LTDC Virtual Showcase 2021

Bryan Alexander

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 10:00-11:00 a.m. (CST)

Education and Technology After the Pandemic

How will colleges and universities change after the COVID-19 disaster?  We begin this session by examining the major drivers of academic change which were in play before 2020, including emerging technologies, the open revolutions, demographic transitions, changing enrollment, and economic developments. Next we look back at the extraordinary year and a half we just experienced, identifying key aspects which impacted, and will continue to shape, academia.  Then we address two huge trends: climate change and automation. Finally we synthesize these stories to point towards the next decade of higher education.

Biography:

Bryan Alexander is an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future. 

Bryan speaks widely and publishes frequently. He recently published Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education for Johns Hopkins University Press (January 2020), which won an Association of Professional Futurists award.  He is currently working on Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Age of Climate Crisis (2022).  His two other recent books are Gearing Up For Learning Beyond K-12 and The New Digital Storytelling (second edition). 

Bryan is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University and teaches graduate seminars in their Learning, Design, and Technology program. To learn more about Bryan’s accomplishments, please visit his website.

Kathe Pelletier

Wednesday, June 16, 2021 2:15-3:15 p.m. (CST)

Perspective-Taking and Paradoxes

It might be surprising to hear the words, “the pandemic has been a gift,” especially in light of the lives lost and the disruption of relative normalcy. The last year has felt alternately long and isolating, and frantic and connecting.

Digital transformation is upon us in higher education. We might be tempted to maintain the momentum we felt as we rapidly transitioned to remote teaching last spring and take action to redefine our institutions to create an innovative future. It’s also tempting to imagine ways we can restore our campuses to the way we were before the pandemic. Or maybe we are focused on just adapting to the new normal.

Technologies, new and old, have offered us tools to engage with students and each other. Technology has offered us a bridge through the pandemic. But as institutions adapt to students’ needs, as staff support course development and delivery, and as faculty bring passion in their areas of expertise, we can recognize the opportunity in the continued collaboration and in listening.

It’s time to take a collective breath, and just pause for a moment. This is the time when we can practice perspective-taking, learning from others’ experiences as much as our own. Pausing to recognize the tension that might exist between technology, teaching, and a students-first approach. Let’s reflect on what we’ve learned from this past year – let it really settle in – and then we can collectively lean in to creating the future together.

Biography:

With more than 20 years of experience in higher education with positions in areas such as academic advising, online learning, instructional design and competency-based education, Dr. Kathe Pelletier currently holds the role of Director, Teaching and Learning Program with EDUCAUSE. She brings an expertise for combining traditional higher education best practice with innovative delivery models. She has been recognized by the International Center for Supplemental Instruction for starting and scaling the first online Supplemental Instruction programs and by the Online Learning Consortium for a hybrid framework that creates a structure for creativity yet insures consistency and quality in hybrid program and course delivery. Through her career, Kathe has accomplished such things as building an online student success center from scratch, establishing a competency-based curriculum model that became an anchor for a self-paced CBE program, developing and launching a holistic assessment and outreach system that delivered personalized resource recommendations to incoming students, and optimizing a faculty community of practice that was not only engaging and satisfying to the faculty participants but also increased student learning outcomes and success metrics.