Online Learning – The Future of Higher Education

The Rise of the Machine — The Future of Higher Ed?

January 25, 2013 Martin Van Der Werf

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We spend a lot of time imagining what the college of the future will look like and how it will respond to the needs of students. Two recent pieces helped fill in some aspects of the higher education picture I had not yet contemplated. Both are well worth your time. And a third article is vital reading for those in the middle of this meltdown: the faculty. “The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for…

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The Industrialization of Education: Guest Post by Bill Sams

October 30, 2012 collegeof2020

(This post is by Bill Sams, a Commissioner on the eTech Ohio Commission and an Executive in Residence at Ohio University. Bill has written and spoken on the transformation of education for several years and recently has produced two videos on the subject: EPIC 2020 and 2012, The Tipping Point.) Certainly in the United States a case can be made that the traditional education system at both the public school and higher education levels is a failure. With the United…

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The Wild West of Coursera and Free Online Content

July 31, 2012 Grant Sabatier

Teaching the world 150,000 people at a time, just feels so intimate. A few weeks ago I started taking a class on Coursera from The University of Michigan, both because I am interested in the topic, as well as I had yet to take a Coursera course (more on that in a minute). In the first video presentation of the class the instructor welcomed all of the students and said while there are a lot of students signed up, he…

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Video Forecasts the End of Higher Education

July 10, 2012 Martin Van Der Werf

“It is the best of times — it is the worst of times. In 2020, people have access to a breadth and depth of knowledge unimaginable in an earlier age. However, (colleges) as you know them have ceased to exist. Academia’s fortunes have waned. Twentieth century universities are an afterthought, a lonely remnant of a not-too-distant past.” So begins a video titled “Epic 2020” that has been getting some attention on the Web. I disagree pretty strongly with some of…

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Is a Campus a College when Everyone Studies Online?

March 21, 2012 Martin Van Der Werf

We’ve written a lot lately about aspects of colleges that will have to change over the next few years, like admissions, and technology, and teaching styles. We have talked about some of the economic theories that help explain why this is occurring. We have also talked about some of the forces upholding the old model of higher higher education that has been resistant to change, such as marketing and accreditation (and here). But what about the very core of your…

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The Future Graduate School

March 15, 2012 collegeof2020

Below is the presentation we gave recently at the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools on “The Graduate School of the Future”. There is some good data, as well as insights applicable to graduate schools as well as higher education generally. College of 2020: The Future Graduate School Tweet

A Good Fit: Rethinking College Admissions

February 9, 2012 Martin Van Der Werf

I have a friend who used to be the brand manager for Kingsford charcoal. One day, he was asking his team: “Who is our competition?” His team piped up: Royal Oak? Store brands? No, my friend replied. Our competition isn’t another charcoal. It’s the gas grill. Cooking out is a lifestyle choice, with all of kinds of positive feelings associated with it — time with friends, fun, fresh air. And our potential customers are switching to gas, and getting all…

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Notes from an Uncomfortable Chair

December 21, 2011 Martin Van Der Werf

Higher education needs to come up with some new ways to talk about change and success. OK, call me grouchy, but I’ve been ruminating about two recent higher-education conferences I attended. Both had good speakers and good information, but both also showed why higher education is stuck in a deepening rut. Let me start with the most recent one, a conference on The Future of Higher Education, held at The New School earlier this month. The event featured an impressive list of speakers, including…

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A.I. Replacing the College Professor?

December 9, 2011 Martin Van Der Werf Comments 3 comments

The end of face-to-face college instruction! That is the startling scenario that a panel contemplated Thursday night as a forum opened on The Future of Higher Education at The New School University in New York. Looking 20 to 30 years out, “The wealthiest institutions will continue to provide face to face instruction. Other universities will not be able to afford to deliver instruction face-to-face any longer,” said Neil Grabois, former provost of Williams College and president of Colgate University. He is now dean of the…

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The College Experience: Preserving Culture

November 16, 2011 Grant Sabatier

I remember the snow falling on the quad and my friend Allen muttering “The only people for me are the mad ones.” He had recently read Kerouac’s On The Road and was convinced that people around him weren’t really living… “like really living, man,” he said. It was the middle of the night and The University of Chicago campus, with its ivy, and benches, Gothic towers, and sidewalks – was like a turn of the century movie set. We were…

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