The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges

Join the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community to explore the top challenges in teaching and learning with technology. Participate in a new community effort to build a network of solutions and just-in-time resources around the topics dominating administrative meetings and water-cooler conversations. It’s your chance to set the agenda and collaborate with colleagues around real solutions and innovative directions.

Through surveys, interactive brainstorming sessions, and a final community vote, the EDUCAUSE community identified their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology. Together we'll explore:

Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty.
Reaching and engaging today's learner.
Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT.
Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts.

With the list in hand, 2010 is the year to drill deeper into each of the challenges. Roll up your sleeves and participate in the project wiki, showcasing your campus initiatives and helping build a network of solutions around the challenges. Stay "in the know" by becoming a member of the Challenges Ning Network or lend your voice by volunteering for a key role. It's not too late to get involved!

Project Background Highlights Key Roles Recent News Outcomes

During Summer 2008, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative sat down with focus groups within the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community to talk about “challenges”—those big issues dominating campus conversations across the country. EDUCAUSE wanted to know:

In the next two to three years, what big challenges face teaching and learning with IT?
Do they vary based on geography or institutional classification?
Who’s building solutions?

What emerged, in addition to a long list of challenges, was an underlying desire to do more than simply list the big issues—to create a dynamic collection of resources and ideas, to share case studies that showcase innovative answers, and to establish a network of peers willing to talk about their institutions and problem-solve as a community.

The Top Teaching and Learning Challenges project is a community effort to both surface issues and to aggregate resources that can help to address them. In its pilot year, the community identified the top-five issues in teaching and learning with technology through online brainstorming, face-to-face sessions at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, and an EDUCAUSE-wide community vote. With the list in hand, the focus turned to building content around each challenge. In 2009, community members collaborated on articles for the EDUCAUSE Review, including Charting the Course and Tapping the Community: The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges Project, and generated dynamic resource pages for each challenge on EDUCAUSE wikis. Community members led interactive discussion sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences and engaged in solution-building learning circles at the 2009 ELI Annual Meeting. Throughout the spring and summer, EDUCAUSE invited community members to participant in five Solutions in Action webcasts, where campus innovators shared their answers to the big issues in virtual lightning rounds.

Building on the momentum generated in its early development, the Challenges project continues in 2010, as community members drill down into the top challenges during a Solutions in Action summer series, discussion sessions at the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences, and new opportunities for collaborative content development. In addition, campuses are encouraged to develop local conversations around the top challenges, sharing solutions across departments and building new opportunities for cross-campus collaborations.

In addition to these tangible products and resources, the project continues to focus on community building—creating connectionsbetween EDUCAUSE members and facilitating conversations among campuses. This is your chance to set the agenda and collaborate with colleagues around real solutions and innovative directions. Visit the Challenges Ning Network and explore the key roles to claim your place in the project.

Challenges Ning Network

Join the Challenges Ning Network to stay connected to project updates and fellow collaborators. Inside Ning, you can follow the work of volunteer bloggers, create groups around key issues or trends, peruse resources around each Challenge, or just stay up-to-date with future events and volunteer opportunities.

The Challenges Wikis

Shine a spotlight on the work that your campus is doing to address the top challenges or mine for new ideas on the Challenges wikis, a series of collaborative workspaces that house readings, multimedia resources, archived presentations, and "Community Snapshots." Anyone with an EDUCAUSE profile can add to the discussion. Those without a profile can send new resources or spotlights to Carie Page at: cpage@educause.edu.

Solutions in Action Webcast Series

During spring 2009, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) invited members of the teaching and learning community to a series of "idea exchanges" as part of the Solutions in Action webcast series. Each webcast addressed a specific challenge, providing a stage for communmembersity to share their campus projects in a lightning round format. Review the archives to see your colleagues' answers to the budget crisis, Net Gen learners, and faculty development or submit your own ideas for future webcasts to Carie Page at: cpage@educause.edu. The Solutions in Action series will return during summer 2010.

Discussion Sessions at EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences

Throughout 2010, community members will convene a series of discussion sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences to focus on solution-building around the top challenges. Sign up to facilitate a session in your region or plan to join your colleagues around the table.

ELI 2010 Annual Meeting

Dive deeper into the No. 1 challenge at the 2010 ELI Annual Meeting, "Learning Environments for a Web 2.0." Registrants can join a Google Wave discussion around the top challenges or learn more about mobile and virtual learning environments during Innovation Showcases throughout the program.

