Online learning leads to better student outcomes, active learning is gaining in importance, and textbook prices are too high.
These are just a few of the trending topics in the Sonic Foundry-sponsored, Inside Higher Ed annual survey of faculty members and campus leaders. The 2015 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, conducted by Gallup on behalf of Inside Higher Ed, set out to learn educational technology practices and perceptions. The surveys garnered responses from representative samples of 21,399 faculty members and 885 administrators, from all types of institutions.
What needs work? According to the report, institutions need to do a better job of supporting faculty in their online learning endeavors, massive online courses that take their cues from MOOCs could work on quality improvement, and attacks on scholars via social media should stop.
For an in-depth view of what’s on the minds of these instructors and administrators regarding online education, download a copy of the report. In the meantime here’s a snapshot of a few findings as they relate to video in education.
- Most faculty members and tech administrators believe the use of educational technology has led to improved student outcomes.
- Sixty-three percent of instructors and 84 percent of technology administrators say gains in student learning have justified colleges’ spending on education technology.
- Professors mostly believe that institutions should produce their own online degree programs (78 percent) as opposed to working with online management companies to produce the programs.
- Four in 10 faculty members have taught a blended or hybrid course, one that contains significant in-person and online components. About 8 in 10 instructors who have taught a blended course say they have converted a face-to-face course to a blended course (79 percent). As might be expected, the majority report this conversion decreased face-to-face time.
- Nearly half of faculty members (48 percent) believe improving the educational experience for students by introducing more active learning in the course is a very important reason for converting face-to-face courses to blended or hybrid courses.