According to a recent study by the Institute for the Future, 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet. In addition, the recent Educause Top 10 Issues report ranks “Student Success” as its second most important issue. It is clear to me that the liberal arts focus on teaching students how to learn is more important than ever, and that technology skills and overall information literacy are essential parts of that. In this issue of the ITS Update, we will focus on the ways that ITS is helping Carleton’s students to be successful.
Student Success
You might be wondering what was identified as more important than student success?! The #1 item on the Educause list is Information Security. While there are significant reputational and financial risks that could derive from a breach, I think we would all agree that the mission of higher education is our students’ success. “Student success” has become a catch phrase at technology conferences representing the amalgam of software systems that let institutions check up on their students and support their on-time graduation. Some institutions input test scores and attendance records, craft a few formulas and use them to run a report of “at risk” students for additional intervention.
Carleton certainly cares about good approaches to reviewing information about our students, however the 2012 Strategic Plan call for “preparing students more robustly for fulfilling post-graduation lives and careers” goes way beyond tracking attendance and correlating it with mid-term grades to produce automated alerts. Two important ways that ITS supports student preparation for post-graduation lives are: 1) supporting the faculty who teach them and their use of classroom technologies and innovative pedagogies and 2) working directly with students to provide them with real-world experiences with technology.
Classroom Support and Student Workers
Both anecdotally and in our biannual MISO satisfaction survey (more results to come in May), it is clear that faculty agree that classroom support is essential. Although the 2018 survey shows some improvement, there is more work to do. Over the past few months, we have interviewed members of the LIBIT committee and added their suggestions to our own ideas to craft some new approaches. This article says more about our next steps.
ITS employs about 100 students across our operations. They are an important part of meeting the demands of roughly 3000 customers of our services. Working for ITS is also a chance for them to build skills that will help them as users or supporters of technology. Many students highlight their technology experience in their resumes, and we’re happy to be part of developing those foundational skills and knowledge.
Access to Computers and Towards Digital Literacy
Over the past few years, we have become aware of the growing use of technology as a facilitator of learning and the mechanics of classwork. As a result, there is a growing negative effect for students who don’t have their own computer. To minimize this impact, ITS has developed three programs. First, I worked with Carolyn Livingston to purchase a set of Chromebooks for low-income students to keep throughout their time at Carleton. Second, we created a lending pool for students who are in a class with a BYOD expectation. And third, we created a lending pool for students whose computer is getting repaired.
Finally, ITS is involved with various efforts to cultivate student competency in all things digital. This is happening with student interns on the Public Works grant, and in crafting a framework for addressing digital literacy in partnership with our Liberal Arts Consortium for Online Learning (LACOL) peers.
All of these efforts are in support of the big goal of producing graduates who are prepared for whatever will come, whether we can imagine it now or not.