I spent two days last week in Honolulu attending and presenting at the 2011 Hawaii International Conference on Education.   With me were Dr. Karan Powell, our Academic Dean and Dr. Phil Ice, our Director of Course Design, Development, and Metrics.  The three of us co-presented on four different topics, Optimizing Faculty Workload and Learning Effectiveness in Distance Education; Semantic Mapping of Learning Assets; Comprehensive Assessment of Student Retention in Online Learning Environments; and Using Data to Assess Learning Effectiveness, Student Retention and Institutional Productivity in Online Programs. With the exception of the last lecture that was designated a workshop, the format of the conference booked four different presentations in the same room for a 90-minute period.  Because of the format, we were able to attend and participate in multiple presentations other than ours without leaving the seminar room.

While our topics were organized under the headings of Distance Education and Technology in Education, they were not limited to higher education and thus, some of the presenters had topics that related to K-12, language training, and teacher training.  What amazed me about this year’s conference is that most of the presenters in our segments were from traditional educational institutions.  At APUS we embrace technology as it is the platform that serves as the foundation for our campus.  Because of that, we usually present at conferences with distance education or technology as the theme.  With themes of lectures at this conference ranging from training traditional college professors to build and teach in an online class, teaching fractions to fifth graders using a smartphone app, and using Twitter as a means of engaging students outside the traditional classroom, the other presenters represented a segment of educators that I have generally not seen at the more technical conferences.

Education is criticized for its slow rate of change.  While some of us have been utilizing technology to deliver instruction online for nearly 20 years, perhaps 2011 is the year we will look back and see a significant increase in the adoption of technology to enhance traditional K-12 and Higher Education instruction and learning.  In Disrupting Class, Clayton Christensen and his co-authors predict that 25 percent of high school classes will be online by 2014 and half by 2019.  Until this past week, I did not think that their prediction had a chance of being correct.  Today, I am much more optimistic.

Whenever I can find a good book or research paper on the topic of distance education, I will usually obtain a copy in order to see if there’s a trend or idea that is worth noting or pursuing.  For a few weeks, I had noted the ad in The Chronicle of Higher Education touting their new report, “The College of 2020:  Students.”  I had to pay for the report, so I’m sure that the Chronicle wouldn’t like it if I provided a blow-by-blow description of its contents.  However, I think that they would not mind someone touting the report on their blog, so my thoughts are summarized below.  (Those interested in purchasing the report can do so at the following site:  http://research.chronicle.com/asset/TheCollegeof2020ExecutiveSummary.pdf.)  

Chronicle Research Services released the first of a three part report last month that describes the characteristics they predict that we will see in college graduates of the class of 2020.  The fundamental themes of the report are that as the class of 2020 (today’s first graders) enter their college years, their demands on colleges and universities will be drastically different from what students have previously expected, forcing higher educational institutions to reconsider their curriculums, formats, and basic characteristics.

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The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by its Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development on Friday that confirm what online educators have known for years: “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” 

Online education has gained tremendous momentum in the last several years.  A November 2008 report titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008” published by the Sloan Consortium notes that during the fall 2007 semester, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one course online, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year.  During the same semester, twenty percent of all college students were taking at least one course online.  An Eduventures report from November 2006 predicted this growth; that report found that half of the 2,000 potential students surveyed indicated that they would be interested in completing a degree online.

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This week represents National Teacher Appreciation Week and if there was ever an appropriate time to applaud the efforts of our nation’s teachers, it is now.  Considering the well-publicized and overwhelming reality of our nation’s fiscal concerns, there can be little doubt that the nation’s leadership faces an arduous task.  The nation’s teachers, however, have arguably an even greater and more daunting task: preparing our youngest minds for the uncertain future that lies ahead of them. 

A 2006 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau states that there are 6.8 million teachers in the United States, approximately one-third of them teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels (the other two-thirds teach at preschool, kindergarten or college levels).  According to the Census Bureau report, teachers in Connecticut enjoyed the largest salaries in the nation, an average of $57,300, while teachers in South Dakota earned only $33,200 per year, the lowest in the nation.  The national average teacher salary in 2006 was $46,800.  Considering the importance of the job the nation’s teachers perform, such striking salary discrepancies are disappointing.  The recent budget crises in most states don’t offer much hope that teacher salaries will improve in the near future.

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Clayton Christensen, the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, and Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson team up on this recently published book.  In Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, Christensen and his co-authors apply sound theory, research, and practicality to a subject that no one wants to tackle: reforming K-12 education in America.

Some of the prescient points that the authors make in the book are:  increasing spending on the wrong items (like more computers) won’t necessarily help improve K-12, blaming the problems solely on the teachers’ unions won’t improve K-12, and unless students and teachers are motivated, problems won’t necessarily get solved.

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