We read each week dire predictions regarding the future of tenure (at community colleges as well as in the humanities and social sciences). While some adjunct faculty still hit the highway to teach students at two or more universities, others have taught at a distance for over a decade. Students are on the move and making choices about where to earn credit for individual courses as well as degrees. iTunes U offers podcast lectures by faculty at Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT while programs like Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative (”open courses backed by learning research”) provide access to learning traditional course content either without an instructor or as an integral part of a hybrid course. Research on both podcast lectures and hybrid courses suggests that students can learn some content more quickly and effectively using a mix of digital and classroom based experiences. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the U. S. Education Department may invest a half billion dollars in the development of online course packages for distance and hybrid community college courses. University faculty, staff, and students across many disciplines–often with external support–have produced open source alternatives to proprietary course management systems. At the same time, state governments are pushing for the seamless transfer of course credit, at least for general education requirements, across institutions offering vastly different modes of instruction.
Undergraduate student transcripts often feature a mix of community college, private liberal arts college and state university courses. Students now find online, face-to-face and hybrid options to meet general education requirements. The movement to detach student coursework from place will continue along with student options to move between institutions.
What does this mean for faculty and departments anchored to particular places? Full-time faculty and place-based institutions will continue to play a vital role if we provide distinctive resources adapted to these new circumstances. Students vote with their tuition dollars state while federal higher education administrators and public and private entrepreneurial initiatives may craft the future without us, unless university faculty and staff design learning opportunities adapted to these developments. Public scrutiny of the costs of higher education, over-extended state budgets, inequalities in access to higher education and the constraint of available classroom space push for new approaches but new media also offer opportunities for enhanced learning.
Leaving students to serve as their own general education course aggregators will lead to uneven skills, unattained goals and unnecessary debt. Both for-profit and non-profit groups will undoubtedly offer advising yet colleges and universities should compete to offer the best and most effective guidance to students—many of whom will complete their degrees in a traditional setting. University staff and faculty will build lasting relationships by offering entry level undergraduate students on-going, face-to-face advising regarding the best mix of learning opportunities to support their goals. George Mason University professor T. Mills Kelly described a potential model for advising students in a series of essays about the future of the general education courses and requirements.
While liberal arts colleges and state universities will continue to invest in excellence in traditional classroom learning, colleges and academic departments no longer exist as islands. State universities, pressured to avoid duplication, will see some degree programs and departments merge or disappear. However, these universities may serve more students (as the numbers of students seeking college education continues to grow) by offering both excellent degree programs and more individualized degree options based on a blend of local and distance learning opportunities, field experiences, coops and internships.
Many students will embrace traditional classroom learning as their first choice while others benefit from self-directed study, online courses and face-to-face learning opportunities offered through a mix of institutions and programs. As we advise student at place-based institutions, we may play the role of aggregator – seeking out, assessing and highlighting the best mix of these options for individual students. Colleges may want to designate the hybrid course of study as an advising option and/or develop hybrid course of study programs (functioning somewhat like an honors program) to connect and advise students while providing a coherent course of study.
The work of advising could be supported by crowd-sourced resources that aggregate advisor recommendations as well as student choices and feedback. Such tools will give both advisors and students access to wider information-in addition to existing directories and databases-about career paths, degrees, certificate programs, and learning opportunities. Amanda Michel marshalls citizen journalists to crowd source information on federal stimulus funded projects at ProPublica and she used a similar approach with “Offthebus” campaign reporting for the Huffington Post.
Digital tools enhance but, for many students, will not replace the skills and knowledge learned in classrooms or other face-to-face settings and digital tools will not replace study abroad, service learning and experiential learning. The reflective discussion, lively lecture, moving performance, and dialogue to be found on college campuses will grow in value as part of the larger mix of college learning experiences if both advisors insure that students don’t miss out on these opportunities. Faculty will continue to serve as models and mentors—helping students to imagine and chart a course to attain their goals. Adjunct faculty will play an important and perhaps growing role, but it should be full-time faculty and staff who provide continuity in advising students who are pursuing a hybrid course of study.
Colleges should invest in developing hybrid as well as traditional face-to-face learning. While there are growing options for distance learning, hybrid courses offer some of the flexibility of asynchronous learning along with access to valuable digital tools and resources. At the same time, students build relationships with both peers and instructors in the classroom. The hybrid course classroom could be the locus for lectures as well as discussion, small groups, demonstrations, case studies, creativity, role-playing, collaborative and problem-based learning performance, and oral presentations. The instructor may draw upon the results of online learning activities to customize classroom learning to student needs or interests. Hybrid, place-based courses can integrate local resources including museums, archaeological sites, nature preserves, business offices, government, health clinics, and local industries.
These opportunities call on faculty to model what our students will need to learn – the use of flexible, collaborative, interdisciplinary, research-based approaches in order to assess changing conditions, integrate new resources, and enhance undergraduate student learning.