Friday, February 5, 2021

Campus gossip apps are back; Advanced Placement adjusts to pandemic; Employers meet colleges in the middle

No. 255 | 02/05/21 | Subscribe to this newsletter

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Hyflex has turned into the controversy of the moment at the University of Florida.

The university has pushed to make as many classes as possible provide instruction in both online and in-person formats so that each student can decide their preference—a practice known as dual-mode or hyflex. To make that happen, though, university officials have refused requests by many professors who say they don't want to teach in person out of concern for their health, and want to move their classes entirely online.

Though debates about who gets to teach online and who has to teach in person are playing out across the country, they are especially heated at the University of Florida. On Wednesday morning, professors and graduate students held a public "speak out," where instructors shared their health concerns and a list of demands, including allowing professor to chose their mode of instruction and for the university to stop using a crime-reporting app to seek reports from students about whether professors are showing up for in-person classes.

During the online event, UF faculty union president Paul Ortiz said the administration was showing a "shocking lack of compassion," and that they held the event because they don't feel their voices have been heard through the usual channels. Other speakers said that the university said the move was made to stay in the good graces of state lawmakers, in hopes of avoiding cuts to the university's budget. A university spokesperson said the institution could not comment on an active grievance procedure, but that they are responding to demand for in-person classes and that university health officials gave assurance that it could be done safely.

It is an unusually public controversy over the choice between online and in-person teaching, and a sign of how complicated it is to keep campuses going during the pandemic.

👂 EAR TO THE GROUND

SAY ANYTHING? Anonymous discussion apps are growing on some campuses—along with calls that they are leading to racist and toxic comments that harm students. Some campus leaders may feel a sense of deja vu, remembering a previous controversy over now-defunct gossip app Yik Yak. Can anonymous discussion be run in a productive way?

HATS OFF TO … It started with a clicker. Now, it's become a major player in the market for higher-ed digital courseware. What's next for Top Hat? A $130 million investment and a new CEO with a track record for scaling revenue. In the company's effort to compete with traditional publishers, will it become one itself?

PUT TO THE TEST: The College Board has announced more changes to its AP testing program, a year after the pandemic forced the nonprofit to redesign its decades-old format to accommodate emergency remote learning and unfinished curricula. This year, the AP tests will attempt to "meet students where they are," whether that be in school or at home, on paper or online. Here are the details.

✍️ COLUMNIST CORNER

WORKING AT THE GAP: Facing existential pressures from declining enrollment, colleges are pivoting to focus on delivering better employment outcomes for students. Meanwhile, employers want experience, but no one wants to be the first to provide it to freshly minted graduates. Can they work together to bridge the gap? Vera Song, an associate at Achieve Partners, proposes "last mile training" as a way forward.

The following is a message from our sponsor

Overcoming the challenges COVID-19 has created

Institutions are looking for innovative ways to be highly adaptable and efficient—especially with budgets straining due to the impact of COVID-19. In this report, Thriving Through Challenge: Supporting Student Success in Higher Education, you'll get a summary of key areas to address, including how to create experiences that connect and engage students in an online environment.

🎧 ON THE PODCAST

RACING BACK TO SCHOOL: It's a race between vaccine distribution and new COVID variants becoming the dominant strain. But there's still a good chance of safely resuming in-person learning this spring, says Asaf Bitton, a physician, health researcher and executive director of Ariadne Labs. On the podcast, we take a look at current vaccination efforts, what we know about the new strains, and how these factors will shape school reopening this year.

ℹ️ FOR YOUR INFORMATION

State financial aid improves on-time graduation rates for low-income college students, according to a new study from RAND. The research analyzed more than 450,000 recipients of New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant between 2012 and 2020 at 52 colleges. For students at public colleges, receiving an additional $1,000 improved graduation by 2.6 percentage points. For students at private nonprofit colleges, the grants were significantly more helpful to the lowest-income students compared to moderate-income students.

📈 STAT-O-MATIC

74 percent

The share of Zoombombing organized on 4chan, a popular (and infamous) message-board platform, that targeted college and high school classes, according to a study from Boston University and Binghamton University. In comparison, 59 percent of Zoom attacks organized on Twitter targeted college and high school classes. Research found that the majority of these video call cyberattacks are an "inside job," reports Wired Magazine: "Students in the class are bored or want to piss off their lecturer or whatever, so they basically post details of their own classes online and ask people to join and disrupt them."

📣 SPOKEN WORD

"We will remove silos in education, sharing our breakthroughs and successes throughout our country and cultivating schools and colleges as places of innovation. We will make sure that when students graduate from high school, they have college and career pathways to good futures. We will make sure we will make college accessible to every student who seeks opportunity through education, including strengthening this nation's best-kept secret: community colleges."—Miguel Cardona, Biden administration education secretary nominee, while testifying before the Senate Education Committee Feb. 3.

💼 BYTE-SIZED BRIEFS

Colleges add more in-person classes for spring, amid high risk of coronavirus spread. (NPR)

Biden's higher ed team takes shape. (Inside Higher Ed)

Should academic researchers develop clearer ethical guidelines for collaborating with Big Tech? (Nieman Journalism Lab)

📚 FROM THE ARCHIVES

CODING, BUT MAKE IT ARTSY: At The New School, a new academic minor treats computer science as a tool not just for career preparation, but for creative expression, cultural criticism and "civic awareness for understanding an increasingly computational society." It's an approach that suggests the fields of literature, history and philosophy have as much to teach programming as they do to learn from it. Learn more here.

Looking for a job in edtech? You've come to the right place. EdSurge has the leading edtech jobs board in the industry with openings from schools, nonprofits and companies.

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Faculty Administrator, Instructional Design | University of Central Florida | Orlando, FL

The University of Central Florida's (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) is searching for a Director of Instructional Design.

Education Specialist | Knowledge AI | Boston, MA

Knowledge AI Inc. is seeking an experienced and passionate educator to join our team as an Education Specialist/Product Manager to help drive the development of our product as well as create high-quality mathematical content for students in K-12.

Learning Designer, Digital Education | University of Michigan | Ann Arbor, MI

We are looking for a Learning Designer to bring to life course and program strategies, stories and ideas. You'll have a foundation in the science of learning and learning design.

Director of Graduate Recruitment | Northeastern University - Khoury College | San Jose, CA

The Director of Graduate Recruitment is an integral role in the growth of domestic enrollments in the Align program at Khoury College. Align enables students to earn a MS in Computer or Data Science w/o a background in computing or programming.

Facilitator | Synthesis School | Remote

We're looking for exceptional facilitators to join our team. Classroom experience is great, but not required. We are looking for smart, adaptive generalists who are passionate about what we're doing. We're hiring for part-time at $100/hour.

Director, Learning Futures Initiatives | Arizona State University | Tempe, AZ

The Learning Futures Collaboratory at Arizona State University is seeking a Director of Learning Futures Initiatives.

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