She wants the technology that has made such an impact in her life to also help others achieve their goals.

“Without technology, I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have now,” she says. “Digital spaces and technology have exposed me to experiences I would have never dreamed of. They have greatly impacted my life. If that happened to me, I really believe it could happen to everyone else.”

The post Intern Strives to Ensure Everyone Can Benefit from Digital Learning Technology appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

That means University of Guam (UOG) adds some unique factors to the challenge of reducing the stop out rate, but the challenge still fits into a larger trend. A 2024 report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that 40 percent of students who enrolled in U.S. colleges stopped out before earning their degree within eight years, and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s annual Some College, No Credential (SCNC) report showed 2.1 million students stopped out in the 2022-2023 school year alone.

At UOG the majority of students who stop out are first-time freshmen, says Pangelinan: “That means they come in and we lose them right at the door.”

But the institution didn’t have much more data about stopped-out students than that. So when an opportunity arose to take the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) and Every Learner Everywhere’s Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success training, Pangelinan saw a way to link the professional development support with her institution’s specific challenge. She was particularly interested that the program would involve a university-wide cross-functional team that included the CIO, the registrar, the supervisor for admissions and registration, the director for the Center for Online Learning, and others who represented student interests throughout the campus.

“We had never been able to sit down and actually document and measure the effectiveness of the different interventions we’ve been doing,” she says. “This had the potential to make big shifts in the way the organization approaches student stop outs.”

Data slipping through the cracks

Including a decade at nearby Guam Community College, Pangelinan has spent much of her career puzzling over the problem of why students leave school and what brings them back. Many at UOG certainly leave for financial reasons, while others relocate to the mainland United States for better educational or work opportunities. However, most of what was known about why students left was anecdotal.

“We didn’t have a consistent method for collecting data as to why students are leaving,” she says.

Pangelinan notes you wouldn’t necessarily know there was a stop out issue at all unless you dug into the data. On the surface, enrollment numbers at UOG seemed stable. But when Pangelinan looked deeper, it was clear that while UOG had been working to increase enrollment, they were losing more students than they realized.

“Here we are working to increase enrollment and help students towards completion,” says Pangelinan. “But we weren’t necessarily looking at the students we did not retain.”

Further reading: Practical Steps to Fostering Belonging and Instructional Transparency

Measuring what matters

UOG uses many interventions designed for specific cohorts of students and for enrollment, retention, and completion. But without consistent data collection on stop outs, the university didn’t know where to focus retention and re-engagement efforts specific to stop out cohorts. That became the focus of their work during the APLU training.

Right off the bat, the UOG team was impressed by APLU’s approach. Normally when people from UOG collaborate with institutions in the mainland United States, they have to get up at two or three in the morning for calls. But the APLU worked with their cohort to find a time slot — seven in the morning — that allowed the entire team in Guam to participate. “It was great,” Pangelinan says. “We appreciated being able to come to a working schedule.”

An early lesson was that good data depends on good definitions of terms. Some institutions define a student as stopped out if they don’t come back after one semester, while others don’t consider them stopped out until they’ve missed two semesters. Pangelinan prefers the one-semester definition, because it highlights how important it is for students to stay engaged and connected: “It’s easier to keep our students here than to lose them and try to bring them back.”

The next step was to set up a system to monitor the transfer pathway from when students enroll to where they go once they leave, especially if they stop out.

Further reading: Emerging Student Engagement Platforms to Streamline Student Support

Improving interventions with data

UOG will soon be updating their software system to give Pangelinan and her team better access to that kind of data, and they’ve already begun measuring data on this year’s incoming freshmen.

Along with collecting data, they’ve launched two intervention programs. First, to make it easier for students to navigate the university’s resources, they held an outreach event where representatives across the university were available in one room to give students a one-stop shop for information and resources to get them through the registration process.

Second came a re-engagement effort. Advisors across the campus reached out to each student individually to understand what had interrupted their higher education journey and how UOG could help them get back on track.

“My vision is to have a profile of each of the students who come through our doors, wherever they come from,” says Pangelinan. This would allow UOG to serve students based on their specific needs, whether that’s offering tutoring services, housing services, or even addressing food security. “That way we can take advantage of predictive analytics to be proactive instead of reactive to predictors of student success.”

The post How the University of Guam Is Using Data to Personalize Student Stop Out Interventions appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Now Jiminez is working to assist others in gaining access to the type of learning that has made a difference for him. The fall 2025 Every Learner Everywhere intern says the reason for his commitment to providing this opportunity is simple: “Education is the biggest driver of mobility,” he explains. “The mission of my journey is to break down barriers, to increase accessibility in the sphere of education, and to drive home the point that learning is for everyone.”

Jiminez is a junior majoring in sociology and government at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. His activities outside of class include tutoring for Teach For America through the Ignite Fellowship and reviewing coursework as part of College Guild’s educational program for people who are incarcerated. He is a Campus Compact Rural Youth Voice Initiative fellow and Harvard Kennedy School Public Policy Leadership scholar as well as an organizer advancing education access through the nonprofit organization Class Action.

After he completes his bachelor’s degree work, Jiminez hopes to pursue a career with a nonprofit that connects people involved in the criminal justice system with educational opportunities. He also wants to pursue a master’s degree in education policy.

Navigating educational challenges

To get to these endeavors and goals advancing learning opportunities for everyone, Jiminez has had to overcome his own barriers to education. When he found out about the Every Learner Everywhere internship, he recognized it as a way to expand on his work to help people like him connect with educational opportunities. Jiminez discovered the internship when, as his Teach For America tutoring sessions rely on digital tools, he wanted to learn more about that subject and searched for organizations working on AI in higher education.

Jiminez pursued the internship seeking not only to learn about digital education tools but also to add to the conversation about their use. “Every Learner Everywhere really works to take on a lot of students from diverse programs of study and backgrounds, so I thought this would be a really good fit,” he says.

Finding common ground

Jiminez and the other four fall 2025 interns are reviewing materials in the Every Learner resource library and weighing in with their suggestions for updates. They’re also reviewing the AI toolkit that previous Every Learner interns created, adding their input before its release.

During this work and in discussions of digital learning issues, Jiminez says he’s drawing on his own studies, which focus on how diverse populations and ways of thinking interact. He says he appreciates hearing perspectives on AI from other interns who major in STEM subjects like computer science and engineering.

“It’s really interesting to hear how others are experiencing the rise of AI and how they’re using it in their own learning,” he says. “From there, I’m able to better inform my own decisions in relation to digital learning. I can also be an advocate for safe and responsible use of digital learning. The one thing that really unites us is this yearning to make education more accessible through digital learning.”

Elevating student perspectives

The opportunity to be part of a diverse group of voices helping to shape the future of digital education is the aspect of the internship that Jiminez enjoys most — and the one he believes will make the greatest impact.

“The goal of this internship, at least for me, is to be able to contribute to the resources and the conversations Every Learner Everywhere is having in the broader space of education and to advocate for increased accessibility,” he says.

“I’m taking advantage of this platform that I don’t think we see too often in education,” says Jiminez. “It’s something I’ve personally been working toward in my own community and encouraging organizations, policymakers, and structures of governance to do — and that is to take into account the student perspective.”

The post Intern’s Own Experiences Shape Commitment to Education Access to Digital Tools appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Faculty Development and GenAI Playbook: Evidence-based Best Practices offers guidance on the scope and direction of generative AI policies and discussions in today’s higher education landscape. It guides faculty development professionals in colleges, universities, and other higher education organizations to help develop and implement GenAI professional development opportunities.

The insights in the playbook are based on a mixed-methods study conducted by OLC to investigate how Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) are supporting faculty and instructors in integrating GenAI into their teaching practices, with a focus on training programs, effectiveness measures, and barriers encountered in this process. The playbook was developed in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, and the co-authors include Carrie Lewis Miller, PhD, Dylan Barth, PhD, and Josh Herron, PhD from OLC, Kristen Gay, PhD from EDUCAUSE, and Finn Scherer from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The heart of the playbook is a model for faculty development in GenAI programming the OLC research team identified based on the results of the study. The model has four “stages”: Awareness and Foundations, Engagement and Skill Building, and Integration and Institutionalization, with a critical stage dedicated to Iteration as needs evolve. The playbook presents best practices, examples, important considerations, and other helpful insights about each stage.

Below we have excerpted and lightly edited sections of the playbook that define each stage of faculty development on GenAI. Be sure to browse the complete playbook to see actionable strategies, examples of what other institutions are doing, and the supporting research, as well as more comprehensive discussions of the material below.

Awareness and Foundations

The focus of this stage is to build comfort, trust, and basic understanding of GenAI through a variety of best practices.

At this foundational stage, simply offering sessions often suffices to spark participation. However, many faculty — especially skeptics and those unfamiliar with AI — remain disengaged, even with extensive outreach or incentives. Their concerns around ethics, bias, and academic integrity are valid and must be acknowledged as part of any responsible introduction to GenAI.

Survey results show that 92.86 percent of CTLs offer facilitated workshops and 83.33 percent provide one-on-one consultations to support faculty exploration at this stage. In open responses, many CTLs reported early success with “AI Playgrounds,” listening sessions, and book groups to demystify GenAI and reduce resistance.

Framing sessions around topics such as “AI for your workflow” — for example, using GenAI to draft emails, create syllabi, plan lessons, or generate feedback — offers immediate relevance and lowers the barrier to entry. Live demonstrations of these tasks help faculty see the practical value of GenAI in real time. Developing discipline-specific examples and partnering with faculty to co-design resources will build contextual trust and usability.

Despite growing interest in AI-related programming, CTLs face persistent challenges in sustaining engagement, especially as faculty navigate competing demands, burnout, and limited resources. Many still view GenAI as an added burden to their already extensive faculty responsibilities. That’s why the Awareness and Foundations stage must focus on building trust, reducing fear, and fostering curiosity — not pushing adoption.

By grounding GenAI training in familiarity, relevance, and reflection, CTLs can lay a strong foundation for future exploration. The goal at this stage is not mastery, but comfort, confidence, and curiosity — the essential building blocks for responsible and informed experimentation.

Engagement and Skill Building

The goals of this stage are to deepen learning, build communities, and foster early adoption of GenAI tools. This stage provides faculty with hands-on opportunities to apply GenAI tools in discipline-specific contexts, supported by peer learning and responsive instructional design. It’s where curiosity evolves into confidence, thoughtful experimentation begins to take root, and faculty begin integrating GenAI into their teaching in meaningful, discipline-relevant ways.

Engagement increases when sessions are tailored to real instructional needs — such as using GenAI for simulation design, scaffolding student writing, or redesigning assessments. Faculty are more likely to adopt tools when they can clearly see how GenAI enhances their existing practices rather than disrupts them.

Department-specific case studies and discipline-aligned examples are especially effective at this stage. Co-designing tools and teaching materials with faculty from each college ensures that solutions are not only relevant but also trusted and sustainable.

At the Engagement and Skill Building stage, peer leadership and cross-disciplinary collaboration become essential. However, one-on-one consultations (rated as “very effective” by nearly 49 percent of respondents) and discipline-specific workshops were noted as the most impactful professional learning opportunities by study participants.

Identifying and supporting GenAI “faculty fellows” or champions within each college helps build momentum and credibility. These individuals can lead workshops, mentor colleagues, and share their experiences at mini-conferences or showcase events.

To sustain engagement, CTLs should also create ongoing communities of practice where faculty can share challenges, successes, and evolving strategies. These spaces allow for deeper reflection on pedagogical shifts, student outcomes, and ethical considerations.

Integration and Institutionalization

The goals of this stage are to support long-term adoption, innovation, and infrastructure around GenAI once faculty have started to use it meaningfully in their teaching. Integration and Institutionalization is about aligning GenAI practices with long-term goals, updating policies, embedding GenAI into professional learning ecosystems, and scaling what works. This stage emphasizes coordination, recognition, and agility, ensuring that GenAI use is both effective and ethically grounded across the institution.

Policy development remains a challenge, particularly in large or decentralized institutions, as they struggle to keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies. A total of 69 percent of survey respondents indicated that their CTLs were actively involved in shaping institutional GenAI policy, often through faculty advisory committees or academic affairs collaborations.

Concerns persist about students’ overreliance on AI and its potential to hinder skill development, underscoring the importance of fostering AI literacy as a core competency for both faculty and students. Institutions are embedding GenAI into existing professional development programming — integrating examples into workshops, book chats, and mini-conferences — and using badges or certifications to recognize faculty engagement.

Many campuses are establishing central AI leadership roles or committees to coordinate efforts and promote cross-departmental collaboration. Staff supporting GenAI initiatives rely on hands-on experimentation, external learning, and internal partnerships to stay informed and build effective training programs.

Looking ahead, institutions are preparing for future trends by maintaining a flexible suite of professional development offerings, anticipating shifts in curriculum design, and fostering a culture of curiosity and critical engagement. This includes encouraging open dialogue about the benefits and risks of GenAI, supporting discipline-specific applications, and promoting thoughtful, responsible integration of AI into higher education.

Frequent Iteration

This stage is meant to flow throughout the process rather than be a “fourth” stage in a linear progression. Revisit your programming throughout each of the other three stages and make adjustments as necessary.

GenAI technologies and their implications are evolving rapidly. As a result, even the most well-integrated programs must remain responsive and adaptive. A continuous cycle of reflection, feedback, and renewal ensures faculty development efforts stay relevant, data informed, and aligned with emerging needs. Institutions that embed iteration into their GenAI strategies are better positioned to navigate uncertainty, embrace innovation, and sustain long-term impact.

The post A Four-Stage Model for Faculty Development in GenAI: A New Evidence-Based Playbook from OLC appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

For example, she has encountered training and tools that didn’t account for differences between men’s and women’s body types, and she has been in the dark when instruction relied on cultural references she didn’t understand.

“Often I was the only woman,” Williams says of her education in engineering technology, and her training and on-the-job experience in construction.

She recalls an example of feeling excluded during her construction apprentice training: “In an effort to relate to the class, they would compare a part of a machine to something called a Heisman Trophy,” Williams says of the college football award. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t watch sports.”

Now she’s using this background to fuel her current endeavors, including her work as a fall 2025 Every Learner Everywhere® intern.

Sharing EBT practices

Williams holds an associate degree in electrical engineering technology and currently is a junior at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system.

Additionally, Williams provides construction training through the nonprofit organization Nontraditional Employment for Women. As a math and electrical theory instructor, she works to present the inclusive instruction that she has come to recognize is so valuable.

Her background makes the Queens, N.Y., resident the perfect fit for the Every Learner internship, where Williams is assigned to work with Transform Learning. She is sharing information about practices she uses to make her training courses relatable and relevant, adding those descriptions to the examples of digitally enabled evidence-based teaching practices (DE-EBTs) available on the Transform Learning website.

Her work with Transform Learning also includes participation in its EBT community of practice.

Williams has always employed instructional techniques such as describing the practical importance of material she’s presenting and breaking classes into small groups for problem solving. Now she recognizes her efforts as encouraging a sense of belonging, using instructional transparency, and facilitating active learning. All of these practices are DE-EBTs.

“It’s nice to see everything I actually do put into words,” she says of the examples on the Transform Learning site.

Building instructional skills

Williams learned about the Every Learner internship opportunity as she conducted online research about digital tools she could use to improve her own instruction. That search led her to the Every Learner website, whose articles center on the organization’s support for innovation that improves learning outcomes for every student.

She also learned that this group, whose focus so closely matched her own, had internship opportunities.

“I had to apply for it,” Williams says. “I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t have the skills yet to execute them. I know Every Learner is going to give me those skills.”

Now she’s one of five fall 2025 interns who are adding their voices to the digital learning resources Every Learner provides. They’re learning about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and discussing the approaches their institutions are taking to implement — or not implement — this technology in instruction and learning.

And Williams is using her role as an Every Learner intern to advocate for the value of both trade school instruction and higher education, encouraging examples of DE-EBTs from each type of postsecondary training.

Drawing on personal experience

As Williams helps build Transform Learning’s instructional example library and reviews Every Learner’s resources, she keeps in mind her experience as a student and instructor.

In both capacities, she’s used digital learning tools with varying degrees of success. She holds a professional certificate that she obtained through online training, for example.

“I say to myself, ‘What would younger me want in a college class in a college setting?’” Williams explains. “I think, ‘Okay, what did I like and not like about this online certificate, and what can I incorporate for my next online class?’”

She is also applying what she’s learned in class, on the job, and as an instructor to her current study of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology, her major at Baruch College.

Williams’s goal is to one day develop and provide workplace training that features inclusivity in instruction and relevance to day-to-day responsibilities. She also hopes to build a construction education library for graduates of Nontraditional Employment for Women programs.

She already is using what she’s learned from her Every Learner internship to improve her own work and prepare for her future career. Williams cites an example of a reading the interns discussed that showed the value of using empathy and kindness when working with learners.

“It really shook me because people are coming from different backgrounds, and they’re shouldering different burdens,” Williams says. “I was always a stern teacher, because I was held to a standard of perfection. As I learned more about my students, I became aware I had privileges they did not have. Extending grace means acknowledging that my students are human, not perfect. Using grace in the classroom will foster an environment where students feel welcomed and are eager to learn.”

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Until recently, says Jones, the university began outreach to struggling students around midterms, because that’s when faculty report data about student performance. But that was often too late to allow students to improve their grades. “We found that interventions at that point tend to not give enough time,” Jones says.

Moving that timeline up, however, would require a different source of data, so when Jones and her colleagues learned of Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success, a professional development program delivered by the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) through Every Learner Everywhere®, they hoped it would give them the tools to better proactively identify students who might need higher levels of support. Specifically, they wanted to learn what pre-enrollment data could be used to identify students who might benefit from interventions earlier than mid-term grades.

Building an Academic Data Culture is one of a menu of training, consultation, and technical assistance services by APLU and other partners in the Every Learner Everywhere® network. The services support the effective implementation of high-quality digital learning at scale in areas like course design, institutional planning, and evaluation.

The East Texas A&M University team participating in “Building an Academic Data Culture” in spring 2025 was made up of colleagues with different perspectives about the kind of data the institution can use to support student success, including personnel from enrollment management, admissions, faculty, and academic advising. The goal of bringing this group together was to uncover commonalities between past students who had ended up on academic probation and the incoming student cohort so the university could intervene earlier than midterm.

What they found has exciting implications, not just for early interventions, but for the university’s overall data culture.

Understanding the value of pre-enrollment testing

As the team explored the possibility of using pre-enrollment data as an early indicator, they started by re-examining existing signals. One indicator the university had already been using to guide their student support activities was the Texas Success Initiative (TSI) assessment, which is used to determine a student’s readiness for college-level English and math courses.

“Historically, we’ve looked at TSI exemption as being a threshold for the type of support students receive by default,” Jones says. Students who are not TSI exempt are required to take two first-year seminar courses in developmental English or math, along with a separate first-year seminar from TSI-exempt students.

TSI testing had been assumed to be a good indicator of whether or not a student would need additional help, but when the team participating in Building an Academic Data Culture looked at the data, they noticed that students who are not TSI exempt aren’t any more likely to be on academic probation than those who are.

The team is still digging into why. Could it be because the first-year seminar course for non-TSI-exempt students is effective in bringing them up to a college level? Or is TSI not the best indicator of which students need which type of support?

“That has brought up a lot of conversation on our campus,” says Jones.

Bridging the data silos

The next step was to identify other potential sources of pre-enrollment data and begin gathering them in one place for analysis.

Along with looking at TSI testing data, Jones and her team have started gathering information on socioeconomic status, zip code, and whether or not a student lives on campus into their early intervention indicators. Trying to collect this data, however, revealed how siloed the data on campus currently is.

“We haven’t always shared data because we have different systems that don’t communicate with each other,” says Jones, adding that she hopes some of this data sharing might become automated in the future. But for now, the findings from the training have been helpful in encouraging people to share data manually for the incoming class.

“What the training really did was give us the foundation to bring in other departments and get them excited about this,” she says. For example, Residential Living and Learning has started sharing whether or not a student has opted to live on campus as part of their enrollment data.

To Jones, the most valuable result of the APLU program was a deliverable that demonstrates just how important this work is to others at the university. “It made it easy for us to take our findings to meetings with department heads of different divisions to continue to push for open sharing of information,” she says. “That was a really fantastic takeaway.”

Further reading — Practical Steps to Incorporate Analytics and Peer Collaboration to Support Active Learning

A path to the future

In the fall 2025 semester, the team is focused on gathering pre-enrollment data and monitoring incoming students so they can better understand which factors are the most reliable signals for triggering earlier interventions.

But they’ve already been able to use their new learnings in other areas on campus. For example, the training has inspired policy changes to help with better communication between different departments on campus, and improve data sharing. It’s also helped them take a more critical eye to not just when they run interventions, but how they can make them more effective.

Currently, interventions are initiated by academic advisors that most students would have met just once at the beginning of the year, when they set up their courses. When the advisor’s name shows up in their email inbox while they’re struggling at midterm, though, they might not recognize that name.

“Our academic advisors do a lot of student outreach,” Jones says. “One of the things we’re looking at is making sure their names become more recognizable to students, so advisors are more likely to be responded to.”

She has high hopes for that initiative in the next semester. The deeper the team got into the training, the more excited they got about the multiplying possibilities of using data to help students succeed. “I laugh,” she says, “because our coach did a really good job of reining us in and keeping us focused on using pre-enrollment data.”

The post Seeking Data Insights to Improve Student Interventions at East Texas A&M appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

TCALC offers intensive English programs that serve both international students and some domestic learners seeking to strengthen their English skills. In winter 2025, Killeen, Curriculum and Assessment Specialist at TCALC, developed and taught the first version of an AI literacy course, AI Essentials for Academic Success, delivered to second-language learners on conditional admission status at Temple. In summer 2025, she taught a variation, AI Essentials for Communication Success, to an integrated group of students in the Intensive English Language Program (IELP) and a cohort of in-service English language teachers from Brazil. Both versions combined foundational knowledge of AI with reflective, culturally informed discussions about how to use the technology effectively in academic contexts.

Recognizing a need: From academic integrity to AI literacy

The first course emerged after conversations Killeen had with a colleague who advises students in TCALC’s conditional admission program who take intensive English courses while beginning coursework at Temple. Killeen designed AI Essentials for Academic Success to address the specific needs of multilingual and international students, exploring the functions of AI tools and how those tools intersect with varied cultural understandings of academic readiness and personal voice.

For example, in a profile on the Temple University website, Killeen described an exercise where students used an AI image generator to create iconic cultural images. When a student from Oman asked for an image of a well-known mosque in his country, the tool produced an image of a Saudi mosque — a mistake that was glaring to anyone who had that cultural literacy but less obvious to others. That prompted class discussion about bias and accuracy.

Killeen also emphasized the importance of student voice, inviting learners to consider how AI-generated content might be technically correct but lack personal style or authenticity. For example, the Temple University Assistant Director of the Writing Success Center, in a guest presentation to the class, led an activity exploring the difference between an excerpt from William Faulkner and an AI-generated version of the same text. Students tried to identify which was the original and discussed how writing could be technically correct but stilted. That helped some students articulate a tension they had been feeling with generative AI tools — that it helped them share their thoughts in a second language but that it wasn’t yet helping them describe something in their own words or to develop their voice in a second language.

Alongside reflective work, students practiced core skills like creating purposeful prompts and refining them through multiple iterations. Killeen tied these exercises to language learning objectives, using prompt creation as both a technological and linguistic skill-building activity. The course culminated in a project where students presented their work, identified where AI had been used, and explained why.

Summer course for Brazilian English teachers

AI Essentials for Communication Success adapted the curriculum of the earlier version for a course that included both the IELP students and a group of Brazilian English teachers participating in a six-week professional development program in the U.S. sponsored by the Brazilian government to improve language teacher training. Killeen organized this version around specific language skills (e.g., reading, speaking, writing) and explored how various AI tools can support teaching those skills. Activities were designed to be inclusive and multilingual, allowing participants to see and compare vocabulary in English, Arabic, and Portuguese.

Students in this course sometimes surfaced use cases for AI tools that may not have emerged in a United States-only context. For example, in one meeting an edtech vendor’s representative presented a chat tool designed to serve as an English language tutor and encouraged students to ask it English vocabulary questions in their own languages. Among this group, those languages included Portuguese and Arabic. The students began by requesting translations of sports-related vocabulary between those languages and English but then pushed it to make comparisons between all three languages.

“This made the experience more inclusive and dynamic in a very organic way,” Killeen says. “We usually keep English as the neutral or main instructional language, but if we’re able to encourage students to leverage their first language but also learn about each other’s first language, it is a really amazing opportunity.”

Mindset before tools

Killeen says leading these courses brought home for her that students needing the vocabulary to communicate their experience and to advocate for their personal learning journey isn’t limited to second-language learners. “The lack of vocabulary to describe co-creation with generative AI is a challenge for most people,” she explains.

She observed that a mindset shift is the biggest requirement to effectively explore emerging AI tools. She wanted students in these courses to see AI not only as a source of answers, but as a partner in developing skills. This meant discussing how to use AI ethically, integrating it into critical thinking processes, and aligning it with personal and academic goals.

For example, one participant talked about an AI tool she uses that gave her targeted feedback on her writing, which she was less confident in. “For them to be able to self-advocate for their learning was one of the greatest takeaways,” Killeen says.

“That’s why I didn’t have them dive right away into using bots or even other educational tools, because I wanted them to understand that this is something you can create for yourself, not just going to some edtech tool. You can go in and say what you want to focus on to help your language learning.”

The post How This Course Pairs AI Literacy and Cultural Context for Multilingual Learners appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Supporting students through their first two years in college has been a focus for Lisa LaCross, the Associate Director of Faculty Development at USA’s Innovation and Learning Center. Since joining in 2020, she’s been building faculty learning communities (FLCs) to further develop a culture of teaching inquiry, particularly as part of USA’s first- and second-year experience programs. Much of their discussion is about how large-enrollment gateway courses that first- and second-year students take can make or break their experience in college.

In spring 2025, Nicole Carr, the AVP of Student Academic Success, asked LaCross to participate in the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU)’s Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success training in spring of 2025 and to develop an FLC based on it LaCross saw that as an opportunity to help the university’s incoming students transition more seamlessly. The course is one of the menu of professional development programs available through Every Learner Everywhere® and delivered by partners like APLU.

The cohort taking Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success consisted of eight faculty from different disciplines. LaCross broke that cohort into two smaller groups and set up study halls where the faculty would get together before their training and coaching sessions to do the assignments as a group.

Because gateway courses look very different in each department, the small group study halls allowed faculty to learn from each other and trade ideas across disciplines. “Faculty members would take the instructional practices and apply them to their own unique situation in their departments,” LaCross says.

Along with facilitating the study halls, LaCross kept everyone on track with emailed reminders and updates. She also used a spreadsheet provided by the course facilitator for collaborative notetaking and to share information on each training and coaching session, using multiple tabs to keep everything organized in one place.

“And our coach, Julian, did a phenomenal job walking us through all the steps of planning our initiative and planning our next steps,” LaCross says.

Putting a plan in action

Together, the cohort explored practices to support first-year students’ transition into college, as well as student progression through major-specific gateway courses. Students coming from high school are likely used to their teachers giving them study guides and telling them when the due dates are, says LaCross. Additionally, they may not be accustomed to the amount of content covered in a college semester.

The challenge is to help new students understand college-level academic expectations by building them into the assignment structure of gateway courses, while also offering multiple opportunities for practice and feedback prior to a high stakes assessment. The cohort worked on using transparent and frequent assignments at the beginning of the course to give students practice and let them know what to expect on the larger assignments. The ultimate goal is to support students by adding transparent assessment practices within the first four weeks of the larger courses.

One outcome of the APLU training is a plan to survey instructors of first- and second-year courses to better understand the landscape of how and when they’re assigning work to students and how students are performing. LaCross will share that survey with department chairs and incorporate feedback to launch the revised survey during the fall term.

Next, they’ll create a pilot group of instructors and turn it into an FLC, so faculty can work together to create a plan for administering frequent assignments and including transparent assignments in their courses. That FLC will meet during the semester to track student success on those assignments, providing real-time data to allow them to pivot in the moment.

Once the pilot group has concluded, the next step will be to get more gateway courses to use the new assignments.

An eye to future projects

While they worked toward their main objective, LaCross and the faculty participating in Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success also learned other practices to incorporate individually. For example, one business faculty member walked away very enthusiastic about self-assessments, says LaCross. Over the summer, he tested self-assessments as his way of driving students to the rubric and getting them to understand how he was grading them, then shared his findings with the FLC.

Another potential project in the future would be to develop a more consistent learning environment across sequential courses to improve student outcomes and persistence into third- and fourth-year courses in their major. “We need to attack that at some point,” says LaCross.

For now, the team at USA is staying focused on their first- and second-year student support efforts.

“Even though the training was several months ago, I’m still going back to the plan we made and thinking about who and what needs to be included,” says LaCross. “It was really helpful to map that out.”

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But Helen Wise, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at LSU Shreveport, remembers the day 10 years ago when a power outage on campus knocked out the ability for anyone to access the main servers — on or off campus.

“It meant no learning management system and no email communication between faculty and students,” she says. “We had to physically carry computers off campus to get power to extract information.”

Since that catastrophic power outage, LSU Shreveport has grown from 4,400 to 11,000 students — largely due to its success in graduate online education — increasing the need for resilient and adaptable academic services. But another close call last year drove home a hard truth: LSU Shreveport still didn’t have an emergency remote instructional plan in place.

In the meantime, LSU Shreveport was one of eight colleges and universities in Louisiana participating in the Complete College America Accelerator program, which helps cohorts develop action plans to use data to improve student success and close gaps in college access and completion. Through that Wise learned of an opportunity to take a training on Flexible Learning Environments for Improved Student Success, one of the menu of professional development programs available through Every Learner Everywhere® and delivered by the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities. She knew it would help her campus with some of its biggest priorities in digital accessibility and online learning.

A team built for student success

Wise, along with a core group of LSU Shreveport faculty and staff, took the training in spring of 2025 with the goal of drafting an emergency remote instructional plan. The team was intentionally cross-functional, bringing a range of experience to the project.

Wise worked with her counterpart Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success, Angie Pellerin, to identify and remove barriers to student persistence in the event of academic disruption. They were joined by Dr. Joyce Farrow, Chair of the Department of Education, Rhonda Failey, Director of Online Learning, and Yang Xuan, a faculty member from the College of Business, which enrolls more than 90 percent of LSU Shreveport’s online students.

“We each stood in our own area of expertise,” says Wise. “You have to know what you don’t know. I’m not an expert in quality matters, so I made sure someone on our team was. I’m not knee deep in student success initiatives around growth mindset, so I made sure somebody was there from that group.”

Clear objectives and mindset shifts

Once the training began, Wise immediately appreciated how clear the learning objectives were. “We knew on day one what we were going to be walking away with,” she says.

The team went into the training expecting that flexible learning environments were about the technology, says Wise, and hoping to find a piece of software that would solve their problems in case of an emergency. Instead, they came away with the understanding that flexible learning comes from intentionally designing for success from the ground up.

As a result, the team began looking at issues that weren’t initially on their radar, like how better course navigation design can reduce the cognitive load on their students, and how building formative assessments along with summative assessments improves a student’s grasp on the materials.

“We went in thinking it was technology,” says Wise. “We came out thinking it’s pedagogy.”

Expert mentorship to create a hands-on plan

As part of the training, the LSU Shreveport team was matched with an expert mentor who could answer their questions and help personalize the training to their objectives.

As Wise says, “Rather than just taking a class and trying to put our triangle into a square hole, we were able to take the information and work with an expert who could tell us what to do with it.”

Their mentor, Julian, acted as a project manager to help keep the team on track. He also helped them develop more than their emergency response plan.

Wise notes that while the main purpose of the training was to come away with a toolkit to solve a specific problem, the experience also gave them a framework for tackling other similar problems on the campus. “The other thing we came away with was this cultural awareness of how we tackle these problems from start to finish on our own campus,” says Wise. “It was a gift.”

At first glance, the idea of creating an emergency remote instruction plan seemed straightforward, but as the group began working together, it became clear that different people were bringing different assumptions to the table. A big part of that was understanding the need to begin with a shared language.

A clear path forward

The plan will be implemented starting in January, once LSU Shreveport has onboarded a new Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction to lead the rollout. But the frameworks learned in the training have already changed the way the LSU Shreveport team solves emerging problems on campus.

Wise emphasizes three factors that led to a successful training.

• Build a cross-functional team from the start and ensure diversity of expertise.
• Make sure everyone has a shared definition of all terms and priorities before jumping into solutions.
• And focus on intentional design from the ground up, not just technology fixes.

“It was one of the most collaborative, democratizing experiences I’ve had,” says Wise.

The post Collaborating for Student Success: How LSU Shreveport Is Creating Flexible Learning Environments appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“Equity-Minded Teaching Through the Lens of Digitally Enabled Evidence-Based Teaching Practices” was the theme of a community of practice of educators who engaged weekly in virtual discussions from May to July. The group included STEM instructors from two-year colleges and public and private four-year institutions, as well as an associate dean.

A community of practice is a group of professionals who gather to develop understanding and insights about their field. This group was facilitated by Christine Latulippe, Community Manager for Transform Learning, which offered the opportunity in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®. Transform Learning is an online resource for educators to learn about DE-EBTs.

The summer 2025 community of practice (which will be followed up by another this fall that is accepting registrations now) shared their experiences implementing technology for more effective teaching and learning, and confronted misconceptions that evidence-based teaching practices don’t align well with STEM subjects. Through weekly readings, prompts, and asynchronous online discussion, the group explored ideas for integrating digital tools to  support evidence-based teaching.

Community work like this potentially will have an immediate impact on hundreds of students in the gateway courses the participants teach each term, including algebra, statistics, precalculus, calculus, and liberal arts math. “For any change an instructor is thinking about making, that’s one more student this fall who decides to stick with their STEM major because they feel more included,” Latulippe says.

“These conversations about creating a sense of belonging or helping students use metacognition to understand how to succeed pull back the curtain for students and let them be more fully a part of the academic community.”

Encouraging every learner

For example, one way to foster a sense of belonging that the community discussed is for the instructor to record and post a welcoming introductory video, perhaps with some personal notes, that students can refer to throughout the term.

Other key concepts the group worked on were using technology to communicate clearly about expectations in the course and what students need to do to succeed (i.e., instructional transparency) and to provide opportunities for peer collaboration with intentional guidance on how to participate Community participants also shared many examples of ways they use technology for interventions or shoutouts to help students monitor their own progress.

Latulippe says STEM faculty often mistakenly assume the DE-EBTs are less compatible with their fields than other academic disciplines. This stigma, she says, makes gathering to discuss ideas, research, and personal experiences important.

Feedback from participants following the eight-week program shows the value of offering this opportunity. “There were two people who said, almost exactly, that the most useful aspect of the community was this environment to explore ideas,” Latulippe says.

“It encouraged them to look at things and share experiences, and it created a space for those conversations.”

Building the fall 2025 community of practice

Although the summer 2025 community of practice is complete, its impact will continue as participants use what they learned in their own classrooms. In fact, all of those offering feedback about the group’s work reported that it would influence their future work.

And the community of practice’s reach will expand even further as participants contribute their ideas to the growing examples library on Transform Learning. (Contributors are eligible for a $500 stipend.)

The next community of practice, scheduled from September–November 2025, will again encourage dialogue about DE-EBTs in STEM courses and invite submissions to the Transform Learning site. Participants will be eligible for a stipend upon full participation in the CoP.

Attendees of an upcoming webinar on September 17, Redefining Student Success through Data-Informed Instruction and Activating Prior Knowledge, will also hear more about DE-EBTs and the community of practice. Registration for that event and for the fall community of practice is underway.

The post A STEM Community of Practice Building Confidence With Digital Learning and Evidence-Based Teaching appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

How Three HBCUs Drive Student Success Through Digital Learning and Innovation was written by the Center for Innovation in Postsecondary Education (CIPE), in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®. The authors examined archival data to understand the successful institutional transformation and increased engagement and access that has occurred through the adoption of digital learning technologies at three HBCUs. The core of the case study outlines notable programmatic and structural changes and barriers faced at each college.

The case study distills three top findings:

• Over the past ten years, a successful institutional transformation has occurred through the adoption of digital learning technologies and practices, resulting in increased engagement and access.
• Each institution’s consistent approach to student-centered strategies has led to inclusive and targeted support systems, improving learning outcomes for underrepresented students.
• Leadership was pivotal in driving digital learning initiatives and fostering innovation and continuous improvement.

Student success in digital learning in action

The case study shows how purpose‑built programs, data‑rich platforms, and student‑centered design can remove barriers and accelerate success for underserved learners.

For example, the six‑week virtual Morehouse Academic Accelerator Program (MAAP) allows first‑time students to earn 3–11 credits for $3,500 before their first semester, eliminating travel costs and speeding degree progress. Coursework is delivered in Blackboard Ultra, with Starfish tracking progress and triggering just‑in‑time interventions.

A Digital Textbook Initiative at Fayetteville State University ensures every student has required materials on accessible platforms from the first day of class. Faculty training in universal‑design principles keeps content inclusive, while early alerts flow through Bronco Navigate. Canvas, Adobe Creative Cloud, and adaptive‑learning courseware support engagement in high‑risk gateway courses.

Claflin University replaced traditional faculty advising with professional success coaches who use an early‑alert dashboard to reach at‑risk students. Their toolkit includes TutorTrack for alerts, Upswing for on‑demand tutoring, and adaptive courseware such as AKTIV Chemistry and Hawkes Learning, all aimed at boosting access, engagement, and retention.

Structural shifts that make scale possible

In addition to innovative programs, the case study also looked at policy adjustments and space redesigns that ensure digital learning supports students.

• Morehouse College uses Accommodate software to streamline disability accommodations.
• Fayetteville State University consolidated enrollment, advising, and support behind a single front door called Bronco One Stop.
• Claflin University renovated libraries and other dedicated study spaces to integrate active learning technologies and is exploring ways to create 24/7 access to those spaces.

Broadening access through emerging digital technology

Hardware access remains the foundation; layered on top, VR and other emerging tools are pushing the boundaries of culturally responsive, place‑independent learning.

• At Morehouse, 15 virtual reality courses let students experience immersive labs, and donated headsets keep them accessible.
• Fayetteville State backs a freshman laptop guarantee and a campus‑wide loaner program so no student is locked out of coursework.
• Claflin used post‑COVID funding to equip classrooms for synchronous hybrid sessions and to provide devices and connectivity to students who need them.

Common hurdles and how the HBCUs responded

How Three HBCUs Drive Student Success Through Digital Learning and Innovation also details the barriers these three institutions faced while implementing digital learning to support student success. Those include:

• Technology integration pains when new tools conflict with legacy systems.
• Digital preparedness gaps for first‑generation, rural, and low‑income students.
• Cross‑department coordination to keep academic, IT, and student‑affairs teams moving in sync.

The case study details how the institutions dealt with those challenges, such as pre-enrollment programs, laptop loaner programs, and redesigning student centers and other support services. It goes on to recommend six steps to mitigate these issues from evaluating to planning to monitoring.

The full case study offers detailed methodology, interview insights, and profiles of many other inspiring digitally enabled student success initiatives.

The post Ten Years of Student Success in Digital Learning at Three HBCUs appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Instructors who are familiar with the content and workflow of their course can underestimate the accumulated impact of these small points of friction and inconsistency, says Phil Denman, Coordinator of the Quality Scorecard Suite for the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). The quality scorecards provide consistency in evaluating online courses and are built on a foundation of peer benchmarks, accreditation standards, and evidence-based practices.

“Students might not use the word ‘standards’ like we do in academia,” Denman says, “but they do know when one course is organized and supportive and another feels like a scavenger hunt.”

That shows up in course satisfaction rates, in final grades, in stopout rates, and in what students actually choose to enroll in.

The solution to easing those points of friction? Evaluating online courses to make sure they have the indicators of high-quality digital learning.

Inconsistency in online learning

Oftentimes, moving courses online introduces new challenges for instructors while illuminating — or even extending — problems that existed in the traditional course.

In a face-to-face classroom, instructors may notice when students are confused by the syllabus or the instructions for an assignment, and they can respond in the moment to clarify.

Online learning, on the other hand, requires instructors to design courses with more intentionality. Problems need to be anticipated and resolved before the course is exposed to students, and support needs to be baked in.

Denman recalls a faculty member who told him, “I had no idea students were that confused until I taught online.” While students used to nod along in the faculty member’s classroom and quietly ask each other for help, now they email him at 2 a.m. with screenshots of exactly what they’re experiencing.

“For that faculty member, it was really a wakeup call,” says Denman. “Often, we take for granted that when we don’t hear directly from students, everything is all good. In reality, most students will withdraw rather than be that squeaky wheel.”

The good news is that adopting consistent standards makes quality possible at scale, particularly in large-enrollment gateway courses. And anyone can begin to make improvements to support students better. It all starts with an evaluation.

How to evaluate online courses

Denman recommends that instructors look at their courses through the eyes of a student and consider how they would experience it module by module. “Put yourself in their shoes,” he says. What do they see immediately upon login? What is their natural next step? Where are they likely to get stuck in the process?

That’s the approach captured in the Course Review Scorecard for online and blended courses Denman helped develop for OLC. It covers 50 objectives spanning essential and advanced design and course delivery. It is meant for self-evaluation, peer review, or even to hand to students in order to get more detailed feedback.

It looks for:

1. Clear Objectives

Start with the basics. Are learning objectives clear and measurable? Are students aware of what they’re working toward? Do they understand how they’ll be assessed? Are due dates, formats, and expectations predictable?

2. Course Organization and Design

Next, make sure the course is organized in a way that makes sense. Can students easily find what they need? Are instructions and expectations spelled out clearly, or are students expected to read between the lines?

3. Accessibility 

Can all students access the content, no matter their devices, background, learning style, or assistive needs? Consider both small “a” accessibility (can students easily access the content?) and big “A” Accessibility (is it usable with assistive technology?).

4. The Human Side

One major challenge of online learning is fostering a sense of community and connection within the course. Students can feel isolated without opportunities to interact with their instructor and fellow students.

A lack of engagement by faculty is one of the biggest reasons students check out, says Denman. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from students, ‘I don’t even know if my professor was there all semester.’ Students can often feel alienated.”

If possible, Denman encourages instructors to go a step further by gathering feedback directly from students, either by talking with them or by being a fly on the wall. He often goes on Reddit to see how students are talking about courses and institutions. He has also approached students directly to ask for more details when he’s overheard them talking about difficult assignments or frustration while on campus.

Using what you learn

Denman says the experience of using the Course Review Scorecard can be humbling in some cases — showing lots of room for improvement — but most courses don’t need a complete overhaul, and faculty don’t need to try to fix everything at once. He recommends identifying the biggest friction points, and starting with those.

“Sometimes just revisiting your welcome message or making your calendar clearer can make a huge difference,” says Denman.

In any case, improving the design is about always focusing on students. An area you invest a lot of effort into because it seems important to you — like polishing videos to perfection — might not make a difference at all to students.

Finally, remember that course design doesn’t have to be a solo sport. Take advantage of the community of online instructors, instructional designers, and other resources both inside and outside your institution.

The post Evaluating Online and Blended Courses for Student Success appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Practical ways to use digital learning to encourage responsible citizenship was one of the highlights of Beyond Content: Teaching for a Better World, a June 24 webinar featuring Bryan Dewsbury, Associate Professor of Biology at Florida International University, and Dharma Dailey, Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, University of Washington.

With moderator Christine Latulippe, Visiting Associate Professor at Linfield University and community manager of Transform Learning, the presenters discussed designing digital learning environments that both nurture technical expertise and prepare students to be thoughtful, engaged citizens.

Latulippe began by situating the theme of the webinar in the framework of digitally enabled evidence-based teaching practices. For example, active learning and instructional transparency — helping students see the “why” behind an assignment — are necessary preconditions to engagement. See the Transform Learning resource hub for more detail on those practices.

First the person, then the protocol

Dewsbury explained how he begins every semester by getting a fix on individual students as people, not data points. He uses a simple Google Form tool to survey students about their digital learning resources such as wi-fi, their career aspirations, and even “one thing a professor does that you don’t like.”

Next he presents for discussion and revision a set of “guideposts” for productive dialogue. It includes principles like:

• Turn to wonder
• Respect silence when topics get difficult
• Listen as hard as you talk

The goal of this exercise is to rehearse the rules of civil discourse that will make group work and class discussions more productive, and that students will need beyond campus.

Also early in the semester, Dewsbury assigns students a short “This I Believe” essay modeled on the popular National Public Radio series. The assignment signals that personal values are welcome inside technical spaces.

“I can’t tell you, my friends, how beautiful this is,” he said. “This really is my favorite assignment. I’m asking them about their ‘why.’ I’m communicating to them, ‘I am interested in you as a person.’”

Dewsbury keeps promoting engagement and citizenship in mind when designing evaluation and assessment. For example, he requires students to self-assess their participation using a rubric, but the point deductions are minimal.

“I need to set the tone from day one that you are not in The Hunger Games,” he explained. “I’m not a barrier for you to solve. I’m going to do all I can to ensure you get to a place where you can see how powerful your potential is. That means sometimes you may have to stumble a bit on a few quizzes or an exam before you see what it takes to really know something.”

Design thinking as civic thinking

Dailey’s presentation drew from her experience mentoring other faculty and researchers on using human-centered design for pro-social outcomes. “Human- centered design is work that starts everywhere, and it’s work anyone can do,” she emphasized.

A favorite exercise she gives to colleagues is a five‑day diary study of “UX dark patterns.” They document every manipulative popup or infinite‑scroll trap they meet online, then crunch the dataset together, considering questions about persuasion ethics.

Dailey also shared several tools she uses with those colleagues, such as a stakeholder analysis canvas, which asks them to name every group touched by a design — users, regulators, bystanders — and to identify who has a voice and who does not.

Another common framework in human-centered design is the “double diamond.”

“Notice how discovering the problem and defining the problem take as much space in this diagram as developing solutions and delivering solutions,” Dailey said.

“That is a very different mental model than many students and in fact many engineers that I’ve worked with have of how the work is actually broken down. But it’s really essential, if we’re going to make systems accountable, that we’re making time to integrate people into that process.”

Examining design can slow down processes and reveal uncomfortable ambiguity, but “when we are truly, authentically committing to integrating multiple perspectives into the design, then the cadence of the work is going to look different,” Dailey said.

Planning for engagement

One of the key ideas from the presenters was that engagement won’t happen simply by instructors encouraging it in the abstract. “Just because we have a diverse classroom, and just because I want them to have meaningful dialogue and I put them in groups, doesn’t mean that will happen,” Dewsbury said.

“We have to remember that our students are not going to walk up to us and say, ‘Professor, I don’t feel a sense of belonging.’ They’re not going to say ‘I feel stereotype threat descending and thus I would ask for you to review your practices in order to mitigate that.’ The challenge and the beauty of teaching is to be able to read the subtitles — to be able to see the nonverbal behavior, to hear the words that they articulate, and understand the real meaning beneath it.”

The post Practical Examples of Digital Learning Citizenship in the College Classroom appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“Simply thinking of the LMS and courseware as containers and content will limit the potential for them to unlock higher-order thinking and more engagement for students,” says Catherine Shaw, Managing Director at Tyton.

Time for Class 2025 surveyed thousands of college students, faculty, and administrators about their experiences with digital learning. The annual report from Tyton Partners — the strategy, consulting, and investment banking firm focused on education — covers trends in usage of digital learning technology, student preferences for instructional formats, faculty support needs, and adoption of AI tools and analytics.

One insight is that many faculty take an instrumental rather than strategic view of digital learning platforms. For example, the survey asked faculty how they view their LMS and courseware platforms: as teaching tools, student success tools, or both. Most chose the first.

Shaw argues that this illuminates contrasting mindsets. One sees digital learning as an efficient way to distribute information, collect assignments, and record grades. And another sees digital learning tools as a creative way to foster student persistence, active learning, and engagement.

That’s an overlooked opportunity, she says: “If faculty were to think about LMS’s and courseware as student success tools and see themselves as agents of student success, that sets the stage for more.”

Rethinking what tools are for

For example, many LMS’s and other platforms today can support learning analytics, automate feedback loops, and scaffold learning experiences tailored to student progress. But most of that functionality remains unused while many instructors only engage with the platform as an administrative utility.

“All these digital tools throw off so much data we are just not capitalizing on,” Shaw says. “Part of it is faculty not spending time with the tools, but part of it is what institutions can do to support faculty in using the data.”

The mindset gap

What keeps faculty from taking fuller advantage of digital tools? Shaw believes it’s often a matter of framing. If instructors see digital platforms merely as delivery systems, they miss their potential as interactive learning environments.

That perspective may vary by faculty role. Shaw says adjuncts — typically hired solely to teach and rarely included in student support systems — may be more likely to see platforms as instructional aids. Faculty who advise students or interact with them in other contexts might be more inclined to see platforms as student success tools.

Shaw believes this points to an area with opportunity to improve digital learning. “Mindset and sentiment about the tools can really change the way faculty use them,” she says.

Examples of strategic use

Shaw points to peer-to-peer feedback in asynchronous courses as an example of a more strategic use of digital learning platforms. Peer review activities allow students not only to assess each other’s work but to reflect more deeply on their own development.

“It promotes higher-order thought and, even in an asynchronous setting, it can build community and engagement,” she says.

Another example involves embedding simple sentiment checks into courseware. After a problem set or quiz, students could be asked how confident they feel about their answers. That may help faculty identify individual students who perform poorly but report high confidence, which would suggest new opportunities to support struggling students.

Moving past the AI dabbling phase

While much of Time for Class 2025 focuses on courseware and LMS platforms, it also surveyed faculty about their use of AI tools. Those who use them regularly — especially daily — report much higher confidence that AI offers efficiencies in their teaching work, while faculty who are non-users or sporadic users are more likely to say AI doesn’t have value.

Shaw says the data comparing weekly and daily users of AI illuminates a “dabbling breakpoint.” Institutions should offer professional development that helps faculty move past that breakpoint and into purposeful integration.

“I didn’t really understand the value of generative AI until I pushed through the experimentation phase,” she says. “Now, for certain tasks, I’m 50/50 on whether I go to ChatGPT or Google. But that only happened after I built the muscle through regular use.”

The call to reframe

Faculty don’t need to overhaul their entire course design to start using tools more strategically. But they do need to shift how they think about what those tools are for.

“Faculty do this because they care that students learn,” Shaw says. “But the expectations for faculty time are crazy, and in particular as an adjunct you often don’t have the training or support to use these tools to their full potential.”

Still, she’s optimistic that small changes — adding a reflective prompt, using data to trigger outreach, inviting peer feedback — can all help move faculty toward a more strategic use of technology.

