Managing the “Unwinding” of Higher Education: The Fort Hays State University Red Balloon Project

1. Managing the “Unwinding” of Higher Education: The Fort Hays State University Red Balloon Project Larry Gould The Fort Hays State University Fall Convocation Division of Academic Affairs August 14, 2013

2. Key Takeaways This presentation is about the creation and management of a transformative, institutional teaching/learning change initiative---the FHSU Red Balloon Project. The Red Balloon Project is what David Ward has called “a sustainable and strategic path to educational innovation” or simply a clear way for scaling up and diffusing educational innovation across the institution’s traditional and virtual learning environments.

3. Key Takeaways As framed by Randy Bass (Educause Review, 2012) “our understanding of learning has expanded at a rate that has far outpaced our conceptions of teaching….and is expanding in ways that our at least partially incompatible with the structures of higher education institutions (personalized/multiple customized pathways or adaptive instruction driven by learning analytics/sciences, participatory cultures, informal learning). The Project is primarily about the “re-imagination of learning” at the institutional level, but finds its origins in the “unwinding” of higher education at the national and global levels.

4. Key Takeaways Although the project involves innovative thinking from the institutional to the individual student level, the attention is primarily on exploring and experimenting with emerging technologies, open educational resources and re-imagined learning approaches at all levels. The full success of the project requires new scholarly communities (for collaborative knowledge-creation) and a single definition of learning across any and all learning spaces (no distinction between on- and off-campus delivery systems).

5. Key Takeaways The scholarship of teaching and learning is central to the success of the project (“improvement in postsecondary education will require converting teaching from a “solo sport” to a community-based research activity. – Herbert Simon, Carnegie-Mellon scholar, 1978 The Red Balloon Project brings together people, resources, interests, vision and opportunities into a new institutional learning collaborative. Fueled by the “unwinding” of the coil of structures, norms and old processes that held together traditional higher education, FHSU needs to enlist its best minds to re-imagine teaching and learning; use its learning analytic capabilities to better understand how the generations of students we serve actually learn; and generate plausible scenarios about the quality and integrity of what we want future learning experiences to look like—on- or off-campus.

6. Key Takeaways The Red Balloon Project represents the way in which FHSU is re-imagining its learning playbook to create “a system that incentivizes learning, outcomes, access, low costs and innovation.” (Andrew S. Rosen, Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, Kaplan Publishing, 2011).

7. The “Unwinding” of the New America* No one can say when the unwinding began—when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometimes stifling grip first gave way. Like any great change, the unwinding began at countless times, in countless ways—and at some moment the country, always the same country, crossed a line of history and became irretrievably different. If you were born around 1960 or afterward, you have spent your adult life in the vertigo of that unwinding. You watched structures that had been in place before your birth collapse like pillars of salt across the vast visible landscape. When the norms that made the old institutions useful began to unwind….the Roosevelt Republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. *Prologue to The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, 2013 by George Packer.

8. The “Unwinding” of New America’s Higher Education Similar to the unwinding of New America’s political, social and economic fabric, an analogous ‘unwinding’ has been underway in the US higher education system. The unwinding is not necessarily news, but the “elements of the unwinding” continue to become more diverse, complex, greater in number and choice in the marketplace is slowly shifting from the provider to the consumer. Out of list of 37 elements that I have gathered, let me share what I would consider some of the most powerful and prevalent “drivers of the “unwinding” dynamic.

9. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason # 1: The Advent of the Internet Both organizational and individual sources continue to erode higher education’s role as the gateway and keeper of knowledge * The demand for self-paced, flexible and personalized learning (DIY U)has grown (sometimes led by sherpas[new faculty role] and driven by lifelong learning) * Declining societal and employer appreciation of higher education

10. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason #2 – Cloud Computing Cloud computing provides computation, software, data access, and storage services that do not require end-user knowledge of the physical location and/or configuration of the system that delivers the services (Google and the Columbia River) *Technologies are responsible for “unbundling” classes and degrees from traditional institutions just the way music and video distribution, film, TV , newspapers, books and travel/hotels have been unbundled by the web. Ask Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post staff!

11. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason #3 – Social Media Networking Technologies The BIG Question: Can Students Do It “Themselves?” Three Growing Trends -- Personal Learning Networks (Self-Directed)/Open Source (Free Stuff)/Blended Learning Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Transformation of Higher Education – DIY U By Anya Kamenetz

12. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason #4 – Mobile Technology Pull out your smartphone. Need I say more?

13. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason #5 – Structural Transformation of the Economy Requires New Jobs, New Skill Sets and Meeting the Challenges of the Eroding Middle Class (looking for a 21st century liberal and applied education that is video, mobile/BYOD and in the cloud) There are new and inflated national EXPECTATIONS of what a transformed, higher education landscape can deliver in terms of more and better educated students (The Obama Promise, Lumina Goal, Academically Adrift). *Are we redefining learning outcomes and skill-sets to meet those expectations? Is the future all about competency-based learning? Shaped to fit local communities or workforces?

14. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason #6 – Web-Driven Collaborative Learning and Collaborative Knowledge-Creation (Wikinomics, 2008) * When Will We Stop Using Technology to Replicate the Classroom Learning Model? Students Expectations are Different and Continue to Evolve. * When Will We Begin Using Learning Outcomes---Instead of the Credit Hour---as the Most Credible Measure of Faculty Performance and the Ultimate Measure of a College Education? *Open Educational Resources Fuels the Dynamic?

15. The Value Proposition and Its Production Functions: The “Wikinomics” Learning Paradigm* Collaborative learning** Dominant pedagogy: Socially-constructed/Discovery-driven Process Self-paced personal learning environments (think 21st century digital media tactics combined with self-reliance and empowerment) Faculty as tech-savvy facilitators of an emergent learning process Carefully designed blended (online and F2F) “communities of interaction” facilitated by technology, cognitive approaches and intentional pedagogies to enhance student engagement and content co-creation *Tapscott and Williams, Wikinomics, 2008 *Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, 2005 **Tapscott and Williams, Educause Review, Jan-Feb, 2010

16. The Unwinding: This Time is Different Reason # 7 – The Rest (Maybe? Right!) of the Diverse and Complex Catalysts that Contribute to the Unwinding Financing Challenges(tuition, fees and beyond) Affordability (cost of a degree relative to value, federal and state funding) Unbundling of Faculty Roles Demands for Accelerated Learning /Prior Learning Credit The Increasing Value of Blended Learning Assessment (Learning and Academic Analytics) Accountability (retention, persistence, attainment, completion rates?) Accreditation (new forms, domestic and worldwide)

17. The Unwinding: Looking for Game-Changers So, if the elements of the Unwinding are as powerful, compelling and comprehensive as depicted by so many pundits and prophets, what options do we have as academic leaders? We know three things: Change is not optional Continuous and transformational innovation is not optional Strategic thinking is not optional (as one pundit has noted, higher education could become the “rock” around which water flows, that is, people will find a way to get educated without us).

18. The Unwinding: Looking for Game-Changers Here’s the question Diana Oblinger, CEO of Educause, poses about the changing higher education landscape being shaped by the Unwinding: How do we ready our institutions, our students, and ourselves for what higher education can---and must---become? For FHSU, here’s the response: the Red Balloon Project has become one of our most important change initiatives and game-changers.

19. AASCU’s Red Balloon Project

20. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Red Balloon Contest • $ 40,000 • Winning Team: MIT • Post Doc, plus 4, plus 4,000 • Learned about the contest on Tuesday, announced the team strategy on Thursday, contest began on Saturday

21. Where DARPA Put Their Balloons

22. How long did it take to find 10 randomly placed 8 foot high bright red weather balloons, suspended 30-50 feet above the ground, somewhere in the United States?

23. 8 hours 52 minutes

24. The Red Balloon Contest Is Both: A Metaphor And An Analogy

25. The Red Balloon Contest is a Metaphor for the new ways that knowledge is now being: • Created • Aggregated • Disseminated

26. The Red Balloon Contest Is an Analogy for the way that we might work together collaboratively to re-imagine the learning experience

27. A Game-Changing Value Proposition and Its Production Functions:The FHSU Red Balloon Project The ultimate purpose is to explore “forward thinking, creative and market-smart” curricular innovations to include post-course learning experiences supported by emerging technologies, open instructional resources and collaborative learning (e.g. flipped classrooms, certificates and certifications, gaming, cloud computing, data set mining, information assurance, improved course development processes, new learning partnerships, new academic technology strategies, etc.) Let’s go to http://rbfhsu.org/

28. In closing, let me re-emphasize why FHSU thinks it’s so important to “take charge of change”: On the plains of hesitation, bleach the bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory, sat down to wait….and waiting, died. George W. Cecil/Jeff Burnett, 1923 Thank you. Questions? Available at: <www.fhsu.edu/provost>