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We've titled this post "Are Students Brains Changing Faster Than Higher Ed Can?" It's actually an untitled item from the Learning section of 2010's Trends to Watch and takes the form of an observation with related thoughts.

"Trends" is written by SCUP's director of education and planning, Phyllis T.H. Grummon, who will facilitate SCUP's Pacific Region's June 10 Trends in Higher Education Symposium the Claremont Colleges.

Learning

Observation

Changes in the learning environment, sometimes very subtle, can affect the performance of students in classrooms.

• Exposure to the letters “A” or “F” at the start of an examination seems to have an affect on how well students score. Subjects receiving an analogies test with the label “Test Bank ID: A” scored significantly better than students with “Test Bank: F”, with a “Test Bank ID: J” scoring in the middle.
• A study of high school students found that the gender of the images of scientists affected test scores for females. When all male examples were used, girls’ test scores were lower. They increased when textbook pictures were either all female or equally divided. 
• Recent research reports that a variety of skills are enhanced by playing action video games, including better visual selective attention and better focus.

Our Thoughts

Technology is also introducing changes in the environment. Our interaction with it appears to be influencing how our brains are wired. The power to increase learning comes with the reality of our evolving nervous system The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, (2010) Carr, N., W. W. Norton).

• Math software developed by the University of California-Irvine, based on neuroscience research, significantly increased the passing rate on a state examination in 64 of the lowest performing elementary schools in the state.
• Devices that track eye movements while reading on a screen can now be combined with software that infers a reader’s progress and provides help when eyes pause on words or names.
• Informal learning through television, video games, and the Internet has increased students’ abilities with visual-spatial reasoning.

Observation

Like the proverbial deer in the headlights, institutions around the world are coping with reduced funding and often using similar tactics for cost containment and revenue enhancement.

• Publicly supported institutions understand that reduced state budgets will affect them for many years into the future. Thirty-five states are assuming reduced fiscal resources will be available in 2010, while 42 states were forced to reduce their previously enacted 2009 budgets.

• Community colleges have been hit the hardest and been very creative about when they offer courses (all night long) and even who pays for them (anyone who is willing to donate to support a course).

• Space management is becoming a key area of concern, as no one wants the continuing operational costs of new construction. Likewise, energy management is high on everyone’s list.

Our Thoughts

The Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), as well as tuition, continues to outpace the Consumer Price Index (CPI), even though it dropped from 5 percent to 2.3 percent. Some are asking if higher education will be the next ‘bubble’ to burst.

• The highest percentage increase came in administrative salaries at 5.4 percent, up from 5 percent the year before. Virtually all the other components of the index had lower increases this fiscal year than last.

• According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent—more than four times the rate of inflation and almost twice the rate of health care costs.

• Tuition and fees at private colleges rose at the lowest rate in 37 years (4.3 percent), but still higher than the CPI, which was 3.8 percent in 2008.