“Faculty are the primary point of contact for students,” she says. “If we expand how they think about the tools they use, we expand what’s possible for students, too.”

The post Time for Class 2025 Urges a Student Support Mindset with Digital Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

In an earlier article, I wrote about my experience incorporating generative AI into the Pharmacy Ethics course I teach at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy. I argued that educators should be less worried about students offloading the research and summary parts of college work and more worried about them offloading the work of forming personal opinions. I explained how in my assignments, which permit the use of AI (as if I could stop it anyway), students struggled to situate their own opinion alongside AI outputs or to use those outputs as a platform for developing their own ideas.

That was at the transition from the fall 2024 term to spring 2025, and I wrote that I planned to make adjustments to my course to account for this problem. Could I design assignments so that AI played a supportive role in the way students develop and express individual opinions on ethical questions?

The spring 2025 term recently finished and, while I am glad to say I am somewhat further down the road in incorporating AI, I will certainly still need to make adjustments the next time I teach the course.

Revising assignments that use AI

In this self-paced online course, students consider ethical questions — the interplay of confidentiality, choice, consent, community, rights, safety, and law — that will be important to them when they graduate and are working as pharmacists. They learn to examine these questions through frameworks like the Belmont Report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Pharmacist’s Oath. They develop command of these frameworks by reading and writing about topics like end-of-life care, reproductive health, and gender-affirming care.

A multi-part writing activity typically begins with information gathering, like understanding how local elected representatives have explained their votes on healthcare issues, and AI is often helpful for that. Oftentimes elected officials do not make formal statements on pending legislation or on their voting record. AI helps students gather data on elected official’s platforms or speeches to determine how they might justify a particular vote on a healthcare issue.

Similarly, as I wrote in the earlier article, I use AI myself to develop many of the summaries of legislation and court cases on these topics, and, of course, I acknowledge my use of AI and provide citations to verify the AI output.

The second part of the assignments often ask students to write an opinion about a challenging problem arising from these topics and to discuss that opinion in the context of the ethical frameworks we are learning about. For example, in a unit with readings about quality-of-life questions, I ask students to discuss if they would rather have physical or cognitive limitations and to analyse their perspective through an ethical framework such as the three ways to value human life (human life is the supreme value, the sanctity or inviolability of life approach, and instrumentality or quality of life approach).

I wouldn’t think AI would be needed or even helpful to answer a question that begins “Would you rather … ” or “Do you think …” Educators will recognize those as the kinds of questions where we don’t have a right answer in mind. The point of the exercise is to demonstrate the ability to work through a challenging problem. It seems obvious to me that no AI product has the context to summarize a personal opinion before a student expresses it themself, especially on a topic they only recently learned about.

But AI has become the first place many students turn when they begin an assignment, and, as I explained in the earlier article, I let students know they can use AI to assist them, but they need to include a statement that they used it. Two results of this troubled me.

First, students often failed to include the acknowledgement. It was as if an invisible barrier kept them from “admitting” to doing something they were not prevented from doing.

Second, their opinion was often simply the output of the AI. Many would paste the “Would you rather …” or “Do you think …” question into the query box and turn in the output as their answer. Those students often had nothing or very little of their own to add beyond agreeing with the “opinion” AI had produced.

(As a matter of interest, 95 percent of the time, this was from ChatGPT.)

In the second iteration of the class revised to integrate generative AI, I made a couple of adjustments. The first was using formatting, lots of repetition, and point deductions to make acknowledging the use of AI a more consistent practice, and that worked for most students.

Second, in addition to asking students to acknowledge the use of AI, the prompt now also asks students to explain how they verified the accuracy of the output. This encouraged them to go beyond a simple “Yes, I used it” and to reflect on how. Students ranged in their ability to use authoritative sources to verify AI outputs. Some only said “I Googled it” or pointed to non-authoritative sources such as unnamed professors, social media posts, and their own knowledge of a topic.

But most improved over the term as I provided feedback on appropriate source verification features including authors who are qualified to write authoritatively on the topic, minimal evidence of bias in the content, and widely known and respected publication sites such as a .gov website, or mainstream news outlets.

Is AI even helpful here?

I didn’t make any other formal changes to the reflection activities asking students to develop an opinion, apart from repeatedly emphasizing the “no wrong answers” point. I was also more conscious of how I provided comments on their response activities, typically engaging more with students’ original ideas over those of the AI output, however limited or undeveloped the students’ ideas might be.

During modules in the beginning and middle of the term, many students did write a little of their own opinion alongside the AI outputs — and then gradually a little more. Over the term, their own share became more developed and in-depth. The combination of acknowledging the use of AI, doing the work to verify its outputs, and getting reminders in my feedback seemed to slowly have the desired effect.

Then a surprising thing began to happen in later modules. Many students began to skip the step of using AI altogether and just went directly to responding to the question on their own. AI got weeded out of the workflow, and they were back to doing what students did before generative AI.

I have a few tentative explanations for this:

1. They discovered that when it comes to writing an opinion versus a “report,” AI doesn’t actually save time. It was an extra step rather than a shortcut.
2. They began to feel more confident in their ability to do what they needed to do to get the grade they wanted. They saw that when they worked without the AI safety net they would be okay.
3. They saw that the more they expressed their own ideas the more engaged a response they got from me, which some of them enjoyed.

Resetting expectations

On reflection, I now think it’s a mistake to assume students know what is being asked of them in an opinion-based response essay. “Would you rather …” or “Do you think …” is not necessarily the obvious rhetorical signal I thought it was.

Put another way, students probably need help understanding the difference between “right answer” and “no wrong answer” questions, and it may take a whole semester to learn that distinction. Simply telling them there is no wrong answer isn’t sufficient.

Likewise, it probably takes more than a single exercise to learn to question the authority of AI and to compare it against authoritative sources. As a teacher, I need to be patient while nudging them toward that ability.

With that in mind, the next time I teach this course, I plan to clarify for students the difference between a prompt that requires external research and one that requires their unique thoughts on an issue. I will provide more opportunities for students to develop their opinion on topics before having to share them in assignments. And I will model for students how they can verify AI outputs and summarize that verification process in their submissions.

Students are very grade driven and are trying to do what is necessary to get the grade they want. That’s understandable, and it’s wishful thinking to expect they won’t turn to AI to help them with that. On the other hand, students also enjoy the freedom to explore new ideas and wrestle with big questions in a safe environment.

My experience having taught for two terms a course that has integrated AI into practice activities and assessments, tells me that AI is creating an interesting new challenge for educators — to help students develop an understanding of how AI can help organize, analyze, and summarize their thoughts, while not allowing AI to shape, or even worse, replace their thoughts.

The post Lessons Learned From Incorporating AI Into a Pharmacy Ethics Course appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Leveraging Learning Analytics and Peer Collaboration explored practical ways to incorporate these practices to enhance student success. It featured presentations from Heidi Echols, an Adaptive Learning Specialist and Instructional Designer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Jennifer Reed, a Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The webinar was the second part in a planned series of four about the eight DE-EBTs (digitally enabled, evidence-based teaching practices). In the first of the series, Fostering a Sense of Belonging and Instructional Transparency, presenters Aris Winger and Abbe Herzig explored strengthening student connection and improving instructional transparency.

Peer collaboration leverages active learning to create stronger peer-to-peer connections, develop valuable soft skills, and improve academic performance. Learning analytics offers faculty a data-backed way to improve teaching practices. Both are DE-EBTs featured on Transform Learning, a new resource hub that outlines the research around and dimensions of each practice and lets users submit their own activities to an instructional examples library.

Fostering engagement through peer collaboration

The presenters described how peer collaboration enhances academic performance and promotes essential skills like communication, empathy, and a sense of responsibility. “With generative AI, and all the conversations we’re having around that, the importance of these soft skills has never been higher,” Echols said.

The key to successful peer collaboration starts with group goals in which students collectively work toward shared objectives and individual accountability where every student contributes meaningfully, preventing reliance on others to carry the group.

Echols and Reed presented several digital learning tools that can assist in promoting peer collaboration and individual accountability:

• Online student communities, like InScribe or Piazza, foster a sense of connection, enable peer support and 24/7 engagement, and promote accessibility.
• Brainstorming tools, including whiteboard features on video-conferencing platforms like Zoom, capture and prioritize ideas in real time, enable remote participation, and allow for multimedia integration. Others, like Mural, are purpose-built visual collaboration platforms.
• Collaborative documents on Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive promote group accountability, streamline the feedback and revision process, simplify version control, and enhance transparency.
• Creative tools, such as Canva or Gamma, offer easy-to-use templates, have multimedia integration, and provide well-designed results.

For Reed, project-based learning is a reliable way to facilitate peer collaboration and active learning. Different project formats can develop specific skills, like using poster sessions to practice data visualization skills or a spreadsheet to work on collaborative calculations. Projects allow students to take ownership with their learning and connect with one another.

“It’s energizing, it’s buzzing, and there’s excitement as they’re getting connected with one another,” Reed said.

Measuring the impact

Digital tools make collecting and analyzing student data easier than ever, but it requires accountability and reflection on the part of faculty.

“It takes some vulnerability,” Echols said. “It means that you’re digging in and looking at your teaching.”

Reasons for collecting and analyzing classroom data include:

• Assessing effectiveness of teaching strategies
• Identifying what works for student success
• Demonstrating improvement over time
• Aligning with institutional goals and standards
• Promoting continuous improvement and growth mindset
• Enhancing faculty reflection and development

Student sentiment and student success are two kinds of data collection that can inform teaching practices. Student sentiment such as polls, student surveys, discussions, and early alerts provide opportunities for support through proactive emails, check-ins, and TA outreaches. Responsive action taken after using learning analytics can include evaluating lessons, scaffolding assignments, or connecting students into study groups.

Echols recommends using a systematic approach to measuring impact:

1. Establishing baseline data — Collect current performance metrics before implementing changes
2. Tracking engagement — Monitor participation rates, time on task, and contributions
3. Gathering student feedback — Use surveys and reflections to assess student experience
4. Iterating and improving — Make data-informed adjustments to enhance effectiveness

Overlapping with active learning

Another of the DE-EBTs covered in depth in the earlier webinar is active learning, and keeping that practice in mind is one way to make peer collaboration and learning analytics manageable.

Echols and Reed suggest starting small by piloting a single 15-minute active learning segment within an existing lesson. It could be facilitating a student-led discussion or working through word problems in small groups. The Transform Learning site has many classroom-tested examples.

Once active learning has been introduced into your classroom, “scaffold” up from there by creating structured digital workspaces that guide collaboration. Integrating reflection deepens the learning experience and provides feedback for the educator.

“We got into teaching through a passion for it,” Echols said, “so having the information to improve your teaching can feel good and really powerful.”

The post Practical Steps to Incorporate Analytics and Peer Collaboration to Support Active Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Wicked Problems, Wolfpack Solutions (WPWS) is a free, two-credit online course available to all incoming students at North Carolina State University. The asynchronous, self-paced class emphasizes the connection between a challenge and the efforts of faculty, students, and alumni from NC State (whose mascot is the Wolfpack) to address it.

It was first developed to create a common experience for rising first-year students who would have limited in-person interactions because of the pandemic, and the course that year naturally began with pandemics as its wicked problem. Since then, the themes have included climate change, food sustainability, and public health.

The university’s goals for the digital course are:

• Interdisciplinarity: Encouraging an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving
• Transition: Easing the shift to college life through exposure to relevant digital technology and success strategies
• Intentionality: Emphasizing the value of a thoughtful approach to selecting courses and campus experiences
• Community: Forming connections with faculty, new and returning students, and alumni

Merranie Zellweger is Director, Project Management, for NC State Digital Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA), which produces many of the course’s video presentations. She says WPWS subtly shows how parts of a university connect: “We cover broad perspectives because it’s important that students see that all these principles work together.”

Building connections

The challenges and solutions the courses feature draw on a broad swath of expertise from throughout NC State. Coordinators select each wicked problem based on timely issues, student interests, and current research.

The results of post-course surveys show the value of offering a variety of topics and viewpoints. This array of subject areas and research not only highlights the broad expertise of faculty — and the connected nature of their work— but also helps to draw in the thousands of students who take the class.

For example, the 2022 theme, addressing the future of food, features a lesson from John Millhauser about the historical importance of shellfish in human diets. Another popular presentation is in the 2023–2024 course, titled “Y(Our) Health.” It shows how researchers Tania Allen and Sara Queen use maps to study health disparities.

“Every talk is someone’s favorite,” says Melissa Ramirez, NC State Teaching Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, and WPWS instructor.

Encouraging engagement

All the classes follow a similar design. Students watch video lessons, listen to podcasts, read transcripts, learn from faculty, students, and alumni about their experiences related to the topic, and complete a project that encourages reflection about what they’ve learned.

The interactive nature of the course allows for increased engagement. For example, one 2023-2024 activity gave students the opportunity to be part of ongoing research on soundscapes and wellness. Students chose an outdoor location and recorded observations about the sounds they heard.

Sharing wisdom

The digital course also builds in tips, called “Wicked Wisdom,” to introduce students to college life — from understanding a syllabus to communicating with instructors.

In one presentation, astronaut Christina Koch, an NC State alumna, advised students to look for impactful experiences outside the classroom. Koch told how her interview at NASA focused largely on her study abroad experience.

Jane Lubischer, NC State Associate Department Head and Teaching Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, and WPWS instructor, says these lessons from students and alumni provide additional support for those embarking on their college journey. Koch’s lesson, she says, “helps students understand that getting the degree is just one part of college.”

Embracing digital

Although the asynchronous online format was necessary for the first course because of pandemic restrictions, digital learning continues to make sense today for many reasons, including its reach. For example, 1,448 of the university’s 7,847 incoming first-year students in 2023 opted to complete the course.

WPWS’s asynchronous, self-paced digital format also provides flexibility that accommodates students’ schedules and travel. The class is available during the summer for students starting at NC State in the fall and during winter break for those beginning classes in the spring.

Additionally, WPWS introduces students to WolfWare, NC State’s digital suite of instructional tools that they’ll encounter in many classes.

Instilling confidence

WPWS’s impact on incoming students has been significant. Most students who complete the course report they initially did so to earn credits and get a taste of learning at NC State. But what they gained goes beyond those goals:

• 94 percent report they hope to make a difference while on campus
• 88 percent feel a sense of belonging in the university community
• 86 percent believe the course is an effective bridge between high school and NC State
• 84 percent have a greater belief they will succeed at the university
• 91 percent said the course gave them a new perspective on learning at the undergraduate level

Zellweger says the course team continues to fine-tune each class and its content to meet WPWS’s goals related to interdisciplinarity, transition, intentionality, and community.

“We’re constantly adjusting, looking for continuous improvement, and iterating on what we’ve done,” she says. “We’re always adding pieces that were missing before, including new information that’s come to light, and responding to what students are telling us they need.”

The post The Asynchronous Summer Digital Course That Prepares Incoming Students for Success at NC State appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

We began 2024 by welcoming four new partner organizations to our network. These additions have greatly expanded our capacity to create and deliver innovative services in the field of digital learning, enhancing our ability to serve institutions and learners alike.

This year, we were fortunate to receive two pivotal grants that have propelled our work forward. These grants enabled us to offer three of our current services by Achieving the Dream (ATD), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) to multiple institutions, free of charge. Additionally, they supported the development of two new generative AI literacy services — one for faculty integrating AI into their classes, and another for academic leaders crafting policies on AI use in academic work. They also allowed us to embark on a strategic planning process focusing on sustainability, update our services to better align with institutional needs, and create new e-learning opportunities that can be provided both to institutions, and directly to individuals.

Throughout 2024, we maintained our commitment to our foundational goals. We continued to publish resources for the field, collaborate with intermediaries for scale (IFS) organizations and our network partners to provide services, host our annual Strategies for Success webinar series, and fund our student internship program. Our thought leadership reached new heights as we shared our insights at 19 national conferences, further establishing our role as a leading voice in digital learning and educational excellence.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Every Learner Advisory Council for their guidance throughout the year. Their expertise and dedication have been significant in navigating the complex landscape of digital learning.

Last but not least, I extend my deepest appreciation to the Every Learner team, our network partners, our funder, and to WCET for their commitment to the success of the network.  The year ended in a transition period when the previous director, Karen Cangialosi, left, followed by a full team reorganization, and everyone played a crucial role in making the network even stronger.

As we look to the future, I am filled with optimism about the potential of our work to create more relevant and effective digital learning environments. Together, we are not just adapting to the digital age — we are shaping it to benefit every learner.

Thank you for your continued support and partnership.

I am very excited to lead this amazing team of dedicated and talented people working to improve learning outcomes for some of our most vulnerable students. From the Every Learner staff to the many partner and collaborating organizations, this rich network offers possibilities for expansiveness in our understanding and reach of digital learning, and I am thrilled about what we will accomplish together.

Sincerely,

Laura DaVinci

The post Reflecting On the Network’s Progress In 2024 appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

The Intentional Futures (iF) AI Education Collaborative will gather education and technology professionals in research, development, and funding. Alison Gazarek, iF’s Principal, Education, says the goal of the collaborative is to find common solutions and guiding principles for the innovative development, guidance, and use of AI in education.

“This is an incredible opportunity, especially at the pace with which AI is developing, to pause and ask how we are using this moment to really ensure we are re-envisioning what teaching and learning could and should be,” she says. “This technology has the potential to revolutionize what’s possible.”

The collaborative originated from the realization that in the many conversations about AI the iF team has had with its partners, they are seeking answers to a similar set of questions. The lack of alignment around ways forward revealed the need for a project that brought together a variety of voices. So iF, an Every Learner Everywhere® network partner, is convening groups to consider common questions and to inform procedures and policies.

Beginning in mid-summer 2025, the AI Education Collaborative will convene in online sessions to explore questions such as:

• Are we building AI systems that merely digitize our broken educational models?
• Who benefits from AI in education — students, or the companies that design these systems?
• How do we redistribute intellectual and financial capital from tech developers to the young people we serve?
• What radical educational futures might we create with AI that currently seem impossible?
• How can tech developers and policymakers embrace their responsibility to build ethical systems from the start?

Sharing insight

Although iF works with partners in strategy, education technology, and design, its role in the AI Education Collaborative is convenor and facilitator. It isn’t developing predetermined answers, and it will be up to participants to find common solutions.

“These groups will start investigating some of these questions, to ask whether they’re digitizing what currently exists or innovating for what’s possible,” Gazarek says.

While discussion will begin with small groups, the collaborative also will offer public presentations with panels that bring in insight from educators, funders, developers, and attendees. These will emphasize AI’s potential for education at large, on students, and on those who work with them.

The AI Education Collaborative also will include a quarterly call for additional input from the wider education community.

The result, according to iF’s plans for the project, will be a set of guiding principles for using AI in education and a call to action for implementing them.

Building momentum

Gazarek hopes these efforts represent just one phase of the AI Education Collaborative’s efforts, with no set end to its work. Building on the momentum of the discussions, the initiative could take on additional programs. These might include:

• Hosting convenings centered around key questions
• Producing reports with insights and recommended solutions
• Assembling a community of practice
• Leading new programs or pilots

“There will always be ways to better leverage AI for students,” she says. “Could we leverage a couple of really specific innovative pathways, and then, in a year or two, come back and say, ‘We found a solution for that’? This is the kind of work our partners are asking for.”

Offering guidance

These plans for addressing AI in education build on existing services from iF:

• AI readiness and opportunity assessments: Identifying an organization’s strengths, gaps, and potential use cases for AI
• Mission-aligned AI strategy sprints: Defining a guiding vision, ethical guardrails, and a practical roadmap for adoption
• Future-of-AI briefings and market landscapes: Understanding where the field is headed and how an organization can lead
• Tech-enabled futures: Exploring future potential through demos or user journeys of existing AI and edtech tools that draw on the right vision, investment, or design decisions
• Responsible AI rubrics and frameworks: Developing decision-making tools to guide ethical and impactful AI use

Gazarek, a former teacher herself, says she’s particularly excited about the ideas and guidance the AI Education Collaborative will produce.

“I’m passionate about students and education, and I feel invigorated by what’s possible,” she says. “Instead of asking, ‘What are we reacting to, and how do we adapt?’ we’re asking, ‘What are we developing, and what are we going to create?’”

The post New Collaborative Aims to Tackle Questions About AI in Education appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

An interactive, multimedia history textbook focused on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

A crowdsourced resource collaboratively written and evaluated by grad students.

These are some of the many alternative textbook projects that have been funded by NC State University’s Alt-Textbook Program since it began giving out grants in 2014.

David Tully, the Principal Librarian for Student Affordability at NC State University Libraries, is the program’s lead. He says last year the OER program awarded around $70,000 worth of grants to instructors at NC State to develop open educational resources (OER) for their classrooms.

“The projects we get are really diverse,” says Tully. Anything that acts as an alternative to a commercial textbook and can be made available as an OER is considered. This could include videos, podcasts, modules, assignments, quizzes, images, syllabi, and—of course—textbooks. OER materials are published under copyright licenses that allow for free, legal sharing. In most cases, the licenses also permit adaptation of the work.

One major benefit is cost savings for students. A 2021 study from U.S. PIRG Education Fund found that 65 percent of students reported they’d skipped buying commercial textbooks because of the expense. For students identified as “food insecure,” it was 82 percent.

The study also notes that recent changes in format and pricing models, like online texts with single-user access codes, have increased the problem by eliminating the ways students traditionally got around high textbook costs: used copies, library copies, and sharing a copy with classmates.

The other benefit of OER is that it can be much more effective because faculty can customize the materials for their course and students. “The ability to update existing content is really important for students,” says Tully. “I quite like the idea of giving control of materials back to the instructor.”

Many instructors use the control to create up-to-date materials on dynamic topics that are changing rapidly or to fill a gap the commercial market hasn’t addressed. One example is NC State’s Biology in the Modern World course, which enrolls large numbers of both STEM and non-STEM majors. That course has been historically difficult to source a textbook for.

OER can also be customized with examples and images that better represent today’s student body, says Tully: “A lot of textbooks are still written for this idea of a typical college student, which is no longer the reality. When students don’t see themselves reflected in their own materials, they can be less engaged.”

Using an OER program for institutional impact

Successful applicants to the NC State Alt-Textbook Program receive a stipend to support their work developing or adapting an open resource and have a liaison from the committee who makes sure they have the guidance and resources they need.

When the committee is evaluating proposals, says Tully, “we’re looking for folks who want to build something for their own class, but who are also excited by making it available for other students and educators around the world.”

Second, they’re looking for project proposals that are well scoped. In the committee’s experience, the most successful projects are the ones that have a realistic timeline and clearly defined deliverables.

Finally, the committee is looking for impact. This means that projects designed for gateway courses are of particular interest. A project that saves 800 students $100-200 each can have a huge impact in the school, says Tully. “Any course that has a large number of students is likely to get looked at a little more closely.”

Beyond textbooks: Multimedia OER

The types of projects that have been funded by the Alt-Textbook Program are extremely varied. For example, some instructors are looking to create an interactive or dynamic website using H5P. The instructor of a recent Health and Exercise Science class created a suite of videos students can refer back to if they didn’t quite catch a movement in the live demonstration.

Others might use the funding to hire a grad student to help build an AI chatbot that answers student questions and helps them study.

Some instructors are looking to enhance textbooks with other media. For example, a group of NC State instructors were inspired by John McMurry of Cornell University having made the 10th edition of his bestselling organic chemistry textbook available as an OER. They revised and updated the text and added in their own content, such as videos and interactive activities. The instructors worked together to complete their adaptation of all the sections and created a powerful free resource for students.

“That was a huge success,” says Tully. “The sheer scale of student cost savings was really significant.”

Supporting a more open future

The process of copyrighting something as OER is very straightforward. All the creator of the material needs to do is attach a Creative Commons license. But there are still challenges when it comes to making those resources searchable and available to other instructors.

Fortunately, says Tully, the open education community is extremely helpful and supportive. Instructors, librarians, and administrators can find plenty of resources to help them incorporate OER in the classroom.

Tully recommends joining existing networks like SPARC and Open Education Network, and taking advantage of the conferences, workshops, and community network.

“The strength of this whole thing lies in the community and the network around it,” says Tully. “Librarians want to help other people—including other librarians.”

The post How NC State’s OER Program is Transforming Student Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Considering Equity-Minded Teaching Through the Lens of Digitally Enabled, Evidence-Based Teaching Practices is an eight-week community of practice presented by Transform Learning in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®. Transform Learning is an online resource for educators to learn about digitally enabled evidence-based teaching practices (DE-EBTs).

The community of practice will run from May 27 through July 27, with a break the week of June 30. A similar community of practice will be available in fall 2025.

Christine Latulippe, Community Manager for Transform Learning, is facilitating the community of practice and says instructors participating in it are motivated to share their own DE-EBTs and to learn more innovative practices from others.

“Many faculty get pulled by other responsibilities, and they don’t have a lot of time to think about teaching,” says Latulippe, who is also a visiting associate professor of education at Linfield University.

“Something great can happen when we share ideas as a community. You can realize, ‘Oh, this is a cool thing that I’m doing already, and maybe I need to do more of it,’ or, maybe, ‘I need to take the next step and share it.’ I, myself, am excited to be learning from the community.”

Building the DE-EBT community

Research has demonstrated that digitally-enabled, evidence-based teaching practices are effective strategies for student learning. The eight DE-EBTs featured on Transform Learning include:

• Active learning, such as simulations and animations
• Assessing and activating prior knowledge, to incorporate students’ interests and current levels of understanding
• Data-informed instruction, such as using data dashboards
• Formative practice and assessment, such as timely, targeted, and ungraded feedback
• Fostering a sense of belonging through an inclusive learning environment, such as culturally responsive pedagogy
• Instructional transparency, such as mapping assignments to course goals
• Meta-cognition and self-regulation such as student self-assessment
• Peer collaboration, to encourage students to support one another’s learning

Through weekly readings, prompts, and asynchronous online discussion, participants in Transform Learning’s community of practice will be sharing their experience implementing technology for more effective teaching and learning. The community of practice also includes drop-in sessions for synchronous dialogue, as well as a live webinar on June 24. Each participant is eligible for a $250 stipend upon completion of deliverables for contributing to the community and reflecting on their own use of the DE-EBTs.

The structured discussions have the benefit of being more in depth and nuanced than a listserv experience. Latulippe’s facilitation encourages participants, who come from many different types of postsecondary institutions, to reflect on the research surrounding DE-EBTs and to describe the practices they use or hope to use in their classrooms.

One hope is that many of the teaching ideas shared during the community of practice will become part of the Instructional Example Library on Transform Learning, a collection of short outlines of how instructors use specific tools and EBTs for focused parts of their courses.

Latulippe says, “When a teaching idea a participant shares in discussion gets refined to be an example in the instructional example library, the learning will keep going. I want to encourage this community around good teaching.”

Submissions accepted for the example library are eligible for an additional $500 stipend.

Using evidence-based teaching in STEM

Because the Transform Learning community of practice is aimed primarily at math instructors and others in STEM disciplines, it provides an opportunity to learn how these instructional ideas can be effective in subject areas where evidence-based practices are sometimes thought to be less applicable.

“Faculty might not realize there are other ways to teach — other ways to emphasize student engagement, for example,” says Latulippe.

“Sometimes in STEM we get very content-focused, so when we are interested in teaching, we might feel alone in our particular departments or school,” she explains. “We may want to foster a sense of belonging in our classroom, or we may want to engage our students in active learning. But if you don’t see something, you don’t know there are other ways or that it’s okay to teach differently. A community of practice is a powerful way for faculty to discover what’s possible.”

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Elements of Humanizing Edtech in Higher Education was the subject of a recent panel at WCET’s virtual summit, featuring Emilie Cook, Senior Manager of Content, Community, and Digital Engagement at Every Learner Everywhere®, Joe Rendon, AI Analyst at Fort Lewis College, and Janelle Elias, Vice President of Strategy and Academic Affairs at Rio Salado College. The three panelists shared practical ideas and resources for institutions and individual instructors on using technology to build connections with students.

“We know when students feel seen, they feel valued, they feel heard, they are more likely to engage in the learning process,” Cook said to kick off the panel. “They’re more likely to take risks, and they’re more likely to persist in the face of challenges. When we look at humanizing these students and their experience, this approach not only enhances their academic experience, it contributes to their overall growth and development.”

Cook outlined how evidence shows that student-centered approaches when implementing digital learning technologies are effective at humanizing students and improving student outcomes. That includes, helping students recognize themselves in the curriculum, inviting them to contribute, creating an environment that makes them feel welcome to contribute, and sharing and being transparent as a faculty member.

“Focusing on sharing and being transparent as a faculty member are really small ways that make a big difference in the classroom that allow the students to feel that relationship in the classroom,” she said.

How edtech effects students and faculty

According to the Listening to Learners report from Tyton Partners, students’ needs aren’t being fully met in several key areas, including their basic needs, psychological needs, and self-fulfillment, said Cook. Digital tools help address these gaps by:

• Increasing student engagement
• Strengthening connections between instructors and students
• Building a greater sense of agency in the student
• Narrowing student success gaps

For Rio Salado College, education technology has always been a critical tool to serve over 40,000 students, half of whom are in more than 700 online, asynchronous courses. The college uses a predictive analytics tool, RioPACT, to understand student progress and to support persistence by creating tailored learning experiences for students.

But while technology can increase connectivity between students and faculty, it doesn’t do so automatically. In 2023, Rio Salado partnered with the College Innovation Network to conduct a survey of faculty attitudes toward the current state of edtech.

“It was really interesting to hear from the voice of our faculty about how they perceive the value of edtech,” Elias said. “They feel like they’re far away from the decision making.”

Of faculty members surveyed, 83 percent said they believe there is value in edtech, but almost one third reported a lack of trust in available products’ effectiveness. In addition, nearly 80 percent of faculty reported feeling like they are “always on the job,” leading to technology fatigue, burnout, and lower job satisfaction.

Fulfilling needs

“We don’t just adopt any technology solution without being really clear [about] the problem we’re trying to solve,” said Elias.

Elias and her Rio Salado colleagues implement a four-step process to find targeted, effective digital solutions:

1. Identify the need
2. Find a solution
3. Design the space
4. Measure the impact

One example of a targeted digital tool that fulfills a specific need is RioConnect, a peer-to-peer social network focused on fostering student belonging. On RioConnect, student participation is purely social, designed to help students build a sense of community. For online learners, digital interactions and community can be especially critical in meeting students’ psychological needs.

For faculty members, digital tools can also be highly effective when targeted toward a specific purpose. For example, Rendon said Fort Lewis college has been piloting three AI chatbots across three different college functions—advising, tutoring, and admissions. The chatbots are tailored for each kind of engagement with students and have the dual benefit of reducing faculty workload and enabling personalized student support.

“It’s a complement to human interaction, not a replacement,” Rendon said.

Different students have varying needs and preferences, so Rio Salado found a different way to fulfill a distinct niche for their learners by offering open Zoom sessions.

“Not every student is comfortable with the chatbots we offer or the call center service we also provide, so we have open office hours where they know they can come and have a human interaction,” Elias said.

Designing with (not just for) students

Centering students in the technology discussion is one way to make the digital tools they interact with more effective. Rio Salado formed a Student Digital Experience Committee that focuses on connecting technology with student success. The committee incentivizes learners to participate in focus groups. Admin and faculty sometimes miss the things that seem obvious to students, making the student feedback sessions invaluable, said Elias.

Rio Salado also invests in an Innovation Think Tank that allows anyone inside (or outside) the institution to submit an idea on how the school can improve, creating a dynamic and inclusive approach to finding and incorporating new ideas.

To prioritize humanizing students while implementing digital solutions, Elias recommends inviting early adopters to participate in the proof of concept. Student voice and faculty buy-in, she said, are two of the most important factors in finding the right solution.

The post Humanizing EdTech for the Student Experience appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

An overview of evidence-based teaching practices

An evidence-based teaching practice is an instructional strategy that research demonstrates is effective for student learning. EBTs are particularly important in gateway courses, which increasingly are taught in hybrid and online modalities.

The post What Are Evidence-Based Teaching Practices (EBTs) and How Do They Support Digital Learning? appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Transform Learning is a site that shares resources and research to support digitally-enabled, evidence-based teaching practices. A key feature of the site is an instructional example library that highlights activities sourced directly from instructors. The examples focus primarily on math, chemistry, and statistics gateway courses, but are applicable across disciplines.

Users can browse all the examples in the library or sort by criteria such as the subject they teach, which evidence-based practice they want to incorporate, or use cases such as:

• Course design — The process of planning and organizing the structure, content, and delivery methods of a course.
• Assignment — Specific tasks or projects given to students to complete as part of their coursework.
• Lesson plan — A detailed guide outlining the objectives, materials, and activities for a specific class session.
• Instructional activity — Engaging exercises or tasks used to facilitate learning during a lesson.
• Assessment — Methods and tools used to evaluate student learning and understanding.
• Formative — Ongoing assessments aimed at providing feedback to improve student learning during the instructional process.
• Summative — Evaluations conducted at the end of a unit or course to measure overall student achievement.
• Equitable implementation — Strategies and practices ensuring all students have fair and equal access to learning opportunities and resources.

Users of Transform Learning can also use a submission form page to offer their own examples for the instructional example library.

Below are six examples of evidence-based practices that classroom instructors have submitted.

Quick online survey to assess experience and knowledge

Maria Tackett, a professor of statistical science, uses digital surveys in Qualtrics at the beginning of her statistics course to assess student experience and interests. These survey responses inform course subject matter, such as the example data sets students might look at. And the survey responses also inform how Tackett groups students into project groups as she considers their experiences and interests.

This activity promotes evidence-based practices such as assessing and activating prior knowledge, and fostering a sense of belonging.

This activity is given as an example of using digital tools in ways that help students co-design a curriculum and increase relevance. In this case, the digital tool allows for a number of features not available otherwise, such as anonymous responses, easily organized voting, small-group responses, and data analysis.

The page features a sample of Tackett’s survey instrument.

Timely, targeted feedback with automated formative assessment

Professor Kimberly Jackson and her colleagues use auto-graded practice tests in Canvas and ALEKS. Students can receive immediate feedback, rather than waiting on their professor to grade the quiz and offer feedback. The immediacy of feedback allows students to quickly identify which concepts they will need to revisit before the exam.

This activity is given as an example of using online practice to ensure students receive immediate feedback. This approach to formative assessment allows students to quickly assess their knowledge and identify areas where they need further study or practice while also reducing the grading workload for professors and teaching assistants.

Embedded exam wrappers to support metacognition

An exam wrapper is an activity using prompt questions that help students reflect on their preparation before an exam or their performance afterward. This exercise traditionally was done with pencil and paper but can now be embedded digitally in some courseware products. In addition to promoting metacognition for students, this reduces completion time, speeds up grading, and makes mapping to exam concepts easier.

Meredith Burr, a professor of mathematical and statistical sciences, has developed an exam wrapper that puts students into the mindset they will need for the exam as they reflect on their preparation plans. Following the exam, students can review their performance at the exam problem level and identify which skill or concept they need to develop their understanding of further.

The page features an example of the reflection question in Burr’s exam wrapper activity.

Creative assignments for peer education in the sciences

Neil Garg, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, assigns students to form groups to create music videos illustrating chemistry concepts that in turn teach their peers. Since 2010, more than 1,200 students in Garg’s chem courses have worked together to produce more than 500 music videos about organic chemistry.

The video below is a highlight reel from 2015.

This project is given as an example of the active learning and peer collaboration evidence-based practices. Giving students access to technology tools such as video editing software, digital illustrators, or —more recently — generative AI for creative group projects can create opportunities to articulate STEM material in unique and lasting ways. Doing so can also foster a sense of belonging in a larger class.

Proactive adjustments based on performance

Kimberly Jackson, a professor of biochemistry, uses Aktiv Learning for Chemistry, which provides in real time the top three most common mistakes students make on each problem, allowing her to immediately address challenges students are encountering.

This activity is given as an example of data-informed instruction.

Using digital learning technology to promote course transparency

James Gray, a professor of mathematics, clearly outlines the course structure on his syllabus for students. The progression of the course and its main components are explained, explicitly showing how the course is designed so that students know what to expect. This activity is given as an example of instructional transparency.

Professor Gray’s approach could be translated to the setup and design of a course’s LMS. Technology, such as LMS platforms or digital syllabi, can be used to help students understand how individual course components relate to each other and the course’s learning goals.

The post Six Examples of Evidence-Based Teaching Practices and a Resource Library with Many More appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“That’s very much tied to a lack of belonging,” Dr. Aris Winger, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College and Executive Director of the National Association of Mathematics, said at the start of Fostering a Sense of Belonging and Instructional Transparency, a recent webinar discussing how to implement evidence-based teaching practices with digital tools.

“I’m imagining walking into the classroom and saying, ‘Is there someone in here I can connect to?’ Just having that increases the belonging piece a ton.”

This observation emerged while Winger and his co-presenter, Dr. Abbe Herzig, Mathematics Faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, fielded comments from the webinar participants using Padlet as an online discussion tool. The exercise, naturally, was a way of practicing what Winger and Herzig were about to preach — practical, manageable, and effective ways to use digital tools to build a sense of belonging and instructional transparency.

Belonging and transparency are two of the eight digitally enabled, evidence-based teaching practices (DE-EBTs) featured on Transform Learning, a new resource hub that outlines the research around and dimensions of each practice and lets users submit their own activities, large and small, to an instructional examples library.

Winger and Herzig, as co-leads of the COME-IN project (Creating Opportunities in Mathematics Through Equity and Inclusion), were invited to share their expertise with these two DE-EBTs. (The webinar was part of a planned series of four that will cover all eight DE-EBTs.)

As the moderator, Dr. Christine Latulippe, said, two of the principles of Transform Learning is that instructors can start anywhere and can take small steps with digitally enabled, evidence-based teaching practices. The DE-EBTs aren’t sequential, and they don’t require comprehensive course redesigns before an instructor can try something new.

Instructional transparency in practice

“Transparency is one of the easiest ways you get to show your students you care,” Winger said, and Herzig explained that transparency depends on an “an explicit definition of what it means to succeed and how you will know if you are succeeding.”

It’s about making sure students have the opportunity to know what they need to learn and how the course will work. Students sense a course is transparent when instructional choices are intentional, not arbitrary. Assignments, both in and out of class, will have clearly stated learning goals. Helping students understand why they’re doing what they’re doing creates a more engaging learning experience and demonstrates respect for students’ time.

Clarity on expectations and goals might involve offering clear rubrics when available, explicitly communicating grading criteria, and being honest with yourself, and your students, about which deadlines are flexible and which are firm.

While digital tools enhance learning, instructors still must take steps to ensure expectations are clear and assignments are accessible to students. Instructional transparency is obscured if there is too much friction getting into and navigating around a tool or understanding the activity designed within it.

For this reason, Winger and Herzig recommended creating low-stakes activities to teach students digital tools and to build greater confidence, resulting in better outcomes for more critical assignments later on.

Research has also shown that a student’s ability to seamlessly contact the instructor through digital learning tools has an impact on their perceptions of the instructor’s competence and their level of care toward students.

For instructors looking to reflect on ways to increase their own instructional transparency, Herzig and Winger recommended starting by picking an assignment or activity, examining the reason students are being asked to complete it, and whether it aligns with a learning goal or course expectation.

Building belonging to better student outcomes

Research shows at all levels of math that students who have a sense of belonging in their classroom are more likely to succeed. For Herzig and Winger, belonging means the ability for students to achieve success while being their true selves.

One meaningful way instructors can foster a sense of belonging is by learning to correctly spell and pronounce students’ names. By respecting pronunciation and spelling, students feel a greater sense of appreciation, safety, and equality in the classroom. In addition, instructors can promote a more inclusive classroom by varying the identities used in examples given in a course to reflect a diverse student body.

Highlighting unconventional solution strategies and investigating them creates a dynamic and inviting classroom that provides students and faculty new ways of approaching content they might not have otherwise considered. For the person who posed the alternative solution, it also conveys a sense of value and appreciation.

In addition to fielding alternative solutions, Winger and Herzig said contextualizing and celebrating errors as learning opportunities creates a safer environment for students to try new things.

As the leader of the classroom, instructors create a stronger sense of belonging by modeling and enforcing respectful communication to facilitate inclusive discourse. One example Herzig gave is for students to paraphrase points made by their peers during a discussion to exhibit active listening. Instructors can further the practice of respectful communication by acknowledging or thanking students when they raise questions, a practice Winger uses to both affirm and invite more discussion.

“Caring is not only about being a nice person,” Herzig said, “It’s critical to student engagement and their progress for them to understand you care about their success, their experience in the classroom, and that you see them.”

The post Practical Steps to Fostering Belonging and Instructional Transparency appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Taniyah Taitano is a sophomore at Spelman College in Atlanta majoring in political science and pursuing a secondary teaching certification, and she is a student government leader. She first started to think about the importance of digital learning last year, as part of the service-based Bonner Scholar program.  Taitano was assigned to work at an elementary school, and that prompted her to reconsider her earlier plans to become a lawyer.

At the school she saw firsthand how education policy can shape day-to-day instruction. “I had to ask myself,” she says, “‘Well, where do you want to make the most impact?’”

One answer, she felt, was in conducting research to find ways to improve education in the United States. She believes the use of AI in digital learning can be part of the answer.

Advancing AI and digital learning

Taitano understands not everyone working in education shares her opinion about the value of digital instruction and AI’s role in enhancing it. In 2024 she had a summer fellowship as a social studies instructor for middle school students in Norfolk, Virginia — her hometown — in an enrichment program where she had been a student herself.

During that fellowship, she was part of a conversation about AI in education, “and I think I was really the only one in the room who advocated for AI usage,” Taitano says.

“My thesis is that AI isn’t going anywhere, and technology is going to continue to advance. So, instead of shying away from it, we should have courses on digital learning and the appropriate ways to use AI.”

This year she will return for her second fellowship there, and she anticipates looking for ways AI tools can assist in providing instruction that meets state education standards.

Offering one-stop access to AI tools

As it happens, not only did AI help Taitano find an internship on education policy, it pointed her to one where AI would be a theme. Taitano and her fellow spring 2025 Every Learner interns are studying the use of AI in digital learning and developing a toolkit of resources that instructors and students can use to incorporate artificial intelligence products into their work. They are seeking a platform to provide information about and access to AI tools that educators can use in digital instruction and that students can use in their studies.

The work continues the efforts of previous cohorts of Every Learner interns who conducted research to explore what types of AI programs instructors and students are using.

Taitano hopes the resource she and the other Every Learner interns are developing will be an eye opener for other instructors who also are curious about ways to use AI but don’t know where to start. The goal, she says, is to produce a higher education-focused one-stop shop source of information about AI tools for digital learning.

The key to the toolkit’s success, Taitano says, is to make it useful enough to attract a large number of instructors and students to the platform. And that will require research to ensure the product is hitting the mark.

Spotlighting AI in education, careers

Taitano hasn’t completely ruled out her initial plan to become a lawyer, but her current plan is a career where she can conduct education policy and research. After graduating from Spelman in 2027 she wants to pursue graduate degrees and to work in higher education. She also wants to spend some time working in classrooms to stay abreast of issues affecting educators.

Her work with Every Learner is helping her prepare for those efforts while also advancing the effective use of AI in digital learning.

“Everything for me goes back to education,” Taitano says. “If I don’t understand it, I want to learn more about it. So, my hope is that the work we’re doing prompts more people who use this toolkit to do more research on digital learning and AI, that it enhances their experience as a teacher or as a student, and that it assists them on their academic or professional journey.”

The post Digital Learning Intern Exploring the Impact of AI on Education Policy appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

AI is not just enhancing existing assistive technologies — it is becoming a powerful assistive tool in its own right, offering innovative ways to address accessibility needs. AI-driven tools, such as conversational agents, predictive text, and personalized learning platforms, can support people with cognitive, speech, or mobility disabilities by adapting to user preferences and learning from interactions. This adaptability allows for more personalized and inclusive experiences.

Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, a new resource developed by Teach Access in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and accessibility, with a particular focus on the needs of people with disabilities. The comprehensive asset — drawing from the expertise of fifteen contributors — covers digital accessibility, frameworks for accessible design, legal considerations, policy recommendations, and the limitations and risks of AI for people with disabilities, including algorithmic bias and ableist assumptions. It is also a practical toolkit for incorporating accessible AI in higher education, weaving in example activities, discussion questions, and reading lists.

One section of Where AI Meets Accessibility explores how AI intersects with assistive technology and looks at current applications as well as future possibilities. It also examines important ethical considerations and challenges involved in using AI in this context, ensuring that AI-driven solutions truly improve accessibility without creating new barriers.

Below are excerpts from the section of Where AI Meets Accessibility on AI in assistive technologies.

AI tools to support disabled students

An increasing range of AI-powered assistive technologies is transforming how students and educators with disabilities engage in communication and learning.

For example, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices that include AI features can reduce the need to type or select individual words or can recognize non-standard speech, such as stuttering or speech affected by motor impairments, supporting clearer communication in academic settings.

AI-driven tools are also improving accessibility for people who are deaf or hard of hearing with real-time transcription of classroom audio and improved accuracy of transcription.

AI can enhance writing skills and tools like Grammarly go beyond basic spellcheckers, offering valuable support for students and educators with learning disabilities in reading or writing. When used appropriately, these tools allow a person to understand the changes in their word choice or placement and help identify spelling errors that may have previously been undetected due to their disability.

AI also offers significant support in reading — a critical skill for both students and faculty. Students who struggle with focus or concentration due to disabilities benefit from text-to-speech tools like Speechify and NaturalReader. These programs not only read content aloud but also use AI to create summaries and outlines, helping students review key concepts and check their understanding. For educators, especially those with neurocognitive disabilities, these tools can enhance focus and efficiency.

AI also can assist with executive functioning tasks, helping students stay organized and manage their time more effectively. Generative AI tools can break down large assignments into smaller steps, create personalized schedules, and set reminders to keep students on track. Vanderbilt University’s Planning Assistant project scans course syllabi to extract key dates and automatically adds them to a student’s calendar. Future iterations of this tool aim to further assist students by dividing complex assignments into subtasks and suggesting timelines, making it easier to stay organized and meet deadlines.

AI tools to support disabled educators

Speech-to-text technologies, such as dictation tools in Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and most modern operating systems, further enhance accessibility. These tools help educators with disabilities affecting vision, language, or dexterity by enabling voice commands to draft course materials, provide feedback, or communicate effectively. Predictive typing features, which suggest words or phrases in context, streamline written communication and boost productivity.

Generative AI tools also support time management and efficiency, especially for those skilled in crafting effective prompts. For example, Microsoft Copilot can assist colorblind educators by converting color-based data in charts into accessible formats. Tools like Elicit and Consensus simplify literature reviews by summarizing research articles and highlighting key insights, which is particularly helpful for educators with visual or language disabilities.

For educators with executive function challenges, AI-driven task management tools embedded in email platforms like Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook suggest calendar events from email content, promoting better organization and focus. Real-time transcription tools, available on platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, provide live captions, helping educators follow discussions and refer back to transcripts.

The future of accessible AI

While AI has the potential to improve accessibility in learning environments, it can also unintentionally create barriers. Educators and administrators in higher education are crucial in ensuring that AI development and implementation is accessible. They should prioritize including people with disabilities in decision making, plan for flexible accommodations, and embed accessibility as a core element in all AI-related policies and practices.

Instructors may have the instinct to prohibit the use of generative AI tools out of concern for academic dishonesty or cheating. Some may even consider reverting to practices like having students take quizzes and exams in-class or write assignments by hand during class to prevent AI use. Others might opt to impose strict penalties for suspected AI use in student assignments, despite the unreliability of AI-detection tools. However, it’s important to consider that these approaches might disproportionately affect students with disabilities. For example, in-class assessments can create challenges for students who rely on assistive technology, and the classroom environment might be more distracting than a controlled home setting. Additionally, providing assessment instructions verbally could disadvantage students with attentional or hearing disabilities.

Students may be afraid to use generative AI tools due to unclear or overly strict course or institutional policies. This is particularly the case when policies aren’t clearly stated and come across as prohibiting all types of AI, regardless of how they are used. To address this, both administrators and instructors need to be aware of how AI can enhance accessibility and support equity. Clear, well-articulated policies that allow the use of AI tools for these purposes — without associating them with cheating — are essential.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, developed by Teach Access. Contributors to the sections excerpted above include Jordan Colbert, Suzanne David, Alejandra Dashe, Arielle Silverman, Bernabé Soto Beltrán, Erica Braverman, Jamie Niman, Mei-Lian Vader, Rolando J. Méndez Fernández, Rua Mae Williams, Sarah Malaier, Sarahelizabeth Baguhn, Stephen Thomas, Tessa Wolf, and Vaishnav Kameswaran.

The post How AI in Assistive Technology Supports Students and Educators with Disabilities appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Since then she entered Georgia Institute of Technology as a biomedical engineering major and she has continued thinking about the potential of AI in education. Like many current college students, she has had assignments that required her to use AI tools to complete tasks such as revising essays and completing physics problems.

“If it’s regulated and used in the correct manner,” she says, “AI can be implemented in college settings to help people who have limited access to education or need help with certain aspects of learning.”

So it was a lucky accident when a friend introduced Hussain to a recent Georgia Tech biomed graduate, Eeman Uddin, who had been an intern with Every Learner Everywhere® in 2021. Uddin suggested that the spring 2025 Every Learner Everywhere® student internship would be a perfect fit for Hussain’s passion: finding innovative ways to support people in overcoming challenges.

“The reason I’m in biomedical engineering is that I want to help people in a different way than I would in the typical pre-med route,” Hussain says. “When I saw Every Learner was discussing artificial intelligence and curriculum, I thought it was a way to follow my motto of helping people in new, innovative ways.”

Creating an AI toolkit

The Alpharetta, GA native and her fellow spring 2025 interns are developing an AI toolkit that will connect instructors and students to platforms that can help them teach and learn more efficiently and effectively. Hussain and the other interns are seeking an easily accessible digital home for information about AI tools to expand on the research of the Every Learner summer and fall 2024 interns.

Once the spring cohort establishes a hub for the material and finishes building the resource, the interns will seek insights from faculty members and students on their use of AI in coursework.

Advancing accessibility in education

Because the use of AI is growing so rapidly, Hussain says it’s imperative that every faculty member and student understand how best to use its tools. She envisions an AI toolkit that becomes a widely used resource for instruction for a variety of subjects and for students of all abilities. She also hopes it will be easily adaptable — a living document that instructors and students continue to shape even after it’s complete.

That starts with talking to instructors from various academic disciplines to get their suggestions. Hussain says the most important reason for seeking this input is to ensure that the toolkit meets the needs of those who use it.

