When you have a virtual 'brain trust' at the ready, you don't squander an opportunity to uncover what challenges or new areas are reshaping your discipline. You ask them. And then you prioritize a rich and robust year of programming, including webinars, courses, sessions and publications as a direct reflection of their insights.
This is exactly how ELI surveys the wildly complex landscape of teaching and learning.
With a broad membership of over 350 institutions spanning a variety of Carnegie classifications, states, and several countries, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative is well aware that there's significant power in community. This is why, for the past six years, ELI has surveyed its higher education community to determine key issues and opportunities in post-secondary teaching and learning.
This year, over 900 of you selected the most pressing issues to form a final list of 15 — a record response! These key issues will serve as the framework, or focal points, for all of ELI's discussions and programming throughout 2016. (If you haven't already, you'll notice that all of the sessions for next year's Annual Meeting will be categorized this way, too, once they've gone through the selection process.)
ELI welcomed many members of its community to sunny San Antonio this past week for its Annual Meeting; during the general session, Dr. Malcolm Brown, Director of ELI, and Dr. Veronica Diaz, Associate Director, unveiled the new list of Key Issues in Teaching and Learning.
In it, you'll see three totally new key issues for 2016:
- Next Generation Digital Learning Environments and Services: The NGDLE and services are conceived as an ecosystem consisting of learning tools and components that adhere to common standards.
- Adaptive Learning: This emerging field involves effective course integrations, diagnostic and prescriptive dimensions, as well as adaptive learning algorithms and design.
- Evolution of the Profession: Cross-organizational support of teaching and learning, professional development pathways, shifting roles of faculty and support staff.
Academic transformation topped the list this year, giving further validation to the recent formation of EDUCAUSE's newest community of practice. Leading Academic Transformation (LAT) has been designed for those who advance their institution's teaching, learning, and student success mission through the innovative use of technology.
LAT convenes senior leaders from campuses across the globe — leaders from a range of areas such as provost offices, academic affairs, information technology, centers for teaching and learning, innovation strategy, instructional technology, libraries, and student services.
Take a look at this year's full list in our high-resolution infographic that you can share with your networks — and be sure to check out our curated list of associated resources. You'll find materials on Digital and Information Literacies, Learning Space Design, Faculty Development and much more!
Kristi DePaul is marketing manager, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), at EDUCAUSE.