If it's good enough for medical school....

A fascinating overview of innovations in US medical schools appears in Inside Higher Ed this week. These changes include competency-based outcomes, increased use of technology-mediated learning (including virtual patient simulations), small group learning and problem-based learning.

If these innovations are hitting our medical schools that train some of the "best and brightest," then it must be time to take them to the masses in undergraduate education and even our middle and high schools. One comment (from the University of Connecticut!!) indicates that the use of virtual simulations has reached undergraduate nursing programs. I bet middle schoolers would love it even more.

Kudos to Inside Higher Ed for another great article you wouldn't see anywhere else.

Three states journey to develop common "cut scores" for college readiness

Connecticut, Virginia and North Carolina have developed a consistent statewide approach to defining and measuring college readiness of community college students. The three states are part of a broader national trend to make this a matter of state rather then individual insitutional policy.

These states are part of "Achieving the Dream" (ATD), a national intiative to increase sucessful student outcomes in community colleges. Jobs for the Future helps to manage the ATD project and published two reports documenting these states' efforts in July 2008 and June 2009.

Online world might add a more personal touch to the learning environment

Faculty at the University of Westminster in London are testing online tools such as blogs and questionnaires to see if this will improve feedback to students and increase learning outcomes. While many might think that technology de-personalizes communication, the popularity of online social networking tools is definitely changing the nature of human interaction among younger generations. The goal at Westminster is to increase communication without expanding the time burden on faculty -- with the online tools playing the role of productivity enhancer.

Inside Higher Ed covered the presentation on this initiative at the Blackboard annual conference.

Online learning does well in US ED study

The US Department of Education released a "study of studies" that reviewed 51 studies of online learning completed during the past 12 years and found that students who took all or part of their course online did better than those in face-to-face classes. Inside Higher Ed has a great overview of the study. Be sure to look at the various comments posted by readers of the Insider Higher Ed column to get a good flavor of the debate over online courses.

What was most interesting about the study was its finding that online students increased their "time on task" compared to face-to-face students. I think the important conclusion is that it is learning that counts -- and lectures, teaching styles, websites, text books, etc. are all tools to create effective and flexible learning environments.