While the toolkit the interns are developing will be for a general audience of instructors and students, Hussain hopes the group’s efforts also set the stage for research into increasing education accessibility. That interest is rooted in her work and volunteer efforts as well as her studies at Georgia Tech.

Her on-campus work with Alzheimer’s disease researchers cemented her focus on finding new ways to help people learn — and live — better. Hussain decided to minor in neuroscience, and after Georgia Tech, she plans to attend medical school and hopes to make research that will assist Alzheimer’s patients — or even cure the disease — her life’s work.

In this internship, she wants to plant the seed for the significant changes she’d like to be a part of in the future.

“How artificial intelligence is used in curriculums and with students is going to change the entire trajectory of how it’s used in medical technology and in our daily lives,” Hussain says.

“When you see a change that’s positive with AI, then you might see a change in careers that lead to really big outcomes. I just want to help with the start.”

The post How This Biomedical Engineering Major Is Thinking About AI Tools and Digital Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, a new resource developed by Teach Access in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and accessibility, with a particular focus on the needs of people with disabilities. The comprehensive resource — drawing from the expertise of fifteen contributors — covers assistive technologies, digital accessibility, frameworks for accessible design, legal considerations, quality considerations, and policy recommendations. It is also a practical toolkit for incorporating accessible AI in higher education, weaving in example activities, discussion questions, and reading lists.

One section of Where AI Meets Accessibility explores the potential risks, limitations, and hazards of AI for people with disabilities, including algorithmic bias and ableist assumptions. For example, one damaging assumption is to forget that each person’s experience with disability is unique. Even if individuals share a similar disability, diagnosis, or condition, their needs, preferences, and challenges may vary significantly. Ableist assumptions like this example can inform design, procurement, and implementation of learning technologies in ways that undermine the potential those technologies have to benefit people with disabilities.

Below are excerpts from the sections of Where AI Meets Accessibility that outline issues influencing the ethical implementation of AI in higher education.

Perpetuating biases and ableist assumptions

Despite AI’s potential to transform education, it often falls short of addressing the needs of people with disabilities. For example, some automated speech recognition systems struggle to accurately interpret speech patterns of people with speech impairments. This shortcoming stems largely from the lack of representation of disabled perspectives in AI development processes. Because AI systems rely on datasets curated by humans, any existing biases or omissions in the data are inevitably reflected in the technology. The underrepresentation of people with disabilities in these datasets can be attributed to two key factors.

First, people with disabilities are often not considered a “profitable” user group. Large technology companies, which hold the resources to develop AI models and applications, tend to prioritize innovations that promise high financial returns. Myths persist in the industry that people with disabilities do not form a significant market or they lack purchasing power. As a result, fewer technologies are designed to meet their unique needs.

Second, people with disabilities are rarely prioritized in the design of AI technologies. While discussions about inclusion in AI often focus on race and gender, they frequently overlook disability. Like other marginalized groups, disabled people are underrepresented on design and development teams. This lack of representation means AI systems fail to reflect their experiences. Moreover, the discrimination disabled people face differs fundamentally from other forms of bias, making it essential to center their voices in inclusion efforts.

When people with disabilities are excluded from the creation of AI systems, the resulting  datasets and design processes become less inclusive. This exclusion perpetuates harmful stereotypes and limits access to innovations that could enhance the educational experience for students with disabilities. AI systems often assume a “one-size-fits-all” model, which overlooks the diverse needs of students with disabilities, including the range of accommodations they may need to succeed.

For example, automated grading systems may evaluate student responses based on specific patterns, such as the structure or formatting of written answers. This approach can disadvantage students with cognitive disabilities, dyslexia, or processing difficulties, as they may need more time or have alternative ways of expressing their ideas. As a result, these systems could unfairly penalize students who deviate from the expected norms of response.

Ongoing research by Dr. Vaishnav Kameswaran at the University of Maryland [one of the co-authors of this excerpt] highlights how the use of AI in hiring, particularly automated video interview systems, can discriminate against people with disabilities. These platforms assess candidate suitability based on behavioral, prosodic, and lexical features, such as the amount of eye contact a candidate maintains. These features are then abstracted into qualities like engagement and enthusiasm, which contribute to a candidate’s suitability score. This approach is inherently ableist, as it prioritizes “normative” characteristics that may be discriminatory.

Moreover, these AI tools shift the power dynamic, often overlooking the specific needs of people with disabilities. Traditionally, interviews, including those for educational opportunities, are two-way exchanges, allowing candidates to assess whether institutions can provide the necessary accommodations. With AI systems prioritizing efficiency and objectivity, people with disabilities may be denied this opportunity, further exacerbating inequities in higher education and the labor market. Therefore, it is crucial to explore how AI systems can be made accountable to prevent further discrimination against people with disabilities.

How higher education can work to keep AI accessible

AI policy discussions must always include accessibility and ethical considerations. Faculty and administrators who specialize in these areas should share their insights with policymakers to help them understand the critical importance of inclusion in AI. Frameworks like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) should be referenced when discussing policies for AI technologies, ensuring that all tools meet the necessary accessibility standards. Additionally, ethical considerations, such as those outlined in the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, should also be part of these discussions.

Higher education institutions should collaborate with AI product developers to enhance the accessibility of these tools, ensuring that they are inclusive and beneficial for all users. Additionally, faculty in technology-related disciplines should actively encourage student research and innovation aimed at improving accessibility. This includes both making existing AI tools more accessible and developing new tools to address accessibility barriers. Through these initiatives, institutions can contribute to creating more inclusive technologies while empowering students to prioritize accessibility in their future work.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, developed by Teach Access. Contributors to the sections excerpted above include Rua Mae Williams, Tessa Wolf, and Vaishnav Kameswaran.

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Noel Berhanu, a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, is part of Every Learner’s spring 2025 cohort of interns. In work that builds on efforts of the summer and fall 2024 cohorts, the spring interns are developing a toolkit about artificial intelligence for instructors.

Growing up in a Washington, D.C., suburb, Berhanu was consumed by soccer. Then at age 10 he saw his 12-year-old brother completing a project running computer programs to do basic tasks. Berhanu, who’d never been exposed to coding before, decided he could do better.

So he gave coding a try and realized that he was right. He excelled at it and enjoyed it. Soon, he was dreaming less about playing soccer professionally and more about a career in software development.

“I had no idea I’d be good at it,” Berhanu says. “But I was competitive, and we always had a rivalry. Then I found I actually had a genuine interest in coding, and that’s why I chose it as my career path.”

Encouraging access for every student

Berhanu’s passion for coding has led him to a variety of technology-related academic, volunteer, and vocational pursuits.

In addition to studying computer science at UMD, he serves as president of Code: Black, a campus organization that works to increase the involvement of students in groups traditionally underrepresented in computing. He regularly participates in hackathons at UMD, working on teams to complete various programming projects.

He has also been an instructor for the Tech Turn Up summer camp in the Washington, D.C., area, teaching the basics of the Java programming language.

Each of these activities has allowed him to pursue his interests in problem solving, coding, and promoting broad interest in and access to technology and tech education.

In fact, it was Berhanu’s 2024 work with Tech Turn Up, providing coding education to children between the ages of 9 and 13 who otherwise might not have had the opportunity, that solidified those interests. He’s committed to ensuring not only that every student can get high-quality digital education, but also that instructors have the tools to provide it.

“It’s a handful to have a lot of students all at once,” Berhanu says. “A toolkit about AI would have helped me share information more efficiently. That’s what compelled me to apply for the internship and why I’m so happy to be part of the Every Learner team.”

Demystifying AI for instructors, students

Berhanu and his fellow interns are studying ways that text and image generators, along with other AI and digital learning tools, can help students learn. They’re developing a single platform that serves as a one-stop shop for information about various types of AI and their uses in instruction and coursework.

The work has both instructors and students in mind. The goal for the toolkit is to familiarize faculty with AI and to help students develop the AI skills they need to succeed in school and in the workplace.

“We want teachers to use AI as more of a tool instead of thinking of it as a cheating platform,” Berhanu says. “The toolkit will be a great way for teachers who are not that familiar with AI to help their students integrate it into their work, giving students a chance to see how it can impact their lives. There are great ways to use AI to educate students, and we want to show its wonders.”

He also believes his work with young people has given him a user-side perspective that will inform the project.

“I’m looking at it through the lens of the student,” he explains. “What am I going to put in this toolkit that’s going to help this student excel? And what can I add to this toolkit to make a kid think that machine learning or computer science is a suitable career path for them?”

Sparking lifelong interest in AI

For Berhanu, the collaborative work he’s doing in his Every Learner internship is adding to the knowledge and experience gained in his computer science studies and his coding work with students. He has plans for a software engineering internship in summer 2025 and will complete his undergraduate work in 2026, after which he plans to start his long-anticipated career in technology.

For now, though, he’s focused on ensuring that instructors and students alike recognize AI’s value and its applications in education — and in life.

“I want every student to have the same spark of curiosity that I had when I saw my brother doing that assignment,” Berhanu says. “How can I make them find this interesting? That’s how I’m tackling this internship.”

The post How This CompSci Major Is Working to Expand Access to AI and Digital Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Dave Kung is the Executive Director of TPSE Math, a nonprofit devoted to constructive change in post-secondary math education. Their newest initiative, in collaboration with the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities, is Project EMBER (Eliminating Math Barriers Through Evidence-Based Reforms), which is building a network of educators who can spread evidence-based reforms far and wide enough to enable systemic change. The goal of Project EMBER is to develop introductory math courses that have low DFW rates, align with student interests, have equitable access and outcomes, and that catalyze success for degree completion for STEM majors and non-majors.

“Every Provost we talk to looks for high DFW rates and courses, and math is usually more than half of the ten worst ones,” Kung says. “We know what would work to fix that. It’s evidence-based teaching practices. The problem is one of opportunity to implement these innovations at scale.”

A key part of the Project EMBER theory of change, Kung explains, is “that the rise of teaching-focused faculty at research schools allows us to do things that we couldn’t have done before.”

He is referring to faculty in positions — particularly at R1 or research-focused institutions — with titles like Professor of Practice or Professor of Teaching. They are often on a modified tenure track or on renewable contracts and have a different mix of teaching and research responsibilities from their traditional research colleagues.

Data on this emerging category of faculty is limited, but Project EMBER says, for example, that in recent decades teaching-focused faculty (TFF) have gone from teaching around 20 percent of Calculus II courses to about 60 percent at R1 universities.

TFF are often coordinating gateway courses and managing the large numbers of adjuncts, graduate students, and postdocs who teach them.

Critically, TFF are generally more available for any reform effort than traditional tenure-track research faculty, as institutional incentives historically don’t align with the scholarship of teaching and learning in order to improve student outcomes in gateway courses.

All of that, says Kung, adds up to a “new lever” for implementing evidence-based teaching practices that didn’t exist before.

Tapping into the pipeline

Another part of Project EMBER’s theory of change is that R1s hold significant influence in shaping policies and practices across higher education and thus can support systemic change.

For example, 250 schools that are members of the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities teach half of all four-year students in the country. The students who go through R1 math departments as undergraduates and graduate students teach everywhere — high school, community colleges, public regionals, and private colleges and universities, both large and small.

“Almost all faculty get their start teaching at these research schools,” Kung says. “If we can change what introductory math looks like there, we change the pipeline of faculty, and we change the culture of mathematics. Working at research schools is a path to improving outcomes for all students.”

A network of knowledge sharing

One core activity of Project EMBER is assembling cross-functional teams at individual universities that include the TFF and students, along with the relevant departmental and college leadership and other professional staff who can support putting evidence-based teaching practices into place.

The reforms these teams work on could cover developmental education, course coordination, tech-enabled courseware, math pathways alignment, and active pedagogy. Any given innovation or initiative will vary by whether it needs to happen at the level of the section, course, department, or institution. “That is partly why you need the cross-functional and vertical team,” Kung explains.

“The teaching-focused faculty are the new lever, but we know we need the attention of deans and provosts and vice presidents for undergraduate learning and so on.”

Credit: Presentation deck for Project EMBER at TPSE Math

The second core activity is creating a network of those teams to exchange ideas and share resources. In his introductory presentation on Project EMBER, Kung uses an illustration showing the healthy network of connections between R1 universities regarding research in comparison to many fewer connections between the same institutions regarding teaching.

“When it comes to teaching, small liberal arts colleges are connected with one another, but the R1s are not, and that’s a problem if you want change,” he says. “What we really need is teams not at one institution but at institutions all around the country. Connecting people spurs innovation.”

Building the community

In the meantime, Project EMBER nurtures evidence-based innovations throughout the growing network. They provide webinars, workshops, and self-assessment tools for departments, and they host a channel on Zulip — an open-source messaging software similar to Slack or Microsoft Teams — where community members discuss their work. (Teaching-focused math faculty are invited to join the Zulip community here.)

Many practices and activities from individual faculty in the growing Zulip community can be seen in the examples library of Transform Learning, a resource hub on digital learning developed by intentional futures and managed by Every Learner Everywhere®.

For example, a concern that bubbled up in the Zulip community recently was about effective training for undergraduate assistants. So Project EMBER found experts on that subject, organized a webinar, and is hosting follow-up discussions.

As the network and supporting activities mature, Kung sees the teams from individual institutions coalescing into affinity groups around the evidence-based practices most relevant for them. Whatever the subject, an overarching priority for Kung is that TFF begin to see themselves as change agents. Partly that may result organically from working with peers, and partly it may result from intentional professional development Project EMBER is planning.

“The teaching-focused faculty we’re meeting are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and hardworking,” Kung says.

“If we connect them with each other and engineer support from their departments, colleges, and institutional leaders, they will do amazing things. That can’t happen soon enough. Every semester we wait, poor mathematics experiences are keeping thousands of students from reaching their potential.”

The post Activating Teaching-Focused Faculty for Systemic Change in Gateway Math Courses appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

In our new formal statement on our approach to AI (see sidebar), developed with input from our network partners, we embrace the examination of AI to help instructors and students understand what it can do and how it can assist them in achieving academic goals.

To do otherwise would be to ignore the possibilities that AI presents for supporting education, for improving student outcomes for every learner, and for making learning more ADA accessible. It also would disregard the message that Every Learner has heard loud and clear from students: AI is now part of the academic and workplace experience.

Embracing AI use

AI is emerging as a technological force as institutions are still grappling with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some colleges and universities, understandably wary of yet another potential disruption to higher education, chose to downplay or ban AI. It seemed wise to determine whether AI was here to stay before devoting resources to examine how best to use this innovation at their institutions.

Students, meanwhile, increasingly turned to AI tools as part of the educational process, even as they found that they also had questions about AI and its future.

Now a growing number of our network partners believe that the time to wait and see what will happen with AI is over. Institutions increasingly understand that we owe it to students to uncover AI’s potential and pitfalls today. Finding the most effective and ethical uses for AI tools now can improve learning and accessibility for years to come.

Identifying student success challenges

Concerns certainly exist regarding AI’s impact on student success, with lack of accessibility and the risks of algorithmic bias at the forefront of issues to consider. Institutions are grappling with questions such as:

• What happens when students ask questions of an AI tool trained on content that’s not inclusive?
• How do we ensure that everyone can take advantage of AI’s capabilities, regardless of students’ ability to access and pay for the tools?
• Will AI disrupt the interpersonal relationships that are so critical to student support?

But academia has a long history of encountering technological innovations that it feared could interfere with its ability to educate students. Decades ago, for example, instructors wondered whether the calculator’s quick computations would stand in the way of effective math instruction. When the internet became broadly accessible through web browsers, educators worried that its plethora of answers would hamper students’ ability to think through questions and find their own solutions.

As instructors and their students explored the various uses for these tools, however, they discovered they can offer benefits ranging from streamlining administrative tasks to assisting with student research.

They learned that with proper guidelines and practices, these resources can enhance instruction for all students. Now we cannot imagine life without them.

We believe AI holds this same promise. We embrace AI because, just as it can create challenges, it also offers opportunities to overcome them.

And there’s only one way to uncover the problems and solutions associated with AI: exploration.

Promoting responsible use

Every Learner partners with institutions, organizations, and students to conduct this exploration. Through our network, we work to provide guidance and answer questions about AI, with the goal of improving instructional processes and student achievement.

We’re learning from partners and students the importance of creating a plan to address potential problems with AI, such as designing prompts that help avoid the biases that can be apparent in information and images that AI produces. We’re discovering AI tools that help ensure students of all abilities have equitable access to content they must understand to succeed in school.

And we’re finding ways AI can streamline processes for instructors and students, freeing them up for other activities — such as in-depth study or instructional support — that are vital to academic success. Our network partners are leading the way in these efforts. For example, a forthcoming report from Teach Access and Every Learner Everywhere®, Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, examines the benefits and concerns of AI in accessibility instruction.

We also are learning that it’s not just institutions that find themselves searching for support in developing literacy in AI and using its tools in their instruction. Students are helping us find the answers to questions about AI, through online presentations and internship projects in which students delve into their own experiences and conduct research on AI’s capabilities for advancing student success.

Innovating teaching and learning

The goal of this work is to harness AI’s power to promote improved outcomes in learning  through broader access to and engagement in learning experiences. Every Learner Everywhere® will continue to embrace the exploration of the benefits and challenges of AI and its use in instruction. Our mission in support of using technology to innovate teaching and learning and level the education playing field demands no less.

The post Explore AI to Improve the Future of Teaching and Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates confirms what colleges and universities have been anticipating (based on WICHE’s previous analyses) for many years — that the total number of high school graduates available for higher education to enroll will peak this year and decline through 2041.

WICHE’s Knocking at the College Door, released in December 2024 with support from College Board and Lumina Foundation, is the 11th edition of a series dating to 1979. Watch the official webcast release and access the slides here: https://www.wiche.edu/knocking/resource-library/

According to one of the co-authors of the new edition, Patrick Lane, Vice President, Policy Analysis and Research at WICHE, the latest analysis reaffirms some of the top-line findings of recent reports — that, primarily because of declines in the number of births, became more severe starting in 2008, the number of high school graduates is peaking this year and will decline 13% nationwide through 2041.

That demographic change, coupled with declines in the share of students opting for college, will create significant challenges for tuition-dependent institutions. Beneath the top-line numbers, however, are important variations, including in the changing racial and ethnic makeup of the cohort and vastly different outlooks for different states

Knocking at the College Door shows that the relative share of the young adult population who identify as white is projected to decline from 48% of the total public high school graduating class in 2023 to 39% in 2041, along with the absolute numbers. In the meantime, however, the share of the young population who identify as Hispanic will grow steadily to represent 36% of the high school class of 2041. The share of Black graduates is projected to decline from 14% to 12% of the total

And students who identify as multiracial will increase dramatically, though from a smaller basis, to represent 7% of high school graduates in 2041. Some of that increase likely accounts for seeming declines in the number of Indigenous populations and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander students. These students are much more likely than students of other races and ethnicities to also identify as another race or as Hispanic, with the end result being that only about one quarter of youth who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native are categorized as such, with the others falling into the Hispanic or Two or More Races categories. The proportions are similar for Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander youth.

In short, says Lane, since Knocking at the College Door began disaggregating this data in the 1990s, “The overall message hasn’t changed too much in 25 years, and that is that future high school graduating classes will be made up of more students who higher ed has served poorly — in particular, more Hispanic students and more multiracial students.”

That makes the need for colleges and universities to improve their teaching practices even more urgent.

“If we haven’t been doing a terrific job at meeting the needs of these students and they will make up a larger proportion of future classes, it puts the onus on everybody associated with higher ed to solve that puzzle of how we meet the needs of every learner,” Lane says. “How can we do better going forward?”

He adds that this means closely examining how digital learning is implemented: “By coupling this report with the idea — which is beyond cliché — that digital learning is the future, it becomes essential for the field to figure out this challenge. I certainly think digital learning is part of that solution.”

Related reading — Toward Ending the Monolithic View of “Underrepresented Students”: Why Higher Education Must Account for Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Variations in Barriers to Equity

Regional variation in demographic change

Lane cautions individual colleges and universities against relying too much on the top-line national data point noted above — a 13% decline in the number of high school graduates nationwide.

“Very few institutions that draw from a national pool of students have huge cause for concern,” he says. “Most are drawing from a smaller pool of students. The differences state by state and even within states, which are substantial, are more important. It is a different story depending on where you’re located and where you’re drawing students from.”

For example, in Hawaii, the decline for high school graduates will be more like 33% by 2041, while North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana will see some increases.

Selection from WICHE’s Knocking at the College Door data visualization tool

Similarly, when the shifts occur over the projection will vary. In some states the number of high school graduates will continue a long and steady decline, while in others the number will hold comparatively steady for several more years.

To help readers understand their local context better, WICHE published an accompanying set of data visualization tools that lets colleges and universities customize reports by geographic location like state and region, and by race and ethnicity. Readers can build customized charts with criteria most important to their needs.

Compounding effects: Births times enrollment rate

Lane also cautions against conflating high school graduation trends with college enrollment trends. The impending nationwide decline in the number of high school graduates is compounded by an independent decline in the college-going rate among those graduates — from a historical high of 70% in 2016 to 62% recently.

“That’s a big deal,” he says. “While enrollment declines have been going on for the past five years (with the most recent data potentially beginning to reverse that trend), it’s important to recognize that those declines have been coming as we have been seeing an increasing number of high school graduates. So the environment is going to become even more challenging.”

Another factor to consider is changes in the rate of participation in K-12 education itself. For a variety of reasons, a child born 18 years ago may not be enrolled in high school this year and showing up in the graduation numbers. The COVID-19 emergency could be one new reason, but Knocking at the College Door ultimately found that the effect of the pandemic appears to be modest. In the report, WICHE estimates that the pandemic may be responsible for a decrease of about 750,000 total high school graduates (or between 1% and 2% through 2037).

The pandemic-related learning loss of the students who do graduate and who colleges and universities enroll will likely be a much bigger challenge to wrestle with, Lane says.

Putting Knocking at the College Door to work in the classroom

This edition of the WICHE demographics analysis explores improvements in the higher education landscape that are or could be made at the level of state and federal policies and at the level of institutional transformation.

“Some are very much at the classroom level in ways I think that feed right in with Every Learner’s work,” he says. “How can you improve pedagogy? How can you improve the student experience in ways that impact retention and completion?”

The takeaway from the report that Lane wants to emphasize for faculty, instructional designers, and academic deans is that — irrespective of the total count — the students showing up in the classrooms are changing. “That means leaning into all the ways we can help students engage with the course material, thrive in it, and understand it becomes even more important,” he says.

“How can we take down some of the barriers that are in place? Whether we feel they are barriers or not is unimportant compared to whether students think they are barriers. And some of that is on the instructional side. The bottom line is we have to do more, and we have to do better with the students we are getting.”

Future Research

WICHE is far from finished with its work on future demographics. Upcoming supplements to the report will include an analysis of projections looking at differences between trends for male and female graduates and providing new information about future populations in U.S. territories and Pacific nations that participate in U.S. education programs (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau). Beyond that, Lane says WICHE may look to provide states and the higher education community in general with better information about the types of high school students that historically have had a medium likelihood of immediately enrolling in college, operating under the theory that these may be the students who would benefit from targeted policies and practices to provide them with meaningful and valuable college pathways.

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As Every Learner Everywhere®’s director, I am proud to work with a network of partners committed to promoting uses of technology that draw on evidence-based teaching (EBT) practices to help every student succeed. Yet misunderstanding and fear about this framework persists.

Defining evidence-based teaching practices

EBT practices are instructional strategies that research demonstrates are effective for student learning. Early versions of the framework identified six areas of emphasis, but after additional research the current framework identifies eight:

• Active learning, such as simulations and animations
• Assess and activate prior knowledge to better understand how instruction can be designed around students’ interests and current levels of understanding.
• Data-informed instruction, such as using data dashboards
• Formative practice and assessment, such as timely, targeted, and ungraded feedback
• Fostering a sense of belonging through an inclusive learning environment, such as culturally responsive pedagogy
• Instructional transparency, such as mapping content to outcomes
• Meta-cognition, self-regulation, and agency, such as student self-assessment
• Peer Collaboration by creating opportunities for students to support one another’s learning

Exploring evidence-based teaching’s benefits

Incorporating practices in any of these areas can provide a host of benefits for instructors and students alike. Use of these practices can help colleges and universities pursue their goals in:

• Enhancing instruction
• Increasing engagement
• Promoting a sense of belonging
• Improving persistence and graduation rates
• Encouraging the efficient use of instructional time

Dispelling myths about evidence-based teaching practices

Despite the value that evidence-based teaching practices can provide, instructors sometimes have misconceptions about them that stand in the way of their use.

Myth 1: They require big changes

The use of EBT practices doesn’t have to include a complete overhaul of instructional plans. Educators can begin by incorporating small changes and then gradually expanding their use. Starting small is surprisingly easy and makes the addition of EBT practices more manageable.

A great way to see this in action is to browse the growing library on Transform Learning of examples of how college instructors are implementing EBT practices in their courses.

Myth 2: They don’t make a difference

EBT practices make a big impact relative to the effort they require, and those who wonder whether this type of instruction is making a difference in their classes need look no further than their students for answers. A one- or two-question survey — using digital polling tools for example — can help instructors to quickly get feedback on these teaching practices and make adjustments as needed.

Myth 3: They’re too time consuming

Given that lack of time and resources is common among instructors, they may be reluctant to add to their workload by building in new instructional approaches. But establishing a foundation of EBT practices now saves time and planning in the long run. Each new small change can be built on as an instructor gradually incorporates more evidence-based teaching.

Myth 4: They don’t apply to all subjects

EBT practices are appropriate for the humanities, sciences, arts, technology, engineering, math, and social sciences. For example, having students work as co-participants — a dimension of active learning — is a method that, with creativity, can support student learning in any discipline.

Myth 5: They stifle creativity

Educators can tailor evidence-based instruction to whatever approach fits best with their current teaching style, their students’ learning style, or the class modality.

There are many ways, for example, to separate students into the small groups or partners that facilitate discussion and peer learning, using online breakout rooms or any of a variety of physical spaces.

Myth 6: They’re too difficult to learn

Whether instructors are seeking free in-depth professional development, a few inspiring ideas, or research about high-impact instruction with digital tools, Every Learner and its network partners can help.

This is just a sample of the resources available on EBT practices:

• Transform Learning: This website, in addition to the example library mentioned earlier, offers in-depth exploration of each of the eight EBT practices, including supporting research.
• What Our Best College Instructors Do: This report, written primarily by college students, shares stories and reflections about the instructional practices they find engaging and meaningful.
• Strategies for Success in Digital Learning: This webinar, featuring Dr. Aireale Rodgers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presents six considerations for the use of courseware to foster success for every learner.
• Ask an Expert Live Q & A: Evidence-Based Teaching: This archived recording features a panel of educators discussing strategies that impact student engagement, metacognitive skills, and long-term content retention in the digital classroom.

Every Learner continues to add new webinars and workshops on evidence-based teaching practices that help college instructors put them into action.

As you can see, our network of partner organizations offers expertise in evaluating, implementing, scaling, personalizing, and measuring digital learning technologies. Our goal is to help educators use new technology in ways that improve teaching and learning. Incorporating these evidence-based practices is a great way to continue transforming education in ways that help students succeed.

Laura DaVinci has been director of Every Learner Everywhere® since December 2024, following six years with the organization and two decades working in higher education and nonprofits supporting education. She holds a master’s degree in business administration from Eastern New Mexico University and a bachelor’s degree in international business from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University, graduating in May 2025.

The post The Transformational Power of Incorporating Evidence-Based Teaching Practices appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

The series provides comprehensive profiles of three types of U.S. institutions of higher education: tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Each report outlines the history of those institutions, their unique resources and assets, and their challenges, and each begins by defining the minority-serving institution (MSI). The reports are based on current literature, government and advocacy organization publications, and conversations with faculty, staff, and students. Student interns at Every Learner participated in researching and co-authoring the reports.

In keeping with Every Learner’s work to better understand equity-centered and evidence-based digital learning, a large part of each profile explores the unique opportunities presented by digital learning at MSIs. For example, they highlight innovative ways MSIs use digital platforms and tools to create language learning resources, document cultural traditions, connect students with elders, personalize learning, equitize course materials, provide students opportunities for personal expression, and let students experience and influence emerging technologies like AI.

Despite the challenges with digital learning at minority-serving institutions that are documented in all three reports — limited access to hardware and telecom services, limited training on integrating digital resources, lack of culturally responsive design in off-the-shelf products — many TCUs, HSIs, and HBCUs are finding innovative ways to use digital tools to achieve their missions.

Each report in the series details many of those innovations, including the partnership involved and the results. As the reader can see from the few examples excerpted below, mission-driving MSIs are finding creative ways to develop, customize, and implement digital learning in ways that center their students and that make sense for their unique contexts.

Digital learning at tribal colleges and universities

• Ogoki Learning has developed 300+ Native American language apps that promote language learning through flashcards, storytelling, dictionaries, games, and quizzes.
• America’s Languages Portal, which partners with TCUs and Native American-serving institutions to provide free courses on native language and culture.
• 7000 Languages creates free online language-learning courses in partnership with Indigenous, minority, and refugee communities.
• To support remote learning over large areas, some institutions use micro campuses—single buildings in remote sites that house a classroom, an administrative office, and a study space that are all connected to local internet networks so that students can connect to the main campus. Diné  College, a TCU in covering 27,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, is one example.
• Digital learning can help preserve and revitalize native arts. With grants provided by the American Indian College Fund’s Native Arts Distance Learning program, seven TCUs were invested in Zoom and video recording equipment and purchased essential materials to connect students with master artists, to create video tutorials to teach traditional arts, and to record theater, dance, and music performances.
• TCJ Student is an online journal of creative expression from Tribal students.

Digital learning at Hispanic-serving institutions

• In 2018, the University of California, where five of the nine campuses already met the HSI definition, launched the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Initiative, which seeks to transition the UC system into a learning community that reflects the population of California, which is over 40 percent Latino.
• University of Central Florida has invested heavily in personalized learning systems that “customize the presentation of the content or present new concepts to the student based on their individual activities and responses.”
• Between 2019 and 2020, four HSIs partnered with the Association of Public and Land-grant Institutions to participate in the Adaptive Courseware for Early Success (ACES) Initiative, which provided grants for institutions to adopt and scale personalized learning in gateway courses.
• In 2020, five HSI community colleges partnered with Achieving the Dream to use digital learning to increase pass rates in gateway courses, particularly for marginalized students.
• In 2021, the California Consortium for Equitable Change in Hispanic-Serving Institutions Open Educational Resources was awarded grant funding to develop OER in 20 high-impact courses.
• Achieving the Dream has conducted several large OER initiatives that include HSIs. Reported results from these grant programs mention not only cost savings to students taking classes with OER course materials but increased engagement in co-creating them with peers and instructors, adapting OER to make them culturally relevant, and even rendering some OER into Spanish.
• Individual faculty use culturally relevant practices to improve outcomes for minoritized students. For example, biology professor Kristin Polizzotto at Kingsborough Community College, where many students are not native English speakers, noticed a gap between indicators of strong comprehension on practice activities and poor results on exams. After investigating further, she realized she needed to rewrite the exam questions from the courseware to use more direct language.

Digital learning at historically Black colleges and universities

• Digital resources and collaborations are helping HBCUs overcome funding limitations and share best practices. In 2020, the United Negro College Fund launched the Institute for Capacity Building, an initiative to bring together HBCUs to expand capacity, support each other, and learn from each other.
• Learning from that collaboration, ICB launched HBCUv, a distance learning platform “true to the Black experience in higher ed and beyond.”
• In May 2022, the Southern Regional Education Board launched the HBCU-MSI Course-Sharing Consortium, a collaboration among HBCUs and MSIs to share online courses. The collaboration has enabled participating schools to move more students to graduation and to save costs in offering low-enrollment specialized courses at their own institutions.
• In 2023, eight HBCUs took part in a virtual college fair for high school students. This event was sponsored by HBCU Night, a nonprofit organization that “creates awareness for Historically Black Colleges & Universities and advocates for progression in the Black and Brown communities.”
• HBCUs are also employing VR to enhance learning experiences on campus. In 2023, Morehouse College launched its first VR course, History of the African Diaspora Since 1800. Another VR collaboration, between the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Winston-Salem State University, is a nursing school training program that simulates common interactions for nurses.
• Morgan State University in Maryland established the Center for Equitable AI and Machine Learning Systems. The mission of the center is to “facilitate the development, deployment, and verification of socially responsible and equitable artificial intelligence systems and to ensure the public is well informed of how evolving technologies in this space affect their health, prosperity, and happiness.”

Download the HSI Profile Download the HBCU Profile Download the TCU Profile

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Several factors differentiate the HBCU student experience, but three of them include care and support for the whole person; a culture and environment that recognizes, centers, and celebrates the many ways people experience Blackness; and building community and pride between students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Those three characteristics emerged as central themes in A Profile of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, a new report from Every Learner Everywhere®. In addition to a full exploration of those characteristics, the report features a history of HBCUs, a comprehensive scan of the research literature, original interviews with students and professors, and a section devoted to digital learning at these institutions.

A Profile of Historically Black Colleges and Universities is part of a series that also includes profiles on Tribal Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The series was developed to help providers of services better understand the needs of these institutions. The profiles are based on current literature, government and advocacy organization publications, and conversations with faculty, staff, and students. A special emphasis of this series of profiles is opportunities and challenges of digital learning at each institutional type.

Below are excerpts from the sections of A Profile of Historically Black Colleges and Universities that outline their unique characteristics.

Care and support

Because HBCUs were established to educate Black students, with the twin goals of creating pathways for upward economic mobility and nurturing Black excellence and pride, they place great emphasis on nurturing and lifting up students. Care at HBCUs is expressed in multiple ways that involve a safe and welcoming campus environment, mentoring programs, relationship building between students and faculty, support services, and affordability. Smaller class sizes and closer faculty-student relationships contribute to a more personalized learning experience.

Support for Black students at HBCUs is demonstrated through various means, including academic, social, and financial support structures that are tailored to their unique needs. Some key ways this support is provided include a culturally relevant curriculum and environment, academic support, financial support, social and emotional support, career development, leadership development, and family and community engagement.

Mentorship programs at HBCUs play a crucial role in supporting students academically, personally, and professionally. Having mentors who understand the unique challenges faced by Black students can positively impact their educational journey. Many organizations provide mentoring to Black high school students in collaboration with HBCUs.

HBCUs demonstrate care for students by providing support services that are culturally affirming and personally validating. Many HBCUs offer specialized support services, such as tutoring, counseling, and academic advising, to help students navigate the challenges of higher education successfully. Student retention services include programs for first- and second-year students as well as transfer students. Some schools even have outreach programs for families to support student success.

Care at HBCUs is also expressed by making a post-secondary degree affordable for Black families. Tuition at HBCUs is often lower than at comparable non-HBCU schools. However, student debt is still a real problem for HBCU graduates. HBCUs often have robust financial aid programs and scholarships that are specifically designed to support Black students.

Culture and environment

While HBCU culture is inimitable, across HBCU institutions researchers have noted how they promote awareness of and pride in Black culture, Black history, the accomplishments of Black people collectively and individually, and Black contributions to all areas of life, but especially to social and political justice movements. HBCUs offer culturally relevant curricula and extracurricular activities, they nurture a sense of belonging in the academy and also in academic disciplines, and they provide students with an immersive experience of living in a community that both centers and celebrates Blackness.

HBCUs often incorporate a curriculum that reflects the cultural and historical experiences of Black students. This can enhance engagement and a sense of belonging and helps Black students connect with the material and feel more engaged in their education.

HBCUs also provide culturally relevant experiences to their students and alumni. One of the most beloved HBCU experiences is homecoming. The HBCU homecoming experience is so deeply rooted in HBCU culture that in 2022 the National Museum of African American History & Culture featured it in exhibits and events. Although this particular exhibit is no longer on display, it is a permanent part of the museum’s web page as part of the history of HBCUs. Many of the most memorable HBCU cultural events happen during homecoming, including step shows, tailgate, the homecoming parade, the homecoming football game, coronation (the official installment of the royal court), marching band performances, and halftime shows featuring music, dance, and the presentation of the student government association president and vice president and the royal court.

Political and social advocacy is also an integral part of the HBCU experience. HBCUs have a strong emphasis on social justice and activism, encouraging students to become advocates for positive change in their communities. Throughout their history, HBCUs have trained Black leaders, raised the consciousness of Black students about race issues, nurtured Black arts and entrepreneurship, challenged Jim Crow and other segregation laws and policies, and housed Black think tanks and intellectual centers.

Community and pride

HBCUs provide a unique sense of community and belonging for Black students, who often feel marginalized and isolated in predominantly white institutions. This sense of community is fostered through various activities and events, such as engagement with the greater community in which the HBCU is located, mentorship programs, and student organizations. Krystal Williams writes of this connection between the schools and local communities: “HBCU administrators and faculty members suggested that one of their greatest assets is generating a strong sense of connection to Black populations outside of the institution—not only to those in its immediate proximity, but also to larger communities of Black people.”

HBCUs tend to have strong alumni networks that actively engage with the local community and current students, providing mentorship, networking opportunities, and financial support. Lady Buds, a program based out of the Spelman College Office of Alumnae Engagement, pairs teen girls in Atlanta with an alumna member who mentors them with the goal of advancing their educational and personal goals. Mentoring Brothers in Action is a mentoring program that pairs boys from Big Brothers Big Sisters with college students who are members of three Black fraternities: Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, and Omega Psi Phi. The National Association of HBCU Students and Alumni has a mentoring program for current HBCU students, the United Negro College Fund’s (UNCF) National Alumni Council provides leadership training and mentoring to its members, and Divine Nine organizations are frequent partners for fundraising and volunteer work with local chapters of the United Way, St. Jude Children’s ResearchHospital, and the YMCA.

HBCUs often provide leadership opportunities for students, fostering the development of skills that go beyond the academic realm, including involvement in student organizations, community service, and campus governance. This leadership extends well beyond graduation. Despite their small numbers compared to Black graduates of non-HBCUs, HBCU alumni are overrepresented as leaders in politics and public service, arts and entertainment, business, the sciences, law, journalism, and sports.

Lastly, HBCUs help Black students gain a sense of pride in their university through several intentional strategies using branding and identity, success stories and role models, and engagement with history and legacy. While this pride is rooted in culture, legacy, and strength, it endures for a lifetime.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from A Profile of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which was written by Anissia Fleming, a 2024 student intern with Every Learner Everywhere®, and Patricia O’Sullivan, Associate Director of Strategy Execution at Every Learner Everywhere®.

The post What Makes HBCUs Thrive: Unique Characteristics of Historically Black Colleges and Universities appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“We see it both ways,” says Kate Sonka, Executive Director of Teach Access, an advocacy and professional development organization that promotes digital accessibility skills for the workplace.

“There are legitimate concerns about what sorts of ways AI is being used and how it might increase inequity, but we also have been hearing and seeing that AI could be used as an assistive technology. It’s an interesting thing to watch unfold, trying to parse through when and where we want to use it and how we want to use it.”

Teach Access supports instructors in educating their students about digital accessibility and in addressing the accessibility skills gap in the workforce. It was a relatively new organization — seven years into its work — when AI emerged in 2023 as a significant factor in technology accessibility.

When they began to focus on AI’s impact on accessibility in instruction, Sonka says, it discovered Every Learner Everywhere® and its emphasis on equity in digital learning, and a new partnership was born.

The first shared project between the two organizations is a forthcoming report that aims to uncover the benefits and concerns of AI in accessibility instruction for educators and for the students they’re preparing for the workplace. Teach Access is developing the report as a toolkit for using artificial intelligence to enhance learning and overcome inequities in accessibility. Planned for early 2025, the document will explore AI’s impact on accessibility in a variety of ways from pedagogy to how it can be used as assistive technology.

“As we consider the various ways our students arrive and exist in our classrooms, as well as the instructors, and just what it means to have today’s learners in the classroom, it felt like a great space to collaborate,” Sonka says.

Enhancing employability

Working with educators, technology industry partners, disability advocacy organizations, and the public sector, Teach Access helps to foster learners’ interest in accessibility. The organization also encourages educators to teach the skills required to facilitate accessibility in the workplace.

That emphasis on workforce preparation is important. More than 86 percent of Teach Access’s members surveyed in fall 2022 anticipated an increase in the demand for accessibility skills. Only 2 percent reported that their organization can easily find job candidates with those skills.

A recognition of the need for accessibility and the skills to help provide it can help job seekers qualify for roles in any sector. A software developer, for example, should be adept at creating tools to help those who cannot use a computer mouse to navigate an application. A marketing professional should understand how to create alt text that clearly identifies the contents of an online image for those with visual impairments.

“If we’re thinking about institutions wanting to create pathways, experiences, and opportunities for students to be successful once they graduate and leave our institutions,” says Sonka, “this is one of those pathways.”

Incorporating accessibility

The toolkit that Teach Access is partnering with Every Learner to develop will examine how AI is influencing the ways that instructors address the topic of accessibility. For some, that discussion might require 15 minutes of class time each week. For others, it might be a full module of lessons on the role of accessibility in a particular academic discipline.

“Even disability awareness in general, helping students understand that there are people with disabilities in this world and different ways that they interact with content and digital spaces, is a great place to start,” Sonka says.

Teach Access and Every Learner are also exploring ways to help prevent AI from perpetuating barriers to accessibility and equity. An instructor developing a lesson might use AI to generate text that introduces complex concepts, for example. Because AI provides text based on existing online content, the language might not be clear enough to be accessible for all learners.

“If you’re thinking about something like the carbon cycle and asking ChatGPT about it, you could continue to prompt it to use plain language,” says Sonka. “Then you get it down to the space where it’s easier to wrap your head around a concept of this level.”

While the Web Accessibility Initiative’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines site is an industry standard, Sonka says, its technical language may be overwhelming for faculty trying to make digital learning more accessible for their students. Instead, in addition to the forthcoming toolkit from Teach Access and Every Learner, she recommends that instructors and administrators refer to the resources on Teach Access and WebAIM for training, tools, and inspiration.

This exploration is vital, Sonka says, because of the long-term importance of AI and its impact on accessibility.

“We will always be thinking about accessibility,” she says. “And this really feels like a moment where AI is in the public consciousness in a way that will be here for a while. Both of these are topics we should be paying attention to.”

The post Teach Access, Every Learner Everywhere® Join Forces to Explore AI and Accessibility appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Over the years, this course has evolved through several different delivery modes — an in-person lecture format, hybrid during a period I was abroad, fully online both before and during the Covid-19 emergency and, most recently, as an independent study offering. Each of these prompted specific changes in my teaching practices. For example, lectures are entirely gone, and group discussions became a bigger part of the format, though they have receded under the independent study format.

I have also completely set aside the textbook I started with, originally in favor of adaptive learning courseware. Now I entirely use OER built into the Blackboard LMS. In general, I would characterize the course as a flipped model that prioritizes active learning.

With each of these changes, I tried to learn from students about what worked for them and to amplify that. For example, early in the Covid-19 emergency, I was surprised to learn how much students enjoyed the synchronous online meetings with peers they had never met in person before.

Now generative AI is creating the next set of significant changes to my courses. It’s informing not just the kind of work that students do in their practice activities, projects, and assessments. It’s also informing how I present information and create other learning experiences for them.

Their frequent use of generative AI has also led me to reflect on how to encourage students to determine their own beliefs and to take responsibility for their own arguments in the face of very authoritative-sounding generative AI outputs.

Using AI to develop course content

In Pharmacy Ethics we cover the foundations of healthcare ethics, ethical codes in pharmacy education and pharmacy practice, and social, political, and health issues that are grounded in pharmaceutical use. Some of those issues include IVF, medication abortion, end-of-life care, gender-affirming medications, medical execution, and weight-loss drugs.

The goal of the curriculum in this course is to have students understand the ethical standards of care and practice in healthcare and apply them to contemporary issues in healthcare. Related to this goal is for students to practice reading and analyzing legislation drafted with the intention of regulating, either directly or indirectly, pharmaceutical products.

Having the course as part of the independent studies division gives students more scheduling flexibility as they take the course online at their own pace — completing it within a single term — and there are no synchronous sessions to attend. However, it has not been ideal from my perspective, as it is now a solitary venture for the students and so much of education is social, involving students engaging with others who have different experiences and perspectives. Enrollments have been averaging 30-50 per term, so there were previously lots of opportunities for students to hear different viewpoints from their own.

Because I no longer have control over the course modality, I set out to make the content and the assessments as relevant and interactive as possible for students. In order to refresh the course to make it more topical and interactive, last year I changed up all the content and assessments, including by building readings and assignments around recent state and federal court cases.

To bring in those recent developments, I used Perplexity to generate summaries of legal proceedings. Perplexity is the best tool for this kind of work as it pulls information directly from the internet in real time and provides citations for its facts and figures.

I fact checked all of the outputs and sources cited by Perplexity and often rewrote outputs to make them more accessible to students who may not be familiar with specialized legal and medical terminology. Students always had the option to read the linked original documents, but the AI summaries gave them the quick overview they needed to gain background information for a case study or analysis of a court decision.

Once I had my content set, I used the generative AI tool built into Blackboard Ultra to generate quiz questions for each module. This tool is very useful, but not entirely reliable, so it was necessary for me to go through each question pool to verify not only the accuracy of the question and answer, but to often rewrite the question in a way the students would understand it. I also had to eliminate several subjective questions and answers from the question pools.

It may seem as if the process of fact checking and rewriting outputs was time consuming, but having built course content from my own research in the past, I found the AI-generated content and assessment questions a big time saver.

I tried to use Blackboard Ultra’s image generator, but the results were disappointing in that they were often fantastical looking or cartoonish rather than looking like photographic images. The image generator also required incredibly specific prompts that still did not hit the mark for the kinds of images I needed such as page banners and illustrations of specific medications covered in the course content.

Assigning students to use generative AI

I then turned to incorporating generative AI into my assignments. I created a generative AI policy for each assignment, so students would not have to keep referring back to a policy in the syllabus. Also, this helped clarify how I wanted them to use AI for assignments.

It was important to me that students not only use AI to look up answers, but to use it as a study tool or analysis tool. I created several assignments in which students were instructed to use generative AI for analysis or to investigate bias.

In one early assessment, I asked students to use an image generator to create an image of a pharmacist. They were to upload this image to the submission portal and then they were instructed to tell me if that image looked like them. Students learned from this exercise that many image generators default to pharmacists being male and white. When the women in the class and the Black and Brown men asked the tool to regenerate the image with a more specific prompt, “A Black female pharmacist” for example, often the image had problematic aspects such as the person sporting a stethoscope or being impossibly attractive.

In another assignment I asked students to use generative AI to create a 12-question quiz to help them understand the three ethical principles of healthcare. Building on that assignment, I had them input the Pharmacist’s Oath and to analyze it against the three ethical principles of healthcare.

Generative AI was useful in assignments in which it was otherwise quite burdensome for students to get information. For example, one assignment asked them their congressional representative’s reasoning for how they voted on certain healthcare bills. Not all Congress members put out statements following votes, but AI could quickly search the legislator’s website, interviews, and other public documents to put together a summary of that person’s statements that would indicate support for or against a particular issue.

Generative AI was also useful in helping students break down and analyze complicated Supreme Court cases that formed the basis for several assignments. This may sound like an area where high levels of inaccuracy would creep in. But most inaccuracy with AI stems from it searching its prior data set. It performs much better when you direct its attention to particular PDFs or webpages, which I had shown students how to do by this point.

Overreliance on generative AI

However, as we progressed through the course, students were increasingly asked to weigh in on ethical issues in healthcare. It was my belief that in the last third of the class, students would have gained enough insight to begin forming their own opinions on ethical matters.

But this often did not happen. I found that even when the assignment prompt was subjective in nature, students entered this into ChatGPT and accepted the output as their own. Sometimes students would affirm or adjust the alignment of their personal beliefs with the AI output, but many times they did not.

For example, one assignment asks students to consider the appropriate age for minors to make decisions about gender-affirming medications such as puberty blockers and hormone therapies. The most common ChatGPT output recommended puberty blockers at age 12 for girls and 14 for boys, with hormone therapies starting at age 16. Some students cut and pasted that output and added either that they agreed or disagreed. However, the majority of submissions did not include such statements from students.

This mostly uncritical acceptance of AI outputs is disturbing to me. This is different from accepting incorrect or invented outputs — now commonly called AI hallucinations. This is outsourcing matters of personal belief. Students were willing to present the AI output as their own rather than grappling with the issue or honestly stating their beliefs.

Another struggle students had was acknowledging their use of AI. Even though I told them clearly they were allowed to use it and that there was no penalty for doing so and no extra credit for not using it, they often failed to make a statement about their AI use in their assignment submissions.

I had to send several announcements to students taking the course about marking submissions as generated by AI. When students did finally comply with the policy (because I refused to grade submissions that were generated by AI) their acknowledgements were passive “AI was used on this assignment” or curt “ChatGPT.” Very few students actively stated “I used AI to help me with this assignment.”  In the next term I plan to add checkboxes to each assignment that allow students to say they used AI or that they did not.

I asked our Every Learner student interns about why they thought other students might hesitate to acknowledge AI use, and the interns speculated that even though students were told they could use it, they thought their instructors might think less of them for using it.

Putting personal back in opinions

I strongly believe faculty should be experimenting with uses of generative AI in their classes and be willing to adjust assignments based on student behavior so that instead of banning generative AI, they are teaching students to responsibly use it.

I would rate the AI overhaul of the class a success, but I want to encourage students to work more critically with generative AI. First, I will have them outline how they changed an output or, if they did not, why they made that decision.

Additionally, on assignments in which they are asked their opinion, I need to encourage them to challenge the output or adjust the prompt so that it reflects their actual beliefs rather than the aggregate consensus of the training set. I am working on rewording the assignment so that simply cutting and pasting the output will no longer be acceptable; this way students are forced to grapple with their beliefs against the ethical foundations of healthcare and the ethical underpinning of legislation regulating pharmaceutical care.

Overall, my experience suggests that the accuracy and academic dishonesty concerns about AI — which is where most of the discourse is taking place — are manageable. It’s possible for individual educators and students to take responsibility for checking the outputs of generative AI and to get better at prompting outputs. We can use AI effectively to support the hard work of gathering and synthesizing information.

The greater risk — what I plan to reflect on more and what we need more conversation about — is that students treat AI not just as accurate but as wise, knowing, or insightful. On complex ethical issues, students are exchanging their own voice for the convenience of an AI output generated by facile sweep of the internet.

This leads students astray by a logical fallacy, argumentum ad populum, in which they mistake the frequency of an opinion expressed online as worthy of adopting as their own. As we continue to explore ways to use generative AI in college courses, we need to guard against uses that result in students letting it do the hard work of developing an informed personal perspective.

