SXSWedu Day 4 and wrap up

The final day of the conference was shorter but just as substantial as any other. There were only three sessions before the conference closing set of keynotes. They saved some good stuff for the last day.

Trends in Higher Education Morning Mixer

This early morning session over a light breakfast was hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, who has just published an issue about trends. None of the trends were surprising to any attendee of SXSWedu, or indeed anyone who pays attention to higher ed. Among the trends identified: (lack of) shared governance, trigger warnings, public-private partnerships, and the rise of instructional designers. Nothing about micro-credentials or personalized learning? Hmm.

Breaking the University from the Inside Out

This was another session with a mixed panel of academics and industry reps. The topic here was how to get higher ed to innovate and change more quickly. Their answer seemed to be that universities need to develop a culture of innovation where failure is not punished but encouraged and even rewarded. As the Chief Faculty innovator at my institution, I agree. One panelist said that leadership was important in these efforts. Agree again. Another said that less government funding means that innovation is more important. Sounds right. Maintaining the same thing will not work going forward. Probably true. One of the industry reps said that there are too many edtech companies, and that leads to less innovation because universities have a hard time with all the choices. That sounds right to me. I've had conversations at my institution about the need to establish a committee of faculty (and instructional designers, perhaps) that would look through and vet edtech options, and then pilot the use of the ones that look effective and appropriate. That would be a big task.

What Higher Ed Can Learn from Uber and Airbnb

 
This was a tough call because there were three sessions at this time that I wanted to see. I am happy with my eventual choice because the issues raised in this one are significant and looming. The topic really was the future of credentialing in higher ed. The critique of the current system is that a diploma from a university doesn't (accurately) indicate the competencies of the graduate. This recalled conversations we've had in my department about the skills and abilities employers really want, and how our graduates actually have those skills, like communication, team work, and critical thinking. Of course employers would have no way of knowing that just by looking at a transcript or resume. A psychology degree implies a mastery of psychology content, but of course we know that those other skills and abilities come with that knowledge. So it might behoove us to start documenting those skills and abilities in addition to psychology knowledge. Many people at SXSWedu talked about microcredentials, or badges, or edublocks. Some worry that these new ways of documenting competencies will lead to the demise of the college degree. I disagree; it just means we need to do a better job documenting the value of what we do. One of the panelists created Portfolium, which is a new kind of digital portfolio. It's free for life, and can be used by students right now. Worth checking out.

Final keynotes

The first speaker was Todd Rose from Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's written a book called The End of Average,

and his point was that in every field he's looked at that measures humans in any way, there really is no single person that matches the average scores/measure. Pretty interesting examples from the military, health care, and neuroscience. This means that when we design courses for the average student, we are actually designing the course for no student in the course! People are not average, they are jagged in his terms. This means that people may be high or low on one dimension but low or high on another. Together that person may look average, but they are not actually average on any dimension. I put his book on my Amazon wish list.
The next speaker was Russlynn Ali, who is involved in the XQ Institute which seeks to dramatically rethink high

school. She was pretty inspiring and showed several video clips of high schools excitedly working on their applications for the QX program.
The final speaker of the conference was Connie Yowell. She basically talked about microcredentialing or badging for high school. Another passionate speaker.

Major Themes at SXSWedu

I'd say there were three consistent and significant themes:

1. Microcredentials or badges
2. Personalized learning
3. The relationship between higher education and edtech companies

We'll see how those themes play out over the next year.

SXSWedu (or south by, as the insiders call it) was a mad rush of new, exciting and sometimes scary ideas, and passionate speakers, all at a rapid pace. A very rewarding experience.