- On EdTech Newsletter
- Posts
- Interesting Reads This Week
Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Try with our 30-day free trial and Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.
We are officially in the Year of the Snake, which is supposed to be a lucky one for me. I remain skeptical, partly because, like many who grew up in the tropics, I have an utter and profound fear of snakes. But what did I read this week?
On the rebound
The Community College Research Center has a new data visualization tool for examining how community college enrollment has rebounded from pre-pandemic levels to the present. On its own, it's a fascinating and interactive tool to explore (and my apologies to Phil’s family for sharing it with him, inevitably ensuring his preoccupation for the next few hours).
As I played around with it, I was struck by how, in most states, there was one college that rebounded significantly more than the others—completely out of sync with the rest. What’s happening in these cases, and what can we learn from them? Seems like a great research project for a newsletter writer.
In this case, it’s Middlesex Community College in Orange. What was its secret in beginning a recovery two years before all others?
How should we be thinking about online learning
This week in Forbes, Western Governors University President Scott Pulsipher presented a concise and compelling argument on how we should approach online learning—both as observers and as institutions providing it.
On one level, Scott’s piece pushed back against a recent Inside Higher Ed article that offered a flawed take on online learning. The article relied on previously well-covered (but problematic) research on completion rates at large online institutions to make its case.
