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Three Coworkers

A platform that matches pioneering speakers, such as inventors and authors, with potential audiences to update course material

A competition to attract many students to their classes—ultimately to enable tertiary institutions to schedule their classes as flexibly as possible

Work Desk

Crowd training

A platform that matches pioneering speakers, such as inventors and authors, with potential audiences to update course material

Outline of the problem

  • To enhance the utility of their courses, tertiary institutions must impart the latest advances to their students in each course

  • However, to remain abreast of these latest advances and to update their courses accordingly, staff need to dedicate significant time and resources to this activity—time and resources that most institutions cannot afford

 

Outline of a solution

  • A coalition of tertiary institutions could develop a platform that encourages pioneers in a field—such as inventors, authors, and commentators—to present their insights online and to help convert these presentations into teaching modules.

  • The tertiary institutions can utilise a variety of methods to identify and to contact these potential speakers, such as book catalogues, patent registers, and funding applications. Like a speaking agency, the speakers first submit a summary of their presentation to the platform

  • Each month, members who subscribe to this platform—including students, alumni, staff, and industry partners—receive an email that outlines presentations that might be relevant to their interests.  These members then indicate which online presentations they might like to attend.

  • To identify which presentations might be relevant to the interests of members, the platform utilizes an algorithm that integrates demographic information, such as the course in which a student is enrolled, with past behavior, such as which presentations the member has attended.

  • If the number of members who express interest in a presentation exceeds some criterion, the speakers may agree to prepare and to present their insights

  • If the number of members who express interest in this presentation is sufficiently high, specialists in learning design, employed by the tertiary institutions, could utilize various technologies to optimise the presentation, such as avatars, cartoons, and videos.  Likewise, if the number of students who express interest in this presentation is sufficiently high, these specialists could also create an assessment, enabling members to earn credit or certificates.

  • All members, except students, pay a modest amount to attend each presentation.  These funds are divided between the speakers and the institutions. 

  • Tertiary institutions can thus utilise these presentations to update their learning materials economically

  • Speakers can utilise this opportunity to promote their brand or services as well as to embed their insights into courses.

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Work Desk

The student participation competition

A competition to attract many students to their classes—ultimately to enable tertiary institutions to schedule their classes as flexibly as possible

Outline of the problem

  • To attract, to satisfy, and to retain students, tertiary institutions strive to accommodate the diverse needs and preferences of these students.

  • To achieve this goal, institutions often experiment with flexible, rather than traditional, schedules of classes.

  • Examples include block scheduling or compressed courses, in which students complete usually one class or unit at a time within a limited period, or HyFlex courses, in which students attend a blend on classes synchronously online, asynchronously online, and in person

  • However, to offer this flexibility while preserving costs, institutions need to teach efficiently.  For example, they can record more classes in advance or organize more discussions that are facilitated by peers rather than staff. 

  • Unfortunately, many students prefer live classes that are facilitated by teaching staff.  Therefore, to maintain flexibility, such as offer the same classes during the day and evening, institutions need to consider another solution.

 

 

Outline of a solution

  • One solution revolves around a competition, perhaps across a coalition of tertiary institutions, in which teachers attempt to attract as many students to their classes as possible.

  • To facilitate this competition, teaching staff enter many of the topics they need to teach—such as a normal distribution or evolutionary theory—coupled with the number of students they need to teach into a database.

  • Second, other teaching staff utilize algorithms that are embedded in this database to identify topics they can teach that might attract students from many courses, institutions, or both. 

  • For example, if they enter the word statistics into this database, they might discover that 7500 student need to learn about a normal distribution

  • Third, these teaching staff can then arrange a time to teach a popular topic online.  This class is automatically advertised to all relevant students.

  • Teaching staff who attract many students to their classes are granted some reward, such as more casual staff to grade their assignments

  • Teaching staff who enter their topics into this database also benefit, because colleagues are accommodating these students more effectively.

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Contributors

To seek advice or engage specialists on these initiatives, contact the contributors of this page

  • Crowd training

  • A student participation competition

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