If you’re interested in taking a project role, contact Carie Page, EDUCAUSE Assistant Director for Teaching, Learning and Professional Development. It's not too late!

Community Member
Any EDUCAUSE member with an interest in teaching and learning can join the process. Community members can generate and share wiki content, join a challenges workgroup, or simply search for solutions in the community wiki. To stay up to date, join the Challenges Ning Network and adjust your e-mail settings to receive community alerts.
Challenges Blogger
The top five challenges reflect the biggest issues on campus today - from coping with budget freezes to continuing to push for innovation in teaching and learning with technology. Challenges bloggers work inside the Challenges Ning Network to highlight pertinent news across higher education, innovative campus solutions, and their own experiences coping with the challenges.
Discussion Moderator
Inside the Challenges Ning Network, community members can seek help for teaching and learning issues on campus or solicit new ideas for student engagement. Discussion moderators help monitor message boards and foster discussion and dialogue.
Discussion Facilitator
Facilitators help lead discussion and solution-building sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE regional conferences.
Solutions in Action Speaker
This summer, EDUCAUSE will be convening a series of webcasts that put the top challenge in the spotlight -- helping dig deeper into the big questions surrounding each issue and spotlighting campus innovators who are working to provide solutions to each challenge. Is your campus fusing technology and learning theory to build innovative new learning environments on campus? Are you finding new ways to reach and engage today's learners? Sign up to share your work during one of this summer's Solutions in Action webcasts.
Community Content Agent
These lead project collaborators serve as content researchers, populate the wiki with information gathered at EDUCAUSE events, and scan their own campuses for resources to share and best practices to highlight.

You can keep up with all the community updates by becoming a member of the Challenges Ning Network. There, you'll find discussion forums, photos, event listings, and blogs that chronicle the project's progress.

Project Overview
In 2010, the project continues, as community members drill down into the top challenges during a series of Solutions in Action webcasts, discussion sessions at the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences, and online content sharing. In addition to these tangible products and resources, the project remains focused on community building—creating connections between EDUCAUSE members and facilitating conversations among campuses, helping to build a network of peers dedicated to “uncommon thinking for the common good.”

Project Outcomes

The Identification of Strategic Issues
Through focus groups, online brainstorming, and a community-wide vote, the project identified the top issues in teaching and learning with technology. While the final list provides a snapshot of the major issues weighing on members’ minds, the brainstorming process offered a survey of institutional concerns and issues and opened a window to the shared challenges that lie ahead for higher education.
The Construction of Community Resources
Each of the five challenges has its own collaborative wiki, a virtual workspace for community members to add resources, to share ideas, or to sign up as an “expert” on the topic. These wikis will become organic resource pages for the topic, offering a place for colleagues to share what their institutions are doing, to link to a case study about projects on their campuses, or simply to browse for ideas.
A Model for Community Engagement
The Challenges project is designed as an experiment in community engagement that encourages participants to set the agenda and to work collectively toward the identification of solutions and innovative approaches. Community interaction is managed through virtual tools like the Ning Network, wikis, Google Docs, conference calls, and e-mail. Using the Challenges model, institutions might develop a tool for determining key strategic initiatives and harnessing institutional resources and ideas around them.
An Opportunity for Leadership Development
By identifying key roles and mentoring project volunteers, the Challenges projects offers a new avenue for emerging leaders in teaching, learning, and IT to develop a voice within the wider professional community. Volunteers might sign up to facilitate a discussion session alongside a peer from another institution or offer to speak during a five-minute lightning round presentation. Each opportunity presents a chance to hone presentation skills or to gain recognition as a “co-author” in a nationwide project.

Project Value

Participating in the Challenges project offers the opportunity to:

Brainstorm with colleagues about the key challenges that lie ahead for teaching and learning with technology and learn from institutions of varying sizes and locations about their key issues and unique vantage points
Join in a virtual process for identifying community issues through surveys, polls, virtual focus groups, and dialogue
Observe a model for developing community across geographic boundaries, disciplines, and institutions
Help develop resources, co-author content, and spotlight campuses within the wider higher education community
Learn about ways to take a leadership role within the teaching and learning community, from managing content wikis to facilitating discussion sessions or leading working groups
Present on topics related to the challenges on individual campuses