The post Lessons Learned from Incorporating Generative AI Into An Online Ethics Course appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Drawing on WCET’s deep expertise in state and federal policy, Poulin and Davis outlined potential changes at the U.S. Department of Education, the possible emergence of short-term Pell grants, the impact on accrediting agencies, and the implications of recent Supreme Court rulings for how the Department of Education might operate.

Below is a summary of their informal remarks, along with some updates based on developments since that meeting.

The fate of proposals in progress

“We’re now in a fairly uncertain time, because the new administration coming in has not been super clear on its broad post-secondary education priorities, especially with distance education,” Poulin noted.

He mentioned that under the Biden administration, the Department of Education has been considering several proposed regulations related to distance education. Those include:

• Requiring programs to record attendance for every distance education course—in this case, “attendance” means preserving every instance of “academic engagement,” such as taking a test, submitting a paper, or participating in an academic discussion
• Classifying students in programs that are 100% online into a new category called “a virtual location”
• Adding new requirements for state authorization reciprocity
• Disallowing eligibility of asynchronous clock-hour instruction for Title IV financial aid programs
• Requiring that “inclusive access” textbook programs be opt in instead of opt out

However, Poulin said he doesn’t expect these proposals to be implemented, as they would likely be left for the new administration to decide upon. He also explained that it takes time to staff up the new department with political appointees (as opposed to career staff) and begin making decisions.

The new administration “might pull a few things out of this and put it forward, but we doubt that much of it will go forward, if any of it at all,” Poulin said.

(Update: Since this meeting, the U.S. Department of Education has submitted many of these regulations to the Office of Management and Budget. This is the last step before they are made final. Even so, they are unlikely to survive the change in administration.)

In a similar category is the current pause on the third-party service (TPS) guidance. A February 2023 decision expanded who TPS regulations applied to, which impacted institutions that use outside contractors. After public comment, the Education Department paused that decision in late 2024, rolling back the guidance to its pre-February 2023 state. At the same time, they indicated that they intended to revise and update the guidance in 2025.

“We don’t think that’s going to happen now,” Poulin explained.

The future of the Department of Education

Davis referenced the Trump campaign’s suggestion of abolishing the Department of Education and described why that is unlikely: It would take congressional action, and, even though Republicans will control Congress and the Executive branch, it’s unclear that there is appetite among Republican legislators to completely get rid of the Department of Education.

Significant budget cuts to the Department of Education, however, are more likely, Davis said, along with reallocation of duties from the Department to other executive agencies. For example, moving responsibility for administering financial aid from the Department of Education to the Treasury Department has been floated.

Budget cuts in the Department of Education could take the form of cutting specific programs such as those supporting college preparation or early childhood education.

An exodus of career staff that occurred during the first Trump administration could also be a factor. “I suspect that we’re going to continue to see more career staff retire or take jobs elsewhere, so I think we’re going to see a smaller Department of Education,” Davis said.

There has also been some discussion of reducing staffing in the Department either through reclassifying career staff as political appointees, therefore making it easier to fire them, or requiring all staff to physically return to the office, thus triggering a wave of resignations.

That in turn slows the ability of appointed staff during a new administration to make changes. “It’s hard to make policy and regulate and assess adherence to regulations when you don’t have the staff to do that,” Davis said.

Finally, the nomination of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education might signal attempts to reduce the size and scope of the Department of Education. In addition to being the former Administrator for the Small Business Association and a former executive of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, McMahon is co-founder of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has advocated for a reduction in the Department’s scope.

Other prospective federal government activity impacting higher education

Davis said he is watching how the new administration works on a few other issues.

One, anti-DEI efforts at the state level could provide a blueprint for federal-level efforts.

Two, there could be efforts to revise accreditation standards, including those related to DEI.

Three, the incoming administration is very interested in workforce education. That could result in “short-term Pell” — expanding eligibility for Pell grants for low-income students to short-term credentialing programs. This would require congressional action. It’s important to note that McMahon has penned an op-ed in support of short-term Pell.

“Previous discussions of short-term Pell were not going to allow distance education to participate in that program,” Davis said. “But Republicans are a bit more bullish on distance education than the Democrats in Congress were.”

Supreme Court rulings

Finally, Davis described how two recent Supreme Court rulings — on the Loper Bright and Corner Post cases — could impact distance education.

The ruling on Loper Bright reversed the longstanding Chevron deference rule that gave authority to federal agencies to interpret ambiguous congressional statutes. The result of the Loper Bright ruling is that agencies like the Education Department now have more limited ability to develop guidance.

“The challenge in all of this is that the Higher Education Act hasn’t been reauthorized in a very long time,” Davis said. “So we’re dealing with statutory language that really predates distance education and digital learning. We’re not going to have a legislative framework to govern higher education and particularly digital learning and distance education . . . . So unless there is a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act . . . the Department really is going to be limited in the sort of regulations that it can put forward.”

The Corner Post ruling has the effect of extending the period during which someone can sue to challenge a federal regulation. That expands the range of private parties who could potentially file challenges to guidance letters or regulations from the Education Department.

“It’s going to take a while for [challenges] to wind through the court system, so that’s going to be a very slow process,” Davis said. “Regulations are regulations until they aren’t, and the process for getting them struck down is going to be very slow going . . . . You may hear about [a specific challenge] but it may take two years for [the courts] to get to it.”

Change is slow

Ultimately, Poulin and Davis emphasized, the most likely thing is that the processes described above will limit the changes that have been floated, and the two Supreme Court rulings had the effect of adding more process.

“Any attempt to try to say where this is all going is pretty much folly at this point,” Davis said. “It always takes longer than they think it’s going to.”

The post How a Change in Administration Might Impact Distance Education: What WCET Leadership is Anticipating appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“What makes us unique,” DaVinci says, “is the combination of centering students in a digital learning strategy with evidence-based teaching practices. And we concentrate on the faculty and other professionals who most directly impact students. Our network partners deliver clear but customized guidance on how digital strategy can be implemented equitably in the classroom.”

DaVinci, who, as of December 2024, is transitioning to the role of Director, is so clear on what makes Every Learner unique because she has been with the organization almost from its launch over seven years ago. “The reason I stay with Every Learner is a passion for helping students and because the staff and partners have the same commitment,” she says. “We all share a vision of a world in which every learner has full access to digital learning strategies that support excellence in learning outcomes.”

DaVinci points to the foundation of resources, events, original research, and services programming the network has established over the last years and says it’s time for Every Learner to be better known as an option for professional learning.

“We are well known for our work with the current funder grantees, but we aren’t broadly known,” she says. “We have a clear reputation for equitable digital learning that a lot of the institutions need. One of my goals as Director is to make sure more colleges and universities are aware of what we have to offer.”

Hybrid learner

DaVinci is taking on her new leadership role at the same time she is completing her capstone project for an Ed.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University in a hybrid program.

“It’s been very interesting to work on this degree partly online, because some instructors use the evidence-based teaching practices Every Learner elevates, and I’ve seen them in action,” she says. “Experiencing it as a student, I see how faculty come off as thoughtful. It really does bring them closer. It’s invigorating to see these practices out in ‘real life.”

DaVinci also has an MBA, and her background before Every Learner included college teaching experience and new program development especially in organizations that support student success. She has over 15 years of grants experience, writing $35 million in grants and managing about $50 million.

As she puts it, her education has been in business, and her business has been in education.

First steps

Since her promotion to Director, DaVinci has been meeting extensively with the Every Learner team and with network partners to identify opportunities for progress. A key priority is planning for sustainability, in part by working toward the right mix of foundation support and fee-for-service activities.

Driving that is the need to be mindful about what institutions need. “That was a key theme in our staff retreat,” DaVinci says. “We’re effective when we actually support the institutions, the faculty and all the professionals who are most impactful for the students.”

With that in mind, one new initiative for 2025 is adding a new delivery model for professional learning services that allows faculty and other professionals to enroll in a cohort individually. Previously, all engagements involved teams from each institution.

She says the team is also committed to making clear the breadth of Every Learner’s vision. People who haven’t checked in on the organization since its earliest work might associate it with adaptive learning courseware, because that was the focus of their initial pilot projects.

“But over the years we’ve clarified our commitment to working with institutions to support all students through evidence-based teaching practices,” DaVinci says. “That was less visible in the very beginning. We’ve also gone through a lot of growth and become more collaborative.”

For example, in 2024, four new partners joined the network. Each of the partners contributes something unique to the mission of helping institutions implement equity-centered and evidence-based digital teaching and learning.

“I’m very grateful for their confidence in me, and I’m so appreciative of their work,” DaVinci says. “They’re all here for the same goal of making sure students have what they need to be successful. It’s so refreshing to have conversations with the network and see their commitment and their drive. I couldn’t ask for better partners.”

Innovating and extending impactful digital learning

DaVinci says the Every Learner team has a lot of creative ideas about how to make progress on their mission to help institutions implement equity-centered and evidence-based digital teaching and learning. In addition to the new services format in 2025, she says to watch for new courses, including some with experts who will help faculty with the changes brought on by AI.

Every Learner will also be launching a new section of the website dedicated to evidence-based teaching practices, which will heavily feature real examples from the field.

DaVinci says collaboration with new partners has always been a source of vitality and innovation in the organization, and “a lot of that comes from personal interaction during conferences. So this year will have a renewed focus on being visible in the field. After six years, we have a lot of learning and a lot of resources to share.”

The post Every Learner’s New Director Has a Vision For Impactful Digital Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Poulin had been involved in establishing room-to-room video programs throughout North Dakota. Because the state’s population is distributed thinly over a large area, the local joke, Poulin says, is that “North Dakota is a mid-size city with very long streets. So there was a lot of need and a lot of interest in distance education. One of the things that got me working on it was the need for healthcare in rural areas.”

In particular, that early distance education technology was especially taken up by nursing and social work programs to extend training to the distant neighborhoods of the state, and it was also an important resource for tribal institutions.

Up until then, most distance education projects were within a single state’s system, but in the early 1990s WCET was beginning to develop multi-state initiatives, which Poulin was brought on to support. “That was a fun short-term project that was only supposed to be a couple of years,” he says. “And now, 30 years later, I’m still here.”

Until Dec. 31, that is, when Poulin retires as the WCET Executive Director. In between then and now, he has been a leader in innovative instruction and student support, federal and state policy, and building strategic alliances to support distance education.

From margin to center

Reflecting on what has changed in distance education during his career, Poulin points to the significance it plays in education overall.

“Quite often it would be off in these continuing education units, and I’m not sure some of the faculty even knew it was there,” he says. “It slowly grew over time, and then there was more use of the same digital technologies in the regular classrooms.”

The Covid-19 emergency accelerated that cultural change, and “we’ve gone from this being this little thing way off on the edge to something like 57 or 59 percent of students take at least one distance ed course in a year, and that doesn’t count hybrid courses.”

Now most on-campus faculty are incorporating asynchronous elements into their traditional courses, and many want to include online courses in their own schedule. “Distance ed is pervasive throughout the entire institution now,” he says. “We don’t always want to acknowledge that and build the infrastructure to reflect that. But the demand is there.”

Poulin says another example of how distance learning has moved from margin to center is Every Learner Everywhere® itself — a nonprofit devoted, along with its 13 partner organizations, to encouraging evidence-based and equitable implementations of digital learning technology.

“I thank the funders for entrusting WCET with this important mission and serving as Every Learner’s home,” he says. “Of course, the progress can be credited to the hard work of the Every Learner partners and the dedicated staff.”

Changing use cases

Poulin says the term “distance education” itself points to how the demand for digital learning has evolved. At first it was about bridging distances like the 300-mile long streets in North Dakota.

Then it began to be valued for removing limitations on time — allowing people to access learning despite scheduling conflicts and irrespective of how remote the student was from campus.

Lately, distance education is seen more as a means to overcome institutional, cultural, or other barriers. A full-time student living on campus — with no significant barriers to distance and scheduling — might still prefer digital learning for other reasons. For example, non-native speakers or students with learning disabilities might benefit from recording or captioning features in distance courses.

Technological change — ubiquitous internet, smartphones, AI — tends to prompt new use cases. What’s evergreen, says Poulin, is that the distance ed field is on the vanguard and always adapting.

“Change has been a problem for higher education, writ large,” he explains. “We’re very much stuck in industrial models that go back to the 1900s. Whereas the people in distance ed always know something is going to change every year, and they’re ready for that. That’s a different mindset. They have an ethos of, ‘How do we get to more students?” There’s always experimentation going on that we don’t see across the entire campus.”

Movie stuff at the end

Poulin says he hopes to see a change in how distance education is represented in movies and television, where it is usually the butt of a joke. (e.g., A character’s online dental school degree in Wild Hogs. The comic villain Sue Sylvester’s online doctorate in Glee.) One recent exception he admired is The Whale, in which Brendan Fraser plays a housebound writing teacher who connects successfully with the students in his online courses.

Some readers may feel this reference to movies is an odd turn in the conversation, but WCET membership will recognize the homage. For the last 10 years, Poulin has concluded his email digests to the membership by sharing his enthusiasm for movies, often a review of what he’s seen recently. Sadly, with Poulin’s retirement, WCET will miss his upcoming takes on Wicked, Emilia Perez, A Complete Unknown, September 5, and the rest of the movies he’s looking forward to seeing soon.

Even more, the Every Learner Learner network will miss his leadership in distance education. Good luck, Russ!

The post Reflecting on 30+ Years of Distance Education Leadership: Retiring WCET Executive Director Russ Poulin appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“I was brought in as Director of Assessment as part of building up our assessment and data culture, because we are very challenged in that area,” Houle says.

“So there is a lot of opportunity for growth for us. Looking at the policies and procedures in place for data, the infrastructure around data, it has just been folks given a task and trying to make the pieces fit.”

None of this challenge was unique to Harris-Stowe, she explains. “Higher ed struggles because we collect data, but sometimes it’s not valid. Sometimes it isn’t consistent. And then we fall apart when it comes to sitting down and analyzing and using data to tell our story.”

The opportunity to work intensively on these issues came via Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success in spring and summer 2024, delivered by the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU). It’s one of a menu of professional development services offered by Every Learner Everywhere®’s network partners centering digital learning and equity. Harris Stowe State University was connected to Every Learner Everywhere® through their participation in Complete College America’s CCA Accelerator program, which helps  cohorts develop action plans to use data to improve student success and close gaps in college access and completion.

“This was brought to us as a way to look at the infrastructure of our data,” Houle says. “We grabbed it, because it sounded like a great learning opportunity for us. It gave us a catalyst to move into what we want our data infrastructure to look like moving forward.”

A safe space to improve in

Joining Houle in this project were 11 colleagues from institutional research, faculty, financial aid, The Academic Resource Center, Student Success and Advising, and other student affairs and counseling offices.

The group met with experts at APLU and Every Learner 12 times over 16 weeks, internally to work on their assignments, and occasionally with their mentor, Kim Brooks from Bowling Green State University. Much of the work was on getting better as an institution at collecting, organizing, cleaning, and, ultimately, analyzing data.

“There were scheduling challenges in the summer,” Houle says. “But everyone was dedicated to making it work, because we knew it was valuable.”

Building these skills with a goal of improving student success meant the group had to be vulnerable. “We wanted the world to think we are doing what we need to do,” Houle says. “But if we want to really see results, we have to open ourselves up and be real and have honest, uncomfortable conversations to show growth.”

She describes the professional development project as a “safe space” where colleagues can be transparent and work out how to make improvements: “Every Learner Everywhere® really created that space for us, along with our mentor. They said, ‘It doesn’t matter where you are. We’re just here to support you.’ They were great at not making us feel like we have to prove something.”

Related reading — Data Culture, Data Literacy, and Building a Community of Practice at Your College or University

Turning over rocks

For their project, the Harris-Stowe cohort decided to focus on understanding retention among first-generation students at risk of stopping out. When the group started, they were sometimes surprised at what relevant data did exist in different parts of the institution, such as the counseling office.

“We never knew that because we weren’t asking the right questions in the right spaces,” Houle says. “The process of turning over rocks was helpful. Saying, ‘Oh, wow. We didn’t understand we could do it this way.’”

Houle also says manipulating data to get useful insights is a particular skill that universities need to concentrate on. “A lot of times, folks look at data in one way and that will be the end of it,” she explains. “They don’t say, for example, ‘We’ve got 82 percent of students who show this. Let’s pull that apart and ask what this 5 percent is doing. Where are the gaps and the patterns?’”

In the case of the Harris-Stowe initiative, their data began to point emphatically to students experiencing financial strains as a major cause of stopping out. Then, digging deeper, student loan balances emerged as an especially important indicator.

Acting on those insights comes next. At Harris-Stowe, the university is developing more financial literacy programming for both students and their parents, including support for completing the FAFSA and scholarship applications. They are also being more proactive about helping students anticipate and understand their bills.

The university is also redesigning a collection of administrative offices into The Hornet Hub, meant to be a one-stop shop for students.

Of course, stopping out is also influenced by the classroom experience, and Houle recently devoted October to “assessment month,” with weekly workshops for faculty on understanding what institutional data shows about engaging and retaining students.

Related reading — From Spreadsheets to Insights: How Piedmont Technical College Is Building Data Skills for Student Success

Data as strategy

Houle says the cohort’s work in this professional development program has nudged along some cultural evolution at Harris-Stowe, making it less siloed, for example, and facilitating conversations and collaborations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

One of the strategic goals at Harris-Stowe is enhancing student retention through strategic interventions, so this program “fit perfectly,” Houle says. “We started with the mission and goals — the strategic plan — and said, ‘Where can we dive into something we should already be doing?’”

“A lot of people could go in thinking, ‘Oh, another, another project on top of everything else we’re doing.’ But we just put this together with everything else. I think we realized it’s not an extra thing, that it’s what we already do but learning to do it better. And that’s continuous improvement, right?”

The post Storytelling and Vulnerability: Two Lessons from Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

A new report titled Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers That Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement outlines one range of possibilities. The heart of the report is a set of 15 recommendations addressed to five groups of readers — institutional leaders, centers for teaching and learning, deans and department chairs, faculty, and students. Together, the recommendations constitute a playbook for colleges and universities pursuing equitable student outcomes.

The playbook begins with a detailed proposal for an ecosystem framework. It defines equity-based teaching as a commitment to designing learning experiences that address the root causes of inequity in education to effect long-term institutional change and to improve outcomes for Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Low-Income (BLILI) students in particular, and all students in general.

The playbook was developed by The Equity-Based Teaching Collective, a group of scholars committed to advancing equitable teaching in higher education. They are composed of principal investigators and team members across American University, Florida International University, and the University of Connecticut.

Below is a sample of the recommendations from Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education. In the full report, each of these is outlined in detail and includes illustrative examples and resources.

Cultivate a teaching innovation culture for faculty

Institutional leaders can operationalize change through a complex interplay of social forces, where routines and practices are legitimized, ultimately altering institutional values.

One example is working with faculty governance structures to improve tenure, promotion, and reappointment centered on equity-based teaching (EBT). Teaching excellence, including EBT, can be uplifted in these reward processes.

Galvanize efforts for broad-scale equity-based teaching

College and university leaders can identify key stakeholders committed to EBT and provide the structure, resources, and rewards to work across efforts to synergize and elevate EBT across the institution.

That can include developing authentic partnerships with community members and groups to reframe how we view community knowledge, support community-driven issues, and transform the university.

Build capacity for EBT through a multi-pronged teaching development approach

Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) can support faculty capacity to engage in EBT conceptions (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, understanding, knowledge) in conjunction with skill or product development.

For example, the Gonzaga University Center for Teaching and Advising uses a DEI checklist that centers on self-reflection about equitable teaching practices. The self-reflection asks faculty questions about course curriculum/content; instruction, assignments, and assessment; teacher/student interactions; and personal and professional development.

Create a culture of EBT development in community

CTLs can support a culture of EBT by fostering communities for different stakeholders. CTLs can become involved in faculty orientation programming, help departments build faculty learning communities and provide training for middle academic leaders across departments.

Faculty learning communities are low-risk settings in which faculty can innovate and experiment with teaching, share their teaching experiences, and provide and receive feedback. The communities, also known as communities of practice or professional learning communities, can be departmental or cross-discipline.

Develop an asset-based professional development culture of EBT

Deans and department chairs can support the faculty’s iterative learning about EBT by fostering peer collaboration, scaffolding faculty scholarship of teaching and learning, supporting faculty engagement in workshops and faculty learning communities, and ensuring that graduate education includes a focus on EBT.

One way is by developing a peer-based model of professional development that builds a culture of constant dialogue about EBT. For example, Salem State University’s Faculty Fellows for Diversity and Inclusion Program developed the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Teaching to Transform Initiative. Faculty in the initiative revise courses to center equity-based teaching goals.

Garner buy-in for EBT improvements with internal and external stakeholders

Deans and/or department chairs who wish to improve EBT but lack the faculty consensus to do so can leverage accreditation standards and professional/disciplinary associations that elevate EBT and focus on equity in student success. These external bodies can be good motivators for EBT improvement because disciplines are well respected and accreditors must be addressed.

For example, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) has taken equity-oriented positions with recommendations for institutional leaders and faculty to improve conditions for adjunct faculty teaching math, oppose anti-Asian racism, support distance education, and improve student success in developmental math courses. In these ways, AMATYC can be an important resource for math departments.

Improve your own EBT

Faculty can improve their EBT practices by approaching student understandings as assets, doing self-reflective work, and acknowledging and addressing the aspects of the teaching and learning experience for students that are not transparent or known, particularly for BLILI students. Students have their own forms of knowledge and lived experiences as well as their diverse identities, communities, and histories that inform what and how they learn.

Invest in and uplift your EBT successes

For EBT to be valued and rewarded, faculty should provide evidence of EBT improvement. This goes beyond showing the attendance of a workshop by providing evidence that EBT was used (e.g., via observation), that coursework was changed to be more equitable (e.g., examples of student work), and that student outcomes improved and are more equitable.

Use academia’s data-driven environment to your advantage by collecting qualitative and/or quantitative information about your students to reflect the impacts of your EBT course changes and improvements.

Students serve as a role model for equity

Students serve as important catalytic change agents for EBT. Students model their behavior after their peers, become involved with activities based on their proximal peers, and respond to feedback from peers.

In this way, students can support equitable practices in college courses, improve the classroom climate, train other students to engage in equitable ways, support students who experience bias, and block and redirect students who are harmful.

Students often serve in valuable roles that influence peer learning, such as teaching assistants, peer tutors, peer mentors, and peer-assisted learners. Therefore, they also need training, support, and development in implementing EBT.

Figure 4. Additional Ecosystem Actors

Students contribute to curricular improvement efforts and teaching training

Beyond sharing their voices as data for improvement, students can actively engage with their departments, advocate for needed changes, and ensure that faculty and departmental leaders hear other student voices. The more that students can be centrally integrated into EBT and curricular improvement efforts, the more likely these efforts are to succeed.

Other actors in the equity-based teaching ecosystem

In many higher education institutions, teaching improvement initiatives start with working one on one with faculty. Yet, decades of literature on EBT improvement show that the problem lies in an ecosystem that does not center the nurture of EBT as its goal. The full higher education ecosystem is highly complex and includes many actors. Communities, the state and federal landscape, disciplines, higher education associations and related businesses, and funders all play significant roles in EBT improvement in higher education.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers That Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement, which was written by The Equity-Based Teaching Collective.

The post 10 Practical Ways Universities Can Nurture Equity-Based Teaching appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Culturally responsive teaching at its best identifies actionable strategies to create a classroom culture that celebrates diversity, maximizes student potential, and makes meaning out of the evolving educational landscape. Culturally responsive teaching emphasizes the importance of recognizing and valuing students’ backgrounds, experiences, and identities in the learning process. By incorporating students’ cultural references, perspectives, and lived experiences into the curriculum, educators can create a more inclusive and empowering learning environment.

Humanizing the student experience goes beyond academics to focus on building meaningful relationships, fostering empathy, and supporting students’ social-emotional well-being. When students feel seen, heard, and valued as individuals, they are more likely to engage in learning, take risks, and persist in the face of challenges.

The intersection of culturally responsive teaching, humanizing the student experience, and AI integration can unlock the full potential of every learner. This approach not only enhances academic achievement but also contributes to students’ overall growth and development.

Culture and connection

Accounting for students’ lived experiences does not mean making assumptions about them. It requires inviting them to contribute in meaningful ways and creating a learning environment that makes them feel welcome to do so. It means asking them questions, getting to know them and learning from them. It means using what they shared and incorporating it into the course in meaningful ways.

Zaretta Hammond defines culturally responsive teaching as:

An educator’s ability to recognize students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning making and respond positively and constructively with teaching moves that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what the student knows to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing. All the while, the educator understands the importance of being in a relationship and having a social-emotional connection to the student in order to create a safe space for learning.”

The key concepts to keep in mind from this while selecting and implementing AI are:

• Relationship building
• Creating connection
• Creating a safe space for learning

Teaching inclusively means embracing student diversity in all kinds of personal characteristics — race, ethnicity, gender, disability, socioeconomic background, ideology, and even personality traits like introversion — as assets. It means designing and teaching courses in ways that foster talent in all students, but especially those who come from groups traditionally excluded in higher education.

To apply culturally responsive teaching to your courses:

• Reflect on culture as a cognitive tool
• Analyze how culture and diversity are portrayed and positioned in the curriculum
• Examine how students’ cultures and lived experiences are positioned in the curriculum.

Rockford Aguilar-Valdez (2015) developed a Rubric for Culturally Responsive Lessons/Assignments that serves as a guide to assessing an assignment on a few key dimensions of culturally responsive pedagogy. The instrument includes criteria for voice, differentiation, access, connection, higher-order thinking, social justice, and equity/decolonization.

Caring for the whole student

Students today face major challenges that compound as they traverse their degree programs toward an uncertain tomorrow. Not only do they have to learn how to navigate life as new adults and manage competing deadlines without the level of support offered throughout high school. They also must think about major global issues, including climate change, and about stagnating wages combined with rising costs. This often leads to heightened stress and anxiety.

As the Tyton Partners occasional Listening to Learners survey showed in 2024, some critical areas where students’ needs aren’t being fully met include:

• Basic Needs: Addressing safety and affordable access to education
• Psychological Needs: Cultivating belonging and awareness of student support services
• Self-fulfillment Needs: Unlocking a learner’s full potential with technology and supporting agency in learning

Faculty might respond to these student needs by assuming that support services across campus will handle them. But the students sitting in your course may not be aware of or using those resources.

For example, another survey from Tyton Partners in 2023 showed a 60 percent gap in the awareness of campus resources between faculty and students, with the former far more likely to say that resources were available on their campus. There is a clear disconnect, so what can faculty do to humanize the college experience for their students who may be struggling with significant needs?

1. Take pulse checks in your classroom. Ask students how they’re doing, regularly.
2. Remind students of the support services, regularly.
3. Encourage students to reach out privately, regularly.

Every Learner Everywhere® and its partners have published many practical resources on this subject, including:

• The Caring for Students Playbook
• The Power of Student-Centered Learning: How Listening to Students Can Improve Higher Education
• The Impact of Digital Learning on Minoritized and Poverty-Affected College Students: A Literature Review
• What Our Best College Instructors Do: Reflections by students about meaningful learning experiences

A college course is a group of human beings working together for up to 15 weeks on a mutual enterprise. Establishing a sense of community in the classroom helps predict whether your students will participate in class discussions, have high or low levels of anxiety, and even have better grades:

Engaging students using a variety of methods to attract their interest doesn’t mean you are taking on the work of learning for them or somehow cheapening your material.

Instead, it is an invitation — to take the initiative, to apply effort, to risk the daunting possibility of failure.

Engage students using a variety of methods to attract their interest and to excite them.

• Learn their names.
• Make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute.
• Work as a class on a shared project.
• Diversify your curriculum and your teaching strategies.
• Build community in small ways.
• Consider jumping off your learning-management system.

Humanizing the AI experience for students

According to the 2024 Tyton Time for Class report, 59 percent of students are regular users (monthly or more) compared to around 40 percent of instructors and administrators. It argues that administrators and instructors must align on academic integrity policies and expanding access to generative AI tools and training to balance their innovative potential to improve learning outcomes with the ethical, pedagogical, and practical challenges they present.

As some students struggle with access to basic technology, they are simultaneously faced with unprecedented digital advancements with the integration of generative AI tools into higher education. This has surged since ChatGPT was released, impacting policies, changing pedagogy, and shifting perceptions of academic integrity. We’ve also heard from students an overwhelming concern for clarity on AI policies.

As generative AI becomes embedded in education and the workplace, institutions must adapt to increase the value of students’ education. Administrators and instructors must balance the innovative potential of AI tools with the ethical, pedagogical, and practical challenges they present. Developing clear and inclusive policies, providing robust training programs for instructors and students, and fostering expanded access to the tools themselves will be crucial for harnessing the benefits of AI while maintaining academic integrity and quality of education.

One helpful tool is an AI-Assisted Learning Template developed by Mark Watkins, which guides students in evaluating their own AI use on a particular assignment. As he explains in an essay on Making AI Part of the Assignment, the template asks them to consider and evaluate:

• Idea generation and critical thinking
• Research and information
• Planning and organization
• Content development
• Editing and refinement

At Every Learner we’ve written that when it comes to AI and education — indeed, about all digital learning — some things remain evergreen whatever technology emerges. For example, “We will always want students to know how to use their voice and how to evaluate.”

Culturally relevant pedagogy and centering students are key parts of incorporating AI. These principles are how educators connect academic work to students’ lives, which increasingly are carried out in digital spaces.

Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from a presentation at the WCET Annual Meeting on October 9, 2024 by Emilie Cook, Manager, Digital Marketing and Communications, and Norma Hollebeke, Senior Manager, Network Programs and Services.

The post Culturally Responsive Teaching and Humanizing the Student Experience In the Age of AI appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Unofficially, though, faculty and others around the campus often request that Clamp pull specific data from the LMS for them. Running reports has been no problem, but that alone didn’t always answer the questions faculty were asking.

“I was in a position where stuff was at my fingertips, but I didn’t necessarily know exactly how to use it in the best way,” Clamp says. “If a dean comes and asks me about a specific test in a certain class, I could send them a CSV, but it wasn’t exactly presentable for them.”

So in early 2024 when the Dean of Online Learning at Piedmont was putting together a team to participate in Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success, she asked Clamp to be project lead for PTC. The college was going to build its capacity to manage, interpret, and, ultimately, use data, and the LMS administrator was often at the intersection of those conversations. Clamp also saw it as an opportunity to develop his own data skills.

Building an Academic Data Culture is a professional development program from the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU). It’s one of a menu of professional development services offered by Every Learner Everywhere®’s network partners centering digital learning and equity. The objectives for this program include building skills in academic data literacy, building a collaborative, cross-functional team, developing an action plan to enhance equitable student success, and promoting continuous improvement in examining data through an equitable lens. Piedmont Technical College was connected to Every Learner Everywhere® through their participation in Complete College America’s CCA Accelerator program, which helps cohorts develop action plans to use data to improve student success and close gaps in college access and completion.

Picking a project

PTC participated in this program between March and June of 2024 with a team of seven people including faculty, the math department chair, the associate registrar, and other academic affairs staff working on student success issues.

APLU began the program with a campuswide data maturity index survey, which Clamp says showed there was a low level of awareness across the institution about where to turn for data. “I think a lot of this came as a surprise for us,” he says. “So growing our data culture as a college was a big selling point.”

The program is organized around the campus cohort selecting a particular problem to work on, and the PTC team decided to focus on measuring the impact of a new set of courses that are being implemented.

The college had been in the process of replacing its traditional college skills class, College 103, which focused on note taking, test taking, working with faculty, and navigating college programming and resources. One limitation of College 103 was that it wasn’t relevant enough for every student, so PTC was forking that course into several unique versions tailored to broad subject areas, including business, STEM, public service and education, arts and humanities, and healthcare. One of those new versions had been piloted in spring 2024, and the rest would be launched in fall 2024.

The group from PTC participating in the APLU program decided to measure the impact of the pilot and to establish systems for the ongoing assessment of all the redesigned College 103 courses.

Related reading: Data Culture, Data Literacy, and Building a Community of Practice at Your College or University

New look

Clamp says one thing the group realized while improving their data literacy is that they could and should consider more than just the success rates — A, B, and C final grades — of a course. What they really needed to answer is for whom the courses were successful and why.

“Success rate alone just doesn’t tell the whole story,” he says. “You could easily have a very good success rate, but it’s still not a good class [for some students]. We definitely got more into the weeds of it.”

For example, they began to look at individual quizzes preceding the final grade and to compare those points in the pilot course with the same points in earlier terms. This meant activating an underutilized automation within the LMS.

Disaggregating student data was key to developing insights beyond the success rate. For example, as a technical college, the Piedmont student body includes dual enrollment (high school) students and returning students, alongside first-time, first-year students.

“Now we have a better understanding of how to segregate that data by things like dual enrollment,” Clamp says. “Are they doing better than our first-time students? How are they affected by this class? Also one of the big things we looked at was class by modality.”

For example, a unique feature of PTC is “teleclasses” that are broadcast to remote classrooms, which vary in whether or not a supporting instructor is present. The group working on this data project was able to point out lower grades in the courses without an instructor present.

Prepared for the future

Clamp says several elements are in place for the ongoing assessment of College 103 and to make the campus culture more focused on data.

First, PTC now has a team, an administrative structure, and a workflow in place responsible for data reporting that didn’t exist before.

Second, awareness of who to collaborate with around data questions is higher now. “Even as the LMS administrator, I didn’t know who our math department head was before,” Clamp says.

“And our associate registrar was able to pull data I didn’t know the college had because I had never interacted with it. The nursing instructor in the group with us had interacted with me before, but she didn’t necessarily understand what kind of information I could get for her. Everybody in the group understands now that even if they don’t know where to get the data from, there’s likely somebody at the college who does have access to it.”

Asked what he would advise peers at other institutions about the program, Clamp says, “even at an individual level, you’re getting professional development out of it. This is something that’s going to stick with me for a long time. If data analyst isn’t in your job description, but you want to learn, it’s an excellent jumping-off point. And looking at the college level, if you’re interested in just trying to make the college better, it’s an excellent thing to do.”

The post From Spreadsheets to Insights: How Piedmont Technical College Is Building Data Skills For Student Success appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

A new report from the Equity-Based Teaching Collective establishes a framework from an ecosystem perspective for how colleges and universities can produce equity-based teaching and outcomes for Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Low-Income (BLILI) students. Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers That Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement begins by defining equity-based teaching and proposing an ecosystem approach to achieving it.

The Equity-Based Teaching Collective is a group of scholars committed to advancing equitable teaching in higher education. They are composed of principal investigators and team members across American University, Florida International University, and the University of Connecticut.

The report then details 15 recommendations for institutional leaders, directors and staff of centers for teaching and learning, school deans and department chairs, faculty, and students. Each recommendation identifies actions for stakeholders and offers call outs — cautions to consider  — and call ins — opportunities to reflect.

Some of those recommendations in the report include:

• galvanizing efforts for broad-scale equity-based teaching
• building capacity for equity-based teaching through a multi-pronged teaching development approach
• structuring hiring and promotion policies to support EBT

The recommendations constitute a comprehensive playbook and are based on a landscape analysis — including 10 focus groups — to document the state of the equity-based teaching discussion within the research community, understand the lived experiences of those who implement gateway introductory courses, and identify promising policies, programs, and practices.

What is equity-based teaching?

Equity-based teaching (EBT) is a commitment to designing learning experiences that address the root causes of inequity in education to effect long-term institutional change and to improve outcomes for BLILI students in particular, and all students in general. Equity-minded college classrooms have instructors who understand that students show up bearing the weights and props of their history, and the ratio between the two can impact their ability to attain successful outcomes.

Instructors who understand that classrooms have not historically supported the success of BLILI students combat this by incorporating elements into their teaching that allow students to:

• engage in academic learning where they are represented in the curriculum and grasp how they can meaningfully apply their learning to their lives outside the classroom,
• cultivate a critical consciousness of the world, including race consciousness, and
• productively dialogue across differences.

Yet, cultivating equity-minded classrooms, especially on a broad scale, cannot be the work of faculty alone. This is a shared responsibility that requires an ecosystem approach.

Why is an ecosystem approach needed?

Achieving an equitable learning environment for all students can only come from change within an entire educational ecosystem. An ecosystem approach to equity-based teaching begins from the understanding that teaching and learning are shaped by and take place within multiple nested and interrelated contexts.

Enacting EBT thus requires changing not only what happens in classrooms but also the structural and institutional contexts in which education is embedded.

An ecosystem approach also recognizes that everyone in the ecosystem is responsible in one way or another for either advancing or preventing EBT. This includes those who teach students directly as well as academic administrators, institutional leaders, policymakers, disciplinary associations, and external stakeholders such as funders and local communities, as well as students in the educational ecosystem.

With this expansive understanding of educational stakeholders and participants, combined with attention to the multiple contexts where education takes place, an ecosystem approach to EBT aims both to address the root causes of inequity in education and to effect long-term institutional change.

Outline of the ecosystem approach to equity-based teaching

Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers That Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement outlines four tenets of this ecosystem approach. These tenets speak, respectively, to what education is, where it takes place, whose knowledge and experiences should be centered, and how teaching and learning need to be reconfigured to achieve this.

What

EBT first expands our conceptions and expectations of education and teaching so that education includes and goes beyond subject-matter teaching and learning, centering equitable policies, practices, experiences, and outcomes.

Where

EBT recognizes that education takes place in nested and interrelated contexts; thus, educational transformations must go beyond classrooms to include the structural and institutional contexts in which they are embedded.

Who

EBT seeks to center and benefit all students, especially those who have been historically marginalized, by representing, recognizing, and advancing students’ own forms of knowledge and lived experiences, as well as their diverse identities, communities, and histories.

How

EBT facilitates relational and reciprocal learning environments that cultivate caring and authentic relationships, redistribute power in both the classroom and the curriculum, and recognize students, teachers, and communities as education co-constructors.

The ecosystem approach holds all four tenets to be equally important and understands them as necessarily holistic.

Visualizing the ecosystem

If EBT is critical for improving course outcomes, particularly in introductory courses, then how could all students experience EBT in their coursework? In many higher education institutions, teaching improvement initiatives start with working one on one with faculty. However, this assumes that faculty and their courses are the problem that must be improved.

Yet, decades of literature and research on EBT improvement show that the problem lies in an ecosystem that does not center the nurture of EBT as its goal; therefore, faculty rarely have the time, motivation, knowledge, skills, support, or resources to enact EBT in their courses.

The full higher education ecosystem is highly complex and includes many actors. Communities, the state and federal landscape, disciplines, higher education associations and related businesses, and funders all play significant roles in EBT improvement in higher education (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Broad Ecosystem of Equity-Based Teaching Improvement in Higher Education

• Communities, including neighborhoods, local organizations and resources, and families, that surround universities bring valuable knowledge and understanding of higher education that impact how EBT is enacted.
• States have sociopolitical contexts, policy, and resources that can either nurture or thwart EBT. For example, policies that remove people doing equity work will make EBT improvement more challenging.
• Disciplines and disciplinary associations that reward EBT and provide teaching development opportunities can help foster EBT in introductory courses at scale across institutions.
• Associations like the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Association of Colleges and Universities play a role in training leaders to better understand equitable practices and help deepen the knowledge of leaders regarding equity support EBT policies in institutions. Organizations, like the Professional Organizational Development (POD) Network, provide support for teaching improvement in higher education.
• Businesses play a significant role in motivating institutional priorities. Yet, some businesses do not focus on equity and/or teaching. For example, publishers that produce material for courses, including courseware, do not always have equity at the center, so prices can have inequitable impacts, whereas certain courseware developers take equity seriously in their design. This is a key decision point for department and institution leaders procuring technology.

Efforts among individual actors, such as those above, are incomplete because they often operate within their domain of influence but do not cut across to impact the full ecosystem necessary for systematic change. Individual efforts that do not consider the broader ecosystem will not create large-scale and sustained change. Each aspect of the ecosystem and the aforementioned example actors provide a different lever for possible change. Yet alone they are insufficient.

Many higher education institutions are deeply engaged in components of EBT, but they are doing so in disparate aspects of their system. There is strong evidence of engagement with EBT policies that will give all students opportunities to be successful.

However, consistent with the challenges of teaching in complex ecosystems, the development and enactment of policies that activate enough elements of the ecosystem to allow for sustainable EBT are still slightly out of reach. As technological innovation continues, research on teaching needs to better reflect the ways it can support EBT practices. Also, institutions of higher learning need to pay close attention to the environment where this technology will be incorporated.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from Equity-Based Teaching in Higher Education: The Levers That Institutions Can Use for Scaling Improvement which was written by The Equity-Based Teaching Collective.

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But suppose none of the existing scorecards are quite right for an institution, program, or department. That was the case for online courses at Western Oregon University, says Dylan Barth, Vice President of Innovation and Programs at OLC. At the request of WOU’s Dean of Library and Academic Innovation, Barth has been working recently with a team there to develop a customized scorecard tailored to their needs.

“Sometimes there are nuances at an institution that our scorecards don’t address,” Barth explains. “There may be indicators that some institutions aren’t ready for and would need additional programming for, or they may want to add to one.”

Beginning in early 2024, he has been collaborating with the WOU Center for Teaching and Learning’s Seyed Abdollah Shahrokni, Instructional Technology Specialist: Faculty Development Coordinator and Dr. Amy Dawson, Assistant Professor, Biology. After their initial meetings, it became clear that they would benefit from a remix approach to creating exactly what WOU needed.

The remix process

Remixing works, because one advantage of the OLC scorecards is that they are openly available and licensed for the public to use. There are three standardized quality scorecards currently, and a fourth on reviewing courses is in development. The current scorecards are:

• Online Course Quality Review (OSCQR), a course-level rubric designed by Alexandra M. Pickett, director of Online Teaching for the State University of New York Online to help review and improve the instructional design and accessibility of online courses.
• Quality Course Teaching and Instructional Practice (QCTIP), which focuses on the delivery of courseware and helps evaluate the overall classroom experience.
• Digital Courseware and Instructional Practice (DCIP), which focuses on teaching by outlining quality indicators for building an effective classroom experience.

Barth and the WOU team began by engaging instructors from different disciplines to identify goals and to help them understand the existing scorecards. That process determined that an entirely new scorecard wasn’t necessary and that WOU online courses would benefit from adapting the OSCQR and QCTIP scorecards.

Barth praises the result for having two components — an extended version and a less overwhelming version with fundamental elements. While the complete scorecard might have 70 unique indicators, an instructor can use the introductory version to implement the essentials and ease into using a quality scorecard.

“If an instructor implements just those important pieces, it’s going to make a big difference, but then there’s room to grow,” Barth says. “It’s going to be an available resource, and training will accompany it in a way that will hopefully continue those conversations.”

That professional development supported 11 instructors who redesigned their online courses around the rubric for the Summer 2024 term. More professional development and review is planned for the fall, and WOU hopes to officially release the rubric to all instructors for planning Spring 2025 courses.

How online learning quality scorecards impact learning

Barth sees quality scorecards as a conversation builder based on a common language instructors use when discussing their work, “to get people thinking in the right direction, and to get where they need to be to help their students succeed.”

One impact is that those conversations start to influence more than just online courses. After instructors use the scorecards, he says, “they often come back and say, ‘Wow, I’ve learned so much about teaching face to face from learning about how to teach online.’”

Barth points out that WOU did not use a top-down approach for the remix. Instead, this process went to those teaching the courses, got their feedback, and eased them into it, making the scorecard optional at the beginning. They were able to discuss current classroom issues they hope to address with the scorecard, and, as the process continues, it becomes a benchmark for measuring improved teaching and learning.

Barth explains that a program of support is essential to helping people understand how to use the scorecard and help them through any apparent gaps. Creating the draft scorecard with specific indicators relating to WOU while separating out essential and optimal indicators makes it easier to implement it gradually across the campus.

“We know where things are going with these courses and what success looks like,”  says Barth, “making it easier for the whole campus to go that route.”

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That’s the focus of many of the programs offered by Online Learning Consortium (OLC), including three services delivered in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, Fundamentals of Quality and Equity in Digital Learning, Continuous Improvement Strategies for Advancing Quality Digital Learning, and Developing a Digital Learning Ecosystem to Ensure Student Success.

“In an online learning environment, we frame culturally responsive teaching as specific strategies around inclusiveness and equity,” says Josh Herron, Director of Professional Learning at OLC. “That includes being aware that learners are visible in the examples, and then, when they’re demonstrating their proficiency, that they’re doing so in a relevant way that’s applicable to their own goals, in addition to the goals of a course or program.”

Herron participates in delivering the professional development services with Every Learner mentioned above, and also helps develop customized workshops for unique cohorts, such as a recent program delivered to four tribal colleges that are part of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). Enhancing Digital Learning: Integrating Equity and Quality, delivered in summer and fall 2024, centered culturally responsive pedagogy in tribal institutions. The customized program emerged because AIHEC members wanted something with more emphasis on program improvement than the established services. Also, because the participants in the cohort are from very small institutions, they wanted more attention on long-term sustainability and capacity building for equitable digital learning.

Below, Herron shares some of the concepts about culturally responsive teaching online that he and colleagues at OLC emphasize in their established and customized programs.

Center equity, contextualize quality

Herron says he and his colleagues work with workshop participants to evaluate definitions of and frameworks for quality. However, they also caution against letting quality drive the bus.

“One phrase I use is that in online learning, we contextualize quality and center equity,” he says. “Quality sometimes can be used to lock folks into a certain way of doing things. If what we’re trying to do is based on equitable access and inclusivity we have to ask what quality means in this particular context.”

Considerations for equitable online teaching

Designing a course around culturally responsive teaching in an online context will reveal several special considerations.

• Power dynamics and identity. How students and instructors identify, the personas they project, and how they relate to one another can play out differently in an online environment than in person.
• Accessible design. The goals of digital accessibility for every learner will raise specific design implications.
• Community building. Instructors need to consider how to create a remote environment in which everyone feels they belong, are seen and heard, and matter to one another and to the instructor.
• Flexibility. Instructors have to think about times and spaces in which students work, and their personal and work responsibilities.
• Who the students are. Online learning may have more variation in the student body than traditional face-to-face courses, and a learner in their 30s who’s returning to college through an online program looks different from an 18-year-old first-time student with less work experience.

Designing with these considerations in mind “goes beyond the instructor,” Herron says. “An important element is a team supporting an online learner, just as there would be in any educational context, from advisors to mental health to career services. These resources need to be there specifically to help the online learner. It’s preparing folks who serve the learners holistically.”

More choices, more design considerations

One principle of culturally responsive teaching is to give students options for practicing and demonstrating proficiency. Digital learning technologies offer new and varied ways to do that — videos, podcasting, blogging, social annotation, or collaborative writing, for example. But that also raises new challenges around accessibility and design. Instructors have to think through how students have access to all the creative digital learning tools they could benefit from.

Herron also cautions against confusing convenience with flexibility. An asynchronous online platform may be convenient in that the material is available anytime, from anywhere. But “flexibility is the intentional part,” he says. Uploading the same readings, practice activities, assignments, assessments, and attendance and other course policies from a face-to-face course to an online format doesn’t magically create a flexible experience for the student.

“Technology allows us to personalize learning, building on the idea of differentiated instruction,” Herron explains. “We can actually get to a space where it’s personalized for learner success.”

Culturally responsive teaching in asynchronous formats

Herron says students will have different cultural expectations around using and observing non-verbal expression. Ideally, even a course that is technically asynchronous will have some times when everyone is together, at least on screen. And conversely, synchronous courses can use recordings of meetings to include more students who need to work asynchronously.

For online discussion activities in general, Herron advises caution. They can be useful for cultural exchange, for example, but they have to be well designed. (Every Learner’s Director Karen Cangiolosi made a similar point in an article about digital citizenship — that discussion forum assignments are artificial constructs and so can feel less relevant and authentic to students if not managed carefully.)

Asking is always a reliable tactic. For the recent AIHEC workshop, Herron says he and OLC colleagues began by asking how many synchronous sessions participants would like, if discussions would work in asynchronous threads, etc.

“Sometimes it’s choosing one and then giving an option for the other,” he explains.

“Asking for feedback from students is an underutilized element. Ask them, how am I doing? What should I start doing, stop doing, and keep doing?”

This is part of a larger perspective about culturally responsive teaching that remembers that people are involved.

“Acknowledge within the course, when things come up, that a faculty member is human and students are human,” Herron says. “Respond in real time, and use the online tools to keep acknowledging and celebrating.”

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A TCU is an educational institution chartered by a Native tribe that maintains, preserves, and restores Native languages and cultural traditions, offers high-quality college education, and provides career and technical education opportunities. According to the American Indian College Fund, all TCUs must meet three criteria: being chartered and run by a federally recognized tribe; having a board of trustees that is majority Native American; and having Native American students account for at least 51 percent of enrollees.

These institutions are known for their culturally relevant programs and higher education opportunities in workforce development, native arts and history, as well as degree programs found at other institutions of higher education. Often located on or near reservation lands, TCUs play a crucial role in supporting Native American communities by providing educational opportunities while aiming to fulfill the mission of tribal self-determination and service to their respective communities.

Our report, A Profile of Tribal Colleges and Universities, details many examples of TCUs prioritizing preservation and revitalization. The report is part of a series, along with two parallel profiles on Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The series was developed to help providers of services better understand the needs of these institutions. The profiles are based on current literature, government and advocacy organization publications, and conversations with faculty, staff, and students. A special emphasis of this series of profiles is opportunities and challenges of digital learning at each institutional type.

What are TCUs?

The first tribal college, Navajo Community College, now called Diné College, was founded in 1968. There are now 37 TCUs, with more institutions seeking to achieve TCU status in the future.

Source: American Indian Higher Education Consortium, TCU Locations

It is important to note that, despite being operated by the tribes, TCUs do not restrict enrollment to tribal members. In fact, TCUs provide critical access to higher education in areas that would otherwise be designated as education deserts. About 20 percent of students at TCUs are not affiliated with a tribe and do not identify as Native American or American Indian.

Many TCUs offer flexible learning options, such as evening classes, online courses, and part-time programs, to accommodate the needs of students who may have other responsibilities, such as work or family obligations. Additionally, TCUs offer tailored support for students who may face academic challenges due to historical inequities or language barriers.

Because of their relatively small size in terms of enrollments, TCUs offer smaller class sizes and closer faculty-student relationships, leading to stronger support and guidance for students. TCUs also tend to connect students with indigenous faculty, staff, and community leaders who serve as role models and mentors, providing guidance and inspiration.

In addition to supportive learning environments, TCUs offer curriculums that align with tribal values and goals. They often connect learning to the land and traditional ecological knowledge, promoting environmental stewardship and cultural understanding.

Preservation

Language is the heart of tribal colleges: TCUs play a vital role in preserving and revitalizing indigenous languages and traditions, strengthening both cultural identity and community cohesion. To achieve this, TCUs integrate indigenous knowledge, languages, and perspectives into their academic programs, fostering a sense of cultural connection and validation for students.

