Our Monday, Feb 25 meeting will focus on today’s students. Who are they? How are they using technology? In what contexts do they find technology helpful for their learning? For this meeting, we’re not reading any opinion or analysis pieces. Rather, we’re sticking to data sets — which means that the work of interpreting these data will fall to us. What should we make of these data? How can they help us make decisions about our own teaching, and our curricula? What appear to be major issues facing us as we prepare students to be liberally educated for a digital information age?
Discussion Leaders: Brenda Adrian, Cousett Ruelas, and Sara Gibson
1. ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2012.
This report is our main focus for this meeting. It summarizes the results of an ongoing, large-scale study, conducted by the research arm of EDUCAUSE. Never heard of EDUCAUSE? It’s the major organization for higher ed IT professionals, and it has a branch that focuses on teaching and learning – the Educause Learning Initiative.
- Check out the infographic that summarizes the reports findings.
- Then skim the full report. No need to read every word, but read the headings, and read the discussions for those topics that most interest you. The data graphics are also full of interesting details.
- (Optional): Want to see the survey instrument used in this study? Educause has posted it along with other “supporting materials.”
Annually, the folks in Instructional Technology at SEU poll incoming freshmen to find out about their technology ownership and use. For this year’s data, they recently created a nifty infographic, which appears at the top of this page, but you can scroll down and see the direct survey data in text form below.
- Find the survey on the Faculty Resource Center’s web site.
Lastly, if you have another 10 minutes, take a glance at the student demographics section of this year’s almanac. Most of this page’s resources are for “subscribers only,” so you’ll need to get in through SEU’s library subscriptions. How? You should be automatically prompted to enter your SEU login. But if you’re not, go to the library’s home page and in the main search box, type “Chronicle of Higher Education.” The first link to appear is the one you want. Click on it, and then make sure you’re logged in. Then follow the links below. If you’re on campus, the links should work automatically.
What should you read? Bop around and see what interests you, but I encourage you to look at the following sections, at least. Each will take fewer than 5 minutes:
- The short summary essay, which begins at the top of the page and continues if you click on the “read more” link, provides a quick overview of the data. It’s a quick way to grasp some of the overall demographic trends.
- Under “The Data,” at the bottom of the page, check out “A Profile of Freshman at 4-Year Colleges“
What else?
- Tweet a link to an article. Remember your homework challenge? Between now and the meeting, I strongly encourage you to use Twitter to share an article with the rest of our group. Not sure how to do this? You’ll find instructions under the “How Do I .. . .” page of this web site.
- Check out our “Blogroll” links. In the “Blogroll” section to the right of this post, you’ll see links to a variety of online journals or web sites that relate to our topic. Take a few minutes to look at these sites and see which might interest you for further reading.
We talked about looking at the survey instrument used for the ECAR study. I couldn’t find the 2012 survey, but here is the 2011 survey. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ESI11D.pdf
A lengthy, but often interesting, report on “Younger Americans’ Reading and Library Habits” compiled by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/10/23/younger-americans-reading-and-library-habits/
One more link! This recent NY Times article, “Technology Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say” (Nov 1, 2012) raises some of the big questions about the impact of technology on students’ thinking habits, study habits, attention spans, etc. We didn’t discuss these issues, but they’re important consider as we think about the integration of technology into our courses and curricula. So, if you have the time, you might want to check it out. These questions are probably not new to you, but the article nicely summarizes some of the concerns, and research, on this issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/education/technology-is-changing-how-students-learn-teachers-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Recent Chronicle of Higher Ed article about the mismatch between what college grads can do and what employers need: “A College Degree Sorts Job Applicants, but Employers Wish It Meant More” http://chroni.cl/Wm2JVS
Julie, et al, do you use the haystack thingy?
http://hastac.org/
Craig
Yep, I follow HASTAC and am listed as a member of their network. What about you?