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The disruption of higher education is here and our traditional models of teaching and learning have forevermore been shattered.
It makes this disruptive moment that much more unexpected. For even as I embrace certain aspects of this technological transformation, I would argue that it is a perfect time (or maybe just a last-ditch opportunity?) to make the case for place-based community-engaged learning. The global reach of MOOCs, I want to suggest, may actually help us reconnect with our local communities.
Via Society for College and University Planning (SCUP)
[T]he vast majority of such MOOC registrants never make it past the first week and only about 10% end up finishing the course. What is thus truly unknown, and what we must figure out, is how we come to think about and enact community engagement both within and against the coming online transformation.
This is the state of community engagement in the disrupted university. It is a precipitous moment where traditional models and norms no longer apply so easily or thoroughly. In some cases, there are immense opportunities to be gained as faculty discover how to make their work public and bring the public into their work. In other cases, there are immense opportunities to be lost as marginalized populations and communities become ever more disenfranchised from the institutions just blocks away, yet gigabytes apart.