Tribal college students have a wide range of choices regarding degree types and disciplines to support their learning about their heritage. TCUs offer certificates in tribal management, native languages, native legal studies, native arts, and gaming and casino management. They also offer bachelor’s degrees in Native American studies, tribal management, native environmental sciences, native land and forest management, and tribal historic preservation and museum studies. And it doesn’t stop there: Advanced degrees include a master’s degree in Diné culture, language, and leadership, as well as a masters’ degree in Lakota leadership and management.

Because they are often chartered by individual tribes or affiliated tribes in a particular region, TCUs tend to have strong ties to the local Native American communities. This engagement helps build a sense of community and support for students, both academically and personally. TCUs encourage students to engage with their communities through service projects, tribal governance, and advocacy efforts, fostering future leaders. TCU graduates are encouraged and celebrated for giving back to their tribal community.

Revitalization

Revitalization looks ahead to future generations. Decisions made today regarding revitalization will ripple through future generations, determining their well-being.

According to TCU advocates and professionals Cheryl CrazyBull and Justin Guillory, TCUs have been the catalyst for revitalization efforts in Native American communities: “They became institutions in which tribal social norms, traditional practices, and kinship are revitalized in ways that are representative of the functional societies of our tribal past. TCUs believe that the social burdens experienced by our communities can be ameliorated by cultural restoration.”

By educating and training the next generation of medical professionals, legal professionals, activists, artists, business leaders, journalists, and scientists, TCUs are at the forefront of ensuring the continued and future well-being of tribal peoples, tribal lands, and tribal cultures.

Pioneering approaches that honor tradition

TCUs are increasing enrollment numbers and expanding campus facilities. Not only is the AI/AN population growing but so is the TCU population. What began as one tribal college in 1968 grew in 1973 to a coalition of six tribal colleges that formed the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, and expanded again in 1994 through the Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act of 1994 to 26 colleges.

TCUs are pioneering innovative approaches that honor traditional knowledge systems while embracing modern technologies. This dual commitment ensures that indigenous students can access quality education without compromising their cultural identity.

The journey of TCUs, from their founding moments to their current achievements, is a testament to the power of education as a tool for cultural preservation and societal revitalization. Moving forward, it is imperative that we continue to support and learn from these institutions as they navigate the opportunities and challenges ahead, with the ultimate goal of honoring the past, enriching the present, and envisioning a sustainable future for all.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted and adapted from A Profile of Tribal Colleges and Universities, which was written by Joseph Rendon, an undergraduate student at Fort Lewis College, and Patricia O’Sullivan, Manager of Content Development and Special Projects at Every Learner Everywhere®.

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Student engagement platforms document everywhere a student potentially interacts with the institution by observing logins, communication, and performance to build a comprehensive institution-wide view of engagement. They then enable analysis of student progress and manage interactions to encourage greater engagement in campus resources and activities. Some of these platforms power many of the chatbots, automated messaging, and academic alerts faculty may be familiar with.

“Educators may be familiar with the saying about students, ‘If they can make one connection on campus, they’re going to be successful,’” says Dr. Joshua Schwartz, Vice President, Marketing, for Element451, one of the vendors in this area.

“If they made 20 connections — either with peers in the classroom or their faculty or the advisors — imagine how successful they’re going to be.”

Individual platforms and tools can vary widely, but Schwartz says the best platforms share several common traits, including:

• Maintaining student success
• Ease of use
• Integration with other systems

Uses and integration

Some student engagement software platforms offer complete admissions-to-alumni tools that resemble the customer relationship management (CRM) software used in the for-profit world.

Others focus on student experience in the classroom, prioritizing tools like first alerts and peer-to-peer messaging. In that case, the most common experience faculty will have with these platforms is in the form of LMS integrations.

Schwartz emphasizes that student engagement platforms are effective only when they are actively used. While consulting with a community college in Florida, he observed firsthand the disconnect involved with students unaware of resources.

“They didn’t know where the Student Success Center was located,” Schwartz says, “They were hesitant to use the disability services because it was the Office of Disabilities, not realizing that it’s a resource there for them to utilize.”

Normalizing student support services is one way educators can make students more aware of the available resources. Schwartz also suggests utilizing student-focused language to create clearer terminology about support systems, along with peer-to-peer learning communities.

“That’s why when you see a lot of institutions utilizing these new tools and platforms, they’re also trying to leverage mentors to make them successful,” he says.

Challenges

In some ways, the influence of student engagement platforms on academic success is unproven. The algorithms depend on giving numerical weights to different activities and touchpoints. For example, so many points go into the formula if a student logs in daily, and so many points if they complete an exercise on a certain timeline.

But, Schwartz says, “The struggle is that no one knows enough to actually say, ‘This gets this many points to determine the true benchmark of a successful student.’ It doesn’t exist.”

Colleges also struggle with limitations on sharing data from different functions. Adopting new platforms necessitates united effort across the institution, posing challenges on a larger scale.

Because cybersecurity and privacy are so challenging, IT colleagues are often very cautious, creating long lead times for implementation.

“As a faculty member, if I want to utilize a tool, it may take me two years to get it approved,” he says.

CRMs present an especially difficult security and privacy challenge since they can include sensitive student information about financial aid.

Collaboration

In selecting a new student engagement platform, involving both full-time and part-time faculty in the process provides a valuable and diverse perspective.

Student engagement software platforms also enable collaboration for educators. In many platforms, faculty who notice a student struggling can trigger an alert to advisors, tapping into the administrative potential of these tools.

Coordinating an efficient and early effort to offer support is just one way faculty can mobilize to increase student engagement. Another example of academic affairs oriented use is through student admissions.

By using student engagement platforms, educators can focus recruitment efforts in ways they were previously unable to. If recruitment efforts are strong, says Schwartz, then those resources and attention can be shifted toward alumni or vice versa.

Ultimately, the key to unlocking student engagement platforms, he says, is through picking the right tool for the right job.

The post Emerging Student Engagement Platforms to Streamline Student Support appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

The tool might be something small like a single feature in the LMS. It might be a specialized software suite unique to their discipline. It might be a videoconferencing tool designed for the workplace that the instructor is creatively adapting for the classroom.

If we dropped into a class meeting during the term, what would we observe about how that tool is actually used? Most importantly, how would we see the tool deployed to address the equity gaps experienced by Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students or other learners disproportionately impacted by traditional practices, such as working adult students?

The answer to these questions is made vivid in a collection of personal stories from individual faculty featured in a new publication from Every Learner Everywhere®, The Impact of Digital Learning on Minoritized and Poverty-Affected College Students: 12 Instructors’ Stories. It presents short case studies from instructors at two-year and four-year institutions, including both historically white institutions and HBCUs, and both public and private. Their narratives include teaching in math, writing, and several sciences.

The digital learning tools that the profiled instructors describe using include those that have been available for years and emerging tools that incorporate AI. The examples include both OER and commercial tools and content, though the reader will see that, in the latter case, instructors often select no-cost options.

The faculty share their experiences adopting these digital learning tools to promote equity, detail the problems they are addressing, explain how they selected a specific tool, and outline the activities they designed. Nine of the profiles were developed from interviews from the profiled instructor, and three are written contributions from the instructor.

Most interesting, the 12 profiles blend personal narrative, testimony from students, and, whenever possible, outcomes data on retention, pass rates, engagement, and confidence and connection for students from historically marginalized populations.

Below is a sample of what the profiles in The Impact of Digital Learning on Minoritized and Poverty-Affected College Students include.

A lightweight free poll software for knowledge checking

In her Quantitative Reasoning course at Jackson State University, Stephanie Baxter uses the freemium version of Poll Everywhere to check student understanding during class meetings — an update to traditional paper-and-pencil knowledge checks. Students use their cellphones to respond to quick polls, and Baxter is then able to adjust her lesson accordingly.

One unanticipated result is that students “took pride in getting a large overall class ‘correct’ percentage for the Poll Everywhere activities,” Baxter wrote. That increased sense of community contributed to a decrease in fail rates for the course from 31% to 8%.

Using industry software to introduce data analytics

SAS is a statistical modeling and analytics software suite commonly used in a variety of industries and careers, so SAS On Demand for Academics, a free cloud-based version, is often used in advanced statistics courses to give students a leg up in the job market.

Wesleyan University, however, has incorporated it into introductory psychology and dual-enrollment courses, along with research methods courses. They use SAS to create short inquiry-based projects that teach specific skills in working with data.

In Wesleyan’s assessment comparing these software-based courses with traditional lecture courses, Black and Hispanic students were more likely to opt for the former, had levels of increased confidence similar to their white peers, and were twice as likely to report increased interest in conducting research. All students in the software-based course were more likely to enroll in another course focused on statistical concepts, applied data analysis, and/or use of statistical software.

Peer teaching by video to improve mastery

Nicholas Panasik Jr. has long used an innovative exercise in his biochemistry courses at Claflin University that results in improved comprehension of difficult material. After a period of traditional lectures, he has students each prepare their own attempt to teach a concept to their peers. The digital technology element is that students record a 10-minute video of the peer teaching effort they have planned and submit it to Panasik on a video-sharing platform. He then records himself watching the video and giving feedback to the student. The peer teaching videos that earn an A grade are distributed to the rest of the class.

On final exam questions covering material where there had been an associated peer teaching activity, students scored on average 12% higher than on questions that had no associated peer teaching activity.

Multiple benefits to recording face-to-face class meetings

Camila Alvarez at Indian River State College wanted to improve the success rates in her composition course and narrow the disparities experienced by students with fewer resources. Her solution was to add in some of the advantages of remote and hybrid classes even though it was a face-to-face class.

She did this by integrating the Blackboard Collaborate feature included in the Blackboard LMS, which her campus uses. Collaborate shares a course meeting online and records it for review later, allowing students to join remotely or to rewatch parts of it as they need.

The first use supports working parents or other students who had difficulty attending every class meeting. In Alvarez’s course, that resulted in the female student success rate increasing from 65% to 80%.

The second use turned out to be widely valued by all students who used recordings to review lessons and Alvarez’s directions for assignments. She said students even asked for access to the recordings at the end of the term so they could refer to them in the future.

Many tools, many approaches

As one of the instructors profiled said, “no single tool solved the problem” of equity gaps in their courses. Nor is their formula. Collectively, these 12 stories show that a commitment to teaching excellence and to equity must be complemented with experimentation.

With that, amazing things are possible with digital learning technologies, as the profiles also show measurable improvements in engagement, student sense of agency, and academic outcomes.

The post 12 Creative Faculty Who Put Digital Learning Tools Into Action And Improved Equity appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Culturas, comunidad, and intención emerged as central themes for our forthcoming report, A Profile of Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The report is part of a series, along with two parallel profiles on Tribal Colleges and Universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The series was developed to help providers of services better understand the needs of these institutions. The profiles are based on current literature, government and advocacy organization publications, and conversations with faculty, staff, and students. A special emphasis of this series of profiles is opportunities and challenges of digital learning at each institutional type.

What services does a Hispanic-Serving Institution actually provide?

The United States Department of Education defines an institution as Hispanic serving if it is an accredited, nonprofit, degree-granting institution with 25 percent or more of the student body identifying as Hispanic/Latino and enrolled as undergraduate full-time equivalent (FTE) students. Additionally, 50 percent or more of the students receive financial aid through a federal program. The number of HSIs grew from 189 in 1994 and to over 600 in 2023, enrolling more than two-thirds of all Hispanic undergraduates.

However, the “serving” part of the designation is misleading, as nothing in it refers to what the institution actually does with or for its Latino students, or if those activities are effective. Unlike other MSIs such as HBCUs and TCUs, HSIs were not established with the mission to serve the educational needs of the Latino community. For this reason, an institution may meet enrollment requirements to be an HSI but not be required to provide services for or preserve the culture of Latino students.

Excelencia in Education’s Seal of Excelencia encourages HSIs to go beyond enrollment numbers by analyzing the data, practices, and leadership in regard to an institution’s financial support, retention and transfer, graduation, representation of Latinos in the institution’s administration, faculty, and staff, and an institutional culture of serving Latino students. The Seal of Excelencia has been awarded to 39 institutions with several more in the process of earning the designation.

In developing A Profile of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, we interviewed students, faculty, and academic leaders at HSIs and determined that, while accountability is a key factor for institutional relationships with government and nonprofit programs, it does not characterize the experience of students at HSIs. Our research uncovered that students at HSIs valued experiences that celebrate Hispanic and Latino culturas (cultures), nurture bonds among and service to the Hispanic comunidad (community), and demonstrated the institution’s intención (intention) to serve Latino students.

Culturas 

Effective HSIs recognize the role cultural relevance plays in student learning. Many of them offer classes, programs, and activities that resonate with the diverse backgrounds of Hispanic students. Courses regarding Hispanic/Latino studies and Latino-focused student organizations can help Hispanic students feel included in their college community and make those desired connections with students from similar ethnic backgrounds.

Another factor in cultivating students’ sense of belonging is student-faculty interaction. Effective HSIs strive to enhance diversity among faculty and staff, providing students with role models who share similar cultural backgrounds.

Regardless of whether students feel represented by the faculty or not, overall positive student-faculty interactions are just as important for a student’s sense of belonging. Providing a space for Hispanic students to exist culturally promotes a sense of belonging and can lead to their academic and social success.

Promoting leadership development keeps students involved and connected to their college until completion. Student leadership also increases educational outcomes and adds to the students’ life experience. HSIs promote leadership development through fraternities and sororities, internships, and student groups and clubs.

Comunidad

In order to help students feel connected and part of a larger community, HSIs often have vibrant Latino student organizations and celebrate Latino cultural traditions. Latino student groups and clubs are often centered on Greek organizations; cultural, religious, and geographic communities; advocacy and scholarship groups; and pre-professional organizations.

Organizations such as HISPA (Hispanics Inspiring Students’ Performance and Achievement) and Latinx Leads work at the national and institution levels to provide leadership training and opportunity for Latino college students. Programs such as these increase a sense of belonging, which leads to increased retention and graduation.

During our research, student interviewee Marshal Saludo told us about joining the Latino Business Association on his campus: “That helps people with just networking, [and] gaining some experience in the professional world . . . . It makes me feel more confident knowing that somebody with similar backgrounds comes up to the same spot I’m going to go.”

Another form of campus engagement that can help Hispanic students’ sense of belonging is cultural celebrations, including Hispanic Heritage Month. These types of events demonstrate to Hispanic students that the institution values, affirms, and embraces them as an important population in higher education.

A type of cultural celebration that is growing within HSIs goes by many names, Florecemos, Celebración de Graduación, and Latino Graduation Celebration. This is a graduation ceremony tailored for Latino students and their families. This is a time when Latino students get to celebrate their academic achievements and their culture with friends and family. These celebrations and organizations help promote a sense of belonging to their Hispanic students and in turn contribute to the success of their Hispanic student body.

Intención

Through intentional supports and programs, students increase their self-advocacy, self-efficacy, and agency. This is why targeted support services and mentoring support are important for Hispanic student success.

A support service that can make a positive impact on Hispanic student success is academic and mentoring support services such as Puente, a program that services middle schools, high schools, and community colleges throughout the state of California. Its mission is to help increase the numbers of underrepresented students in four-year institutions and to help them earn their degrees and return to their communities as leaders and mentors.

Having programs like Puente creating a space for Hispanic students to be mentored and educated not only prepares them to integrate into higher education but also builds their sense of belonging in higher education.

The opportunity HSIs have to support every learner

HSIs are on the verge of representing a quarter or more of all degree-granting institutions of higher education in the U.S. The growth of HSIs is a direct result of the growth of the Latino population in the U.S., which stood at 19.1 percent in the 2020 census. That number is expected to reach 25 percent in the next generation.

The growth in HSIs is an opportunity for those institutions to become more intentional in serving their Latino students through support services, culturally relevant education, and cultural community events. This growth is also an opportunity for state and federal government agencies to increase funding to expand Latino access to higher education, particularly through digital learning-supported programs and degree pathways.

Editor’s note: The material in this article is excerpted or adapted from A Profile of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which was written by Jasmine Baldwin, Every Learner Student Intern and Graduate of Sam Houston State University, and Patricia O’Sullivan, Manager of Content Development and Special Projects at Every Learner Everywhere®.

The post What Latino Students Value About HSIs appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“People can take care of themselves a lot better if they have the education and resources they need,” says Fordham, who is part of the summer and fall 2024 Every Learner Everywhere® internship program. “I see how important it is to get resources to everyone and to make sure it’s efficient.”

Support for minoritized populations

Fordham is a senior majoring in health science on a pre-med track at Spelman College in Atlanta. She had a background in both healthcare and education when she began her association with Every Learner, with previous roles in both fields.

Through a previous internship and in volunteer work, the Charleston, S.C., native has been responsible for efforts such as:

• Conducting research and analysis to inform plans for community health interventions.
• Supporting efforts to ensure that Black women have transportation to doctor appointments.
• Designing a pre-health student resource hub, which provides scholarships, internships, and career development materials.
• Establishing learning goals and tutoring children to help them improve their reading skills.
• Leading group discussions, events, and mentoring to assist college freshmen.

Following those experiences, Fordham found herself drawn to other ways of supporting communities and improving education. She discovered such an opportunity in the Every Learner internship.

Educational equity as community support

Now Fordham is building on her previous efforts to advance equity and education. She and her fellow interns are exploring AI tools and their use in academia, with plans to share the results of their work with educators and learners.

For her part, Fordham is researching options for artificial intelligence tools that students and instructors can use to enhance audio communication.

By making AI and instructions for its use broadly available, the Every Learner interns hope to help erase inequities in the use of artificial intelligence to advance academic success — especially for underserved populations.

“Once the research is done,” Fordham says, “teachers and students will know exactly how various AI tools work. We will have already gone through the process of learning how they can use it, to make things easier for them.”

Lifelong interest in education, healthcare

Fordham has always been interested in becoming a teacher, but one job during her first year of college was providing direct care for those with disabilities, and that experience solidified Fordham’s choice to work in medicine. Her hope now is to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology or dermatology because those practice areas align with her passion for providing direct care.

Through education and treatment, she hopes to help eliminate disparities in care and improve communities’ health outcomes.

“What I plan to do,” Fordham says, “is to not only be in a doctor’s office but to also go out into the community and let people know how to prevent even having to go to the doctor’s office. I want to give them resources and educate them about how to take care of themselves.”

Broad base of knowledge

Despite her focus on healthcare, Fordham never lost interest in other academic disciplines, which has informed her perspective on helping underserved populations. She mentions Women’s Studies and philosophy seminars as examples of courses that have expanded her awareness of social influences and of how to critically evaluate arguments.

“These disciplines encouraged me to question accepted wisdom and consider different perspectives on the world,” she says.

“I understand there are some groups of people who just need a little more help, and that has driven me to pursue that interest more. In healthcare as a whole, there could be a better job of getting education and patient care into the community.”

A historically Black liberal arts college, Spelman encourages students to take classes in a variety of disciplines. Studying there has allowed Fordham to pursue her other interests, from education to the African diaspora, even as she concentrates on health science. She says this exposure to a vast range of academic subjects gives her the ability to look at issues from multiple angles.

Support for local and global change

Fordham brings insight from her broad academic background to her exploration of the ways that technology can enhance people’s academic experiences — and improve their lives. “This internship,” she says, “is showing me that we have to figure out new ways to communicate with teachers and students in schools and with everyone in the community.”

To that end, Fordham is cataloging details about each AI tool she reviews. She hopes the information and tips she and her fellow interns compile and share will spark improvements in teaching and learning and, ultimately, on the public’s well-being.

“If the work I put in makes an impact, even if it’s a little impact that gives Every Learner more ideas to keep going,” Fordham says, “then I’ll be able to say I helped the organization to make a change in schools, the community, and the world.”

The post Commitment to Healthcare and Education Equity a Perfect Fit for Internship appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Here I want to expand on a point I made in that earlier article — that understanding and teaching digital citizenship is mission critical to a liberal arts institution. If we believe college is a place for students to discover how they will make their contributions to society, then digital citizenship is not an enrichment activity. It is a primary area where a liberal arts education is enacted.

A liberal arts education is transformative

I assume most readers will generally agree that a liberal arts education is one focused on the development of a whole person. It develops a student’s ability to think critically, discover their own motivation for learning, find their distinct personal voice, cultivate their creativity, and empathize with others. And it does that out of a concern with how students will function in their environment and participate as citizens in a democracy.

To that end, faculty use the teaching of broad conceptual frameworks, specific content, and narrow competencies to prompt fundamental questions like:

• How do we know what’s true?
• Where does authority come from?
• How do we evaluate sources?
• How is knowledge created?
• How is that knowledge used to change the world?

Ultimately, activities that raise these questions change a person. One of the most powerful things a student can say is “I never thought of it that way before.” Another powerful moment is when they begin thinking about what they have to say to the world more than about what their grade will be.

In that sense, a liberal arts education is transformative. It changes students individually and enables them to become citizens who transform their environments. It shapes and empowers them to critically and empathetically engage with the world and build community.

Where the transformation happens

Increasingly, the environments and communities that require a critical stance and transformation are digitally mediated or wholly online. For better or worse, students are digital citizens right now. They are experiencing and contributing to the world through tools and spaces that include university LMS’ and courseware, text threads with friends and family, their own websites, social media accounts, online news sites, plain old email, and in the comment function of word processing programs.

Sometimes students are passive consumers in these spaces, feeding their data and time into the machine. Sometimes they are active participants, thoughtfully contributing their ideas and perspectives and influencing the tone and experience that others have. They are developing their own voices and amplifying other voices, and they are encountering trolls, rabbit holes, and echo chambers. Hopefully, they are consciously building their personal knowledge networks and finding communities that lift them up.

In any case, our students will be responsible in the future for developing the next generation of digital tools or implementing digital experiences in their communities. Imagine them in a leadership position a few years from now and deciding how technologies for creating and communicating will be used in their workplace. What values do we hope they will have in that moment?

Some faculty prefer to think of these digital environments as trivial or inauthentic and try to draw boundaries to isolate them from academic work. This is unrealistic and irresponsible. In the last fifteen years, we learned students will use phones and social media and create their own webpages with or without us, and we are already learning these lessons again with respect to AI. Students are not just using AI tools, they are creating them.

Trying to separate the digital world from academic work is also a missed opportunity to meet students where they are, make learning more relevant, and put the power of those tools into their hands. Faculty have always worked with students to learn to argue productively, to say ‘I don’t know,’ to be comfortable with failure, and to learn from others. Admittedly, none of those are the default mode in most online spaces. But that is all the more reason to equip students with a sense of positive citizenship in digital spaces.

Let’s look again at the questions I outlined above that are fundamental to a liberal arts education:

• How do we know what’s true?
• Where does authority come from?
• How do we evaluate sources?
• How is knowledge created?
• How is that knowledge used to change the world?

Answering those questions requires serious engagement with the environments where truth, authority, knowledge, and influence are being constructed and contested for our students. There is no way to empower them to transform the world without attending to digital citizenship — by offering them the tools to take a critical stance toward digital environments and to engage with empathy and a sense of civic responsibility.

Digital citizenship in action

Consider the example of Wikipedia. When it first emerged, many faculty tried to draw a boundary between it and academic work. Now it is considered a powerful tool that many students and educators depend on regularly. You may still have concerns about how reliable or appropriate it is for a given activity in a college course, but there is no denying its influence. That influence demands our attention if we believe our job is to help students assess and create knowledge.

I anticipate a similar trajectory with AI. It can be laughably inaccurate for now, but what will really matter is its influence. When our students come across something online that is incorrect, that is an opportunity to talk about bias, about productive engagement, and about our responsibility to create better digital spaces.

One new resource I like that helps start those conversations is the book Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online by Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg, which provides students a practical toolkit for developing digital literacy. Others I have used and recommended are the books and accompanying online courses for Calling Bullshit and Third Millennium Thinking. Both offer excellent frameworks for discerning misinformation and disinformation.

As the influence of AI grows, students will need the skills to assess their tools and environments — to ask who built them and with what motivations. Countering the algorithmic bias, inaccessible design, and predatory business models inherent in many digital products requires the skills that come with a liberal arts education.

Digital Citizenship + Liberal Arts = Students Empowered for Life, a case study in The EDUCAUSE Review, makes a similar argument — that we must ask, “how our everyday lives are affected by the integral role digital systems and networks play in our communications, interactions, policies, and practices.”

The initiatives profiled in that article demonstrate how the sometimes messy work of digital citizenship closely aligns with a liberal arts mission. It shows students using digital tools to question their perspective, explore unfamiliar cultural contexts, develop interdisciplinarity, create new works, and improve their communication.

Where our responsibility lies

Higher ed has always taught students to question sources, identify agendas, understand a diversity of viewpoints, and become alert to what informs their thinking. These characteristics of literacy, critical thinking, and analysis are the building blocks of a liberal arts foundation.

I hope most readers working in higher education will agree that our responsibility is not simply to deliver the content we are experts in and to prepare students for professional careers. We are also shaping the people who will shape society. We are empowering them to transform their communities. We are encouraging them to think about what they have to say to the world.

Challenges such as climate change and social inequities require engaged citizens who will go beyond reproducing existing knowledge, systems, and practices to questioning and transforming them. If we take seriously that citizenship of that kind is a key part of the liberal arts mission, then we have to take digital citizenship just as seriously.

The post Digital Citizenship Is Central to the Liberal Arts Mission appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

She soon felt left behind.

Eventually, Wolf decided to shift her studies to a major she believes better accommodates her disability, later diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — and to discover a fascination with instructional design. But she never forgot the confusion and overwhelm she endured or her belief that, with the right assistance, others with ADHD could avoid the same challenges.

Wolf hopes her internship with Every Learner Everywhere® will help uncover ways AI can make a difference in situations like those she faced early in her college career. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign senior is part of the summer and fall 2024 cohort of interns, who are researching the use of artificial intelligence in higher education.

AI for adaptive instruction

The Chicago-area native describes her first year of college as a time in which she worried her background as a student at a small high school with relatively few resources would put her behind her classmates. Wolf’s difficulty maintaining attention as she struggled with class material compounded the problem.

“If AI were more widely used while I was a computer science major, it would have been a lot easier for me,” Wolf says. “AI is beneficial not only for being able to look up information and get explanations, but it’s also really helpful for organizational skills. I think it can be very helpful as a supplementary resource.”

Without this type of assistance, Wolf struggled to adapt to instruction that she says wasn’t a good match for her learning style.

Social, technical aspects of AI

Wolf found a better fit when she changed her major at Illinois to learning and education studies, with a concentration in digital environments for learning, teaching, and agency. She is minoring in informatics and disability studies.

She also has worked with her university’s Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning, discovering how instruction can accommodate the various ways students learn. Additionally, she has conducted research about how technology can facilitate these efforts to provide equitable instruction.

“I like to think that what I am studying is everything that’s being researched in the internship,” Wolf says. “I have the social and technical background of technology as well as an interest in underrepresented groups. It was a good introduction to what I’m working on.”

Tech education for educators

Wolf’s work in the Every Learner internship focuses on text-generative AI — the tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity that college instructors most frequently encounter, she says.

Too often, however, these AI tools also are a source of confusion for faculty who want to incorporate them into their lessons. And that confusion can prevent them from capitalizing on AI’s potential for adapting instruction to students’ needs.

She and her fellow interns are working to help college instructors overcome any uncertainty they have about the use of AI. The group’s research will inform an AI toolkit that faculty and learners can use to make the best use of the technology.

“It’s really important for faculty to have at least some kind of understanding as to how AI should be used in class before they actually implement it,” Wolf says. “And we’re in a weird transitional period where the students are often smarter about it than the professors because we are digital natives, and we understand technology in a way that our professors don’t.”

Emphasis on advancing mission

Although her own experiences ignited her passion for adaptive instruction, Wolf says her mother — on the faculty of College of Lake County’s Grayslake, Ill., campus — was familiar with Achieving the Dream, one of Every Learner’s network partners. Wolf was impressed with the network’s contributions to the community college’s efforts to promote equitable student success.

“The mission of providing better learning for everyone, regardless of their demographics or ability, is exactly what I wanted,” she says.

Wolf also hopes to set the stage for her own future academic and career endeavors in education equity. She’d like to pursue a master’s degree in instructional design, and she’s considering a career path in nonprofit work or research.

“I’m just trying to get as much experience as I can within the field,” she says, “to see what’s the best way for me to continue my passion of helping to improve the state of higher education. The biggest goal is just to make sure that learning is accessible for everyone.”

The post Intern’s Mission Is to Make Learning Accessible to Everyone appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Accessibility in digital learning is one of the lead themes of Tyton Partners’ Time for Class 2024 report, Unlocking Access to Effective Digital Teaching and Learning. The newest edition of the annual research report emphasizes the impact of digital learning infrastructure on the ability of students, faculty, and administrators to benefit from the potential of technology.

As the introduction to the report lays out, digital learning is now a fundamental part of higher education — there has been no change in direction since the Covid emergency — but “the promise of digital learning to increase access to education is not being fully realized.”

Tyton Partners’ Managing Director Catherine Shaw, a co-author of the report, says “We’re trying to point out some of the gaps between an institutional perspective and the learner experience in service of improving the outcomes and closing those gaps.”

This year’s Time for Class report surveyed over 3,000 higher education administrators, faculty, and students on topics in digital learning including connectivity, modality, and AI.

Infrastructure

One of the largest challenges to effective digital learning is adequate infrastructure. Limited and unequal access to telecom services, hardware, and software hinder students’ participation in this growing part of the university experience.

Disconnects between faculty and students exacerbate the accessibility gap, a topic covered in last year’s Time for Class report, Bridging Student and Faculty Perspectives on Digital Learning. This year’s survey found one-third of instructors shared concerns about student access to technology. But half the students surveyed experience stress from unstable internet and lack of access to software and devices.

Students tend to prefer digital learning, says Shaw, while faculty prefer the traditional face-to-face classroom experience. For example, as Figure 3 in the report shows, 28 percent of students prefer hybrid compared to only 10 percent of instructors.

Figure 3, Time for Class 2024

These differences in perspective or awareness create unnecessary barriers to student success, some of which can be alleviated by informed faculty. “We’re not meeting students where they are and not providing students with the infrastructure needed to meet their learning preferences,” Shaw says. “How can institutions better prepare or recruit faculty to teach online?”

Unlocking the promise of digital learning

Time for Class 2024 points out that while reliance on technology has increased in recent years, many instructors feel lack of familiarity with data is limiting the way they teach with it. Only 37 percent of faculty surveyed say professional development at their institution focuses on evidence-based teaching practices.

In fact, only 11 percent of instructors reported seeing course-level data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, or financial need. Shaw says that indicates a missed opportunity to increase equity practices in digital learning and better understand students.

“We’re missing out on the potential here,” she says. “We have all this data that lets us ask what we can do to make sure our outcomes are equitable.”

For example, Shaw says, referring to Figure 16 in the report, “We still don’t understand some basic things about our students.”

That is a challenge reinforced in other reports from Tyton, such as Driving Toward a Degree, that show that academic advisors are often working with limited data-informed insights about their students.

Figure 16, Time for Class

Still, Shaw says, “We remain optimistic. We wouldn’t spend our time understanding this ecosystem and tracking the trends if we didn’t think there are viable ways forward to unlock more equitable access to digital learning.”

Generative AI

Students and faculty also vary in their attitudes toward generative AI’s place in the classroom. The survey found students were more likely to embrace and practice with new AI technology, leaving faculty and administrators to play catch up.

“You’ve got student use leading faculty use and administrator familiarity with these tools,” Shaw says. “That disconnect is creating a need for institutions to be clearer about their policy.”

According to the respondents surveyed, 36 percent of instructors and 25 percent of administrators still have not tried generative AI tools, while almost 60 percent of students are regular users, defined as using it once a month or more. Interestingly, almost half of those students opted for paid AI solutions over free versions.

Faculty who used AI tools were less concerned about academic integrity than faculty who had never used it. Similarly, instructors who use generative AI at least once a month were more likely to believe it will have a positive impact on student learning than instructors who do not use it.

The important question, says Shaw, is “Do you believe students will or will not need to know how to use these tools for their future jobs and careers?”

Because of the implications for career success after graduation, Shaw stresses that institutions need to develop clear policies on generative AI. “It’s going to change the lifelong learning journey of students, and we want to make folks aware of that,” she says.

“That’s probably why older students [in the survey] or students who are working already are using these tools. They’re using it for work. Without learning about it, students will flounder.”

About Tyton Partners

Tyton Partners is the leading provider of strategy consulting and investment banking services to the global knowledge and information services sector. With offices in Boston and New York City, the firm has an experienced team of bankers and consultants who deliver a unique spectrum of services from mergers and acquisitions and capital markets access to strategy development that helps companies, organizations, and investors navigate the complexities of the education, media, and information markets. Tyton Partners leverages a deep foundation of transactional and advisory experience and an unparalleled level of global relationships to make its clients’ aspirations a reality and to catalyze innovation in the sector. Learn more at tytonpartners.com.

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Hamilton’s parents stressed the importance of education throughout her childhood and played an active role in the Baltimore City Public Schools community and as leaders in school parent groups. As an aspiring first-generation college student, however, Hamilton says she lacked insight about how to pursue her higher education dreams — especially when it came to finding ways to pay for that pursuit.

This year Hamilton will be a sophomore at Fisk University, a private historically black college in Nashville, where she majors in political science and music. She has served as a Student Government Association senator and is currently a Fisk University Student Ambassador. She points to herself as an example of a student for whom accessing higher education came with a steep learning curve.

“I talk a lot about not only racial and ethnic diversity but also economic diversity,” says Hamilton.

“Something that’s really important for people who don’t come from a high economic status is that they have people doing the work to figure out how to make their experience a little bit easier for them.”

Now Hamilton is channeling her passion for removing those inequities into her role as a summer and fall 2024 Every Learner Everywhere® student intern.

“My goal,” Hamilton says of her internship work as well as her poli-sci studies, “is to make sure people are not left behind.”

Digital tools as equalizer

The Every Learner Everywhere® student internship gives Hamilton the opportunity to promote the educational equity that has become a priority in her life. She and the rest of the team of interns are researching and testing AI tools, with the goal of producing a toolkit that provides instructions and outlines best practices for the use of artificial intelligence in higher education.

Hamilton believes widespread understanding of AI will be key in providing equal opportunity to students.

“As a community and globally, we’re just moving so quickly,” she says. “I think this work can contribute to my intention and my passion to make sure people have the information they need, so they’re not discouraged.”

Broad support for underserved populations

As a student at a historically black college, Hamilton is keenly aware of the role equal access to information and other resources can play in supporting HBCUs. But she and her fellow interns also are exploring ways to promote equity for underserved populations at other postsecondary schools, including Tribal Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.

“How can we make sure we’re showing up in that space, and not just for HBCUs but also for other institutions that dedicate themselves to the minority in the United States?” she says. “That’s something we’re definitely highlighting.”

Value of diverse backgrounds

Hamilton’s career plans center on public policy with the hope of one day becoming an attorney, and music also is a priority for her. She has been playing clarinet since elementary school, and at Fisk, she performs in the Music City Sound Marching Band.

Following her interest in policy has given her the subject matter knowledge she will need to pursue her chosen career, and she says music has provided interpersonal skills and networking opportunities that will be important in her future.

“Working in law or policy, there’s a lot of academic background behind that, of course, but I think there needs to be a lot of connection between people and music,” Hamilton says. “I definitely feel that it’s important to nurture a passion for music as part of my personal journey. It teaches you a lot even when you’re not using that skill directly.”

Emphasis on student impact

Hamilton says her variety of interests and skills is a hallmark of the intern group this year, as each of her colleagues brings unique skills to the program, collectively providing a diverse set of talents and viewpoints as the group explores AI and its applications in higher ed.

While she is looking forward to developing her own skills and perspective about AI during the internship, Hamilton is focused more on how the project helps others.

“I feel like education is less about personal gain and more about impact,” she says. “I will feel 100 percent confident that it was all worth it and that I had a good experience if someone feels this is useful to them, or if they’re inspired by the work we do.”

The post Quest for Educational Equity at Heart of Intern’s Goals appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

State policymakers’ awareness about and existing support for OER varies from state to state. This can make it complicated to scale open education, says Dr. Liliana Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE).

“You have states with very different contexts,” she said. “In some states, there are already robust state supports to help further open education. In states where OER is still developing, the extent and type of policymaker engagement should be appropriate to the specific context and state needs, but often we see that resources (both financial and human) are a key need.”

How can educators get involved in OER policy?

Diaz says there is a lot of opportunity to advance OER by leading conversations with policymakers: “That’s when the magic happens, because policy has been informed by those who are really invested in making sure it’s successful.”

Faculty and administrators are also successful when they highlight for policymakers the ways in which OER and open education can be a tool to meet state goals and institutional objectives. In Diaz’s experience, practitioner-driven efforts that coalesce into statewide initiatives create the strongest OER policies.

She points to Colorado, where the state’s open education community came together to identify their needs and decide how they wanted to communicate those needs to state leaders. By working with the Colorado Department of Higher Education, the open education community was able to influence the creation of policies, legislation, and appropriations.

WICHE developed the OERwest Network to facilitate connections and build a network of practitioners and champions across institutions, systems, and state lines to engage in professional development, shared learning and resources, and foster cooperation. One benefit is learning how peers have been effective with policymakers in states where governance styles vary.

WICHE works with the other multi-state compacts like the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, the New England Board of Higher Education, and the Southern Regional Education Board to elevate best practices and on mutually beneficial projects under a collaboration named the National Consortium for Open Educational Resources. That enables them to explore how OER policies are written in legislation and to share best examples of policies that support OER.

WICHE also hosts webinars about using and promoting open educational resources, several of which are archived on their OER resource page.

“The community just needs the financial support to be able to continue and expand the work that’s already happening,” says Diaz, “because there is a lot of open education work being done by people who believe in the benefits of OER.”

Many educators want to see state and university system leaders put funds aside to support that work either through appropriations or creating a budget line item for open education in higher education.

Communicate academic benefits of OER

While practitioners have already made many successful arguments about OER making college more affordable for students, Diaz says there’s a stronger case to be made. She and other advocates want to increase the evidence demonstrating the academic effectiveness of OER.

One notable study showed that students in courses with free materials do better academically than those who do not have free materials. However, more quality research is needed to convince policymakers of the importance of open education.

WICHE is attempting to fill that gap by partnering with practitioners to better understand the impacts of OER. In 2023, WICHE conducted a soon-to-be-published pilot study that compared completion rates for students who participated in no-cost/low-cost courses vs. students who participated in courses requiring traditional materials and other resources. Diaz says the pilot study showed that students in no-cost/low-cost courses are more likely to complete their credentials, and this year WICHE plans to work with a wider research group to conduct a national study.

A challenge of this research is that not all courses using open resources are marked that way in catalogs or learning management systems. When they are, those course designations aren’t standardized. Depending on the school or the state, institutions might mark a course as OER, No-Cost/ Low-Cost, or ZTC, meaning Zero Textbook Cost.

The definition of “low cost” also varies. Some schools use a $40 threshold to define low-cost course materials. Others use a $20 threshold.

That variability “is a challenge because we want to communicate student outcomes to legislators,” Diaz says. “If we don’t have that empirical evidence, it’s very difficult to convince a policymaker to appropriate money for this amazing program.”

The post What Is Needed in OER Policy? Funding, Research, and Practitioner-Led Policy appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Greene-Noble, a sophomore at the University of Mississippi, says, “For years, AI kind of scared me. There are so many things that are unknown about it. It all boils down to just being educated on the topic. If we can reach everybody, we can level the playing field.”

In February 2024 Greene-Noble accepted an invitation to participate in a webinar about AI in higher education. The conversations in that Every Learner event — and two others about technology — sparked her interest in how students and educators are using AI to support their academic pursuits.

So when she got the opportunity to participate in an internship with Every Learner that focuses on AI guidance for students and faculty, she jumped at the chance.

A nonlinear educational path

Greene-Noble’s work with Every Learner Everywhere® is the latest step in an education and career-training journey that has been anything but linear. As a high school senior, in fact, she was unsure if she wanted to go to college, and she wrestled with the question of her future path.

When Greene-Noble’s interest in education and certainty about her future waned, it was her family’s support — in word and deed — that set her on her current course.

One of her grandfathers and mother encouraged her to give college a try. Her other grandfather nurtured her longtime interest in flying by taking her to aviation museums and air shows, also guided her toward piloting introductory flights.

“I wanted to do something with my life,” says Greene-Noble, who grew up in Michigan and Florida. “They said, ‘You know you can do this. We’ve all seen what you can do. You’re stronger than you think.’”

Soon Greene-Noble began to believe her family’s words. She enrolled at Ole Miss, committed to completing her coursework in three years, and is planning on an accelerated program in aviation training. She takes classes year-round while also participating in campus activities and employment opportunities, working for offices like Student Housing and the Writing Center.

Greene-Noble frequently cites the words of encouragement from her mother that see her through her most challenging times: “You’ve got a fire lit under you. You’ve got to keep it moving.”  Greene-Noble took that to mean both for herself and others.

A model for student success

Now Greene-Noble hopes to extend the support her family provided to help other students gain the confidence to succeed.

One way to provide that assistance, she says, is to ensure that all students have access to tools that make it easier for them to complete their coursework.

She feels, when used correctly, AI tools like grammar checkers and chatbots can help students with academic work such as research and editing.

Equally important is educating students about how and when to use these tools — and what’s appropriate in relying on AI in a higher education setting. Students, Greene-Noble says, should not be left to wonder if their use of artificial intelligence is in line with their institutions’ expectations and whether their actions might be putting their academic future at risk.

She hopes the instructional materials about AI she and her fellow interns are preparing will be a resource not only for students but also for the faculty and administrators who lead them. To that end, the goal is to start by teaching professors about AI, so they can offer their students guidance about the use of these tools in college coursework.

“It really starts with whether the professors are educated on it,” she says. “You can have a fantastic professor. But if that professor has an assignment that introduces AI and doesn’t know enough about it, then how are the students supposed to know about it?”

Learning while teaching others

While Greene-Noble hopes her research will benefit students and faculty and advance educational equity in the future, her work is already paying dividends she believes will make a long-term impact on her own studies and career. She points to the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that come from helping others in their academic journey.

“If we can reach everybody at different kinds of universities, I think it will make a big difference,” she says. “But I still have so much to learn, and that’s the whole point of the project. We can learn together and hopefully help others.”

The post Research Assistant: Demystifying AI Can Help Level the Higher Education Playing Field appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

The newest generation of technology, of course, is generative AI. It is raising challenging questions for faculty and students about “keeping up,” authenticity, integrity, responsible use, bias, privacy, and abuse.

However we respond to those questions, we should anticipate they will all get raised again with the next wave. (Keep your eye on the horizon for agentic AI.) When thinking about how we as educators support student development in the context of digital technologies like generative AI, it’s important to sort out what is evergreen from what is specific to the new thing.

Digital fluency

Competence with digital tools is often defined by the functional operation of it — knowing how to click the right buttons. Meanwhile, the list of tools and their buttons grows ever longer. It’s not really possible or even necessarily desirable to keep up with them all in that functional sense.

Digital fluency is better understood as:

• a sense of how a technology works
• a sense of the range and quality of the tools available
• the ability to evaluate them critically
• the confidence you will be able to teach yourself when you need to

AI is changing what students need to be fluent in, but it’s not changing the need to move beyond being adept at operating them to having a critical stance.

Digital identity

If someone were to Google you today, what would show up? What would they learn about you?

Digital identity is who you are when you’re online. Your identity online is formed by what, where, and why you post and by your learning community — who you follow and are followed by.

We have a digital identity whether we intend to or not, and people can be very clever at creating a digital identity that may have nothing to do with the rest of their lives. That’s all the more reason for educators to help students consider the complexities of safety, responsibility, permanence, privacy, and creativity as they shape their digital identities and digital footprints.

For example, one first impulse might be to advise students that the safest thing is to always keep things professional online. But that may be too limiting across the multitude of creative and playful online platforms. Supporting students to always maintain integrity might be a more potent approach.

The emergence of blogs, social media, connected gaming, mobile devices, and video streaming each prompted new ways to build up and manage a digital identity. Now students will need to think about how they show up on emerging AI platforms or how they share their creativity online when it is enabled by AI tools.

Digital citizenship

Educators want to help students discover how they will make their contributions to society, and digital citizenship is now a fundamental part of that. Digital citizenship is actively and positively contributing to online spaces with kindness and responsibility.

Digital environments raise special considerations about good citizenship because they can be anonymous, remote, and automated, and they are mass media with enormous reach. For example:

• One rule of good digital citizenship is don’t be a troll and don’t feed trolls with your engagement.
• On some platforms, good citizenship requires everyone making an effort to contribute.
• In other cases, good citizenship means considering whether or not to engage at all and, if so, what’s the appropriate tone for the audience. For example, “mansplaining” and novice white students providing a contrary opinion to a scholar of color aren’t helpful contributions. Being a good digital citizen means knowing your audience, taking the time to know who you are engaging with, and asking if the community needs your participation in a particular thread.

Another reason educators should guide reflection about digital citizenship is that some of our students will go on to influence how the next generation of digital tools are developed or implemented in their workplaces and communities. When they do, they will hopefully mitigate the algorithmic bias, inaccessible design, and predatory business models that each wave of technology tends to reproduce.

Ultimately, digital citizenship is mission critical. A case study in EDUCAUSE Review, Digital Citizenship + Liberal Arts = Students Empowered for Life, argues that the questions raised by digital citizenship initiatives are central to a liberal arts education in particular and to the mission of higher education more broadly.

“Because these questions are addressed with a focus on critical thinking, navigating complexity, and multidisciplinary perspectives, which are important to higher education as a whole, they address gnarly challenges and frame critical digital inquiry for continuous learning.”

Factors affecting digital fluency, identity, and citizenship

Equity. Culturally relevant pedagogy that connects academic work to students’ lives necessarily means thinking about the digital spaces where they spend so much time. This is part of being aware of who they are, what they bring to the table, and what they are interested in learning.

Many of those spaces start out deeply inequitable — built on biased data, designed with a particular user in mind, and distributed unevenly. Fluency, command of their identity, and good citizenship in digital spaces requires examining those inequities.

Access to quality teaching practices. Access to hardware and software is essential, but two different students sitting in neighboring classrooms with the same tools in front of them can develop different levels of digital agency. The teaching practices they experience matter as much as the tools.

Students need professors who, along with using a critical approach, know how to inspire, engage, and give them agency to be more creative with digital spaces.

Open and authentic. A profoundly uninteresting way to use digital tools is to assign students to go on the LMS discussion board and make X number posts and Y number of replies. That rarely prompts an authentic conversation.

The more we open conversations up outside of the boundaries of the classroom — or walled-off digital spaces — the more opportunity students have for engaging in relevant real-world questions. Social media is one space for that.

Open doesn’t mean unstructured. Many educators have had success using software for collaborative annotation of learning materials. Students interact in authentic ways with one another and even with invited guests like peers at other institutions, outside scholars, or the original author.

Evergreen approaches to digital fluency, identity, and citizenship

At Every Learner Everywhere®, we’re developing resources on critical AI literacy for faculty and are compiling resources from others. We’ve already presented several workshops and webinars on the critical use of AI in higher education.

(A new favorite resource of mine that I’m recommending everywhere I go is Framework for Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Education from the Inclusive Design Research Centre.)

While working to increase our own fluency in AI, we try to remember that though AI is raising new possibilities and creating new contexts, some things won’t change. Educators should assume any given tool is temporary, while the most important parts of education are not.

What remains evergreen in the emerging context of generative AI?

I would say we still want students to know how to use their own voice and how to evaluate. I believe transparency will remain a hallmark of good scholarship. And good old-fashioned critical thinking will always be a superpower.

Creative educators will find ways to use AI to teach and enable those skills. Our students are going online with or without us. They didn’t stay off social media or leave their smartphones at home just because some of us disapproved. And they’re not going to avoid AI.

So who is guiding them as they do so? As educators, we have always had the opportunity and responsibility to bolster students’ ability to make changes in the world that can improve the lives of others. Now that means grappling with what fluency, identity, and citizenship mean in digital contexts.

We have the opportunity and responsibility to inspire students to do more than just click the right buttons. We can help them become agents in command of how they explore, create, and contribute to their communities.

The post Higher Ed Has a Responsibility to Support Students’ Digital Fluency, Digital Identity, and Digital Citizenship appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Conducting a landscape study is challenging when the landscape is changing as quickly as artificial intelligence has been in the last two years, says Jenay Robert, Senior Researcher at EDUCAUSE.

“But toward the end of last year, we saw that the initial hype and panic from generative AI was starting to chill a little bit,” she notes. “So we wanted to capture that sweet spot where enough time had passed but not so much that we were losing the momentum to figure out what was important to the community.”

The result is the inaugural 2024 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study exploring sentiments and experiences with AI in higher education using surveys distributed to educators in late 2023. The report has findings on the areas of:

• Strategic planning and readiness
• Strategic leaders and partners
• Policies and procedures
• Workforce and the future of AI in higher education.

Overall, the results show that within most institutions at least some people are moving fast to incorporate AI into teaching and learning or other operations, but institutions struggle to make that work comprehensive, coordinated and strategic.

After the survey findings, the report outlines appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI and the opportunities and risks to colleges and universities planning for AI.

Getting a grip on planning for AI

One key finding from the study showed most institutions are working on AI-related strategy. Of the respondents, only 11 percent said no one was working on an AI strategy at their institution.

“The community really understands this is the new world,” Robert says. “We have a responsibility to prepare our students to be responsible citizens and workers and humans in that world.”

The report shows how challenged colleges and universities are to keep up. “By the time you’ve assembled six committees to decide how you want to use AI and then another committee to review the results of those six committees, it’s just too late,” Robert says. “AI has already proliferated, and it’s all over the campus.”

That puts a big burden on institutions to be forward looking. “You have to be able to kind of see around the corner, to some extent,” Robert says. “Not to predict the future, but to think about how what’s happening today will impact the next 10 years and to work toward the future you want to see, as opposed to reacting to things as they come.”

Clarifying what AI is

Concerns about academic misconduct and other inappropriate uses of the technology were among the first reactions for many faculty. For instance, the study found a majority of respondents (78 percent) felt AI had impacted academic integrity.

Robert says a helpful distinction for educators concerned about plagiarism is between generative AI and general AI. Generative AI helps users create new content like images, videos, and documents, whereas general AI has the potential to execute complex tasks or processes.

“I think part of those responses [about academic integrity] were because of that conflation, where people are much more worried about generative AI,” Robert says. “If they dig deeper, some of those other AI functions would not be as troublesome for them.”

