Faculty Focus

A FREE PUBLICATION FROM THE CREATORS OF THE TEACHING PROFESSOR

McGraw Hill Digital Learning Survey

New Research: More Than Half of College Students Prefer Classes That Use Digital Learning Technology

Learning science company McGraw-Hill Education today announced the results of its fourth annual Digital Study Trends Survey, offering fresh insights into college students’ preferences and habits for using technology in the classroom and beyond. The latest results, compiled by Hanover Research from the responses of more than 1,000 U.S. college students, show an overwhelming majority of students feel digital learning technology has positively affected their schoolwork – aiding concept retention and improving grades – and that more than half (53 percent) of students prefer classes that use such tools.

Read More »

New Report Examines What’s Next for Academic and Research Libraries

NMC Horizon Report reveals the top trends, challenges, and technology developments disrupting academic and research libraries worldwide.

The New Media Consortium (NMC), University of Applied Sciences (HTW) Chur, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), ETH Library, and the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) are jointly releasing the NMC Horizon Report > 2017 Library Edition at the ACRL 2017 Conference. This is the third edition of the NMC Horizon Report that explores the realm of academic and research libraries in a global context.

This report describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a 15-year-old ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies poised to influence learning, teaching, and creative inquiry. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of academic and research libraries.

Read More »

New Higher Ed Survey: OER May Triple in Use as Primary Courseware Within Five Years

Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have the potential to triple in use as primary courseware over the next five years, from 4 percent to 12 percent, according to a survey of more than 500 faculty by Cengage Learning. In addition, the use of OER for supplemental learning materials may nearly quadruple in size, from 5 percent to 19 percent. These and other findings are available in a new report, Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape.

Read More »

Babson Study: Distance Education Enrollment Growth Continues

The 2015 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group in partnership with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), Pearson, WCET, StudyPortals, and Tyton Partners, reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one distance education course in 2015 is up 3.9% over the previous year. Growth, however, was uneven; private non-profit institutions grew by 11.3% while private for-profit institutions saw their distance enrollments decline by 2.8%. These and other findings were published today in a report titled, “Online Report Card: Tracking Online Education in the United States.”

Read More »

Pedagogy Gets Personal: The Innovating Pedagogy 2015 Report

Embodied learning, adaptive teaching, and analytics of emotions are three trends highlighted in Innovating Pedagogy 2015. This annual report explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment that are having an impact on education worldwide. For the first time, the report is produced jointly by The Open University and SRI International, the US-based research and development institute.

Read More »

Is Viewing Learning Analytics the Same as Checking Your ‘Likes’?

Today’s young adults are often criticized for turning to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for real-time feedback, but new research from McGraw-Hill Education suggests that this behavior could be a significant asset when it comes to studying with the help of technology. According to “The Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits,” the third report in an annual series conducted by McGraw-Hill Education and fielded by Hanover Research, 87% of college students report that having access to data analytics regarding their academic performance can have a positive impact on their learning experience. The finding suggests that students seek the same immediate feedback in the classroom as they do in social media and that this can be beneficial to learning.

Read More »

Babson Study: Distance Education Enrollment Growth Continues, But at Slowest Rate Ever

The 2014 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and co-sponsored by the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), Pearson and Tyton Partners, reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one distance education course in 2014 is up 3.7 percent from the previous year. While this represents the slowest rate of increase in over a decade, online enrollment growth far exceeded that of overall higher education.

Read More »

WizIQ Launches e-Learning Tool to Create Video Lectures

Online education platform WizIQ launches WizIQ Recordor, an easy to use authoring tool for teachers to create synchronized video lectures using their PowerPoint presentations. The tool runs as a simple add-in to Microsoft PowerPoint and is free to download.

Read More »

Watchitoo Rebrands as “newrow_” with Launch of First Online Learning Platform to Power Live Mobile Video Classrooms with 25+ Participants

Today at the 20th annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference, newrow_ (formerly Watchitoo) launched the industry’s first mobile learning platform to allow 25 or more students and instructors to work simultaneously in a live video classroom environment from any mobile device. The newrow_ for education platform seamlessly integrates with top Learning Management Systems (LMS), including Blackboard, Canvas and Brightspace. These systems, which are used by some of the world’s leading educational institutions, can now offer live mobile video classroom environments at scale.

Read More »