Learning with Technology

Paul A. Kirschner & Mirjam Neelen Feedback is one of the most, if not the most important tools for supporting learning. Giving effective feedback has also been found to be one of the most powerful educational interventions to improve learning. According to Shank (2017) effective feedback positively affects learning outcomes and motivation to learn, and…

For faculty members heading back to virtual classrooms this fall, the crisis mode of spring is over and the expectations about online professionalism are rising.

One of many challenges: “Learning to be comfortable with not being comfortable.”

Research shows that all students — regardless of whether they have a disability — can benefit from closed captions for video content.

The number of people needing assistance in their later years is growing rapidly. These courses discuss health and care issues common in older people or outline ways to improve your chances of keeping healthy for longer.

Unemployed workers are gaining free access to 3,800 courses created by elite universities and companies such as Amazon to learn skills and gain professional certificates for new job opportunities.

Lara Winsbury spent a day doing her lessons online. From tech dropouts to fits of giggles, this is what it was like.

In an exclusive interview, the billionaire CEO of the world's most popular video conferencing tool discusses working from home, meeting increased demand and what Zoom is doing to help people cope with COVID-19.

With the reports of more and more institutions closing campuses because of the corona-virus, and even those not closing advising their instructors to move their classes online, I am wondering what advice or help these instructors are getting from their administrations. So what would I advise?

Students who fail units are highly likely to fail again without targeted assistance. But when universities intervene early to support these students, their rate of failure has been nearly halved.

As this COVID-disrupted semester comes to a close, we wanted to know how well the emergency online teaching experiment went at colleges, and what i

The heyday for massive open online courses was studded with hype. So much so, the New York Times even dubbed 2012 the “Year of the MOOC.” Advocates fo

Modeling healthy conflict extends to the way we talk to (and talk about) people with opposing views: family, neighbors, friends on social media and — yes — even maskless strangers in a pandemic.

With some schools already announcing they will not reopen normally in the fall, and many others considering their options, educators are hoping to take advantage of the summer to improve on this spring’s sink-or-swim plunge into distance learning. Much of this reflection is likely to take place within the often siloed communities of practice in K-12 and higher education.

One source for insights on how to proceed is the cross-pollination that takes place when educators working in separate spheres learn from one another. Insights that derive from dialog between K-12, higher education, and online-learning providers could well shape instructional practices for the better as students return to school, whether in a classroom or over Zoom.

In my 2014 book “MOOCS Essentials,” I reflected on each aspect of the residential learning process and how developers of massive open online courses were trying to replicate those experiences virtually, or come up with ways to keep students engaged without direct teacher-student interaction. This was followed by a stint helping to create a new graduate school of education that required understanding the job of a K-12 teacher well enough to create a set of teachable and measurable competencies that would undergird a competency-based teacher-education program.

From these experiences, it became clear that every aspect of education could benefit from sharing of experience and expertise across educational sectors.

What’s the Use of Lectures?
For many, the recent leap to remote instruction felt rushed, chaotic and disorganized. Many things did not translate well online. Yet that discomfort also raises opportunities to question prevailing assumptions about how teaching and learning occurs. Let’s start with one of education’s most hallowed traditions: the lecture.

In his 1971 book “What’s the Use of Lectures?,” author Donald Bligh compared the four things teachers claimed students would get from lectures (acquisition of information, promotion of thought, changes in attitude, and development of behavior skills) with what his research showed pupils actually gained: only acquisition of information.

Higher education has, in some ways, woken up to the realities of demographic and technological change. Institutions can’t keep preparing the sam

As teachers prepare for a new school year, many are brushing up on their video production skills. Teachers know there will be times when they will need to lean on videos to allow students to access information asynchronously. Video has

The pioneering online learning networks offer hard-earned lessons for what works and what doesn’t with online education.

The Educause 2020 Horizon Report has identified 15 social, technological, higher education and political trends that are influencing teaching and learning in higher ed today — and will have a lasting impact on tomorrow.