Making AI planning equity centered

Robert says she was happy to observe in the survey responses a consistent concern with student success, even if “the community was concerned about the proliferation of AI. It was great to see we were maintaining our focus on students and what students need at the end of the day.”

Put another way, the motivations for working on AI may be reactive — i.e. “keeping up” — but the goals were often more aspirational. For example, more than 60 percent of respondents said their goals for strategic planning for AI were preparing students for the workforce or exploring new methods of teaching and learning.

Robert says equity, inclusion, and accessibility came up a lot in open-ended responses. Bias in the development of AI “is a really hard problem we haven’t been able to solve in even simpler technologies,” she says.

“We have to be realistic, but we have to maintain that steadfast focus on minimizing and reducing bias. There’s no on-off switch for equity. There are going to be elements that are more or less equitable. So I would love for people to understand and be comfortable with that nuance.”

Related reading — Principles for Understanding AI in the Classroom

Moving from reaction to action

Robert hopes the landscape study equips readers to be more proactive about the emerging AI technology to minimize troubles later. One area where that can happen is in security and privacy.

“When any random person at your institution doesn’t know about the privacy and security policies related to AI, for example, that could have huge implications,” she says.

She says a lack of awareness around standards and policies is a symptom of a larger issue: siloing. Operating in isolation within or across institutions keeps educators in a reactive state as new AI tools roll out.

Ultimately, educators are restricted in their ability to effectively, ethically, and equitably use technologies by being forced to play catch up.

“We struggle with practices being fast enough to keep up with what’s going on in the world,” Robert says. “What you and I talk about this week will be outdated next week.”

Robert encourages faculty to play with new AI tools that interest them and talk to others about what they might be using. Communication and collaboration can improve security and privacy as educators surface their needs and use cases to the appropriate teams and find timely solutions. Effective communication and collaboration also positions institutions to develop a solid framework for their AI policy.

The report concludes with reference to several practical resources, including EDUCAUSE’s 2024 Action Plan: AI Policies and Guidelines, and EDUCAUSE’s 2023 Horizon Report Action Plan: Generative AI, which outlines goals and action steps on how generative AI can be incorporated into higher ed in an ethical and equitable way.

The post How Is Higher Ed Planning for AI? appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

That has been the message of Every Learner Everywhere®’s Director Karen Cangialosi in several presentations recently, including one at the Maryland Online Leadership Institute (MOLLI) Expert Insights Workshop.

The decisions made by faculty, instructional designers, and students today will significantly influence the trajectory of Artificial Intelligence development. Therefore, higher education must understand the technology and take a leadership role in shaping how it will be developed and integrated into our lives.

“Without a comprehensive understanding of AI, there is a risk of exacerbating existing inequities, reinforcing biases, spreading misinformation, and overlooking the potential consequences of unchecked technological advancement,” Cangialosi said.

A proactive approach to fostering critical AI literacy can enable responsible and equitable integration of emerging tools for teaching and learning. Ideally, AI literacy is promoted by a comprehensive policy across campuses and institutions.

By prioritizing AI literacy, universities can ensure graduates are well prepared to navigate the complexities of AI, contribute responsibly to technological advancements, and lead with ethical considerations. Literacy begins with understanding the rapidly changing technology.

Keeping up with changing technology

“AI is not magic,” explained Cangialosi. “It’s not going to save the day. It’s not going to end all humanity.”

But she also stresses that AI is not going away. Instead, it is rapidly changing and becoming capable of more every week. For example, what was only text or image generation a year ago is now becoming multi-modal and can make recommendations. For example:

• Unriddle.AI uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to summarize documents.
• Turbolearn.AI uses Augmented Speech Recognition (ASR) to create study notes out of video, text or images.
• AnswersAI produces answers by scanning images, videos and text.

Meanwhile, the text- and image-generation capabilities have expanded to music and video generation with tools such as Suno and HeyGen.

All of these are powerful tools with potential positives for teaching and learning. For example, they may make courses more accessible.

Cangialosi argued that guarding against cheating is the wrong focus. “Instead, we need to work with students to understand AI rather than trying to catch them cheating or putting in traps for them,” she said.

“We need to trust our students and work to earn their trust. This is an opportunity instead of a crisis, but it can be a crisis if we don’t take the opportunity.”

One problem with AI in teaching and learning is that AI is marketing to students as a way to offload academic work and save time. Educators need to help direct the future of AI by showing students ethical ways to use the developing tools.

Understanding AI benefits and problems

Cangialosi said the best way to move students toward AI literacy is for faculty and staff to receive adequate AI-related professional development:

1. AI is trained on copyrighted data that can include personal information, medical records, and other sensitive information.
2. How AI produces results is kept mysterious. Companies create proprietary algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data, and they don’t want to reveal too much about that proprietary process. However, using tools without understanding how the algorithms work can be problematic.
3. Outputs depend on inputs. The “garbage in, garbage out” rule applies to AI the same as with all digital technologies. For example, the racial biases rife in the internet inevitably show up as biased output.

Educators can exert influence on a still-fluid field, but influence is only possible when there is a strategic plan. “One of the things we can do is engage with the AI efforts,” said Cangialosi.

“The engagement can take various forms, including creating open-source projects, negotiating better service contracts with providers, lobbying for regulations, and issuing public scholarship”

Developing a plan for AI literacy in higher ed

Cangialosi recommends institutions examine three components of AI literacy:

1. Understanding. Know the tools and how data sets work. We must also understand and acknowledge the problems with AI fabrication or hallucination, in which AI models make up information if there is insufficient available data.
2. Applications. Know how AI is used for business and everyday life. Understanding how to input good prompts to get the best results is critical.
3. Ethical Considerations. Along with privacy, data rights, and algorithmic bias concerns, AI has a big environmental/energy use footprint. It also raises concerns about the exploitation of human labor since AI systems rely on massive data sets labeled by humans working for low wages.

One particular resource Cangiolosi recommends is Framework for Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education from the Inclusive Design Research Centre

Get on the front foot

Educators can only guide students if they move forward by taking the time to understand various AI tools and how they work, and talking to students about what is and isn’t acceptable use in their classes. It would be a significant misstep to think we can “just say no” or ban AI. AI is not a passing trend. It is here to stay, and it has possible benefits.

“It’s our responsibility to teach students how to use it responsibly and to communicate the potential it has for improving learning,” Cangialosi said. Developing an institutional plan, including faculty development efforts, is only the first step. Creating a comprehensive framework for generative AI across the institution is essential for the future.

Fortunately, there are resources available to help guide this new framework.

Key resources for higher education leaders

Cangialosi points to several institutions  helping create an AI framework:

• WCET, founded by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), is working to develop institutional-level AI policies and practices.
• The Mississippi AI Institute openly licensed AI crucial literacy learning materials that could help you form a faculty community of practice on your campus.
• Creativity Takes Courage is a crowdsourced collection of creative ideas on using AI in education.
• The AI Pedagogy Project from Harvard’s metaLAB helps teachers use AI critically, ethically, and responsibly in the classroom.

Don’t wait to formalize a strategy. Instead, bring together all campus constituents and encourage open dialogue.

The post Educators Must Take a Leadership Role in AI Literacy appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“Educators want to teach better,” says Sim Barhoum, Professor of English at San Diego Mesa College. “A lot of them say, ‘Tell me what to do in the class, and I’ll do it if I know that it’s better.’ But they just haven’t been shown the better way.”

Barhoum is co-author of a new report showing that, depending on variables ranging from mode of class instruction to accessibility of faculty resources, the likelihood that faculty include culturally relevant approaches to instruction in gateway courses varies significantly.

Infusing Culturally Relevant Content in Gateway Courses in Postsecondary Education: Findings and Insights from College Faculty, is from Every Learner Everywhere®, CORA Learning and the Community College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL) at San Diego State University.

Too often, gateway courses prevent students from establishing that foundation for future learning, and the report notes that is particularly the case for students who are Black, Latino, Indigenous, or affected by poverty. Culturally relevant teaching practices and materials can create the sense of belonging that helps learners overcome difficulties they face in these courses.

Frank Harris III, another of the report’s authors, is Professor for Postsecondary Education and Director of CCEAL at San Diego State, says, “Culturally relevant teaching practices are not just about aligning culture with content but also about utilizing a broader range of instructional practices that meet the needs of culturally diverse learners which has implications for all subject matter.”

Harris and the report’s research team set out to determine how faculty are using culturally relevant materials and practices — and how those efforts differ according to a factors like:

• the subject of the course
• the modality of the course
• whether faculty are full time or part time

The researchers reviewed survey responses from 261 faculty who teach gateway courses that traditionally have high D, F, and withdrawal (DFW) rates. The survey focused on 20 courses with the highest student enrollment, such as Introductory English Composition and Introductory Computer Science.

The report shows that, while instructors endeavor to use high-impact teaching materials and practices in their gateway courses, they often face barriers to incorporating culturally relevant approaches.

1. Faculty choose practices and materials they believe will support student success

Instructors want to provide instruction that gives their students the best chance at learning the basic information and skills critical for college success. But they don’t always perceive the positive impact that culturally relevant course content can have on student learning.

For math and English faculty who never use culturally relevant materials and practices, for example, a lack of understanding about the content and its effect on diverse learners were among the top reasons they gave for not doing so.

“Maybe what that is telling us,” Barhoum says, “is that professional learning needs to improve.”

2. Lack of time and resources is the greatest obstacle to providing culturally relevant instruction

Learning about the use of culturally relevant content in gateway courses requires resources many faculty members do not have. Limited time and limited access to experts were the two biggest impediments to providing culturally relevant instruction, according to the survey.

Part-time faculty, in particular, find it difficult to build their understanding of culturally relevant instruction and how to use it.

“It makes sense,” Barhoum says. “They just don’t have the time to do this. They’re overwhelmed, and they don’t believe they have the experts and resources to help them learn it. In my experience as a faculty member, there’s so much to learn.”

3. Asynchronous and hybrid instruction lead the way in culturally relevant pedagogy

The survey shows faculty in asynchronous online and hybrid modalities more frequently use culturally relevant content than teachers of in-person or synchronous online courses.

“They’re just doing a better job of infusing culturally relevant content,” says Barhoum.

“It may be because of COVID, when they were forced to move to more digital resources and were able to update their curriculum, look into their teaching practices, and change what they were doing. I think it’s an area to study.”

4. Few gateway courses fuse experiential learning and culturally relevant pedagogy

Experiential learning is a high-impact evidence-based teaching practice that instructors can use to engage students on issues facing diverse learners. But, among faculty surveyed, field trips or community activities are the culturally relevant instructional practice they use least.

As with other types of culturally relevant instruction, Harris says, lack of time and resources are the primary obstacles to providing experiential opportunities.

Barhoum says, “The issue is, how do we get teachers to embed experiential learning within the course? Something has to be taken out to add something.”

The greatest impact for diverse learners

The report’s authors hope to build on this quantitative research about when and how gateway course instructors are using culturally relevant pedagogy with qualitative research that shows what works best for different courses.

CORA Learning and CCEAL will host a webinar about Infusing Culturally Relevant Content in Gateway Courses in Postsecondary Education: Findings and Insights From College Faculty. Harris and Barhoum will discuss the research at 10 a.m. Pacific time July 19, 2024.

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“Institutions are data rich, but information poor,” says Turner. “We collect all of this data on students coming through our doors — race, gender, family income, grades in class — but we only use about 10 percent of the data we collect.”

In his experience, peers in the institutional research office are overworked both from internal needs and from the demands of regulators and accreditors. That makes it hard for faculty and administrators to get useful data in a timely way.

As a consequence, a “shadow” IT infrastructure springs up as individual programs implement their own solutions, which can lead to unverified data from different sources.

“I started hearing conversations about people’s frustration — in the Deans’ Council, in the Provost Council, on the retention committee,” Turner says. “I started realizing it is a huge issue.”

None of these are challenges unique to NMSU which is why the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) offers Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success. NMSU had previously worked with APLU on other professional development programs, so when Turner was offered the opportunity to take part in this in fall 2023, he jumped at the chance.

Making meaningful connections

Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success is one of a menu of professional development services provided by Every Learner Everywhere® with the partners in its network.

The Data Culture service is a three- to five-month series of workshops and coaching support. It helps colleges examine their institutional data, build academic data literacy skills, and use data to address a specific student success issue at the institution.

The service is customized for the particular needs of a campus or cohort. In this case, between September and November of 2023, APLU worked with a group from NMSU’s institutional research office, student affairs, and academic advising. Their goals were to better understand its data culture and to build skills through a specific data project.

The program consisted of five workshops and four coaching sessions during which the NMSU team worked with a facilitator from APLU and a peer coach from Bowling Green State University with expertise in data-driven decision making.

The scope of the challenge

One example of sporadic data culture is Turner’s own experience each semester  administering the 30 courses in the university’s first-year experience program.

“Each course has over 50 students and I want to collect data in a timely manner,” says Turner. “But every semester, I have to submit this long request, which takes about 8 to 12 weeks.”

This long process makes it difficult to analyze the data and quickly respond to student needs.

Another challenge is the proliferation of tools. During this engagement with APLU, the NMSU team discovered nearly 20 data platforms on campus not managed by institutional research or IT. Individual departments had purchased commercial data platforms, hired their own data collection personnel, or built their own tools. This can lead to inconsistencies, which can be problematic when making data-driven decisions.”

“Everybody’s data was not aligned,” says Turner. “It really starts making you ask, ‘Okay, this is the retention rate you have, but I have a couple of different numbers. Which one is the true number?’”

Applying data to gateway courses

NMSU hasn’t solved all these challenges yet but are moving in that direction in recent months. The capstone of the eight-week program with APLU was a project to investigate a major student challenge on campus by using data.

The NMSU team chose to explore a gateway trigonometry course, which historically had a high DFW rate. In the previous year NMSU had taken part in another APLU program, which helped redesign the course and offered teaching interventions to the instructors. Turner wanted to better understand that course, see what was working, and discover what indicators led to students failing or withdrawing.

“We had already collected data from the students, we had already collected data from the course, we had already collected data from the faculty members, but we still wanted this team to dig deep into it,” Turner says.

The team created a dashboard to track data collected on this course, allowing them to break down five years’ worth of data in different ways: by semester, section, and student demographics. Similar dashboards were created for two other gateway math courses with high DFW rates.

The data told the working group a clear story: poor mid-term grades predicted which students were likely to fail the course or drop out.

The next steps for the team are to examine student engagement data during the first weeks of class, and ask students what challenges they faced in completing the course. Based on those results, the team is identifying interventions that will help improve student performance.

One outcome of the work so far is that Turner found the campus had an existing data governance board that was inactive. After the institution’s current presidential search, he would like to reactivate it and begin consolidating data collection.

In the meantime, Turner wants to work on what he calls the “low-hanging fruit,” expanding the interventions to the APLU capstone project to gateway courses beyond trigonometry.

“These are things we can do without spending a lot of money now,” he says. “Let’s start with refining what we have in place now. Because I believe we’re doing great work. It just needs to be reimagined.”

Changing data culture in higher education

To move from data rich and information poor, universities will have to use the other 90 percent of data. That’s where big opportunities are available to colleges and universities, and neglecting it isn’t really an option anymore anyway, Turner says.

“In order to really support student success and close the equity gap, you’ve got to look at the data and you’ve got to look at it responsibly,” he explains.

“We still have too many students falling through the cracks, but we can no longer blame the students. It starts with looking at the data, facing what the data is showing, and making intentional efforts to create interventions.”

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CIPE collaborates with higher education and community institutions to improve graduation rates and workforce outcomes. Their services include advising on redesign, capacity building, and other technical assistance.

The Founding Director of CIPE, Kathy Thompson, says it is the culmination of decades of experience in higher education and workforce development, including seven years providing contract services to HBCUs through the Gates Foundation. By collaborating with subject-matter experts and specialists, CIPE offers a hands-on approach to supporting equity efforts.

In partnering with post-secondary institutions, CIPE provides a framework and tools to drive equitable academic success in student-centered learning. Together with Every Learner, CIPE is excited to bring their approach to innovation, collaboration, and creative problem solving to a larger audience and continue pushing equity efforts forward.

Strong foundations

Thompson’s previous work saw her acting as an intermediary with six HBCUs in observation of student success practices through a project called the Frontier Set.

The Frontier Set, a collection of top-performing, high-potential colleges and universities dedicated to enhancing student success, provided key insights to Thompson about the areas students needed the most support in order to succeed.

“They had what they called ‘solution areas’; advising, digital learning, digital courseware, and developmental education,” Thompson says. “Digital learning was one of the areas we focused on, so I dove into the transformation of these six institutions to ensure they were aware of the digital tools and how to apply them at their institutions to help their students succeed academically.”

While the institutions previously held a range of experience with digital learning, Thompson spearheaded efforts to implement modern updates in these historical establishments. Since founding CIPE in 2023, she’s continued to invest in the same area that proved pivotal to the Frontier Set.

Thompson explains that the incremental adoption of digital learning technologies by HBCUs, HSIs, MSIs, and tribal colleges is the result of many factors, but a lack of funding and capacity creates detrimental gaps in student success. CIPE helps institutions build capacity, create processes and practices, and implement continuous quality improvement to prepare them to accept digital tools when they become available.

“Whether they implement or not, they should anticipate and be aware,” she says. “We all know that knowledge is power.”

Building lasting solutions

With expertise ranging from relationship building to more concrete technical assistance and capacity building, CIPE operates in a variety of fields to create a lasting impact. Working with minority-serving institutions can present different challenges— fewer resources—says Thompson. Instead of adding something new to their plate, CIPE helps institutions see that they may already have the capacity or ability to create it within their existing structure.

Digital advising is one area of focus that many institutions may be underdeveloped in due to the unique challenges involved, says Thompson.

One challenge digital learning advisors face is results from the torrents of data generated from their LMS. With records on grades, attendance, and other student data, data literacy has never been more important. The best digital advisors, Thompson says, make note of downward trends and act fast.

“A good digital advisor will follow up with the student, not just let that happen,” she explains. “They utilize the LMS and data to see that the student is running into problems.”

For CIPE, maintaining a human touch extends to more than just digital learning. Relationship building and communication are key factors of what makes the organization successful. HBCUs and tribal colleges can be skeptical of outside organizations, so building a genuine connection is crucial.

“I put a great deal of emphasis on relationship building and making sure that we’re communicating with them,” Thompson says. “That’s what I bring to Every Learner Everywhere®, a sort of gateway into these institutions.”

Collaborating with Every Learner

With a shared mission rooted in equity, joining with the 12 other partners in the Every Learner network came naturally.

“I believe in what Every Learner Everywhere® is doing,” says Thompson. “The network creates the opportunity for anyone who wants to be a learned person.”

The challenge of equity and higher education provides Thompson with an opportunity to give back to a field she is passionate about, and partnering with Every Learner is the next step in that process.

Thompson is excited to see CIPE’s reach and impact increase with this new partnership, while sharing valuable experiences and insights the Center has gained. The Center’s focus in the near future will remain on researching and crafting innovative, effective practices that promote student-centered learning and equitable academic success, while providing support and facilitating equity solutions across their partner campuses.

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The Significance of Juneteenth in Higher Education

Juneteenth serves as a powerful reminder of the systemic barriers and injustices that have historically denied educational opportunities to Black Americans and other marginalized communities. It underscores the need for higher education institutions to actively dismantle these barriers and create inclusive learning environments that empower all students to thrive.

Celebrating Juneteenth on college campuses is an opportunity to:

1. Acknowledge the Legacy of Oppression: By recognizing Juneteenth, institutions can confront the painful history of slavery and its enduring impact on access to education for Black communities. This acknowledgment is crucial for fostering understanding, healing, and progress.
2. Promote Inclusive Curricula: Juneteenth encourages the integration of diverse perspectives and experiences into academic curricula, ensuring that the contributions and struggles of Black Americans are accurately represented and celebrated.
3. Foster Dialogue and Understanding: Observing Juneteenth can facilitate open and honest conversations about race, equity, and social justice, fostering a deeper understanding among students, faculty, and staff.
4. Inspire Ongoing Commitment to Equity: Juneteenth serves as a catalyst for higher education institutions to evaluate their policies, practices, and campus climate, and to take meaningful steps towards creating truly equitable and inclusive learning environments.

Juneteenth and Educational Freedom

The pursuit of educational freedom is inextricably linked to the broader struggle for civil rights and social justice. Juneteenth represents a pivotal moment in this ongoing journey, reminding us that true freedom cannot be achieved without equal access to quality education.

By recognizing Juneteenth, higher education institutions can:

1. Increase Access and Affordability: Institutions can prioritize initiatives that remove financial barriers and provide support systems for underrepresented and marginalized students, ensuring that education is accessible to all.
2. Foster Inclusive Campus Climates: Creating welcoming and supportive environments for diverse students, faculty, and staff is essential for promoting educational freedom and empowering individuals to reach their full potential.
3. Amplify Diverse Voices and Perspectives: Celebrating Juneteenth encourages institutions to elevate the voices and experiences of Black scholars, educators, and students, enriching the academic discourse and promoting a more comprehensive understanding of freedom and equity.
4. Inspire Civic Engagement and Leadership: By engaging with the principles of Juneteenth, institutions can empower students to become agents of change, equipped with the knowledge and skills to advocate for social justice and educational equity in their communities.

Supporting Students on Juneteenth

Institutions of higher education can better support minoritized student populations on Juneteenth in the following ways:

1. Acknowledge the Historical Significance: Recognize Juneteenth as a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for freedom, civil rights, and educational equity for Black Americans. Host events, discussions, or exhibits that educate the campus community about the history and significance of Juneteenth.
2. Amplify Black Voices and Experiences: Provide platforms for Black students, faculty, and staff to share their stories, perspectives, and experiences. Invite Black scholars, activists, or community leaders to speak about the importance of Juneteenth and its relevance to educational equity.
3. Evaluate Institutional Policies and Practices: Conduct an honest assessment of institutional policies, practices, and campus climate to identify barriers and areas for improvement in supporting minoritized students, particularly Black students. Develop actionable plans to address systemic inequities and create more inclusive learning environments.
4. Increase Representation and Support: Prioritize efforts to recruit and retain more Black faculty, staff, and administrators who can serve as mentors and role models for Black students. Provide comprehensive support services, such as academic advising, tutoring, and mental health resources, tailored to the unique needs of minoritized student populations.
5. Foster Dialogue and Understanding: Facilitate open and honest conversations about race, equity, and social justice within the campus community. Encourage students, faculty, and staff to engage in difficult but necessary dialogues that promote understanding and foster a more inclusive campus culture.
6. Collaborate with Community Partners: Establish partnerships with local organizations, community leaders, and advocacy groups working to advance educational equity for minoritized populations. Collaborate on initiatives, programs, and resources that support the success of these students.
7. Commit to Ongoing Action: Treat Juneteenth not as a one-day event but as a catalyst for sustained efforts to dismantle systemic barriers and promote educational freedom for all students. Develop long-term strategies, allocate resources, and hold the institution accountable for creating equitable and inclusive learning environments.

By taking these steps, institutions of higher education can honor the spirit of Juneteenth and demonstrate a genuine commitment to supporting minoritized student populations, particularly Black students, in their pursuit of educational excellence and personal growth.

Integrating Juneteenth Into Curriculum

Institutions of higher education can integrate Juneteenth into their curriculum to enhance educational equity in the following ways:

1. Incorporate Juneteenth into General Education Courses: Include discussions, readings, and assignments related to Juneteenth in relevant general education courses, such as American history, African American studies, sociology, and political science. This exposure can help all students understand the significance of Juneteenth and its connection to the ongoing struggle for racial justice and educational equity.
2. Develop Juneteenth-Focused Courses: Offer dedicated courses that explore the historical context, cultural significance, and contemporary relevance of Juneteenth. These courses can delve into topics such as the legacy of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the ongoing fight for racial equality in education and other spheres of society.
3. Integrate Juneteenth into Disciplinary Curricula: Examine how Juneteenth and its themes intersect with various academic disciplines, such as literature, art, music, law, and public policy. This interdisciplinary approach can provide a more comprehensive understanding of Juneteenth’s impact and its connections to educational equity.
4. Encourage Research and Scholarship: Support faculty and student research projects that investigate the historical, social, and educational implications of Juneteenth. This can contribute to a deeper understanding of the barriers faced by marginalized communities and inform strategies for promoting educational equity.
5. Connect with Community Partners: Partner with local organizations, museums, and community leaders to develop co-curricular activities, events, and service-learning opportunities related to Juneteenth. This can foster stronger connections between the institution and the community, while providing students with hands-on learning experiences.
6. Promote Inclusive Pedagogy: Encourage faculty to adopt inclusive teaching practices that incorporate diverse perspectives, experiences, and narratives related to Juneteenth and its significance. This can create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for all students.
7. Provide Professional Development: Offer professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to enhance their understanding of Juneteenth, its historical context, and its relevance to educational equity. This can equip educators with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively integrate Juneteenth into the curriculum and campus culture.

By integrating Juneteenth into the curriculum and campus life, institutions of higher education can raise awareness, foster dialogue, and promote a deeper understanding of the ongoing struggle for educational equity and racial justice. This approach can empower students to become agents of change and contribute to the creation of more inclusive and equitable learning environments.

Recognizing Juneteenth in higher education is not merely a symbolic gesture; it is a commitment to actively dismantling systemic barriers, promoting inclusive excellence, and ensuring that every learner has the opportunity to pursue their educational aspirations freely and equitably.

This blog was generated by Perplexity and modified by Every Learner Everywhere® and WCET.

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“You have the choice to use the technology or not,” he says. “You can assign readings about the ethics of using AI if you want to teach about AI versus teaching with AI. That’s perfectly appropriate. But you must have a framework in mind. What you can’t do is bury your head in the sand and try to ostrich your way through this.”

As Academic Innovation Fellow and Lecturer of Writing and Rhetoric, Watkins runs The University of Mississippi’s Summer and Winter AI Institutes for Teachers.

He also recently led an Every Learner Everywhere® workshop on Building AI Literacy with Students, which is part of the Digital Learning Workshops series. These help administrators, instructional designers, and faculty redesign learning experience to incorporate digital-age tools for student success.

He says one effect of the Institute is to bring everyone together to get them talking and thinking about ways to use AI technology to help students. “But we also want them to think about what guardrails and boundaries they want to put in place to preserve their teaching and not lose their minds,” he adds. “AI is not only a new tool, but a new way of dealing with different information in the digital space.”

The fast-changing landscape is one of the biggest challenges in adopting AI. The developers of the foundational models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, continuously create new versions of the software with powerful new features. Educators must have a way to understand AI, discuss the options available, and use the tools before trying things out in the classroom.

For these reasons, educators need frameworks more than absolute rules.

Humans working with the machine

Watkins says students may share concerns about academic integrity and they want to know how the technology will impact their career readiness.

“They aren’t chatbots,” he says. “They’re there to learn, so they will look to their instructors for guidance about using these tools.”

He believes faculty are often frustrated that there are no simple answers when dealing with AI. A 15-minute lunch-and-learn presentation with top tips for resolving AI issues in the classroom won’t be sufficient.

Watkins encourages instructors to be as engaged as possible but reminds them to approach the technology from a philosophy of human agency.

Adopting a thoughtful AI policy

One beneficial use of AI, Watkins points to how video conferencing tools now can transcribe in real time and generate memos with action items.

“This can be a godsend for students who need help taking notes,” he says. “However, we don’t want unintentional adoption of the technology because it threatens our educational system for students and faculty.”

Finding the balance is the challenge. “AI is so vast with so much material at one point in time that there’s a threat it will overwhelm people,” Watkins says.

“Our institutes let people unpack all of this, talk about it, sit down, and think about what it means.”

A strict no-use policy is probably impractical since AI is becoming embedded as a feature in common tools like Microsoft Word, Blackboard, and Google Docs. And hardline approaches also don’t suit the fast rate of change.

Understanding AI assessment in the classroom

Watkins cautions instructors against trying to label student work as AI generated since AI detection tools are notoriously unreliable. OpenAI even shut down its AI detection tool because it gave too many false positives.

They also exacerbate inequities, since the false positives are disproportionately found with non-native English writers and students with disabilities.

Watkins walks participants in his workshops through exercises designed to illustrate how difficult it is to determine whether text is AI generated or if photos are real or fake. People quickly realize the difficulty of the task.

Trying to “catch” students isn’t the answer. This destroys the trust between students and instructors. Instead, Watkins and the University of Mississippi AI Institute encourage educators to talk to students about what is and is not acceptable, give students a mechanism for using AI, and encourage them to reveal that in their work.

The most essential ingredient is to be transparent and talk to students. Instructors must explain their requirements for student use of AI and discuss how they plan to use AI in the classroom.

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Established in 1993, HETS is the first bilingual technology-oriented consortium of higher education institutions, and comprises over 40 higher colleges and universities across Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the United States.

The mission of HETS is to promote, support, and increase the capabilities of institutions to enhance Hispanic/Latino student access, retention, and success in higher education through the strategic integration of technology. Many of their programs facilitate the effective use of technology in teaching and learning, and promote knowledge exchange and collaboration.

“Our main goal is to serve and support our member institutions to help their students achieve their academic goals,” says Dr. Yubelkys Montalvo, Executive Director of HETS.

As a pioneer organization in the use of technology in higher education, HETS has provided digital learning resources and tools for Hispanic educators and students for over 30 years. In partnership with Every Learner, HETS is excited to continue making strides toward equity in higher education.

Unique perspective

Ninety-five percent of the HETS membership are Hispanic-serving institutions, with the remaining members being emerging Hispanic-serving institutions. With member institutions in the U.S.,  Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador, HETS continues to grow its reach internationally.

Related reading — Defining 6 Kinds of Minority-Serving Institutions

Many of the services offered by HETS aim to close the gap in key areas for Hispanic students, Montalvo says. Resources targeted toward faculty and educators address larger issues like distance learning course design to enhance accessibility and inclusion.

HETS services include webinars, workshops, conferences, a peer-review journal and the Virtual Plaza, its virtual center for academic and support resources for faculty, administrators, and students.

For example, The Student Placita, at the Virtual Plaza designed for Hispanic in higher education, resulted from a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and acts as a resource hub for Hispanic students, including services such as scholarships, internships and job search tools, English as a second language courses, and entrepreneurship resources.

A related service, the Faculty & Administrators Placita, provides educators with publications, upcoming events, and professional development opportunities, among other initiatives.

As a pioneer of digital learning, HETS began looking into online modalities as an alternative for the traditional classroom experience in the 1990s. After Covid, Montalvo says, distance learning isn’t just an option anymore. It’s a priority for many institutions.

“One result of Covid was that distance learning became more visible,” she says. “The crisis validated distance learning, if done properly, as an efficient way for students to learn.”

That shift has also impacted how HETS operates. For example, they’ve restructured some events toward a hybrid modality to include a broader international student audience.

“For us, the bottom line, our main objective, is the students and how to support them,” Montalvo says.

Integration into the Every Learner Everywhere® network

Of the invitation to join Every Learner, Montalvo says, “When we found out what they were about, we jumped at it. It was an opportunity to expand and collaborate with its Hispanic-serving institutions’ partners and other institutions in their network. It’s an honor to be invited to be a part of it.”

She also noted the similar missions between the two organizations with similar focus on closing equity gaps for minoritized and poverty-affected students: “We see this as an opportunity to expand our reach and impact.”

The Every Learner network will benefit from the resources and community of experts that HETS has developed over the last 30 years. It will also benefit from the unique perspective the organization has on the intersection of technology and Hispanic culture in higher education.

For example, “our next initiative is student mobility,” Montalvo says. “In this new digital era, you can be working globally, and learning from other places and cultures to help students think more out of the box, outside their environment. We see a bright future for HETS, as we are leading an organization promoting the integration of technology into higher education to enhance Hispanic/Latino student success and opportunities.”

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You can probably guess what began to dent my enthusiasm in college when I tell you my first biology courses were in lecture halls of 200 students. I experienced the professor as a dot on a distant stage using a monotone voice, seemingly uninterested in engaging their audience. “Why are they standing up there boring me to tears?” I wondered. “Why isn’t this fascinating in the way I expected?”

More troubling, I also began to wonder if I was cut out for the work and if I should keep at it. The experience was nearly enough to weed me out of being a STEM major. Thankfully, I persevered, got to the more engaging parts of the biology curriculum (which is fascinating, by the way), and eventually became a professor and an academic dean.

Unfortunately, this isn’t just an anecdote about the bad old days. Today — this semester — students are sitting in gateway science courses in large lecture halls getting the sage-on-a-stage treatment. My professors used transparencies and today’s use PowerPoint decks, but otherwise the experience is virtually unchanged. Meanwhile, deans, department program committees, and individual faculty are developing schedules and syllabi for next semester using the lecture as their starting assumption.

Evidence-based teaching practices based on transparency, active learning, formative practice, data analytics, metacognition, and a sense of belonging are more effective at reaching every learner. But outdated pedagogy persists for many reasons, including structural, institutional, and financial factors beyond the control of faculty.

It also persists because of a resistance to change among faculty. The possible explanations for this have been argued many times among academics already. (i.e. territorialism, not-invented-here syndrome, endowment effect, “maintaining standards,” etc.).

The arguments for resisting change are reasonable in isolation, but they lose their validity for me when they are contrasted with the generations of students unnecessarily bounced out of STEM careers and when that impact falls disproportionately on minoritized, poverty-affected, first-generation, and women students. It is past time for academia to confront the fact that we know what does and doesn’t work for equitable learning and yet persist in not changing.

Fortunately, better teaching practices are sitting in plain sight if we are willing to learn from peers. At Every Learner Everywhere®, every day we see and learn from examples of individual academic departments engaged in substantial pedagogical transformation to create success for their students.

Design for non-majors

Many gateway STEM courses are designed with two assumptions: that students in them are on a path to major in the core subject and that some should be strongly discouraged from that path. For example, it’s very common for calculus to be designed to weed out students before they get to advanced mathematics. This is a big contributor to high DFWI rates and to higher education’s systemic inequities.

Standing in the blast zone of that decision are students who aren’t going to need advanced math. Others are aspiring engineering majors who could have successful careers if they weren’t starting college with unproductive credits and the message that they aren’t capable of college work.

This approach also discourages non-STEM majors who will benefit from a grounding in STEM topics. Society needs people in business, communications, and other domains who have a good grasp of and interest in science and math. Gateway courses designed to bore or embarrass them are counterproductive.

One example of an approach more useful to non-majors is how UNC Charlotte redesigned gateway math courses into three tracks: statistics concepts that social science majors will use; quantitative concepts that humanities majors will benefit from; and an algebra-to-calculus pathway for STEM majors.

Another example is how Wright State University revised its math course for engineering majors to emphasize what would be most salient for those majors. It also incorporates hands-on applications and other evidence-based practices.

Focus on mastery

Busy faculty in STEM tend to start with the question of what to cover rather than on what students need to master. When we focus on mastery instead of coverage, it requires us to slow down to the pace of student learning. (Sal Khan’s 2016 TED talk, Let’s teach for mastery — not test scores, is an effective explanation of this point.)

Consider a foundational concept common in college algebra courses, like exponential functions. In most courses, the instructor covers the topic and then moves on as long as the distribution of everyone’s quiz grades doesn’t look too different from other semesters. But those grades represent a range of mastery. When exponential functions are called for in the next unit, the students whose understanding resulted in a C or D grade will struggle to master the next concept. Their challenges compound from there until they get the message that they aren’t capable of college math.

Mastery-based learning centers students not coverage. It often shifts the emphasis from summative assessment to formative assessment and uses data analytics to personalize learning for individual student needs. These practices can be supported by high-quality digital learning if deployed thoughtfully.

For example, lab simulation, VR, and adaptive courseware allow students to get in repetition and deeper learning experience to support mastery. They also overcome the problem of the very truncated lab time students often have because of limited space.

Related reading — Recentering Digital Learning Around Students and Their Needs

Integrated lecture and lab mode

I have been using “lecture” as a catch-all for outdated pedagogy, but really the problem is broader than that specific practice. STEM curricula are often misaligned in ways that make them ineffective, particularly in how the lecture and lab sessions connect with one another.

In traditional gateway science courses, students attend a lecture led by a professor or a postdoc and then separately attend a lab led by a graduate teaching assistant. Often the concepts covered in the lab are different from the concepts covered in the lecture, perhaps running a week or two ahead. From the student perspective, the hands-on component isn’t synchronized with the theory.

A better-aligned model integrates the theory and practice into one class meeting designed around inquiry and problem solving. At Sinclair Community College in Ohio where I was faculty, we revised the courses for biology majors with this integrated lecture and lab approach, and the physics program has since done the same.

The success of integration models is also evident in online science courses that incorporate theory and lab into a single course and naturally synchronize topics.

Another program I admire is Project Lead the Way, which helps K-12 science teachers develop lessons centered on lasting technical and problem-solving skills. This approach means teachers don’t try to cover an impossibly long list of concepts but instead go deeper into a limited set of topics.

The result is students are later capable of taking on unfamiliar subjects rather than getting intimidated by the sciences. The inquiry-based learning also teaches students that curiosity is a good thing.

Flipped classrooms

An innovation related to the integrated lecture and lab is the flipped classroom model, which shifts lectures and guided discussion to outside-of-class time, often using digital learning tools. For example, students may watch recorded lessons in short chunks in a courseware product that presents the right formative assessment or practice activity at the right time. That frees up faculty to use face-to-face time leading collaboration, peer learning, experiential learning activities, and other evidence-based practices that reinforce the concepts introduced in the recorded lessons.

Many of Every Learner’s partners are exploring this approach; this case study of Indian River State College in Florida details how flipped gateway courses in STEM can increase student success.

The department as a community of educators

In theory, individual faculty can make changes toward evidence-based teaching practices in their own sections of gateway courses and perhaps inspire change in their institutions.

In practice, updating pedagogy in gateway STEM courses is more likely to succeed when it comes from a community of educators. This is especially important in curricula where theory, practical application, and career relevance need to be balanced and where a topic is presented in a sequence of two or more semesters. Active learning in one course only goes so far if it doesn’t align with the objectives and practices of the next course.

At Every Learner Everywhere®, what we see repeatedly in case studies of our partner organizations and from participants in our professional development services is that the most exciting work often happens at the department level. Groups of faculty coming together to embrace a culture of active learning can achieve powerful results for their students. They have conversations where they decide they are going to embrace change and take a big leap together for the sake of their students’ success.

The most successful projects are not static. They know learning from mistakes and moving forward is an important part of the work. They also know that, however successful a given approach, the students themselves keep changing and demand that educators stay on their toes.

Hard change but necessary

If you explore the examples referenced above, you’ll see that never once was the change easy and almost never did it depend on faculty alone. (The transformation at Wright State started with a $1.7 million NSF grant, and those don’t come along every day.)

It is possible to put equitable evidence-based teaching into practice, but these programs all faced constraints on funding, space, or other resources. For example, flipped classroom models often make do with lecture halls that aren’t optimal for active learning, and integrated lecture and lab models require more and different kinds of lab spaces.

At some point, meaningful pedagogical transformation will require resources to support it, as well as institutional leadership that embraces change. But trying to overcome the challenge of resource constraints is easier than trying to figure out why STEM gateway courses keep losing so many students generation after generation.

STEM faculty have to embrace that our teaching practices are in our control and abandon the lecture-first model. We have to be willing to say, as scientists, that we see the evidence that the old methods just don’t work for the majority of students. Our institutions have growing infrastructures in support of equity, and our departments have expressed a commitment to equity. Now we need to demonstrate that commitment by making specific changes around how we teach.

Norma Hollebeke is Senior Manager, Network Programs and Services at Every Learner Everywhere®.

The post Meaningful Pedagogical Transformation: Alternatives to the STEM Faculty Lecture-First Model appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Federal Student Aid data shows that in the 2021–2022 application cycle, 52 percent of students who completed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) were classified as independent status.

What does independent status mean?

According to the U.S. Department of Education, a student with independent status meets at least one of the following criteria:

• at least 24 years old
• married
• a graduate or professional student
• a veteran
• a member of the armed forces
• an orphan
• a ward of the court, or someone with legal dependents other than a spouse
• an emancipated minor
• homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Independent status students are racially diverse and older than dependent students. Forty-two percent of all FAFSA applicants in the 2021–2022 application cycle were older than 24, and 62 percent were women.

The Institute of Women’s Policy Research reports that more than half of all students of color have independent status, with Black and American Indian/Alaska Native the most likely to be independent among the largest racial and ethnic groups. They also report that independent students are twice as likely to live in poverty as dependent students and are working 22 hours per week compared to 14 hours per week for dependent students.

That is because independent status students are often supporting families. Half of independent students are parents of dependent children. The Lumina Foundation reports that 40 percent of college students work full-time.

What barriers do independent students face?

In addition to their role as learners, independent students may also be full-time workers, spouses, parents, caregivers, or members of the Armed Forces. Those additional roles may create added time commitments and financial burdens for independent students.

Independent students may also face isolation on campus as they differ in age, experience, and interest from traditional students. They may experience a sense of not belonging or imposter syndrome.

Independent students may also be returning to college after extended periods of working or caregiving and therefore may need to relearn or review some academic skills. They also may be unfamiliar with new classroom technologies and learning management systems that have been adopted since their previous educational experiences.

How can online learning benefit independent students?

Online learning offers several advantages for independent students. Asynchronous online learning allows independent students to pursue their studies on their own time schedule and in their preferred location. Hyflex courses provide choices for independent students to alternate in-person and virtual class sessions as their schedule permits.

Competency-based and adaptive learning courseware can provide individual pathways that permit independent students to move at their own pace through the curriculum and gain added practice in skills they may need to review.

How can colleges support independent students?

Colleges should collect and report data that is disaggregated by gender, race/ethnicity, and parent status. As Every Learner’s report, Toward Ending the Monolithic View of Under-represented Students, notes, “Aggregation of ‘underrepresented’ students obscures significant variations in admissions, course-level outcomes, persistence, graduation, and career success.” Disaggregated data tracking can help institutions target interventions that benefit independent students.

The Institute of Women’s Policy Research recommends financial needs assessments for colleges that take into account the full array of expenses for students, including childcare and transportation. They also suggest institutions consider new award policies that would allow independent students to decrease the hours they work that interfere with their studies. Presently, independent students’ earned income may disqualify them from financial aid consideration.

Colleges can offer an array of course modalities and schedules to accommodate the time and transportation demands of independent students. Increased opportunities for self-paced and competency-based courses would also benefit independent students.

A report from the National Association for Professionals in Student Affairs recommends colleges create on-campus spaces and organizations for students with independent status to build community and a sense of belonging. The report also suggests colleges invest in childcare centers for independent students who are also parents and provide family-friendly events.

A 2018 report from Hanover Research suggests colleges offer Prior Learning Assessments, noting that students who are awarded credit for prior learning are two and a half times more likely to complete their degrees.

How can faculty support independent students?

Faculty need to show sensitivity to the time, family, and employment pressures independent students may face. Setting flexible deadlines and alternate pacing for assignments can give independent students the opportunity to succeed even in the face of their many roles.

To combat the isolation many independent students face, faculty can design opportunities for active learning and online discussion to help independent students come to know and engage with their classmates. Culturally relevant course design is also important for every learner.

Faculty can also recognize and validate independent students’ prior learning by designing class activities in which independent learners can add expertise from their own work and life experiences. Building bridges between independent students’ lived experience and their academic work can build students’ confidence and help them clarify their purpose in their educational pursuits.

The post Understanding Independent Status Students and How Colleges Can Serve Them appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

When the academic affairs division does have a director of digital learning, that role may be a few steps removed from reporting to the provost, says Laura Niesen de Abruña, the representative for Every Learner Everywhere® from The Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO), which she helped found and is a past president of. That hands-off approach means university provosts and chief academic officers (CAOs) often aren’t giving enough attention to important strategic decisions.

“It’s too easy to delegate digital learning to an indirect report,” says Niesen de Abruña. “It’s easy for individuals not to know a lot about it and just feel they’re managing it.”

Niesen de Abruña says she often sees institutions with this dynamic in her role at ACAO working with other provosts. “If I was there, I would want to spend a lot of time with the director of digital learning, but it would be getting into somebody else’s business, subverting their authority,” she says. “That sort of structure is very common, particularly in big institutions.”

Niesen de Abruña recently started as Executive Vice President and Provost at Metropolitan State University in Denver, her fifth CAO role over the last twenty years. When Niesen de Abruña was Provost at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, she had started a Center for Digital Learning. Later, she advocated for programming at ACAO that exposed the organization’s members to more digital learning, eventually developing a grant-funded digital fellows program.

“At the time, we were mostly interested in adaptive learning, and, of course, that broadened,” she says. “Working with Every Learner, I continue to try to provide opportunities for chief academic officers to learn more about digital learning. And it’s been a real ride. We started this well before the pandemic. During the pandemic, we were very active, obviously. And post-pandemic is an interesting situation.”

Niesen de Abruña feels provosts should be actively thinking about and directly influencing four significant unresolved challenges with digital learning.

1. Resuming progress

Niesen de Abruña believes that, while the total amount of digital learning increased dramatically during the Covid-19 lockdowns, it nevertheless stalled important progress.

“The role of digital learning in higher education was really gathering some steam before the pandemic,” she explains. “We need to make sure we’re looking at some of those opportunities again and going back to develop them.”

For example, the emphasis has swung to remote learning, while the potential that digital learning has to support face-to-face courses has been neglected. “When the pandemic hit, everybody turned to video chat and to putting things on their LMS,” she says.

“That passes for digital learning now. Not to denigrate that, but we were working on what tools we can use in face-to-face courses that help students learn better. That’s still there as an issue we need to explore.”

Related reading — Recentering Digital Learning Around Students and Their Needs

2. Critically examine asynchronous

Another effect of Covid-19 was that asynchronous teaching became much more common, and Niesen de Abruña believes provosts need to think about swinging the pendulum back. “I don’t think that is helpful to students at all,” she says.

“If faculty aren’t managed, some of them are just using prefab stuff and not having much interaction with their students,” she points out. “Trying to get a handle on that is important. I’ve been shocked that faculty don’t want to fess up to that reality. Asynchronous presentation, I suppose, has its place, but I don’t know if it has its place at a university for degree-seeking students.”

3. Resolving new management challenges

Niesen de Abruña thinks provosts need to confront the difficult choice between managing an online program in house or partnering with an online program manager (OPM), a choice seemingly influenced by the scale and scope of the institution and its program.

“A lot of smaller institutions really can’t manage digital learning without the aid of a larger organization,” she says. “I’m not sure how confident smaller institutions are in working with OPMs, but I tend to think that can be very helpful.”

Meanwhile, she points out, the U.S. Education Department is casting a critical eye on the contracts universities have with OPMs, particularly when they involve revenue sharing, so the factors influencing this management decision are in flux.

4. Identify the unique differences

Niesen de Abruña says most faculty understand what good pedagogy is and that much of what is presented about teaching with technology is just a rehash of proven concepts.

“We’ve been talking about the principles of evidence-based teaching for a couple of decades,” she says. “If we’re talking about digital learning, we don’t have to go back and tell them what they already know about good teaching. Faculty know that.”

Instead, provosts should be facilitating conversations about what is truly unique to teaching using digital tools.

Taking ownership of digital learning priorities

With the growth of the chief information officer role as a cabinet-level position in higher education, “it became easy for the chief academic officer not to take on digital learning technology as a major priority,” Niesen de Abruña says, but it needs to be. In her work as a provost, she often has a limited set of priorities that she is careful about selecting.

“As a chief academic officer, part of my role is to add value at a higher level than the department or the school level,” she explains. “You have to be careful that your priorities aren’t stepping on the deans’ or the department chairs’ so nobody feels you’re taking ownership of something that’s their bailiwick.”

But digital learning is fundamentally about helping students learn better, she emphasizes, which “should be in the basket of chief academic officers in most institutions.”

The post 4 Digital Learning Priorities for Chief Academic Officers appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Equity-minded design

Equity-minded design makes the subject matter relevant to students. Learners identify themselves with the course and its content; because students feel seen and that they matter, they are more motivated. It aligns students’ characteristics, interests, learning needs and goals with the course content, activities and assessments.

Equity-minded design has rigor and does not mean a reduction in rigor or lowering standards. Academic challenges support student learning and growth with cognitive challenges coupled with our support and our beliefs in students’ capacity for success. It is a form of deficit-based thinking to assume that inclusion means there is a need to lower standards. A student-centered learning perspective instead looks for the institutional performance gaps and the ways in which the college or university is “at risk” of not successfully serving every learner.

Equity-minded design integrates holistic institutional and community supports, because what happens outside of the classroom directly impacts what happens inside the classroom. Faculty can normalize student support as a regular part of academic progress by including supports on the syllabus, integrating institutional and community-based support services into your course activities to help reduce stigma, and by building presence in the digital learning space, often your Learning Management System (LMS), to help faculty and students get to know each other.

Equity-minded design engages empathy. Empathetic principles to instruction and the learning experience can include intentional reflection time and brief “check-in” activities. An equitized syllabus conveys the message that the instructor cares about the student’s own goals and their success.

Equity-minded design rethinks assessment to center purpose, authenticity, and transparency. A good practice is to center students in the development of assessments.

Learn more: Course Redesign for Multiple Modalities to Support Student Success

Informed by students

A student-centered learning environment seeks out and uses students’ perspectives and experiences. Consider these practical ways that programs and individual faculty can be more informed by their students:

• Use a first-day confidential survey to alleviate tension, measure prior knowledge/skills, and identify preferred ways of demonstrating learning.
• Design a piece of the course to amplify student voice and increase student choice.
• Use progress “inquiries” that regularly ask students for their feedback and input.
• Use an additional survey halfway through the course to check in on whether students feel course content is responsive to their learning contexts.
• Monitor data dashboards to identify individual and general learning needs and continue to tailor your instruction to meet these needs.

Learn more: Taking a Holistic and Culturally Sustaining Approach to Serving HSI Students

Using digital tools to foster inclusion and equity

A student-centered learning environment can use digital tools in innovative ways to support inclusion and equity. For example:

• Syllabi can include a welcome video or other special messages from the instructor. This can also work in face-to-face classes if the syllabus is sent to students ahead of the first day of class.
• Data from the LMS and courseware data can be used to help students understand their own progress and where they need to put more attention.
• Polling or survey tools can be used to get quick practical feedback while communicating care.

Center students by conveying care

Student-centered learning environments ask what teaching strategies convey to students that instructors care about their success and how course design can encourage and validate students’ diverse perspectives, identities, and cultural contexts.

There are many possible answers to those questions, but three reliable ways to get started are prioritizing equity-minded design, making decisions that are informed by students, and using digital tools in ways that foster inclusion and equity.

The post 3 Elements of a Student-Centered Learning Environment appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Opportunities for accessibility and digital learning

“One thing exciting about AI has to do with accessibility,” says Van Davis, Chief Strategy Officer of WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies).

