At Discovery, K-12 education’s lessons for community colleges


MOOCs were deemed less than ideal for community colleges.

Silver Spring, MD — In a room on the first floor of Discovery Communications, 50 community college leaders stomped their feet and shook their seats and tables.

In front of them, Discovery Education’s senior director of global learning initiatives, Hall Davidson, moved his lectern back and forth. An iPad sat in front of him displaying an app that works like a seismograph. A line began registering the vibrations with sharp jumps and dips.

“We’re actually moving the bar,” Davidson said over the rumble. “And that’s what we want to do in education.”

Dozens of community college administrators convened July 22 to learn and talk about ways technology and media can improve engagement and retention with what Discovery Education called “the digital student.”

As the organization has primarily worked with K-12 education — it’s the largest provider of digital content to those students — many of the strategies discussed are seen in some form in elementary and secondary schools.

Walter Bumphus, the president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, which partnered with Discovery to present the event, said it’s important to look at and take cues from what K-12 is doing successfully, and vice versa.

“It’s critical to listen to each other,” Bumphus said. “We’re partners.”

The types of technology discussed at the event included digital textbooks, online polling services, and a variety of simple-to-use tablet and smart phone apps, including many that use augmented reality.

Discovery Education’s senior vice president Scott Kinney noted that a major discrepancy exists between how people learn and how educators teach.  To illustrate this, he polled the presidents in the room, asking them to select the method most of their instructors primarily use to teach students.

See Page 2 for details on what Congressman Rubén Hinojosa had to say about online education.

Thirty-one of the administrators said content is primarily delivered through lectures. But when Kinney asked the educators what type of learners they are, only two described themselves as auditory learners. The majority described themselves as visual learners, yet not a single educator selected “media” as a primary way content is taught on their campuses.

Congressman Rubén Hinojosa, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, said that community colleges have a “tall order” to fill when it comes to using technology and innovation to expand access to, and improve the quality of, higher education.

Hinojosa said community colleges need to adopt delivery models geared specifically toward them, and not just use methods — like massive open online courses (MOOCs) — that are in vogue at 4-year universities.

“While MOOCs have gained international attention for their innovation, they were not designed to serve the types of students who attend these institutions,” he said.

Like the congressman, Davidson also noted that innovation isn’t always easy. During his presentation of helpful tablet apps, the wireless network he was using to connect his iPad to the projector became bogged down with too many users. The image froze on the screen.

“This happens sometimes when there are too many people on the network,” Davidson explained as he attempted to reconnect his iPad.

“Like on a college campus,” a person called out from the crowd.

“Well, yes,” Davidson laughed.

The iPad reconnected and Davidson pointed it toward an audience member. The app read a piece of paper placed over the man’s chest and an image of a 3D beating heart filled the screen behind him.

“But you don’t just give up,” Davidson said. “It’s not going to go away. It’s going to get better and better and better.”

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