3.1 Challenges to maintaining the human touch in educational  (Page 5/5)

• How do we contribute to the fiscal health of our universities and maintain quality of our programs? [After all, it is still most education departments that are the “Cash Cows” for their university. Consider the following: Smith and Mitry (2008) found that university administrators will not see the full potential of e-learning until they adhere to the higher academic standard of full-time faculty expertise.]
• How do we maintain relationships with sister universities in this competitive setting since geographical boundaries are diminishing?
• How do we mentor, support, publish and present with our colleagues in the Academy when competition gets in the way of our collaborative efforts?

Unfortunately, I have seen and experienced how this new competitive environment, can create disharmony and dissonance within the Academy. In order to maintain supportive professional relationships, we need to nurture our own covenant community where collaborative relationships with professors at all universities might flourish and thus expand our human currency.

Concluding remarks

As educators we have a major goal: supporting students in their learning to be knowledgeable, creative, problem solvers, and thinkers. A machine can only do what a human has programmed him to do and sometimes this is truly amazing . . . but it begins with a person.

The world is increasingly complex which means we need to provide today’s students with in-depth, complex learning that is an outgrowth of critically reflective thinking. We must support face-to-face, blended, and fully online/virtual learning environments where students are challenged to go beyond mastery of concepts to synthesize information into learning units and then reflect, create, explore, and investigate.

With today’s technological advancements resulting in a diversity of learning modalities our questions must focus on the challenge of maintaining the human touch:

• How do we respond to technology with balance in order to support students in growing their human capacity and connecting with other people to build positive, affirming relationships?
• How do we create a covenant community that emphasizes trusting environments where students’ stories put a human face to teaching and learning issues and thus develop our human capacity?
• How do we nurture professional relationships in a growing competitive market where we can embrace our shared responsibilities to one another?

Our legacy as educators begins with teaching, and should culminate in an embrace of learning that encourages lifelong wonder and an appreciation of our humanity. Learning is really not about answers – it is about asking the right questions that lead us to understanding more about the human condition. We need more research to understand the positive and negative effects of technology. We must understand ways to develop covenant communities in our place-bound and virtual classrooms and beyond to encourage rich dialogue that leads to greater understandings of our diverse population. We must recognize the importance of building supportive relationships with our colleagues that transcend today’s competitive environment by participating in our professional organizations.

Our goal as educators should not be to leave a legacy, but to live a legacy . . . This means that while we lead in life-long learning we must live the process of continued interrogation to find ways to respond to technology with balance, establish covenant communities, and nurture professional relationships in ways that nourish the human capacity in a time when the human touch is so needed.

References

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• Aoun, J.E. (2011, May 8). Learning today: The lasting value of place. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Available online: (External Link)
• Burruss, M., Billings, D.M., Brownrigg, V., Skiba, D.J.,&Connors, H.R. (2009). Class size as related to the use of technology, educational practices, and outcomes in web-based nursing courses. Journal of Professional Nursing, 25 (1), 33-41.
• Jackson, P. (1968). The teacher and the machine . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
• Militello, M. (2011, Summer). Learning to play a player piano. UCEA Review , 15-17.
• Okun, T. (2010). The emperor has no clothes: Teaching about race and racism to people who don’t want to know . Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• Sergiovanni, T. J. (1996). Leadership for the schoolhouse . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Smith, D.E.&Mitry, D.J. (2008, January/February). Investigation of higher education: the real cost and quality of online programs. Journal of Education for Busine ss, 147-152.
• Texas universities may increase the use of online learning. (2011, Feb. 22). Education Today. Available at: (External Link) increase-the-use-of-online-learning/
• Vonnegut, K. (1952). Player piano . New York, NY: Dell.
• Young, K., Mullen, C.,&Harris, S. (2011). Social justice as cultural conversation within covenant communities. Paper presented at the annual conference of NCPEA, August 2-5, 2011.