“We’re seeing really good text-to-speech development, and we’re starting to see speech-to-text as well. So, for folks who may struggle with certain forms of communication, AI has the opportunity to provide a new tool for accessibility.”

For students with learning disabilities, generative AI has the potential for an engaging, efficient alternative to traditional classroom tools. Davis says he’s observed educators creating parameters within ChatGPT to create interactive scenarios that place students in different historical time periods like Renaissance Italy. Essentially, the chat tool is modified to engage with students and present material in a new way.

Another example of expanding accessibility is a faculty member with ADHD who wrote in Inside Higher Ed about using generative AI tools for their own routine tasks like writing conference proposals. While the AI-generated product still required review, it streamlined the faculty member’s process.

Pairing generative AI and equity also has many implications for digital courseware. Davis says many current integrations are on the administrative side of the tool, where faculty get assistance creating course outlines or quizzes. Some institutions are also experimenting with ways that generative AI can be used in developing assignments, he says.

“Particularly with composition courses, there are some really interesting things being done with how students are asked to use the technology in a way that is both pedagogically appropriate for the student, but also in a way that doesn’t succumb to academic integrity issues,” Davis states.

For example, in one assignment he recently observed a colleague use, students used AI to generate a paper, and then the student’s original work was a critique of that paper.

“They basically grade it and fix it and learn to be able to have a reflective conversation about it,” Davis says. “So it tests a student’s subject-matter expertise, but it also helps their metacognitive abilities.”

Related reading — Using Digital Multimodal Composition to Achieve Greater Equity in the Classroom

Pitfalls of generative AI in education

For many educators, the initial fear with generative AI stems from academic dishonesty. In response, many colleagues are using software products that claim to detect plagiarism. As many others have argued, the discourse about plagiarism in higher ed is not race neutral, so it’s unlikely that conversations about controlling the use of AI will be.

“Oftentimes our conversations sort of start and stop with academic integrity,” Davis says. “Yes, we need to be aware of that. But from an equity perspective, there are bigger issues faculty need to talk to their students about.”

One issue is algorithmic bias, which is discrimination against one group over another due to the recommendations or predictions of a computer program. Systematic and repeatable errors in a system can create unfair results that privilege one group of users over another. An algorithm and its recommendations will appear to be impartial because biased instructions are not explicitly written into it. But the data the algorithm is learning from could have structural and historical bias baked in.

For example, suppose a college admissions office wants to use AI to identify applicants who are likely to succeed at their college and the AI relies on that institution’s previous admissions and graduation data. If that data has a lot of students with high school AP classes in it, the software will train itself to treat more AP classes as a signal of quality — even without explicit instructions — and thereby replicate an existing structural bias.

“We have these technologies that we think are dispassionate and incapable of oppression,” Davis says. “In reality, they’re extraordinarily biased. The danger is that we are trained to think it’s unbiased and to trust it more than we trust humans.”

Looking at generative AI from an equity perspective also means thinking about access, since many tools are behind paywalls. For example, many students are using ChatGPT, but some are using ChatGPT Plus — which is more flexible and more accurate — at a cost of $20/month.

“We run the risk of exacerbating our existing digital divide,” Davis says. “We’re going to see some students have access to the best, know how to use it, and have an advantage searching for jobs or trying to get into graduate programs.”

Related reading — How College Faculty Can Confront Unconscious Bias in Edtech Tools

Striking the right balance between AI and equity

“Generative AI is not the Terminator,” says Davis. “It uses probability to predict the next word in a sequence and create new material. There’s a future where generative AI may help develop content, but it’s never going to usurp the role of subject matter experts.”

As Davis has written earlier on this topic, the technology isn’t neutral, nor are our responses to it. Generative AI has the opportunity to revolutionize the classroom and digital learning. But to ensure those changes are for the better, it’s important to assess the risks and the opportunities from an equity perspective.

The post Decoding Generative AI and Equity in Higher Education appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Kingsborough Community College (KCC) in Brooklyn, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), serves a diverse community. As part of its mission, the college strives for equity and seeks to provide each student with the appropriate resources and supports to foster success.

After the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with more experience offering both in-person and online courses, KCC began to identify gaps in living up to its mission. In early 2021, the Provost convened a group of faculty members to work on bridging those gaps, and in 2022 KCC joined a new professional development initiative with Achieving the Dream (ATD) that led to building and sustaining a faculty community of practice to explore implementing equity-minded teaching practices.

Joining a one-year program

ATD, in partnership with the University of California Race and Equity Center, offers the Racial Equity Leadership Academy (RELA) to “help equip college leaders with the tools they need to address and dismantle systemic structures that have long served as barriers for racially minoritized students.”

RELA brought together 10 schools to participate in an intensive one-year program, including Kingsborough. It seemed a perfect fit, KCC President Claudia V. Schrader said at the time. “We serve a very diverse student body, and now more than ever, we need an intentional plan to close racial equity gaps and advance the success of students of color.”

Ryan McKinney, Professor of Theater Arts and Director of the Kingsborough Center for Teaching & Learning (KCTL), says many colleagues have been eager to examine their teaching practices through an equity lens. McKinney, along with Loretta Brancaccio-Taras, Director of the Kingsborough Center for e-Learning (KCEL), spearheaded the intensive project.

A dedicated framework for a community of practice

The heart of the work at KCC was implementing many of the principles and tools outlined in Communities of Practice in Higher Education: A Playbook for Centering Equity, Digital Learning, and Continuous Improvement authored by ATD, the Association of Public & Land-grant Colleges, the Online Learning Consortium, and Every Learner Everywhere®.

Choosing a community of practice wasn’t necessarily a big leap for the KCC faculty. McKinney points out that they already existed at Kingsborough, although in less-structured formats.

“KCTL and KCEL both have what many faculty developers refer to as faculty learning communities,” he says. “We never had a systematic, dedicated, organized seminar dedicated to equity-minded teaching practices. So this specific model was a new framework for us.”

Bringing issues to the surface

Susan Adams, Associate Director of Teaching and Learning at ATD and co-author of the Communities of Practice In Higher Education Playbook, refers to the community of practice being developed at KCC as a container for emerging issues in teaching and learning. “It allows faculty the opportunity to get together with peers, coaches, and facilitators to uncover challenges in the classrooms and to achieve an equity-focused environment,” she explains.

The first seminar, held in March 2023, brought together 32 Kingsborough faculty for an intensive program. While there were planned activities, Adams explains there was also ample opportunity for open discussion.

“We helped facilitate that, but we let the faculty uncover what they might be challenged by,” she explains. “The result has been extraordinary to see. They felt they had the agency and safety to admit where they needed to make significant changes, even if it meant not moving the needle as much as they had hoped. To do that within a supportive container of peers was really exciting to see.”

ATD presented 25 to 30 minutes of new content during each of seven initial sessions, allowing for plenty of peer-to-peer collaboration, and ended with a follow-up seminar in the fall. Participating faculty went into breakout rooms where they developed specific strategies. Following each session, they would integrate the concept into an action plan. Continuous improvement occurred through iteration of new content, feedback from peers, and practice.

Equitizing the syllabus

For example, the participating faculty were encouraged to equitize their syllabi using the Syllabus Review Guide for Equity-Minded Practice from the USC Rossier School of Education. In one activity, they selected one of the guiding principles in that tool and changed an element of their syllabus to match that principle.

According to McKinney, faculty participants reported that their students appreciated a syllabus with a different voice than they might be used to in other classrooms. “They felt welcomed into the course in a different way,” he explains. “They felt there was increased clarity and less mystery about the course itself, the expectations, and the assignments.”

Faculty participants also said many students felt they could see a path in the course because of the revised document, they felt connected to a faculty member, and the language in the syllabus encouraged a sense of community.

The syllabus outlined flexible submission guidelines and even grading policies to which they could contribute. “A tenet of the equitizing syllabus framework is to become a partner to your students,” says Adams, “so the result was to allow students to both contribute to the content of the course and make connections to their learning goals and cultural backgrounds.”

Challenges toward implementation

Time is the biggest challenge to any change. However, McKinney says, the faculty participated because they recognized the importance of improving student success.

Adams agrees that KCC faculty embraced the process: “In the beginning, there was some trepidation. People felt they didn’t have the time or that the students just needed to figure it out. But I saw a strong transformation.”

Adams explains that some faculty went a step further and implemented culturally responsive teaching practices. “Because we were with the community in the spring and then got to come back in the fall and meet again, it was great to see the impact,” she says.

“It was satisfying for our team to see the KCC faculty really did implement and identify change. Now they can continue with this work because they have become ‘change agents’ and can share their success across campus.”

Advice for implementation

McKinney believes the diversity of their 32 participating faculty was a key to success. “We benefited from having faculty from almost every academic department across the college and various disciplines,” he says.

“We also had a variety of faculty ranks, from part-time faculty to full professors. That brought a richness of experiences and perspectives that opened the conversation.”

Finally, McKinney says it’s important for participants to work on a future course, so they are not worrying about grading or posting lectures for that course during the seminars. “Put all that on hold for a second and give yourself the gift of time to think about your teaching practice,” he suggests.

“As a center director, I strive to give my community the gift of time because we’re always looking for the time to stop, reflect, learn, and then to grow at what we do.”

Moving forward

Now that the initial program through ATD is complete, McKinney plans to meet soon with the community to find ways to sustain it.

“We will plan some low-commitment, high-impact workshops that are an hour here or there throughout the spring semester,” McKinney explains. “Each one will focus on a single concept introduced by the ATD team — for example, welcoming statements in the syllabi and how you can create community through those.”

McKinney is grateful for the framework provided by ATD but says the ultimate success is because of the KCC faculty. “If we don’t have faculty who apply, we can’t do this work,” he says. “We had a robust application process and received a wide range from across the college. They took it seriously. We succeeded because of their dedication to the craft and the art of teaching. That’s pretty cool.”

The post How This College Implemented a Community of Practice to Advance Faculty Development appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Digital learning can enable colleges and universities to increase gateway course and degree completion, lower the cost of instruction, and deliver more equitable learning outcomes for Black, Latino, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students. But digital learning will not do that if it reproduces higher ed’s structural inequities. Instead we must use the design and delivery of digital learning as an opportunity to embrace transformative practices.

1. Shift from deficit thinking to strength-based approach

A deficit-based perspective holds students from marginalized populations responsible for the challenges and inequities they face. Deficit thinking views certain students as “at risk” of failing our institutions, rather than viewing institutions as “at risk” of failing students. A deficit mindset views education as remediating gaps, absences, or weaknesses that students bring from their home cultures or prior experiences.

A strengths-based perspective, by contrast, is one that recognizes the cultural resources, knowledge, value, and cultural capital that students bring into educational spaces with them and seeks to leverage those strengths. This is also sometimes called assets-based teaching, anti-deficit teaching, or a cultural wealth approach.

Learn more: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning Approaches and Strategies

2. Data-informed instruction

Imagine if you could assess your students and quickly provide them with relevant instruction at the right time based on their individual and collective needs. What would your course look like? What would your students be doing, and how would they demonstrate content mastery?

Technology can help faculty shift to data-informed instruction in the classroom whether online or in blended formats. Your institution is likely using many digital learning tools, including a learning management system and adaptive courseware, that use student responses to create reports that faculty can use to make instructional decisions.

However, faculty need thoughtful and sustained support to adapt evidence-based practices and customize strategies to meet student needs. Data-informed instruction comes most organically from a data culture.

Learn more: Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success 

3. Work across silos

Work in digital learning is often siloed, making it difficult for departments, offices, and external associations and organizations to provide support for digital learning strategy. One effective way to start working across the silos is with a structured community of practice. An equity-centered community of practice will be guided by questions such as:

• How has the community defined benefits for all participants?
• How will the community address systemic inequities and barriers for minoritized populations in its process (facilitation and evaluation) and strive to eliminate these barriers in practice?
• In what ways does the community center the voices of historically marginalized persons and foster inclusive group learning?
• How is the labor of ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion measures are met and distributed throughout the community?

Learn more: Developing a Digital Learning Ecosystem to Ensure Student Success

4. Critical reflection

Centering student voice and equity requires that faculty and other higher education professionals engage in critical reflection about how they and their courses present barriers for students. Transformative educators acknowledge their own biases and assumptions, examine their materials for those biases, and are mindful of how their thoughts and actions reflect those biases.

Critical reflection means asking ourselves questions like:

• What can I learn about myself that can help me understand my own choices, behaviors and actions, and help me understand how I operate in my courses and how I impact those around me?
• How will I and my students benefit from inclusive, student-centered learning environments?
• How do you show up to facilitate a learning experience that encourages and validates students’ diverse perspectives, identities, and cultural contexts?

A significant form of reflection is asking how the learning experiences we design are perceived by students. How likely are they to say that all students are treated fairly, that their professor shows that they care about how students do in their classes, or that their professor encourages the diverse perspectives of students?

One useful tool for critical reflection is Every Learner Everywhere®’s Equity in Digital Learning Student Survey instrument. Its design enables a program or institution to position students’ course experiences as data to inform course and instructional improvement.

Learn more: Continuous Improvement Strategies for Advancing Quality Digital Learning

5. Advocacy for change

Every Learner and its partners advocate for transformative conversations about digital learning that center students, not least by including and foregrounding student perspectives in those conversations. We facilitate conversations with big-picture questions about who students are, what our aspirations are for them, and what their own aspirations are for themselves. And we try to highlight practical everyday examples of advocacy.

For example, Arieale Rodgers, who co-authored a series of strategy guides for equity-centered digital teaching and learning, spoke in an interview about how the educators interested in that work are coming from different levels of engagement. She makes the point that taking up equity work requires systemic change in institutions of higher education, and there are many practical ways that faculty can facilitate those conversations in their departments in ways that promote change.

The evidence is clear that gateway courses as they have traditionally been designed and delivered often slow down or derail student progress. Data shows that Black, Latino, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students are disproportionately held back by gateway courses due to systemic barriers contributing to equity gaps, leading to lower retention and graduation rates. Digital learning combined with evidence-based teaching practices presents opportunities not only to smooth down those barriers but to transform our institutions to center student care and equity.

The post 5 Transformative Practices That Center Student Voice and Equity in Digital Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

While there has traditionally been a divide between academic affairs and student affairs that limits the role of faculty in student support, the holistic support approach calls on institutions to transform culturally to improve the continuum of academic and non-academic student journeys. Institutions that have pursued this approach might institute high-touch academic and career advising, mentoring, boot camp learning models, and early college programs, which might complement redesigns of registration, counseling, and other services.

Another characteristic of holistic student support is that it is highly data driven and alert for ways to be updated for current students, says Paula Talley, Executive Director of Program Development at Achieving the Dream, which offers many services and programming in this area.

“It’s understanding who our students are and what they need to be successful, whether that’s inside or outside the classroom,” she says. “It’s about an intentional design of their experiences.”

Comprehensive guidance for that data-driven approach is outlined in  Knowing Our Students: Understanding and Designing for Success from Achieving the Dream and the Student Success Network, originally published in 2021 and recently updated.

One particular group that benefits from a holistic student support style is adult learners who may have different motivations for their studies. “For a lot of them, they’ve been away from school for quite a while,” Talley says. “They’re used to doing things on their own, so holistic approaches can be designed to give them empowerment over their own learning so they can be more successful.”

Comprehensive support

Holistic student support acknowledges that every student is unique and requires different resources to succeed. By creating a student-centered experience, this approach aims to address the varied challenges students may face to achieve their distinct goals. In practice, this looks like offering comprehensive support to students across the board.

“What we’ve seen a lot before in the past is that we blamed the students for not being ready for college,” Talley explains. “Now it’s really shifting toward what we as the institution can do to be ready for the students that we serve in the communities that we serve.”

While offering comprehensive support can be an intimidating task for faculty, Talley says that technologies like learning management systems and adaptive courseware have eased the burden for staff members and students alike. By utilizing data or formative assessments to recognize shifts in patterns, Talley says, faculty can spot where students may be struggling outside of the classroom.

Data literacy can vary from one instructor to another, but instructional designers can be a valuable resource to successfully integrating holistic support systems into digital learning, whether that’s embedding resources into an LMS or providing behind-the-scenes support for students and staff.

“Holistic student support comes in when you notice one student may have a sudden drop off,” Talley says. “If  you’re checking regularly, you can do that right away and get the student the support they need. It could consist of the teaching and learning practices you’re using in the classroom, but it’s also connecting them to supports outside of the classroom, whether that’s talking to an advisor or a success coach.”

Related reading — The Power of Student-Centered Learning: How Listening to Students Can Improve Higher Education

Building community and connections

Every learner is dealing with unique circumstances, so creating a network of community support is vital for institutions offering a holistic support system. A library of community resources can lessen the strain on faculty and staff.

“That’s where partnerships come in,” Talley says. “A lot of advisors or counselors can’t do mental health counseling, or they don’t have the funding for bus passes. But they can partner with community organizations that could help with food pantries or bus passes.”

In addition, Talley observes that there’s even confusion within many colleges as to what resources are available, which can hinder efforts to destigmatize getting support and communicate that it is as a normal part of academic progress. “There needs to be an understanding of the resources that are actually available because many faculty say they don’t know what’s out there,” Talley says. “We often find that there’s a disconnect between faculty and student support services. There’s not that friendly handoff.”

By moving toward a holistic support model, institutions reexamine the channels of communication between leadership and staff, with faculty, and even between students. In fact, a communication audit is a part of the services that Achieving the Dream offers in this area.

Fostering success

The move toward a holistic student support system can be uncomfortable, but also contributes to a more equitable learning environment for all students.

“In a holistic support system we are providing students with what they need to be successful,” Talley says. “You’re looking at the whole student and finding ways they belong in the classroom. You’re developing this culture of belonging that breaks down barriers, not just between faculty and students, but between students and students.”

The post An Introduction to the Faculty’s Role in Holistic Student Support appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Straub was assisted in that in 2022 when she participated in Digital Learning Praxis: Engendering Quality and Equity Across the Learning Lifecycle, a workshop facilitated by Dr. Angela Gunder of Online Learning Consortium. This virtual workshop, offered through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board by Every Learner Everywhere® and its network partners, addressed student-centered instruction through evidence-based strategies that impact student engagement, metacognitive skills, and long-term content retention.

Transformative framework

“When I first signed up for this training, my concept as to what I could get out of it was very narrow,” Straub says. “I was hoping to grow my individual skill set with a few new tools or a list of equity practices that I could essentially check off as I addressed them.”

Instead, Straub’s takeaway from the training exceeded her expectations. “I received a full framework for how to improve my classes overall in a holistic sense and through pedagogical innovation. There is a reason we do what we do and that impacts how we do it. I did not view online teaching in that way before this training.”

During the training, Straub said Gunder impressed upon members of the cohort the importance of ensuring the classes they currently teach in an online, asynchronous space create equitable digital learning environments for students. Since the first piece of information a student typically receives about a course is the syllabus, Straub started her course revision by reviewing the content of her syllabi.

Equitizing the syllabus

Straub chose to focus first on MLGE 4230, a middle-grades social studies methods course, because it was a single section and she was the only instructor of record on it, making it ideal for trying new asynchronous online teaching practices.

“There is a lot of research about what a syllabus should look like and sometimes the information we are required to put in by our departments can be very long,” she says. “When we looked at reimagining it, we moved the student support services, like Title IX, disabilities, and mental health supports, from the end of the syllabus to the beginning. This shows students that we care about their health and well-being first and foremost.”

Straub also revised sections to remove passive voice constructions (i.e. “Students are expected to . . . .”) in favor of active direct-address constructions that emphasize and explain the reason for assignments or processes (i.e. “You’re doing this because . . . .”) This allowed her to ground her syllabus in the why of the course instead of just telling students the expectations and the penalties for not meeting them.

Student responses to the changes Straub made have been enthusiastic. “By the spring semester I had a whole course revamped, and the survey results from those students stated that they felt like they had a relationship with me,” Straub says.

“I gave them all the opportunity to set up meetings with me at the beginning of the semester, so they liked the opportunity to have that one-on-one time. They felt like they could do collaborative planning with their peers and that the online classroom felt like a safe space.”

Straub was so excited to share what she learned that she sought out Dr. Rachel Jumper, a colleague at Stephen F. Austin State University, to work with her on extending her course redesigning efforts. The prior year, Jumper had won an Excellence in Teaching award, and she taught her courses entirely online. They collaborated to find areas in their courses where they could improve the asynchronous online learning experience for students by applying equity-centered frameworks. Their report on that project, Digital Learning Equity Analysis Project: A Collaborative Self-Study and Implementation Exercise for Improved Equity-Centered Practices, is now available.

Straub hopes the continued work she and Jumper plan to undertake will reduce some of the stigma that surrounds digital learning. “There is this myth that online teaching and learning isn’t as challenging, both for the students and the educator, or that students don’t interact as much with the instructor, but that isn’t true at all,” Straub says.

“You can create meaningful transformative experiences online. Students are part of a collaborative work environment, the curriculum is rigorous, and they create a strong bond with their professor.”

The post How This Education Professor Is Equitizing Her Asynchronous Online Methods Course appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

ACES supported course redesign activities at six universities to improve student success outcomes and reduce equity gaps for minoritized, poverty-affected, and first-generation students. The participating institutions targeted gateway courses with high enrollment and high DFW rates. ACES was delivered through the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®.

The case studies of the ACES adaptive learning courseware implementation initiatives outline the unique goals, institutional context, process, and results at each institution. The case studies also include narrative sections on other improvements and impacts the participants observed. Below are some of the highlights from those sections.

Deeper learning

Cleveland State University biology and chemistry faculty report that adaptive courseware allowed them to reduce time in class teaching basic definitions and foundational knowledge since assignments were completed on those concepts beforehand. Instead, that class time was redirected to “deeper learning,” said Vice Provost John Holcomb.

Participants in the University of Toledo ACES initiative made a similar point in their team report. “We feel the students are actually learning the content and not just memorizing and forgetting,” they wrote. “By using the adaptive courseware, we are able to target student misconceptions early and fix them before it’s too late (after we see exam results). Student inquiries have improved from simple knowledge questions to more critical thinking and application.”

Related reading — When Students Write the Quiz: How This Biology Professor Innovated with Digital Learning to Increase Engagement 

More connected to students’ learning

One University of Central Florida physics instructor in the ACES initiative said that using traditional lectures in large-enrollment gateway courses has meant they often present information repeatedly and hope students are hearing and understanding it. The instructor has experienced that as a disconnect between themselves and students, which this redesign initiative helped bridge.

“Using [adaptive courseware] makes sure that every question not just reaches the students but is also answered by the students,” they wrote. “I can add a variety of questions, which helps students improve their understanding of the subject. I can ask the same questions in different ways/styles to check if students are understanding. Answering the questions asked in a variety of ways helps students get a clear view of the physics idea being taught and understand better.”

Related reading — Using Formative Assessment in Supporting Student Directed Learning

Sustainability and agency

At the University of Texas El Paso, the ACES project focused on developing and using open education resources. William Robertson, the project lead, said his colleagues are more confident supplementing the courseware with OER of their own.

“[That] makes it more sustainable for the future because the faculty own it rather than leadership recommending it and saying this is what we should do,” he wrote.

Related reading — A Practical Course on Leveraging Culturally Relevant OER in Tribal Colleges and Universities

Model for other faculty

The community of practice that emerged at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley as part of the ACES initiative is setting a new tone, said Tim Huber, Director of the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Collaborating to revise introductory math courses required is having ongoing ripple effects.

“We’re talking to each other more,” he said. “There’s new faculty coming into the department, and they see this going on and they realize there’s other people interested in the success of students. The department is interested in the success and the university is. All of this is really on display in this initiative and in all of the other things that we’re doing.”

Related reading — Data Culture, Data Literacy, and Building a Community of Practice At Your College or University

Professional growth

Faculty growth was a common theme across several case studies. The University of Toledo case study describes how the process of implementing courseware effectively necessarily prompted reflection and awareness about teaching practices, equity, and what students need.

The result, said the project lead Barbara Schneider, is that the institution is benefiting from “increased faculty development and a much deeper awareness of our equity gaps and our ability to address them.”

Related reading — Concerned About Equity In Higher Ed? Start with The DFWI Rate

Other impacts of adaptive learning implementation

The six case studies hint at other impacts from the initiatives in less detail. For example, one professor felt the way they used courseware enabled more student agency and self-directed learning. Other faculty described the power of putting learning and progress data from courseware in front of students. And some students in post-implementation surveys described how courseware suited their particular circumstances.

While acknowledging and detailing the many challenges and potential limitations of adaptive learning courseware, the six case studies read together illustrate the potential that digital learning has to create more equitable student outcomes by improving learning and educational experiences.

The post Impacts of Adaptive Learning Implementation: Findings from a New Collection of Case Studies appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Education, whether in elementary, secondary, or higher education institutions have been seen as a way for Black people and communities to resist the narrative that Black people are intellectually inferior. When Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week (NHW) in 1926, he saw it as a way to provide a space and resources to critically educate students about their history. The grassroots network of Black teachers used this week not only to lionize individuals and narratives, but also to teach students about racial progress, and as well as shared and collective responsibility. They developed assignments and curriculum to provide students with the tools to succeed. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), were developed to train people in trades and as educators, and became a space for the formation of activists, artists, business owners, and leaders. Their continued operation has stood as testament to Black investment and creative thinking in the face of the changing landscape of higher education. Furthermore, students at HBCUs were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movements, and social justice movements from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries.

Black History Month is not a token. It is a special tribute—a time of acknowledgement, of reflection, and inspiration—that comes to life in real and ongoing activities throughout the year. We invite you to join us in celebrating Black History Month as we recognize the achievements and contributions of Black students and digital learning champions in higher education who are inspiring others to achieve success.

Anissia Fleming, Student at Tennessee State University and Every Learner Student Intern, shares her perspective:

I have greatly benefited from taking multiple classes relating to a particular marginalized community. My community. These courses were Black Politics, Black Arts and Literature, and African American Philosophy which solely correlated with African Americans right on. Not only were the three classes vital to my degree track, program of study, and future career and goals/aspirations, but it would be an absolute dishonor to the African American race and the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities if courses like the ones I have listed were not offered to the students then, now, and forever on these campuses.

From my perspective, courses as previously listed are necessary in equipping students with the knowledge and tools needed in order to succeed in advancing intellectually and thriving in the post-graduate world as well as understanding aspects of life from different points of view in a general sense. That being said, a specific thought that remains constant for me is the fact that courses like these should be voluntarily offered at all colleges and universities in order for Black voices to be heard and for there to be a clear understanding that all things, especially subject matters in college, can not be simply understood from one avenue of thinking.

All things considered, I had the esteemed pleasure of attending an HBCU myself, Tennessee State University to be exact, and each of the courses were taught by Black professors. All of the classes were thought-provoking and each to its own impacted me in various positive ways. Whether I learned something new, had an idea challenged, had to destroy an old mindset, or my love for politics grew due to the knowledge being obtained, I am grateful to have partook in such compelling courses focusing on the perspectives of African Americans and how they affect the race overall, freedom, advancement, and so much more.

Colleges offering classes on the history, culture, and politics of minoritized populations is important for several reasons. These classes:

Promote understanding and empathy: By studying the experiences of different groups, students can gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and triumphs faced by minoritized communities. This can help to foster empathy and compassion, and break down stereotypes and prejudices.

Challenge dominant narratives: Traditional history and political science curricula often focus on the experiences of the majority group, neglecting the stories of marginalized communities. Studying these groups can help to challenge dominant narratives and provide a more complete picture of history and politics.

Prepare students for an increasingly diverse world: As the world becomes more interconnected, it is important for students to be prepared to interact with people from different backgrounds. Studying the history, culture, and politics of minoritized populations can help students develop the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in a diverse society.

Empower students from minoritized backgrounds: For students from minoritized backgrounds, studying their own history and culture can be empowering. It can help them to understand their own identities and place in the world, and it can give them the tools they need to advocate for themselves and their communities.

Contribute to a more just and equitable society: By promoting understanding, empathy, and critical thinking, courses on the history, culture, and politics of minoritized populations can help to create a more just and equitable society for all.

In addition to the benefits listed above, offering courses on the history, culture, and politics of minoritized populations can also help to:

Attract and retain a more diverse student body: Students from minoritized backgrounds are more likely to attend colleges that offer courses that reflect their identities and experiences.

Enhance the quality of education for all students: By exposing students to a wider range of perspectives, courses on minoritized populations can help to improve critical thinking skills and deepen students’ understanding of the world around them.

Promote Inclusivity in Academic Disciplines: Integrating the history and experiences of minoritized populations into various academic disciplines helps challenge Eurocentric or ethnocentric biases. It encourages a more inclusive approach in fields such as history, literature, sociology, and political science.

Develop Cultural Competence in a Diverse Society: As societies become more diverse, having a culturally competent workforce is essential. Education on the histories and cultures of minoritized populations helps prepare students to engage effectively in a multicultural and globalized world.

Encourage Empowerment and Representation: Learning about one’s own history and culture, as well as the histories and cultures of others, can empower individuals and communities. Representation in educational curricula validates the experiences of minoritized populations, fostering a sense of pride and belonging.

Overall, there are many compelling reasons why colleges should offer classes on the history, culture, and politics of minoritized populations. These courses can benefit students of all backgrounds, and they can help to create a more just and equitable society for all.

The post Why Schools Should Offer Courses on the History, Culture, and Politics of Minoritized Populations appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Two of the co-authors of the most recent Horizon report from EDUCAUSE say two key themes that emerged this year were flexibility and student-centered learning. Students are asking if institutions provide the flexibility they need, and new technologies like AI are reinforcing the need to design teaching and learning around the student experience.

Flexibility and centering students helps colleges and universities move closer to making education equitable for all students, say Kathe Pelletier, Director, Teaching and Learning Program at EDUCAUSE, and Jenay Robert, Senior Researcher at EDUCAUSE. But, as Robert points out, “Not everybody has the support they need when learning in a hybrid modality.”

She also notes that while AI can create more learning opportunities for more students, it also has the potential to harm. Students with disabilities, low socioeconomic status, or language barriers may be misunderstood or excluded by AI tools.

The 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition profiles emerging trends, technologies, and practices shaping teaching and learning and envisions several possible future scenarios and implications. Horizon Reports going back to 2005 have explored issues such as privacy and data security. The 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report synthesizes the input of more than 60 higher education leaders who discussed and voted on the key trends in higher education and the technologies and practices that are anticipated to impact those trends. In addition to AI, this year’s report explores trends in hyflex learning, microlearning, microcredentials, and technologies that support students’ sense of connectedness and belonging.

Future scenarios

One section of the report outlines four scenarios that might result from those trends.

• Growth is a scenario in which institutions of higher education continue on their current trajectories. For example, hybrid learning programs may continue rapid and unconstrained growth without any improvement in equitable access.
• Constraint is a scenario in which higher education reorganizes itself around a core guiding value or principle that drives decision making and daily practices. For example, climate change may force institutions to shift priorities and to optimize for flexibility.
• Collapse is a scenario in which higher education has experienced a series of breakdowns and widespread changes that decimate many institutions. For example, technology and economic changes may reduce the need for formal higher education.
• Transformation is a scenario in which society fundamentally shifts its expectations of higher education. For example, with AI transforming work and political engagement, the public may value a population with high-level creativity, collaboration, and innovation skills.

“This is not a crystal ball,” Pelletier explains. “The scenarios all take the same ingredients and make four different meals from them. We were very data driven, leveraging foresight practices and methodologies, and that’s what makes the report a powerful tool.”

The scenarios section is followed by seven response essays exploring the findings and their possible implications from different expert perspectives. The implications section covers topics such as learning spaces, equity and accessibility, digital connectivity, adult learners, innovation in research and teaching, and technology trends in under-resourced institutions.

Student-centered learning

Robert appreciates that the 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report expert panel focused on centering the student experience. “They pointed out that there’s a growing student demand for flexible learning modalities,” she explains. “There’s a lot of buzz about hybrid learning and online options, yet our panelists are talking about how technology can be used in that way to mold our pedagogical practices and support students.”

Pelletier says that while the themes in the report reveal the need for flexibility and student-centered teaching and learning, many faculty still see themselves at the center of higher education. Momentum toward equity requires faculty making a shift toward designing for student needs and even for their individual goals.

Anticipating AI

Interestingly, the expert panel informing the 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report met in November 2022, just before the release of the AI platform ChatGPT accelerated wide public interest in AI. Nevertheless, the role of AI in higher education was a big part of those discussions, showing up not only in the discussion of trends but twice more the chapter on key technologies and practices — AI for personalized learning and the implications of generative AI.

The report acknowledges that generative AI has the capacity to make misinformation seem persuasively real and that some faculty are responding to the broad accessibility of generative AI by prohibiting or tightly controlling its use in the classroom.

Pelletier believes AI could enable more active learning, authentic assessment, and other engaging teaching practices. “There is a groundswell of faculty who are saying, ‘Finally, I get to be creative,’” she says.

Robert notes that educators are having a very human reaction to the emergence of AI. “It’s causing us to ask what the role of the teacher is,” she explains. “If there are a host of activities generative AI can accomplish, what do we want students to learn in a semester or in four years? With disruption comes an opportunity to teach in a genuinely student-focused and equitable way.”

The post The Future of Student-Centered Learning appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

However, Straub felt she needed time to engage more deeply with the concepts she was learning so she could apply them to her courses. So she recruited colleague Dr. Rachel Jumper, a professor in the School of Humanities, to collaborate with her on the digital learning equity frameworks. Each instructor selected one of her own online courses to review and utilized the frameworks in the Caring for Students Playbook to analyze and revise what they were doing.

Straub selected her undergraduate MLGE 4230 course for middle-level social studies methodologies, and Jumper chose her graduate-level introductory course in Human Sciences, HMSC 5300. Straub and Jumper describe their interpretation and application of the guidelines in the Caring for Students Playbook in a report titled Digital Learning Equity Analysis Project: A Collaborative Self-Study and Implementation Exercise for Improved Equity-Centered Practices.

Reducing cognitive load

One of the first goals of the revisions the co-authors made to their courses was reducing their students’ cognitive load, a concept that explains how the human brain processes and manages information, suggesting that there is a limit to the amount of information a person can effectively process in their working memory at any given time. As described in the Caring for Students Playbook, cognitive load can be reduced by organizing course sites in easy to navigate formats, helping make connections to students’ lives to see how all of the pieces of the course fit together, breaking content into smaller groups of information, and reinforcing new information through application or quizzes.

Jumper says her syllabus became more “humanized” after implementing these changes. “It’s easy to throw something on a syllabus and tell the students to do it,” she says. “I started doing more instructional videos that told the students ‘Here is what I’m looking for,’ and that added a lot to my class. Too often in online classes there are just words the students have to interpret and decipher to figure out what the instructor wants. This took the work off of them.”

Equity-centered design practices

Straub’s training included equity-centered design, which the co-authors describe in their report as “the practice of purposefully involving minoritized communities throughout a design process with the goal of allowing their voices to directly affect how the solution will address the inequity at hand.”

One issue influencing equity in Straub and Jumper’s digital classrooms was their university’s location in a rural area, leading to differences in reliable internet access. Their report emphasizes that some online platforms may be inaccessible to students with limited access to technology, so teachers need to be aware of the potential biases in digital learning platforms and actively work to overcome them.

Additionally, Straub and Jumper also began asking students more questions to understand their educational journeys so they could tailor their teaching and learning experience.

Straub says, “Students would say things like, ‘I’m a single mother of four and I do my work in the evenings,’ or ‘I work the night shift so I do my schoolwork on the weekends,’ and that allowed us to group the students together based on their similar schedules so that collaboration was easier.”

Pedagogy of care

The pedagogy of care is an approach to online teaching that emphasizes compassion, empathy, and support for students in online learning spaces. This pedagogy promotes a student-centered approach to teaching that prioritizes the well-being of the learner. Pedagogy of care recognizes that learners have different needs, experiences and backgrounds, and it is essential to create an environment that fosters a sense of community, trust and respect.

One practice she immediately implemented was a “Getting to Know You” quiz to learn more about what was going on in students’ lives. Using that, she would put important dates on her calendar to remind her to ask about a surgery or a significant celebration. “Oftentimes, after I did this, a student would reply to tell me it made their day and they’ve never had a professor reach out like this.”

Straub also learned in the Caring for Students Playbook that something as simple as highlighting information on the syllabus about student support services on campus made a huge difference in showing the students what the professors valued. “When the support services come after punitive practices like late work policies, it doesn’t really show that we are concerned with their well-being,” Straub says.

One adaptation Jumper made was to have more flexibility in her office hours to cater to her students, most of whom are non-traditional learners. “I always have office hours, but students don’t always come, so to create that connection I make myself more available. I realized I was giving hours on my time, not theirs,” she says.

Related reading — Practical Ways Faculty Can Normalize Student Support Services

Rekindling

Revamping their syllabi was just one part of redesigning their courses, which took nearly the entire summer for each of them, but the work was meaningful and impactful for their students. In the conclusion to their report, they write that this activity “demonstrates the effectiveness of utilizing a structured protocol to analyze online courses for alignment to data tools and potential biases.”

“In my end-of-semester surveys, students said they felt like they had a relationship with me and an opportunity to speak to me about their work one-on-one in conferences,” says Straub. “The online classroom felt like a safer place. They also really liked that in an online world there are still collaborative assignments with peers.”

The two instructors plan to continue working together to dig deeper into their classes and incorporate additional strategies from the Caring for Students Playbook. They also hope in the future to start a cohort professional development program at Stephen F. Austin State University for colleagues interested in digital learning equity frameworks.

“Going through my courses like this really rekindled for me why I do what I do,” Jumper says. “Too often we continue to teach the same way, but that way isn’t always the best way for the students.”

The post Applying Digital Learning Equity Frameworks: A Collaborative Self-Study Report appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“It feels like professors are much more willing to help me after my diagnosis than they were before,” they said. “For a few semesters my GPA had dropped below a 2.5 and no one reached out to ask me why I was struggling, but it has gotten a bit easier for me now that I have the proper accommodations for my diagnosis.”

This helped Jamie, a senior math major at Sam Houston State University in Texas, realize “education isn’t always equitable,” they say. “Whether the inequity is due to a diagnosis like mine or financial hardships that make accessing education difficult for some students, or discrimination based on race or ethnicity, there are a lot of reasons why the educational system needs to change.”

Jamie (who prefers to go by their first name in this article) is hoping their research project as part of their internship with Every Learner Everywhere® in fall 2023 will provide institutions of higher learning with the data and knowledge to improve equity.

“There is so much about the educational system that could be improved, and it isn’t all the fault of the teachers,” they say. “Teachers are overworked and underpaid and not provided with the professional development or support to deal with specific student populations.”

Jamie’s research involves interviewing people who work or study at Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), which are defined as those who have a population of 25 percent or more Hispanic students. Jamie often isn’t recognized as Hispanic and they want their research to alleviate the burdens of discrimination that they — as a white-passing person — haven’t had.

“People doubt it all the time when I tell them, so I don’t face the prejudices and hardships that others with more melanin in their skin do,” they say. “My mom is from Mexico and melanated, and I’ve seen it with her. It’s not fun to watch.”

Jamie says that being designated as an HSI doesn’t necessarily mean they actively serve their Hispanic student body. Their goal for their internship project is to collect data on if and when HSIs do serve Hispanic students effectively and that other institutions might benefit from.

“Unfortunately, minority students face more hardships based on the color of their skin than white peers, and sometimes the institutions they attend don’t have services or programs to assist them in the transition to college,” Jamie says. “But even when they do, there is always something better they can do even for that portion of the student body.”

This research is particularly important to Jamie as a resident of Texas, which has passed Senate Bill 17. S.B. 17 prohibits all institutions of higher education in the state from establishing or maintaining a diversity, equity, and inclusion office on campus, or from hiring or assigning an employee of the institution, or contract with a third party, to perform the duties of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office.

That may mean the end of a program that has been meaningful to Jamie personally — evolve, which provides support services to female transfer students — as well as support services for Black and Hispanic male students.

“Our former directors have seen data that these programs help these students do better in class and on campus, and give them a way to ask for help when they need it,” Jamie says. “These organizations can immensely help the minority population. [When the bill goes into effect], we are expecting to see data show that minority students won’t thrive as they did before because they won’t have that safe place to go where they can be themselves and feel accepted and be able to relate to one another.”

Jamie is hoping their research with Every Learner will provide them with the skills and research experience to become a data scientist for a social justice organization so they can continue their quest to provide data to support equity in education.

“All the systems that deal with the disenfranchised, whether higher education or the justice system, can do better,” Jamie says. “I want to be the one making it better, even if I’m not the political person actually making the laws. I want to have the data to show why a particular law should be enacted or put in place or to show how bad a situation is [for a minority population]. My data could back up the policymakers and provide them with the data they need. I am only one person, but I want to start somewhere.”

Jamie believes that through research and curated data, education could be reformed and improved for all students: “A lot of autistic people tend to gravitate toward social justice fields because we know how hard it is to live in a world that isn’t built for us, and we know what it feels like to just have so many burdens on everyday activities that other people can do so easily. We don’t want to see other people feel that same way.”

The post A Student Perspective on Education Systems Reform Through Research and Data appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“We often hear folks saying, ‘Yes, I get the theory, I get the ideas and concepts. Now how do I put this into practice?’” says H. Ray Keith, Associate Director for Teaching and Learning at Achieving the Dream. “This series unpacks those instructional strategies for faculty.”

Keith and Sarah Kinnison, Associate Director of Program Development at Achieving the Dream, in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, were among several experts who contributed to the Putting Equity Into Practice series. The four user-friendly guides support faculty and course designers implementing proven equity-minded and student-centered learning strategies.

Each guide includes a summary of relevant research, resource lists, ways to apply established frameworks, “how to” examples, reflection activities, and inspiring examples from the field. They also identify digital learning tools that faculty can apply to particular activities.

From Putting Equity Into Practice: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning

The guides are a follow-up to an earlier series of three digital learning instructional strategy guides on data-informed instruction, onboarding students, and digital course structure.

“This new series focuses on looking at current practices that are culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining and affirming, while utilizing digital tools and coursewares to enhance student learning,” says Keith.

The four equity-minded digital learning strategy guides in the series are:

• Putting Equity Into Practice: Open Pedagogy, which helps instructors use renewable assignments and co-created and student-created content that incorporates students’ cultures, lived experiences, and diverse perspectives into the course.
• Putting Equity Into Practice: Social Justice Education, which helps instructors confront biases and create anti-racist environments where students can authentically engage in learning in ways that are meaningful to them.
• Putting Equity Into Practice: Equity-Minded Professional Learning, which helps instructors develop specific practices that value, embrace, and build equitable learning spaces.
• Putting Equity Into Practice: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning, which helps instructors develop teaching practices that acknowledge and use students’ cultural knowledge and frames of reference.

The series also includes a short introductory document outlining the goals, structure, and context for the guides.

One of the greatest advantages of the Putting Equity Into Practice series, says Kinnison, is their structure, which allows the reader to engage with the guide individually or as a set and in ways that advance their learning.

Creating the guides

Because the co-authors were starting with an abundance of research and commentary on these topics, their primary challenge was developing practical guides that were grounded in evidence but also actionable and digestible. Keith says their criteria when selecting influences were what was current in the field and what has been proven to lead to more equitable results for Black, Latino, and Indigenous students.

Keith says early drafts of the guides presented at professional conferences received positive feedback, particularly on topics recently getting broader attention in higher education, such as culturally responsive teaching and social justice education.

“Co-authors Michele Hampton and Ruanda Garth McCullough expressed the need for this work in the field,” Kinnison says. “These topics have been widely discussed in K-12, and more recently higher education has begun to adopt these approaches to teaching and learning to better support student success for marginalized student groups.”

An interactive experience

From Putting Equity Into Practice: Open Pedagogy

While planning the Putting Equity Into Practice series, the co-authors wanted to create material that was an interactive and engaging experience. They decided to embed links to video files in the PDFs of the guides to expand on key topics. The guides also invite educators to reassess how tools they may already be using can be implemented in new ways to support equitable teaching and learning.

“We wanted to make sure this effort would have long-term impact on student experiences and outcomes,” Kinnison says. “We felt like the guides should be a living, moving, and interactive tool that would jump off the page and into the courses.”

This interactive approach is intended to make access to these strategies easier than ever for faculty. Keith suggests that the guides can be used to support faculty in becoming best practitioners: “These guides intentionally provide evidence-based instructional strategies, digital tools, and student-centered pedagogical approaches that advance equity and culturally responsive teaching and learning that leads to more equitable outcomes for students in higher education.”

The post 4 Equity-Minded Digital Learning Strategy Guides appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

For example, he’d like to design a course for students whose first language isn’t English, “maybe by taking academic language down a notch so students have a better opportunity to understand what is being taught to them.”

He says equity depends on closing the disconnect the institution or instructors may have with students. One particular disconnect he notes is the impact on Indigenous students when every syllabus at Fort Lewis acknowledges that the institution used to be an Indian Boarding School.

“While that might be interesting for students from Denver who don’t know that history,” Rendon says, “there isn’t a need to recollect that trauma and continuously bring it into the classroom for the Native students. They want to focus on where they are now, as individuals and as a people. Focusing on that trauma isn’t equitable and doesn’t provide a safe space for those Native students.”

Fort Lewis is one of the 37 Native-American Serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTI) that, along with Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU), are an important part of the college experience for Indigenous students. Rendon’s experience at Fort Lewis has been informing his research project during his Every Learner internship in fall 2023 on what NASNTIs and historically white institutions can learn from TCUs about creating equitable learning environments.

For example, Indigenous communities can have a strong sense of relational ethics, while in Rendon’s experience, classrooms in historically white institutions sometimes don’t even prioritize knowing who individual students are.

Rendon isn’t Indigenous but grew up in a community with a large Indigenous population and hopes he can conduct his research with sensitivity. “A lot of people who have done this type of research before have never been in a Native American house or attended a Powwow or Native American feast,” he says. “Where they have fallen short on their research is that lack of connection to the actual people they are researching.”

From shaky legs to confidence

Rendon is majoring in economics and minoring in philosophy and has recently become interested in the possibility of teaching. He’s a teaching assistant for composition courses and works as a specialist at the campus academic support center, focusing on peer education, retention, and the first-year student experience.

“I love being in the classroom,” Rendon says. “I love watching the transformation that takes place in students when they go from having nervous, shaky legs to confidence in themselves. I like to connect with them so their success is a shared success.”

He says he used to not like school and that “the real turn for me was knowing that people cared about me personally, not just as a student, and that there was someone to remind me of what it was possible for me to accomplish, even if it was hard. Students want to be seen and understood.”

Teaching with compassion

After college, Rendon is also interested in sustaining his work running clinics for a fly fishing guide service, which he says has more in common than one might expect with the values that drive him as a student, teaching assistant, and researcher.

“Where I live in Northern New Mexico, there isn’t a lot of opportunity for young people to be self-sufficient,” Rendon says, which can lead to them choosing paths that get them into trouble.

Fly fishing was a lifeline for Rendon during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic, when college felt like a dream that would never become a reality. Most of his savings was spent living through the pandemic and he began to lose his confidence in himself.

“Fly fishing has given me a lot,” Rendon says. “Before my dad passed away, this was a hobby we shared. Being on the water is a connection to him and to nature. I approach teaching fly fishing the same way I approach teaching in the classroom. Everyone learns differently, but when you teach with compassion and understanding, everyone can succeed. You’re teaching people a lot more than just fly fishing.”

The post Equity and Inclusion at Heart of Intern’s Research on Tribal Colleges and Universities appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Planning for Academic Continuity: A Guide for Academic Leaders is a new report from Every Learner Everywhere® that reviews the academic continuity plans of over 100 colleges and universities to identify best practices in continuity planning. It particularly sought out examples of institutions that use digital learning from an equity-centered and student-care perspective. The report identifies essential topics that the majority of existing continuity plans include, and it provides case studies, a discussion of findings, and a set of assessment, audit, and planning tools.

The appendix of Planning for Academic Continuity, excerpted and annotated below, includes a list of essential academic continuity resources that influenced the report. They include white papers, academic studies, reports on surveys, and model plans.

Recommended academic continuity resources

Higher Education: Ensuring Continuity During a Disruption

This 2020 white paper from the IT vendor Citrix Systems outlines a strategy for continuity during planned or unplanned interruptions to higher education operations.

Disaster Resilient Universities (DRU) Network

The University of Oregon’s Office of Safety and Risk Services outlines its membership in the DRU, a peer-to-peer network of more than 800 institutions that share information, technical assistance, and resources.

The Transformation of Higher Education After the COVID Disruption: Emerging Challenges in an Online Learning Scenario

A 2021 paper in Frontiers in Psychology analyzes how institutions of higher education are managing the challenges of radical transformations driven by the need to digitize education.

Universities and Multiple Disaster Scenarios: A Transformative Framework for Disaster Resilient Universities

This 2022 paper in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction makes the case for the growing need for continuity planning and proposes a framework to guide it.

30 U.S. Colleges That Are Prepared for Natural Disasters

A 2022 article from the college-ranking site Great Value Colleges uses its own methodology to identify institutions that are best prepared for natural disasters.

Resilient Campuses: Leveraging Resources Among Small- and Moderate-Sized Institutions of Higher Education

The Journal of Emergency Management profiles a consortium of three institutions that pooled resources for emergency preparedness.

Survey Results of Disaster-Resilient Universities

A 2010 presentation summarizing results from a 2009 U.S. Department of Education grant-funded study that recommends a model for and key characteristics of disaster-resilient universities.

Disaster Resiliency and Culture of Preparedness for University and College Campuses

This 2013 paper in Administration & Society extends the work of the 2009 Disaster-Resilient Universities survey to describe comprehensive all-hazards continuity plans and how institutions have incorporated the necessary elements.

Disparities in Disruptions to Postsecondary Education Plans During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A 2021 study in AERA Open that looks at U.S. Census Bureau survey data during the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate the causes and disparities in education disruption across different socio-demographic groups.

Disruption and the Future of Higher Education

The author of this 2022 opinion article in Community Colleges Daily argues for five strategic and operational transformations that institutions need to make to update their readiness to serve students.

Strategic Planning in the Age of Disruption 

This archived recording of a 2021 webinar presented by The Chronicle of Higher Education features a panel of university administrators discussing how to develop institutional visions that accommodate uncertainty.

The Future of Higher Education in a Disruptive World

The consulting firm KPMG produced this 2020 report analyzing the strategy, capabilities, building blocks, and technology needed by colleges and universities to adapt to emerging challenges ranging from demographic change to climate disasters.

Building a Disaster-Resistant University

This 2003 white paper from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security outlines emergency preparedness planning in the context of the September 11 attacks and prior to Hurricane Katrina.