ELI EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Learners Learning Principles and Practices Learning Technologies Seeking Evidence of Impact The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges ELI Resources Become an ELI Member Institution ELI Events Get Involved		The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges Join the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community to explore the top challenges in teaching and learning with technology. Participate in a new community effort to build a network of solutions and just-in-time resources around the topics dominating administrative meetings and water-cooler conversations. It’s your chance to set the agenda and collaborate with colleagues around real solutions and innovative directions. Through surveys, interactive brainstorming sessions, and a final community vote, the EDUCAUSE community identified their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology. Together we'll explore: Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation. Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty. Reaching and engaging today's learner. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts. With the list in hand, 2010 is the year to drill deeper into each of the challenges. Roll up your sleeves and participate in the project wiki, showcasing your campus initiatives and helping build a network of solutions around the challenges. Stay "in the know" by becoming a member of the Challenges Ning Network or lend your voice by volunteering for a key role. It's not too late to get involved! Project Background Highlights Key Roles Recent News Outcomes During Summer 2008, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative sat down with focus groups within the EDUCAUSE teaching and learning community to talk about “challenges”—those big issues dominating campus conversations across the country. EDUCAUSE wanted to know: In the next two to three years, what big challenges face teaching and learning with IT? Do they vary based on geography or institutional classification? Who’s building solutions? What emerged, in addition to a long list of challenges, was an underlying desire to do more than simply list the big issues—to create a dynamic collection of resources and ideas, to share case studies that showcase innovative answers, and to establish a network of peers willing to talk about their institutions and problem-solve as a community. The Top Teaching and Learning Challenges project is a community effort to both surface issues and to aggregate resources that can help to address them. In its pilot year, the community identified the top-five issues in teaching and learning with technology through online brainstorming, face-to-face sessions at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, and an EDUCAUSE-wide community vote. With the list in hand, the focus turned to building content around each challenge. In 2009, community members collaborated on articles for the EDUCAUSE Review, including Charting the Course and Tapping the Community: The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges Project, and generated dynamic resource pages for each challenge on EDUCAUSE wikis. Community members led interactive discussion sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences and engaged in solution-building learning circles at the 2009 ELI Annual Meeting. Throughout the spring and summer, EDUCAUSE invited community members to participant in five Solutions in Action webcasts, where campus innovators shared their answers to the big issues in virtual lightning rounds. Building on the momentum generated in its early development, the Challenges project continues in 2010, as community members drill down into the top challenges during a Solutions in Action summer series, discussion sessions at the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences, and new opportunities for collaborative content development. In addition, campuses are encouraged to develop local conversations around the top challenges, sharing solutions across departments and building new opportunities for cross-campus collaborations. In addition to these tangible products and resources, the project continues to focus on community building—creating connectionsbetween EDUCAUSE members and facilitating conversations among campuses. This is your chance to set the agenda and collaborate with colleagues around real solutions and innovative directions. Visit the Challenges Ning Network and explore the key roles to claim your place in the project. Challenges Ning Network Join the Challenges Ning Network to stay connected to project updates and fellow collaborators. Inside Ning, you can follow the work of volunteer bloggers, create groups around key issues or trends, peruse resources around each Challenge, or just stay up-to-date with future events and volunteer opportunities. The Challenges Wikis Shine a spotlight on the work that your campus is doing to address the top challenges or mine for new ideas on the Challenges wikis, a series of collaborative workspaces that house readings, multimedia resources, archived presentations, and "Community Snapshots." Anyone with an EDUCAUSE profile can add to the discussion. Those without a profile can send new resources or spotlights to Carie Page at: cpage@educause.edu. Solutions in Action Webcast Series During spring 2009, the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) invited members of the teaching and learning community to a series of "idea exchanges" as part of the Solutions in Action webcast series. Each webcast addressed a specific challenge, providing a stage for communmembersity to share their campus projects in a lightning round format. Review the archives to see your colleagues' answers to the budget crisis, Net Gen learners, and faculty development or submit your own ideas for future webcasts to Carie Page at: cpage@educause.edu. The Solutions in Action series will return during summer 2010. Discussion Sessions at EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences Throughout 2010, community members will convene a series of discussion sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences to focus on