Live Blogging from Online Learning Consortium

I’m at the OLC Accelerate 2016 conference in Orlando, Florida! This conference is hosted by the Online Learning Consortium. This session is a panel on “International Learning in Time: Scholarship, Practice and Policy for Real World, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Space“. The focus of this session is on adult education. Right off the bat, there are a few very interesting handouts on the table on the idea of heutagogy. Heutagogy, in a nutshell, refers to a type of learning. It actually refers more specifically to “self-directed learning” (see work by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon). It’s especially important in a digital age where knowledge is at our fingertips, but learners may need guidance. The chart below breaks down a few different frameworks of learning that applies to adult learners. This can be useful in my own thinking of teaching adult preservice teachers. A goal of mine is to encourage the students, who are novices in learning about becoming a teacher, to explore as much as they can about literacy lesson design. I need to be more intentional in my guidance of this exploration.

What are your own thoughts on heutagogy? What are the implications for online learning/distance ed? Matt Crosslin of the UT Arlington LINK Lab, writes a lot about heutagogy in his EduGeek blog. It is worth reading.

Other notes from this panel:

James Pappas and predictions of transformative trends: Growth of online in colleges and universities [yes!]. A challenge is how we integrate online offerings into the mainstream curriculum? How academic technology becomes a core part of activities. Second trend: growth of non-traditional/post-traditional students (e.g., older students over 25). Post-graduate certificates fastest growing credential in higher education. Higher ed as a political issue due to increasing carts. Increasing use of marketing in higher education. Example, Northwester University has established a new position, “chief marketing officer”. Idea of internet based marketing. Already seeing websites that help people to select schools. Changing of the professorate–faculty as subject matter experts. Prediction of unbundling of faculty role.