Ready Campus

This page from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, last updated in May 2022, provides links to its emergency planning and response resources relevant to colleges, universities, and the individuals working and studying in them.

Recommended academic continuity plans

In reviewing over 100 academic continuity plans, Planning for Academic Continuity, identified several that are publicly available and that may provide helpful models for other institutions.

UMass Amherst Guide and UMass Amherst Planning Tool

These comprehensive resources cover a variety of disruption scenarios while centering care and equity for students. They offer academic leaders guide questions and screenshots to help navigate the UMass Amherst online planning tool.

Minnesota State Technical and Community College

This five-step plan covers considerations and processes in academic planning, including a faculty checklist to gauge the level of preparedness before transitioning to remote learning.

Elon University

The six sections of this plan include useful content for faculty to use digital learning to continue teaching during times of disruption. Its framing particularly emphasizes student support and student care.

This article is excerpted and adapted from Planning for Academic Continuity: A Guide for Academic Leaders, published by Every Learner Everywhere® and produced by Patricia O’Sullivan.  

The post 18 Academic Continuity Resources to Plan for Institutional Disruption appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

For example, she says, “There is a stigma that students should not prioritize HBCUs when it comes to their college search. But HBCUs are just as equipped as PWIs [predominantly White institutions] to produce engineers, doctors, political leaders, nurses . . . . The list goes on and on. There is this idea that if you go to an HBCU, you are not getting the highest quality of higher education that you could be getting. This stigma attached to HBCUs is just not true.”

In fall 2023, Fleming is an intern with Every Learner Everywhere®, working on a research project to develop a profile of HBCUs with a goal of understanding why Black students choose to attend them and what PWIs can learn from HBCUs to better serve their Black students. Fleming’s part of the project includes examining previous research and scholarship on HBCUs and interviewing educational and student leaders.

“I’m seeking perspective on why Black students who attend HBCUs tend to be more satisfied with their college experience and more successful in their careers after college than Black students who attend predominantly White institutions,” Fleming says.

“I am enjoying my research because not only can I shine light on my own institution, but I can let people know that HBCUs are more than what they were founded for during the times when segregation was legal,” she continues. “HBCUs are valuable for so many different reasons and their historical foundation only makes them more important in our country. I commend HBCUs for fighting and standing up for what they believed in and not letting integration take away the fundamental reasons why they were founded.”

Another incorrect impression of HBCUs, says Fleming, is that they are only for Black students. For example, the 2022 undergraduate student body at TSU was 15 percent White, and there are also populations of Asian, Indigenous, and Latino students.

“HBCUs are for any student, just like a PWI, but what makes them special is that they heavily contribute so much to African American student success specifically,” Fleming says. “Without HBCUs, tons of Black students would not be the doctors, politicians, or engineers they are today. The hidden beauty you can only find when you experience an HBCU for yourself is what is most significant.”

Career and community at HBCUs

Fleming says the research project as part of her internship with Every Learner is giving her practical experience in becoming a better researcher by learning what is credible information and data and what is not. “I am bringing personal experience,” she explains, “but I know I have to turn off those biases and let the facts that I find be the facts, regardless of what I think.”

At TSU, Fleming has served in student government, is co-founder and President of the Student Democracy Network, leads work in civic engagement with the Andrew Goodman Foundation, and is a member of the Honors College and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She has also led work on her campus with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office.

Despite that busy schedule, Fleming is on track to graduate from TSU a semester early and says her next step will be becoming a lawyer. She is still considering her area of focus but wants to study constitutional law, criminal law, or civil rights and social justice-focused law.

“No matter what I end up doing, I want to serve my community and give back, and at the same time progress our country so that all Americans’ voices are heard,” she says. “HBCUs produce greatness at its finest, and I am proof of that.”

The post How This Political Science Major Is Breaking Down Stigma Around HBCUs appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

The six-part online course, Sustaining Indigenous Culture: Using OER to Design Authentic Learning Experiences, offered in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®, was delivered first to a cohort of faculty from 15 Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in spring of 2023.

Richard Sebastian, a teaching and learning coach at Achieving the Dream (ATD), says the case for OER generally — that commercial textbooks and course content are often biased or lacking in culturally diverse teaching — may be well understood. But OER doesn’t automatically solve that problem.

“We think broadly of OER as sharing knowledge, and we think of that as a good thing because everybody gets to use it,” he says.

“But sharing knowledge can mean something very different in another culture and specifically in a tribal college. There’s a colonial history of theft and of misrepresentation of tribal knowledge and cultural practices. Some knowledge can only be shared by representatives in the tribe.”

“Sustaining Indigenous Culture: Using OER to Design Authentic Learning Experiences” offered educators at TCUs and Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions an opportunity to create lessons, texts, assessments, and other open materials that are aligned with culturally affirming teaching practices. The participants in the first offering of the course included faculty, librarians, instructional designers, and academic support professionals.

Designing the course

One objective of the project-based course is to gain hands-on experience finding, evaluating, and adapting OER to use, and it is designed for participants to finish with a new OER they had developed. In the end, participants will be able to lower textbook costs for students and contribute to greater student success through culturally responsive teaching.

Sebastian says ATD decided to use a synchronous online format for the eight weekly meetings so educators from multiple institutions could contribute a range of perspectives and experience to the cohort. (This and all the services can also be tailored for the unique needs of an individual institution.)

In addition to covering introductory concepts about OER and licensing, the course relied on a culturally responsive framework that ATD uses in other professional development activities.

Participants also developed a plan to support the implementation, evaluation and scaling of the new strategies and skills they learned. Most of the resulting OER will be used for the first time in fall 2023, and ATD plans on follow-up surveys.

From Achieving the Dream’s materials on Sustaining Indigenous Culture: Using OER to Design Authentic Learning Experiences

Participants generally worked one or two hours each week between sessions on their OER projects, for a total time of 24-32 hours. The format has since been expanded to eight meetings instead of six.

Course outcomes

“Sustaining Indigenous Culture: Using OER to Design Authentic Learning Experiences” was designed to lead to the following benefits for faculty, librarians, and instructional designers who attend:

• Understanding the benefits of leveraging OER
• Learning how a culturally responsive framework can intersect with OER
• Learning how to customize materials to students’ interests and backgrounds to increase engagement
• Understanding OER licensing
• Developing skills that faculty can share with peers at their institutions

The post A Practical Course on Leveraging Culturally Relevant OER in Tribal Colleges and Universities appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

While teaching online and selecting tools are parts of digital learning, they aren’t the essential characteristics for Every Learner and its partners. We believe institutions of higher education and the professionals working in them need to think more expansively about what digital learning is. That begins by recognizing that the most important word in the phrase digital learning is learning and that learning is about the learner, not the teacher, and not the institution.

Every Learner and its partners advocate for conversations about digital learning that center the humanity of our students. We try to start conversations with big-picture questions about who students are, what our aspirations are for them, and what their own aspirations are for themselves. At Every Learner, our specific goal is equitable outcomes for Black, Latino, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students.

In our work with institutions and individual faculty, we try to put questions about tools and modalities after questions about students and learning outcomes. Who are our students? What do they bring to the table? Is it that we want students to be able to think of their own original research questions? To be able to work in groups to develop a proposal together? To develop a creative expression of their ideas?

Implementing digital learning before centering our students’ humanity and considering questions like these won’t be effective. In fact, it’s likely to extend and amplify existing problems and inequities.

Digital learning addresses barriers

Even when big-picture goals and specific learning outcomes are well defined, it may still be premature to select the digital tools if other barriers to learning have to be confronted.

I often use the example of a hammer. Everyone should have this useful tool, right? But a hammer can be used to build or to vandalize. Even assuming good intentions, if the user isn’t skilled, a hammer will inadvertently bend a lot of nails. The tool isn’t the goal.

Some approaches to digital learning are like distributing hammers to faculty and students who will run into potholes on the way to the building site or who don’t all have access to the same blueprints when they get there. Similarly, digital learning is often hampered by outdated course design, teaching practices, assessments, support services, institutional policies, and professional development that don’t authentically center students. The practices and policies higher ed relies on are frequently driven by the institution’s needs instead of the students’ or were created with a limited set of students in mind.

In those conditions, an uncritical use of courseware, collaboration platforms, plug-ins to the video conferencing software, or any other tool won’t produce better learning outcomes. An expansive approach to digital learning involves first identifying and addressing systemic and institutional barriers that students and faculty face.

Digital learning asks students questions

We can use technology that honors students’ humanity if we focus on guiding them to use digital tools that help them put ideas into their own voices and support them to synthesize, shape, and share their own perspectives. Also, any meaningful discourse about digital learning needs to integrate student ideas about what makes a good teacher, a good classroom, or effective pedagogical strategies. I once attended a panel of students addressing those questions. The response that stuck with me was from a student speaking about a professor she felt stood above the rest. When we asked her why, she replied, “He saw me as a human being.”

That is borne out by several reports from Every Learner and its partners. For example, in What Our Best College Instructors Do: Reflections By Students About Meaningful Learning Experiences, the top findings are that:

1. students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom;
2. students value the connections instructors make between course content and “real life”; and
3. students want to be treated with respect and trust.

Another of our original surveys show that students want their digital learning tools to promote community, collaboration, and belonging. Defining digital learning solely as online courses is unlikely to elicit that perspective.

Digital learning extends effective teaching practices

Digital technologies have the potential to enable flexible deadlines, choices in assignments, and having students’ own perspectives represented in the work that they’re doing. A broad examination of digital learning will seek out ways to extend those evidence-based practices.

I often see inspiring examples of this approach to digital learning from faculty who utilize the practices and philosophy of open pedagogy, which prioritizes having students create, contribute, and share knowledge, from their own perspectives, with an open license of their own choosing. In this way, students can feel that their learning is part of something broader as they contribute to their local and global communities.

With that approach in mind, faculty can have students use digital tools for creative activities such as collaborative annotation projects, podcasting, online poster sessions, website construction, video or written blogs, or online journaling. The term “online course” doesn’t begin to capture that potential, and uncritically using an online platform to reproduce an existing in-person course (that doesn’t already center and empower students) would never achieve it.

Educators have many more tools and environments available to us than just chalkboards and a circle of desks, and that means opportunities to be creative in our work. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that what we’re really trying to do is increase the success of all of our students — to empower them to know and understand something in a new way.

Digital learning accounts for context

The learning environment is also critical, and so digital learning is necessarily very context dependent. One context is the working conditions of the educator. It makes a big difference whether they are full time or part time, a clinical professor, supported by teaching assistants, supported by grants, or contingent faculty upon whom many significant decisions have been imposed.

Another context is the variety of institutions where digital learning happens, including R1s, community colleges, or institutions like HBCUs and TCUs (Tribal Colleges and Universities) that have unique richnesses as well as challenges that they face. A monolithic concept of the online course won’t be suitable in all those contexts.

Another part of the context of digital learning is the profit motive behind many of the digital tools available to us. The conversations that vendors encourage about software and purchasing can come at the expense of deliberate and critical conversations that center students in learning.

Students themselves introduce the most important variations in context. I sometimes hear faculty complain about students not being engaged when it would be more productive for faculty themselves to engage with questions of who their students are, what they bring to the table, how they work, and what motivates them. Our responsibility as educators is to understand their needs and to design learning opportunities — possibly to include digital technologies — that addresses that.

Digital learning starts with challenging questions

When something isn’t working in a program — for example, when minoritized and poverty-affected students have disproportionately low persistence and completion rates — the right question is unlikely to be about what tool to implement. Digital learning must step back and reorient using questions such as:

• What are we trying to do?
• Who are our students, what do they need, and how do we honor their humanity?
• What is particularly needed by the students who higher education has traditionally created barriers for, including Black, Latino, Indigenous, and poverty-affected students and other marginalized learners?
• Who developed the learning outcomes we’re using? Are we engaging our students in determining these outcomes?
• Who created this tool and who is deciding what’s going to happen with it? Does this tool possibly create more barriers rather than address them?
• What do we need to change about our work?

Understandably, busy faculty are also looking at the growing array of digital tools available to them and are seeking to settle the question of what tools they might use. For some, they will eventually have to make decisions like what works best with an LMS and how many modules to build. Also, there is value in getting into the nitty gritty of what the tech can do. Every Learner and its partners often feature innovative approaches to implementation in our consultation and training services, surveys and reports, blog posts, and workshops and webinars.

But exploring what technology can do proceeds much better if educators first step back and ask foundational questions and challenge unstated assumptions. Every Learner and its partners embrace an expansive discourse about and understanding of digital learning, and we engage a very broad range of perspectives — from students not least of all —  in developing a vision for it. We hope you will join us in this conversation.

The post Recentering Digital Learning Around Students and Their Needs appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Patricia O’Sullivan, lead author and Manager, Content Development and Special Projects at Every Learner, says she noticed some colleges and universities archiving their academic continuity plans as the danger from the Covid-19 pandemic declined, while individual campuses sometimes had to cancel classes because of climate-related emergencies, gun violence, or other unanticipated disruptions.

That prompted her to think about what makes an effective plan ​​that can work in a variety of crises. “Disruptions of all kinds are going to continue to happen, so we wanted to find out the most effective practices to keep students learning during disasters,” she says.

Working with Every Learner Everywhere® student interns who co-authored the report, O’Sullivan reviewed and analyzed the academic continuity plans of 100 colleges and universities to discover patterns in goals, procedures, and policies. They particularly looked for how digital learning was used to enable academic continuity in times of disruption. How do colleges and universities plan to sustain teaching and learning when something unexpected makes it impossible or unsafe to meet on campus?

Based on that analysis, Planning for Academic Continuity identifies essential elements of good plans and includes templates and other resources that institutions can use to create or update their own. The report also includes narrative profiles of institutions that have recently used digital learning to sustain teaching and learning during a variety of crises.

Below, O’Sullivan summarizes some of the key findings of the analysis of public academic continuity plans.

Good continuity plans center equity

A crisis plan is incomplete if it will reinforce or create barriers for minoritized and poverty-affected students and employees. The most effective academic continuity plans bake equity into every stage of the emergency response. They consider issues such as digital connectivity, equitable distribution of resources, and varied effects of crises on different populations.

“Equity is one of the gaps we uncovered in our analysis,” O’Sullivan notes. “Many plans we studied did not address equity issues at all or with much depth.”

Good plans center students

Effective academic continuity plans are organized around the student experience. The best way to ensure that is to include students in the planning process. Because a crisis will affect different student populations in unique ways, it’s important to ensure that the perspectives of minoritized, poverty-affected, first-generation, and international students are included. For example, an institution may learn that those students’ home communities are more impacted by a regional disaster, complicating a plan relying on remote learning from home.

“Every Learner’s interns collaborated on this report, and their voices were vital in that process, too,” O’Sullivan explains. “They were the ones who validated the importance of student care and equity in continuity planning.”

Good plans imagine a variety of crises

While Covid-19 prompted or restarted the academic continuity planning process for many institutions, colleges and universities must keep in mind that not all crises are the same. A well-designed, comprehensive academic continuity plan imagines and prepares for a variety of possible disruptions, and builds in flexibility to respond to disruptions that are unanticipated or unimagined.

Jackson State University in Mississippi serves as a recent example of responding to an unanticipated crisis. Just as the university was returning to in-person learning in August 2022 after a full academic year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the entire city of Jackson was hit with an extended disruption to their water service. University officials again had to move classes online at the beginning of the semester.

“In our analysis, we saw some very good academic continuity plans that were solely Covid focused,” O’Sullivan says. “That approach is shortsighted because not every disaster scenario has the same impact on a campus.”

Good plans center digital learning technologies

Effective academic continuity plans acknowledge the centrality of digital tools and focus on training faculty and students in using them. Familiarity creates a big advantage. University-wide learning management systems and consistent course design reduce cognitive load for faculty and students during academic disruptions.

“Digital learning is the solution when we can’t be face to face,” O’Sullivan explains. “Continuity depends on digital learning in a variety of scenarios. It can be something common like an instructor who can’t get to class because their child is sick. Or it can be a scenario in which students studying abroad or international students are temporarily delayed overseas.”

Good plans center communication

A comprehensive academic continuity plan is only effective if stakeholders across campus are familiar with it and understand how to use it. The plan should periodically be reintroduced to the community to raise awareness. Accessibility of the plan to students, faculty, and administrators is also key.

“A standing academic continuity committee that updates and publicizes the plan is vital,” O’Sullivan says. “This group needs to continually revisit and publicize the plan to ensure its success.”

The post Planning for Any Disruption: Strategies for Building a Comprehensive Academic Continuity Plan appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Definitions of ungrading vary, and the term can be misleading because where it is used, a final grade is usually established. Ungrading practices typically involve the formative assessments, daily practice activities, project-based learning, portfolio work, reflection activities, and other work that can inform a final grade. For all of those, ungrading de-emphasizes performance goals and instead emphasizes learning goals by providing students with detailed feedback. Ungrading can reduce student anxiety and improve learning outcomes, and also has the potential to help instructors better support minoritized students in the classroom.

Robin Dunkin, Assistant Teaching Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Assistant Faculty Director for the Teaching and Learning Center at University of California, Santa Cruz, notes that the term “ungrading” can be expansive.

“I think about ungrading as a continuum much the same way I think about active learning as a continuum,” she says.

The practice can be as small as using a standards-based approach for a single assignment, or as large as redesigning an entire course to use specifications grading. Because of this broad definition, instructors who want to explore the benefits of ungrading have a lot of opportunity to experiment.

Start with course goals

As an instructional designer, Aaron Zachmeier, Associate Director for Online Teaching and Learning at University of California, Santa Cruz, helps instructors select a grading approach that supports students in meeting course goals. He recommends starting with well-defined outcomes when choosing grading practices.

For example, if the goal of a given assignment or activity is to help students build habits, the traditional approach of a letter grade after one attempt doesn’t necessarily support it. In that case, Zachmeier recommends awarding credit for completion paired with a policy of giving students multiple opportunities to try the activity.

“We know learning goals are better than performance goals,” says Zachmeier. “They lead to better outcomes, not just in terms of learning, but in terms of experience and emotions.”

Give students a choice

A traditional course format with a small number of high-stakes summative assessments doesn’t provide much room for different ways students have of drawing on their strengths and personal goals. Ungrading practices offer more opportunities for students to connect learning to their own needs and practices.

One example is the two-stage exam format, which Dunkin uses in her classroom. In the first stage, students get an opportunity to work on the exam by themselves. In the second stage, they may work in small groups.

Dunkin notes that most traditional exams are designed to sort students into those who know the material and those who don’t. “A two-stage exam blurs that line immensely,” she says, by instead emphasizing learning the material during the exam.

The structure of Dunkin’s two-stage exams gives students a wide range of choices. For example, she uses two classrooms during the exam. Students who know they’ll need extra time in the individual portion can start early in the secondary classroom, then join the rest of the class during the five-minute break before the group portion begins. Furthermore, the group portion isn’t required; students who may not do their best work in a group setting can stay in the second room.

Dunkin notes that out of over a thousand students, she’s only had one choose to stay in the secondary room to work independently, but having the choice makes a big difference to all students, and lowers anxiety around engaging in the group part of the exam.

Rethink feedback

Because ungrading requires instructors to give more detailed feedback than simply assigning a letter grade, it can be more time consuming and difficult to implement at scale. Fortunately, there are ways to make giving feedback simpler.

Zachmeier and Dunkin both recommend finding diverse ways to give students feedback in order to focus an instructor’s time on places where they can have the maximum impact.

For example, instructors can give students multiple chances to take low-stakes quizzes using adaptive learning technology that includes hints or explanations. That ungrading practice gives them an opportunity to learn from incorrect responses and to practice the learning goal, rather than just moving on to the next unit.

Instructors can also incorporate formal or informal opportunities for students to look at a peer’s work. This could take the form of in-class clicker quizzes or peer assessments done through the online learning management system.

Rubrics are another powerful tool to help faculty or their teaching assistants to evaluate work efficiently and give targeted and meaningful feedback where needed.

Be transparent

When implementing ungrading, instructors should keep in mind that these practices are likely unfamiliar to students, so it’s important for instructors to be transparent about what they’re doing and why.

One way to start the conversation is to ask students on the first day if they’ve ever had a grade they felt didn’t reflect their learning. Dunkin says, “That opens the door to have a much deeper conversation, even with 400 students, about why the practices in a particular classroom may look different.”

As the course continues, instructors can keep the conversation going by collecting regular feedback from students.

Take small steps to start ungrading

There’s no single way to incorporate ungrading in the classroom. To begin, Dunkin and Zachmeier recommend instructors pick one small thing they can add to their next course. For example, a simple first step is to eliminate the practice of grading weekly quizzes and to instead give students feedback about what they’re learning.

Instructors should then try adding one additional ungrading practice each time they teach the course. “When people adopt that perspective at the beginning of every term,” Dunkin says, “it can be quite transformational.”

The post Getting Started with Ungrading: Practical Tips for College Instructors appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“In higher ed, a lot of data goes unused,” says Denise Nadasen, Assistant Vice President of Institutional Data and Analytics at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). “Even when data is used, it might not always be in the most effective ways.”

The growth of digital learning tools and other software applications in student support, recruiting, and other operations means colleges and universities have a tremendous resource available to them. An effective way to put that resource to work, Nadasen says, is fostering a community of practice devoted to data literacy. A community of practice can nurture an institutional culture that embraces data while supporting individual faculty and other professionals as they build specific skills. It also builds understanding and transparency about what data is available that can be used to support students.

Nadasen leads APLU’s Data Literacy Institute and recently has been been helping colleges and universities grow their communities of practice through a program on Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®. The service includes workshops, coaching, and consultation for cross-functional collaborative teams working to improve how they use data analytics. It can be provided in a range of synchronous, asynchronous, in-person, and remote formats.

“Data literacy is having individuals who know how to access the data and can apply it to a specific problem or area where they can analyze it and understand what they’re seeing,” Nadasen says. “They’re able to take that information and figure out what to do with it. And a data culture is made up of the behaviors of faculty and staff who value and encourage the use of data to improve decision making.”

Data literacy and community of practice

A community of practice is effective at fostering data literacy because of the varied professional roles and perspectives brought to the table. Whereas an individual faculty member may have difficulty trying to apply a data-informed change, incorporating course designers and department chairs into that same initiative could have drastically different results.

In the cohorts Nadasen has worked with in the APLU Data Literacy Institute and in Building an Academic Data Culture to Support Student Success, collaborations have included student success professionals, advisors, institutional researchers, faculty, department chairs, associate provosts, and more.

She says one of the first steps institutions can take to form a community of practice that fosters a data-oriented culture is to identify the existing “data literacy champions” who can serve as peer mentors to the more data-hesitant faculty. A data culture won’t succeed as a one-person operation but needs a network of professionals who understand and trust the data, trust each other, and trust their own growing data literacy.

Facilitating a data culture

A community of practice is helpful for confronting common institutional barriers to using data effectively. Time constraints, for example, are always one of the greatest challenges to creating a data culture. Busy schedules make it difficult to sustain data-informed practices.

Ethical data usage is another priority that a community of practice can help with. “Data security is one thing,” Nadasen says. “We want to make sure we don’t collect data that we’re not going to use, and that what we do collect is kept in a secure location. But the ethical part of it is asking ourselves if we’re being mindful of how equity issues are impacted by our analysis.”

Disaggregating data to illuminate the college experience of particular groups such as minoritized students is one way to move toward more equitable uses of data. But Nadasen warns against uncritically relying on historical data.

“If there are patterns of bias in historical data and I use those to build algorithms to predict the future, I’m just repurposing the biases,” she says. “Systemic bias creates a discrepancy in the data that the data itself doesn’t recognize. So an ethical use of data means keeping in mind that it doesn’t necessarily represent students equally.”

Related reading — Communities of Practice in Higher Education: A Playbook for Centering Equity, Digital Learning, and Continuous Improvement

Building a good foundation for a data culture

To build the capacity to work on those and other challenges, Nadasen works with emerging communities of practice on three critical parts of their data culture:

Data governance — A solid data management plan increases trust and reduces friction so educators can put data to work in their classes.

Leadership — Having leadership that values, promotes, and rewards the use of data creates a cohesive practice across the institution.

Training — Faculty and other professionals across the institution need ongoing support to develop data-informed practices.

The goal of developing those aspects of an institution’s data culture is to build up access and confidence.

“The first and most important thing is that folks have access to the data they need,” Nadasen says. “That’s the biggest barrier we’ve identified through the work we do. The second thing is an attitude where people are not afraid to use the data. They feel comfortable with their skills using the data, and they have confidence that the data are accurate.”

The post Data Culture, Data Literacy, and Building a Community of Practice At Your College or University appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

This is an increasingly urgent question as institutions are buffeted by a growing range of climate events and other unanticipated emergencies that make in-person learning impossible for days or months. As a new report on academic continuity and disruption shows, hundreds of schools were not prepared for the academic disruption caused by lockdowns early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, other institutions experiencing wildfires, floods, or extreme heat events have chosen to cancel classes rather than rely on distance learning.

Planning for Academic Continuity: A Guide for Academic Leaders, published by Every Learner Everywhere®, reviews the academic continuity plans of over 100 colleges and universities to discover patterns in structure, policies, and recommendations in continuity planning. The analysis outlines a set of best practices for developing or adapting an academic continuity plan to rely on during a facilities, personnel, or public health emergency of extended duration.

The report also includes a resource list, case studies, a discussion of findings and effective strategies, a tool for assessing plans, a digital tools audit worksheet, and a planning template. The analysis covered institutions that were private and public, large and small, and four- and two-year.

At the heart of the report is a summary of 15 topics common in academic continuity plans that emerged in the analysis. Those elements, excerpted below, constitute a baseline of what plans should include. Out of the 100 existing continuity plans analyzed, 67 included all 15 of these topics.

Topics common in academic continuity plans

1. Additional resources

The plan provides faculty with a list of resources to share with students, such as an institutional student emergency fund, institutional and/or local food banks, counseling services, and an electronic device loan program.

2. Adjust calendar

The plan mentions the need to adjust the calendar or assignment due dates to finish the term. The plan outlines scenarios to help faculty satisfy contact-hour minimums in their courses.

3. Alternative faculty

The plan provides guidance in maintaining faculty oversight of courses when the faculty on record cannot complete teaching the term.

4. Assessments

The plan encourages faculty to consider alternate ways of testing and assessing student grades outside of in-class exams. The plan provides examples of ways of assessing student mastery of course objectives as well as ways to design assessments to minimize violations of academic integrity.

5. Care/empathy

Faculty are encouraged to have care and empathy for students in crisis.

6. Communication

The plan encourages faculty to develop a communication plan with their students. The plan provides resources for developing a communication plan with students.

7. Course content

The plan tells faculty what to do with course content, such as uploading it to the LMS (learning management system) or some other place students can access it. The plan instructs faculty on how to upload course content to the LMS.

8. Digital learning tools

Links to digital learning tools and instructions on how to use them are provided in the plan. Digital tools include the LMS, email, texting, online resources, virtual meeting tools, virtual exam tools, adaptive courseware, digital textbooks, Open Educational Resources (OER), etc.

9. Equity

Equity concerns such as access to hardware, software, and broadband are addressed in the plan. There is language and guidance on how a crisis or disruption affects various populations differently, generating the need for an equitable distribution of resources as opposed to an equal distribution of resources.

10. Flexibility

Faculty are encouraged to be flexible with students in terms of due dates and the format of assignments (audio files versus print papers, for example).

11. Hybrid classes

Switching face-to-face courses to a hybrid modality is part of a solution offered by the plan.

12. Move classes to other sites

The plan provides guidance for a scenario in which one or more classroom buildings are permanently or temporarily closed, requiring classes to be relocated.

13. Online classes

Moving courses online and expanding existing online course offerings are part of a solution offered by the plan.

14. Partnerships with other institutions

Personnel, facilities, or other resource partnerships are part of a solution offered by the plan. This is particularly important when campus facilities are damaged.

15. Various scenarios

The plan covers various emergency situations such as bad weather, a natural disaster, a pandemic, the campus is closed, faculty cannot teach, students cannot access campus, the disruption is short-term or long-term, etc.

The importance of planning for academic disruption

During the analysis conducted for Planning for Academic Continuity, the authors encountered many institutions that had no publicly available continuity plans or where the plans were dormant. There is an understandable eagerness in higher education to move on from the COVID-19 pandemic and return to normal operations.

But, as the report argues, no campus is immune to a loss of facilities, utilities, or personnel because of weather, violence, viruses, or other unanticipated crises. For example, just during the period this analysis was conducted, U.S. institutions have relied on remote learning because of disruptions caused by flooding, wildfires, on- and off-campus violence, labor strikes, bomb threats, and a region-wide disruption to access to drinking water.

Institutions that are developing or updating their academic continuity plans should consider the elements above, which were frequently included in the work of their peers.

The post 15 Elements Your Institution’s Academic Continuity Plan Should Include appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

“I can’t afford to move to another state for college,” says Maxi, who identifies as non-binary and prefers to date women. “I almost dropped out last year because of the constant stress of law after law being passed in my state to bully the LGBTQ community and no one at my university acknowledged it. No faculty, no student groups outside of those that support LGBTQ students, and no administrator made a statement telling us we belong here or that they’ll stand with us against these laws. It’s depressing how our university talks about the campus community being a family while they ignore us.”

Ash and Maxi are not alone. According to the LGBTQ+ Students in Higher Education Factsheet, “In a 2020 survey from the Association of American Universities (AAU) that sampled more than 180,000 undergraduate and graduate students, nearly 17% identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, queer, or questioning. In the same AAU survey, 1.7% of undergraduate and graduate students identified their gender as transgender, nonbinary, or questioning.” According to  WordsRated research from May 2023, approximately 6,350,000 students are enrolled in higher education programs in red states. Based on the AAU polling, that is well over 1,000,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, queer, or questioning students and over 100,000 transgender, nonbinary, or questioning students. What exactly are these students facing?

What is the scope of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the U.S.?

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently tracking 494 state bills that target LGBTQ+ rights in one or more of these categories:

• Schools and Education (230 bills)
• Healthcare (130 bills)
• Free Speech and Expression (43 bills)
• Accurate Identification Documents (16 bills)
• Public Accomodations, such as bathrooms and locker rooms (8 bills)
• Other Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills that target Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices and more (76 bills)

Of the 50 states, 47 have introduced at least one bill that causes harm to the LGBTQ+ community, and 17 states have introduced ten or more (ACLU 2023).

In the field of education specifically, the quantity of these types of bills has more than doubled since 2022, and an additional subcategory of bills called “forced outing” in K-12 school settings has been introduced this year (ACLU). It mandates that teachers must report any change, whether accurate or simply perceived, in name, pronouns, or gender presentation of a student to their guardian(s), regardless of the danger it may put the student in (ACLU 2023).

It is not just Florida or Texas proposing these detrimental bills. Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and many more have all introduced bills that limit or ban discussion and/or resources that include LGBTQ+ topics in schools. Moreover, many states including Arizona, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia have introduced bills that prohibit professional development training on DEI topics, including gender and sexuality diversity for institutions that receive federal funding. Of these bills, most are advancing while others have already been passed.

Additionally, Trans Legislation Tracker (TLT) is currently tracking 31 specifically national anti-transgender bills. One of these bills–the “Productivity Over Pronouns Act”–prohibits any use of “Federal funding for gender neutral or inclusive language or inclusive communication principles to help inform an inclusive approach…” (H.B. 985, Section 2). Plainly, this bill seeks to severely limit advocacy efforts of any kind that use proper terminology and pronouns for transgender and nonbinary individuals, on the basis that it is distracting from other responsibilities to do so.

This legislation represents a tirade against the perceived “indoctrination” that anti-LGBTQ+ advocates believe the LGBTQ+ community and allies force onto learners. It is not unreasonable to say that all of these bills come from a place of hatred, fear of difference and the unknown, and above all, ignorance. The exponential rate at which anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has been introduced illustrates exactly why it is so important to be able to discuss LGBTQ+ topics in school: ignorance has devastating repercussions.

What impact does this legislation have?

Social support is a powerful protective factor for LGBTQ+ youth, while a lack of support is a detrimental risk factor. On a genetic level, LGBTQ+ individuals who are unable to live freely as themselves (due to being situated in unsafe environments, experiences of bullying, harassment, and discrimination from their peers, school administration and state/federal government officials) have a greater risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, renal disease, and neurocognitive disorders (Ghanooni et al. 2022). Additionally, “45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year…and LGBTQ youth of color reported higher rates than their white peers. LGBTQ youth who found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide” (Trevor Project 2022). These findings are supported by a study from Snapp et al. (2015): LGBTQ+ students in supportive schooling environments feel safer and experience less bullying and harassment. “Don’t Say Gay” and anti-DEI bills strip that safety away.

Supporting Students in Restrictive Environments

In the face of this legislation, what can we as educators, administrators, faculty, staff, and/or concerned citizens actually do to help?

• Speak up and speak often–your active allyship matters.
  • If you are able to safely advocate against anti-LGBTQ+ policies at your institution, do so.
• Consult resources such as aclu.org; lgbtmap.org; translegislation.com as a first step toward keeping up with the legislation in your state. Bill texts are easily accessible through government websites.
• Continue to push for the availability of professional development trainings.
  • Many states have not gone as far as to entirely ban DEI offices and trainings, rather they prohibit making them mandatory.
• If an LGBTQ+ student comes to you looking for support in a highly restrictive state, converse in hypotheticals to mitigate liability.
  • For example, ask “is your friend going through something?” rather than “are you going through something?”
• If you are situated in a state that is not currently impacted by this legislation:
  • Remain committed to admitting and supporting a diverse population of students
  • Have difficult conversations with students and faculty who do not support the LGBTQ+ community
  • Facilitate the creation or growth of an LGBTQ+ affinity group or a regular virtual coffee hour
  • Utilize representative resources and build flexibility into the curriculum
  • Ensure that students are aware of supportive resources (both affiliated and not affiliated with the institution)

The post The Impact of anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation on U.S. College and University Students appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Each year, we observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. This year, we focus on the themes of prosperity, power, and progress, recognizing the significant strides of Hispanics in the economic, political, and social growth of the U.S. We invite you to join us in celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by sharing stories that recognize the achievements and contributions of Hispanic American students and digital learning champions in higher education who are driving prosperity, power, and progress and inspiring others to achieve success.

Emma Sullivan

My family came to the United States from Guanajuato, Mexico. They have a lengthy history of farming tobacco and working on railroads, but I am the first to attend and be on track to graduate from a four-year institution. Much of everything I know about college comes from the Latinx college community that I surrounded myself with when I first began my undergraduate journey.

This year, I was a contributing presenter for the 2023 Latinx Student Services and Outreach Office’s graduation ceremony honoring first-generation Latinx college students at my university. While I am not graduating this year, I have a deep sense of pride and appreciation for my community and I wanted to participate in some way to celebrate these accomplishments and thank them for the support they showed me.

When I first came to college, many of these graduating students took me under their wing. At the event, I was able to present them with a congratulatory plague and gift for their hard work and dedication to Latino student success, especially for what it meant to me. As I near the end of my undergraduate career, I do my best to emulate their wisdom and provide mentorship to students in similar situations that I was once in.

By hearing from keynote speakers, and seeing proud families walk in, many of whom their parents did not speak English or did not have a formal education themselves. I was surrounded by a huge sense of communal Latino pride. At one point our keynote speaker asked if we had any Mexicanas in the room to which I proudly raised my hand.

To me, Latino pride is most felt in spaces like this, where we can congregate and celebrate our achievements, lift each other up, and reflect on our journeys – which are not only personal to us, but to the growth and expansion of our communidad and why I am so proud to be Latina, not just during Latino Heritage Month but everyday of my life.

I am Rolando R. Garza. I am Hispanic! ¡Yo soy Hispano!

I was born and raised in South Texas in the city of Alice. I am a first-generation Hispanic-American student in my family to receive the highest degree attainable in higher education. I graduated in the Spring of 2020 from Nova Southeastern University with a doctorate of education from the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education & School of Criminal Justice in Instructional Technology and Distance Education. I had a Covid “Virtual” graduation; Nova did an impressive virtual ceremony to make their students feel part of a ceremony.

As part of my educational leadership journey, I am a digital learning champion advocating for all faculty and all our learners. I am the Director of the Center for Academic Technology in the Division of Academic Affairs at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. My leadership extends beyond my institution; I am a past president of the Texas Digital Learning Association (TxDLA), past state chapter chair from the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), and currently serving on the Texas A&M System Council on Academic Technology & Innovative Education (CATIE) as the Taskforce Lead for Legislative and Equity Advisory Board member for Every Learner Everywhere®.

My leadership is about paying it forward for the learners of tomorrow, being an administrative leader in higher education is not about a title but making a difference. Never forget where you came from and the opportunities of others who have paved your way. I am passionate about digital learning and being a transformational leader to inspire future champions to carve the way for future learners.

Eddie Frausto

I am a recipient of the Goizueta Endowment Scholarship, an award I won in my senior year of high school that allowed me to attend Georgia State University. I was born and raised from the Southwest side of Chicago, and when I first moved from Chicago to Atlanta it meant a lot to me having support from the Goizueta Foundation knowing that I wasn’t taking this next step of my life alone. A wave of imposter syndrome and culture shock hit me at once when starting college while also navigating a new city during the pandemic, but having the support of my family and the Goizueta Foundation helped combat my imposter syndrome knowing that I was attending college for more than myself. To set myself up for success at Georgia State University, I knew I didn’t only need to be successful academically but also culturally and professionally by setting goals for myself.

I accomplished this by becoming involved with numerous organizations on campus I have been involved with such as the Latinx Student Services and Outreach Office (LASSO) and the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPFA). Through these organizations I have been able to make many friends on campus by volunteering and participating in community service events, cultural events, and professional development events. I am currently the President of ALPFA and am extremely grateful to be apart of this club because this has been a space on campus where we have been able to build a community for students, a space to empower the Latino community and where students are able to build their network and grow professionally while having the support of the ALPFA community.

One of my favorite annual events that LASSO hosts is the graduation for Goizueta Scholars and LASSO students in the spring. I have volunteered for two years in a row and have been very happy to be able to support my peers as they celebrate a huge milestone. In both ceremonies I was in charge of checking in graduates and their families, faculty, and our keynote speakers. I also handed out gifts during the ceremonies to congratulate our seniors in a very wholesome tradition. I am proud to celebrate my Latino heritage in events like this because in safe spaces we are able to honor and cherish each other’s journeys and latinidad.  I am an ambassador of the Latino community, and as my journey continues t I will uplift others by sharing my story to encourage them to pursue their personal, cultural, collegiate, and professional endeavors.

The post Latinos: Driving Prosperity, Power, and Progress in Higher Education appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

An academic continuity plan establishes protocols for colleges and universities to continue operations despite disruptions from extreme weather and other unanticipated emergencies. Every Learner Everywhere® recently published Planning for Academic Continuity: A Guide for Academic Leaders to help institutions of higher education navigate the academic continuity planning process. Patricia O’Sullivan, lead author and Manager, Content Development and Special Projects, collaborated with Every Learner’s student fellows to analyze over 100 academic continuity plans to identify best practices and develop planning resources universities can adapt to their own campuses.

“We hope the guide will help institutions revise their Covid era academic continuity strategies into robust plans that can serve in a variety of unexpected disruptions,” O’Sullivan explains.

“Climate emergencies that make it unsafe to travel to or be on campus are one obvious reason continuity planning is becoming necessary, but another takeaway from Covid is to expect the unexpected. Your campus doesn’t have to be in a region prone to hurricanes or wildfires to get shut down suddenly.”

Planning for Academic Continuity includes templates and models for institutions to use and profiles institutions that have recently relied on their continuity plans. It also outlines reasons universities should prioritize academic continuity planning.

An academic continuity plan manages rather than reacts to crisis

At their best, continuity plans establish processes for decision making prior to a disaster so institutions are prepared to address issues as they develop. Effective continuity planners think through the range of possible crises and put in place strategies that are flexible for different scenarios.

“The best academic continuity plans reflect a deep level of forethought and detail,” O’Sullivan says. “They consider how the institution could continue to function if one of its critical operations were unavailable. UMass Ready at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst is a good example. The goal of their plan is to help the university function in a seamless process, regardless of the disruption that has occurred.”

A profile of University of Massachusetts-Amherst included in Planning for Academic Continuity describes how their plan has been used to sustain teaching and learning during a plumbing failure that affected one building for one day, during a weather emergency that shut down campus for a few days, and during the Covid emergency that influenced operations for several semesters.

Effective academic continuity plans remind employees of the communication channels they should access and trust during a time of crisis and document strategies for communication with students.

“Communication, particularly to students, is extremely important,” O’Sullivan notes. “In a crisis situation, students may be absent from campus or may not have reliable internet access. How will the institution stay in contact with students if those situations arise? What communication systems can they establish before the crisis occurs?”

An academic continuity plan clarifies lines of authority

Academic continuity plans document decision-making responsibilities and organizational structures that help stakeholders know their roles in an emergency. They define responsibilities for various units, departments, and individuals so everyone can take action immediately.

For example, who can approve using the hotel budget for skeleton crews, or assign instructors to new online sections of essential courses? A good academic continuity plan facilitates quick decision making.

“When Covid hit, many campuses were caught off guard and had to scramble even to organize an emergency planning group,” O’Sullivan observes. “Post-Covid, colleges have a chance to devise plans to normalize operations during the next disruption.”

An academic continuity plan identifies resources

Planning for Academic Continuity particularly focuses on the role of digital learning to sustain learning. Video-conferencing software like Zoom is now a familiar example. Many colleges and universities maintain access for administrators, faculty, and students for use during climate events or other crises.

Another is the “Keep Teaching” resource pages many institutions established during the Covid emergency. “Some of the institutions we talked to described keeping those pages updated and in draft mode, ready to turn on when needed,” O’Sullivan says.

“Academic continuity plans establish resource libraries like tutorials about the tools faculty can use for emergency remote learning. A good plan accounts for turning on universal access to these tools so faculty don’t have to request them.”

An academic continuity plan minimizes trauma

A university shutting down can be traumatic for students for a variety of reasons. In some cases, their home communities are in danger. For other students, shutting down campus may mean returning to homes where they feel less safe.

A robust academic continuity plan ensures confusion doesn’t exacerbate this trauma. It should also outline plans to reach out to and help students who are affected by the event. Planning for Academic Continuity describes how some academic continuity plans offer students who do not feel physically safe the option to take classes remotely, which is what happened when four students were murdered during the fall 2022 term at the University of Idaho.

“There is often a lot of grief associated with these events,” says O’Sullivan. “Whether it is a hurricane that destroyed a family’s home or a school shooting where classmates or teachers were killed, students will be dealing with trauma. Schools need to have plans in place beforehand to help students in need and make it possible for them to continue learning in a capacity and ability that they are able.”

An academic continuity plan centers equity

A resource for remote learning that is accessible to 90 percent of students may seem “good enough” in an emergency, but it will reinforce inequality if minoritized and poverty-affected students are overrepresented in the 10 percent who don’t have access.

An effective academic continuity plan centers equity by accounting for how all learners will access resources. Universities must consider how students and employees with the least resources will still be served when a crisis occurs. For example, planners might consider how to offer services for basic necessities like food and water, in addition to academic practices like using openly resourced textbooks and subsidizing personal internet hotspots.

“The focus should be on caring for students, all students, in times of crisis,” O’Sullivan explains. “The plans we read in our analysis validate students’ lived experience and respond compassionately.”

The post Why An Academic Continuity Plan Is Essential for College and Universities appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.

Student-centered learning that draws on their experiences and perspectives helps ensure every student is included, but it doesn’t automatically do so. As we discussed previously, student data is of little value if it isn’t disaggregated data that helps readers understand how specific groups of students experience higher education differently.

To support faculty seeking more student perspective and data about student experiences, we’ve gathered the following list of high-quality student surveys, many of which also include qualitative interviews. We particularly sought out student surveys that illuminate experiences with digital learning.

We intend to maintain and update this list as new examples of surveys featuring student experiences are published. Please contact us if you have one to recommend.

Student Voice Collection from Inside Higher Ed

Inside Higher Ed publishes an occasional series of surveys of students in collaboration with College Pulse called the Student Voice Collection. The series explores a different topic every month, such as teaching practices, grading, course materials, mental health, student services, and digital learning.

Students and Academic Life: Top Ten Insights

This survey of 3,004 two- and four-year college students found that:

• more than half struggled with a teaching style that didn’t work for them;
• more than half said that being more flexible with deadlines would promote their academic success;
• 4 in 10 said that unclear expectations negatively affect their success; and
• one-quarter wanted even their in-person classes to have some online sessions.

How College Students Say They Learn Best

This survey of 1,250 undergraduates looked at which class formats and active learning methods contributed to successful learning. Three key takeaways:

• More than a third of the students said they learn best through interactive lectures.
• A quarter of the students said they prefer traditional lectures.
• Nearly a quarter said they prefer classes heavy on active learning, including individual and group activities.

Student Speak series from Every Learner Everywhere®

Every Learner Everywhere® occasionally sponsors, collaborates on, or produces with its network partners surveys that feature student experiences. These surveys are all designed to include both two-year and four-year colleges and the experiences of minoritized, first-generation, and poverty-affected students.

Student Speak was a series of three surveys conducted in 2020 and 2021. The project was developed in partnership with GlobalMindedED and The Equity Project. The first was based on facilitated focus group interviews, and that was followed up with two more conducted by student ambassadors surveying and interviewing their peers.  Many of the questions and responses were influenced by the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Student Speak 2020: Student Voices Informing Educational Voices

This provided a national snapshot of diverse college students from over 40 institutions, including many who are first generation. The summary includes numerous specific recommendations for administrators, faculty, and support staff. Key findings included:

• 90 percent of students were comfortable using technology in the classroom, but 80 percent disliked their online learning experiences.
• 70 percent took advantage of support apart from their instructor.

Sample quote: “When teachers provide lots of different learning options and opportunities in the remote learning world, things are so much better. Everyone doesn’t learn the same.”

Student Speak 2020: Peer-to-Peer Survey Results

Twenty-five student ambassadors interviewed peers at 21 U.S. colleges and universities about digital learning, social climate, police violence, and issues facing first-generation and Pell-eligible students. The student ambassadors collected 270 responses from their peers. Key findings showed that:

• 90 percent of students struggled with online learning but 65 percent also appreciated faculty who used it.
• 88 percent did not think digital learning tools were created with equity in mind.
• 70 percent cited mental health concerns or struggles.

Sample quote: “I think that digital learning tools are not inclusive. I think there are many people who do not have the privilege to have devices or the internet to use these tools.”

Student Leaders Speak to College Presidents, CEOs, and Policymakers

This report, based on an additional 102 surveys, features in-depth interviews with five first-generation students sharing their personal stories and their career hopes.

Sample quote: “Coming from a low-income household in a rural community, I did not understand the need for a computer until college. By then, I had a lot of catching up to do.”

Other Every Learner Everywhere® resources featuring student perspectives

What Our Best College Instructors Do: Reflections By Students About Meaningful Learning Experiences

This survey asks 22 students from a range of institutions about what they believe represents effective, equitable, and inclusive college teaching. The three top takeaways in the report summary are:

• Students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom.
• Students value the connections instructors make between course content and “real life.”
• Students want to be treated with respect and trust.

Sample quote: “I was able to use my own skills and passions and combine [them] into an assignment on a fascinating but predetermined subject. Other students recited poems, sang songs, did hypothetical podcast interviews, wrote magazine articles, etc. The point is, we all got to insert ourselves into our assignment and in a way that we were comfortable with. . . . For the first time, I truly felt like I was a part of something greater than a grade and learned the true value of learning new concepts.”

Toward Ending the Monolithic View of “Underrepresented Students”: Why Higher Education Must Account for Racial, Ethnic, and Economic Variations in Barriers to Equity

While this report doesn’t involve an original quantitative survey, it is based on structured interviews with students (and other educational leaders) whose perspectives are featured prominently throughout. The report synthesizes commentary, research, surveys and programmatic activity on how higher education has grappled with disaggregating and using student data to confront and close equity gaps for particular student populations.

Sample quote: “Sometimes the way [faculty] address students is like they’re 17-year-olds. No mother who has raised three children wants to be treated like a girl who doesn’t know any better. I could be ignorant of certain things in college, but teach me. Don’t talk down or make students feel like they’re less because they don’t know.”

Suddenly Online: A National Undergraduate Survey

Produced in partnership with Digital Promise and Tyton Partners, this survey of 1,008 students was fielded to learn about the impacts of the shift to emergency remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a few years’ distance from that crisis period, readers may be surprised that student satisfaction with their courses remained somewhat stable. One big challenge that was noted frequently was self-motivation.

Sample quote: “The greatest challenge was finding the motivation to get out of bed and complete assignments. It’s not the same as getting up, getting ready, driving to class, then sitting in class to learn.”

Center for Community College Student Engagement

The Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) at the University of Texas works with hundreds of community colleges to administer surveys that are linked to student success. Their website is a rich resource for instructors seeking student experiences and their role in improving teaching, particularly the organization’s page for publications and resources.

The Online Student: Impact of Course Modality on Engagement

This survey of 82,824 students at 181 institutions of higher learning compared the learning and engagement experiences of online-only students with students who do not take online courses exclusively.

It found that online students were less likely to engage with faculty and peers, experience applied learning opportunities, or use tutoring and support services. However, online students were less likely to skip class or to be unprepared for class. Online-only students were much more likely to be non-traditional age, female, and working parents.

Many of the interviews suggest online-only students don’t enjoy the experience but find it’s their only practical option for degree progress.

Sample quote: “I believe that online learning—it takes a person that will be able to get out of the bed in the morning and be driven and go do it. It’s not handed to you.”

Listen to Me: Community College Students Tell Us What Helps Them Persist

The longitudinal focus groups with first-year students in this report illuminate the challenges of retention and attrition in community colleges. It features numerous individual students describing the path through orientation, registration, advising, learning, and, unfortunately, sometimes dropping out.

Sample quote: “After I left, nobody said anything. Nobody emailed me or messaged me. I wanted to actually go and talk to my teachers . . . and I wanted to, like, apologize and thank them for being patient with me and, like, working with me . . . but I never got the courage to. I just felt like there was no need for that because in a way I felt like I wasted their time.”

Equity-centered student survey instrument

For faculty who wish to conduct their own student survey, the Every Learner Everywhere® network, in collaboration with Digital Promise, created an Equity in Digital Learning Student Survey available for download. The questions in this survey instrument focus on digital learning and equity issues. The tool was used by the network to sample more than 6,000 students over the 2021-2022 academic year. The tool also includes analysis and guidance on how best to adapt the survey for your institution or classroom.

The post The Power of Student-Centered Learning: How Listening to Students Can Improve Higher Education appeared first on Every Learner Everywhere®.