solution-building around the top challenges. Sign up to facilitate a session in your region or plan to join your colleagues around the table. ELI 2010 Annual Meeting Dive deeper into the No. 1 challenge at the 2010 ELI Annual Meeting, "Learning Environments for a Web 2.0." Registrants can join a Google Wave discussion around the top challenges or learn more about mobile and virtual learning environments during Innovation Showcases throughout the program. If you’re interested in taking a project role, contact Carie Page, EDUCAUSE Assistant Director for Teaching, Learning and Professional Development. It's not too late! Community Member Any EDUCAUSE member with an interest in teaching and learning can join the process. Community members can generate and share wiki content, join a challenges workgroup, or simply search for solutions in the community wiki. To stay up to date, join the Challenges Ning Network and adjust your e-mail settings to receive community alerts. Challenges Blogger The top five challenges reflect the biggest issues on campus today - from coping with budget freezes to continuing to push for innovation in teaching and learning with technology. Challenges bloggers work inside the Challenges Ning Network to highlight pertinent news across higher education, innovative campus solutions, and their own experiences coping with the challenges. Discussion Moderator Inside the Challenges Ning Network, community members can seek help for teaching and learning issues on campus or solicit new ideas for student engagement. Discussion moderators help monitor message boards and foster discussion and dialogue. Discussion Facilitator Facilitators help lead discussion and solution-building sessions at each of the EDUCAUSE regional conferences. Solutions in Action Speaker This summer, EDUCAUSE will be convening a series of webcasts that put the top challenge in the spotlight -- helping dig deeper into the big questions surrounding each issue and spotlighting campus innovators who are working to provide solutions to each challenge. Is your campus fusing technology and learning theory to build innovative new learning environments on campus? Are you finding new ways to reach and engage today's learners? Sign up to share your work during one of this summer's Solutions in Action webcasts. Community Content Agent These lead project collaborators serve as content researchers, populate the wiki with information gathered at EDUCAUSE events, and scan their own campuses for resources to share and best practices to highlight. You can keep up with all the community updates by becoming a member of the Challenges Ning Network. There, you'll find discussion forums, photos, event listings, and blogs that chronicle the project's progress. Project Overview In 2010, the project continues, as community members drill down into the top challenges during a series of Solutions in Action webcasts, discussion sessions at the EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences, and online content sharing. In addition to these tangible products and resources, the project remains focused on community building—creating connections between EDUCAUSE members and facilitating conversations among campuses, helping to build a network of peers dedicated to “uncommon thinking for the common good.” Project Outcomes The Identification of Strategic Issues Through focus groups, online brainstorming, and a community-wide vote, the project identified the top issues in teaching and learning with technology. While the final list provides a snapshot of the major issues weighing on members’ minds, the brainstorming process offered a survey of institutional concerns and issues and opened a window to the shared challenges that lie ahead for higher education. The Construction of Community Resources Each of the five challenges has its own collaborative wiki, a virtual workspace for community members to add resources, to share ideas, or to sign up as an “expert” on the topic. These wikis will become organic resource pages for the topic, offering a place for colleagues to share what their institutions are doing, to link to a case study about projects on their campuses, or simply to browse for ideas. A Model for Community Engagement The Challenges project is designed as an experiment in community engagement that encourages participants to set the agenda and to work collectively toward the identification of solutions and innovative approaches. Community interaction is managed through virtual tools like the Ning Network, wikis, Google Docs, conference calls, and e-mail. Using the Challenges model, institutions might develop a tool for determining key strategic initiatives and harnessing institutional resources and ideas around them. An Opportunity for Leadership Development By identifying key roles and mentoring project volunteers, the Challenges projects offers a new avenue for emerging leaders in teaching, learning, and IT to develop a voice within the wider professional community. Volunteers might sign up to facilitate a discussion session alongside a peer from another institution or offer to speak during a five-minute lightning round presentation. Each opportunity presents a chance to hone presentation skills or to gain recognition as a “co-author” in a nationwide project. Project Value Participating in the Challenges project offers the opportunity to: Brainstorm with colleagues about the key challenges that lie ahead for teaching and learning with technology and learn from institutions of varying sizes and locations about their key issues and unique vantage points Join in a virtual process for identifying community issues through surveys, polls, virtual focus groups, and dialogue Observe a model for developing community across geographic boundaries, disciplines, and institutions Help develop resources, co-author content, and spotlight campuses within the wider higher education community Learn about ways to take a leadership role within the teaching and learning community, from managing content wikis to facilitating discussion sessions or leading working groups Present on topics related to the challenges on individual campuses
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