Future of Learning Top Reads for week of Sept 7 2020
“So you think you're going back to the SAT and ACT?” by Jon Boeckenstedt, on the Higher Ed Data Stories blog
“However, there is a wild card in all of this: The recent court ruling prohibiting the University of California system from even using--let alone requiring--the SAT or ACT in admissions decisions next fall. If you remember, the Cal State system had already decided to go test blind, and of course community colleges in the state have never required tests. When combined with the previous announcements about the UC plans, the state of Oregon going permanently test-optional, and Washington not far behind, we may never see another test requirement at public university on the west coast.
“A lot of people have no sense of the size of California. Los Angeles county has more residents than 43 of the US states. About one out of every eleven college students in the US goes to college at a California Community College. About 10% of all students in the US enrolling as a freshman in a four-year college in the US in 2018 came from California. It's a big deal.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
The SAT and ACT probably won’t go away any time soon, but this year’s admissions process—in which many schools will abandon their reliance on the test—may accelerate their demise much in the same way that COVID-19 accelerated virtual learning in schools that probably had been years from integrating online programs.
If we no longer had to worry about the SAT or ACT, what could we use that liberated time and head space to accomplish?
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“Outlier adds Astronomy and Statistics classes to its online university,” by Daniel Cooper, on Engadget
“Outlier.org already had a partnership with the University of Pittsburgh but it’s also now teamed up with Florida Polytechnic University. It piloted an Outlier program in the summer, and is expanding that -- with its own credit offerings -- for the fall semester. This may be a peek at the future of education for colleges that want to offer courses outside of their core competency without a lot of extra effort.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
Outlier may be, well, an outlier for now, but if they continue to expand their offerings they may end up building the platform that EdX and Coursera were supposed to build: a high quality online learning experience for credit at a low price point.
At which point, other schools will need to ask themselves, “If Outlier already built this and it’s really good and really cheap, why should we build our own version?”
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“Interest spikes in short-term, online credentials. Will it be sustained?” by Paul Fain, in Inside HigherEd
“The focus for potential students right now is on career relevance, academic quality and flexible programing, he said. On the short-course side, Sutphen said, the primary draws are courses on disruptive technology (blockchain and financial tech), functional job skills (digital marketing), and soft skills around leadership. […]
“While short-term credentials accounted for only 10 percent of total enrollment in 2018, Moody’s projected they will remain a fast-growing market segment even after the pandemic subsides. […]
“Moody’s also said corporate partnerships with higher education on the curriculum design for short-term credentials are projected to expand, as colleges increasingly focus on their ‘value proposition and making their graduates attractive to potential employers.’”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
While this trend could result in a complementary marketplace for credentials for those who choose not to go to college, I suspect that short term credentials will more likely result in a supplementary marketplace. In the latter scenario, a college degree will be table stakes for the most desirable jobs, and alternative credentials will be ways to “level up” quickly and inexpensively.
However, the signalling value of these faster and cheaper credentials may also expire more quickly.
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Do you know a high school student, gap year student, or first year college student who might want to earn college credit for learning to design solutions to the world’s most urgent and important social problems?
They can apply for a spot in the October Expedition.
School leaders can also apply to send a team of students by contacting us directly.
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