Video: Ralph Wolff on The Challenges of Accreditation

Ralph Wolff of WASC, demystifies the world of accreditation. He lays out the history and complexities of the regulatory environment, and the magnitude of the challenges. It’s time to redefine and transform accreditation to support changes in higher education. Can WASC itself become a model of what we want institutions to become — open, transparent, and innovative?

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Video: Gina Glantz on Initiatives for Healthcare Workers

Gina Glantz, senior advisor to the president, SEIU, challenges us to think about an integrated national system for educating a diversity of healthcare workers throughout their careers. This would require uniting higher education, government, providers, workers, and IT in the effort — and require serious vision about how such a consortium would work together.

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Video: Dale Dougherty on A Smart Grid for Education

Dale Dougherty of MAKE Magazine, observes that education happens in the community, not just on campus. What if we broke the hardwired connection that students have to institutions? Education could be like the power grid: anyone can connect, in real time, with trackable sources and paths. Imagine an infrastructure for learning — find courses in your area, on any day, on any topic, register, and go.

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Video: Candace Thille on Embedded Assessment

Candace Thille of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon describes essential elements of a successful web-based learning environment. The most exciting of these is the feedback loop for continual improvement. Imagine the power of embedded assessment, where a teacher sees exactly where students are struggling in time to tailor class-time precisely to those gaps.

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Video: Jamie Merisotis on Achieving The Big Goal

Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO, Lumina Foundation drives home the imperative of reaching 60% higher education degree attainment in this country. If we expect to compete in the 21st century global marketplace, higher education outcomes must improve. We need a student-centered educational ecosystem that graduates adaptable, skilled, thinking workers to power a new, knowledge-based economy.

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