Information Technology’s Role in Student Access and Success

Richard N. Katz Richard N. Katz & Associates

Boulder, CO

Teaching and Learning: Socratic/Platonic Ideal

• Critical Thinking Orientation

• Socratic Method

• Personalized and Bespoke

• Engaged Students

• Mentored

• Active and Interactive

• Small Scale

• Elite

• Anti-Technology

Rafael: Plato’s Academy, 1509-1511

Technology and Learning: An Illustrious History?

Sponges, Filters and Pumps: Education (and Technology) Models for the Industrial Era

• Standardization via Textbooks • Scale Economics via Lecture Halls • Imparted Wisdom via Sages on Stages, Repetition,

and Rote Learning • Measurement via Student Testing • Focus on Throughput by Lowered Standards and

Remediation

• Standardization and Measurement • Scale Economics • Focus on Efficiency, Throughput and Speed • Focus on Inputs

Prospecting for the Most Promising Students Student-Teacher Ratios Endowment per Student Number of Computer Labs

Post-Industrial Progress?

• Major strides in neuroscience, but • Continued quest for silver bullets,

magic wands, painless learning, diet pills, mind transplants

• Accent today is on personalization and connectivity

• Growing realization that student experience and success have a huge co-curricular dimension

IT in the Student Experience

• Use Technology to Squeeze Out Administrivia

• Use Social Networks To Enlarge the Institution’s Footprint + Eliminate Boundaries for Students

• Use Predictive Analytics, Alerts, Interventions to Create a More Personalized Learning Experience

• Online May be Biggest Enabler of Access in the Past Decade • Online quality shows ‘No Significant Difference,’ but

online outcomes lag on-ground counterparts

• Rate of investment in online > than that on-ground

Change is Hard • Technology is an Enabler

• Data environment must be right • Culture of Evidence + Action • Experimentation + Risk Tolerance • Widespread training • Sensible Incentives

• Rigor • Experimentation • Innovation • Successful Outcomes

• Specter of Disruption is Real

• Early Days = Cautious Optimism Source: Washington Monthly

Mobilization Underway, Outcomes Uncertain

Student Success Technologies

Deployed in Colorado

Student Success Technologies

Perceived Effectiveness in Colorado

4

6

6

10

11

13

13

13

18

20

25

3

2

4

0

3

1

2

3

4

1

1

8

8

12

11

6

7

8

8

3

4

2

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Dedicated stats/analytical services

Credit transfer/artic tool

Reporting dashboards for execs

Career assessment portal/ system

Learning analytics tool

Advising center management system

Case management sys for advising

Education planning tool

Early alert system

Data warehouse

Degree audit/ progress tracking

Implemented In dev/piloting Under active consideration

27%

25%

17%

23%

31%

40%

20%

50%

46%

50%

36%

40%

50%

67%

46%

38%

30%

52%

25%

46%

44%

9%

20%

33%

15%

23%

20%

8%

25%

5%

6%

27%

10%

33%

15%

8%

10%

20%

8%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Early alert system

Learning analytics tool

Data warehouse

Credit transfer/artic tool

Reporting dashboards for execs

Advising center management system

Case management sys for advising

Career assessment portal/ system

Degree audit/ progress tracking

Dedicated stats/analytical services

Education planning tool

Highly Effective Effective Limited Effectiveness

Ineffective Unable to rate/No rating

Advice for Trustees and Regents?

• Increase and broaden environmental scanning

• Support pilots, experiments, prototypes • Monitor progress

• Tolerate noble failures

• Consider legacy projects or “moonshots”

• Invest in culture change

• Encourage evaluation of experiments

• Recognize the equivalency (in students’ minds) of the F2F and the virtual

• Build a network of strategic partnerships

• Bolster organizational capacity • Remember, Change is Hard + the Journey is Long