The Future and Challenges of Digital Learning

Vincent Del Casino, UA Online
Aug. 28, 2015

My own concern with online learning is made real every day as the University of Arizona expands its online offerings from a robust catalog of graduate programs into the world of undergraduate online education.

It is an interesting time for a campus that has successfully built many graduate-level programs, particularly ones that focus on professional degrees. At the same time, the skepticism remains, particularly for faculty, staff and students who are being asked to reimagine our mission by expanding access to our courses and programs through the development of a fully online undergraduate campus. On top of these challenges is the additional issue of providing a high-quality undergraduate degree program that educates the whole student — from the first-year foundations and general education courses to the specific major and minor courses that make up their final degree.

UA Online has taken up this challenge in several ways.

First, we decided as an institution to build a targeted general education program through a few select courses. Through an open application process, we solicited instructors interested in developing an integrated general education program. The final group of faculty members spans the diversity of our institution, from across the arts and sciences and from the ranks of tenured faculty to our seasoned master, lecturing faculty.

Second, to create faculty community within the general education curriculum, we are supporting collaborations across all three main content areas — natural sciences, individuals and sciences, and traditions and cultures — as well as in the foundation areas of math, writing and second-language acquisition. In short, faculty members are building an interdisciplinary community within a general education framework.

Third, these same faculty members are building student community within the general education program by developing interactive, student-centered learning objects within their individual courses while also creating connections across courses. The courses allow students to "talk to" each other in different ways, providing them a sense of participation in interdisciplinary conversations that cut across the arts and sciences. This allows students to think about how to ask and answer questions from a variety of different perspectives and approaches.

In all of this, we are building UA Online purposively and in relation to our wider institutional mission, which is to enable students to think, write, listen, and learn to ask and answer questions critically and thoughtfully. Learning communities are one way in which we can challenge students to think outside the boundaries of discreet knowledge systems.

The future of higher education lies in its ability to educate students in ways that better match the complexity of the socioeconomic, political and environmental challenges that we face as a planet. To do this, we believe students must build upon a broad, interdisciplinary foundation that starts from the first day they enter university. The ability to educate students and create community is not bound by learning modality, but only by our own capacity to create interconnections. Through this, we believe students will more likely commit to, and stay with, their learning plan. And, in the end, they will understand that what they do here is quite special.

Read more from Vincent Del Casino about how the UA is providing solutions to affordability and accessibility online, and visit the UA Online site.

Contact Vincent Del Casino at 520-621-0963 and delcasino@email.arizona.edu

Vincent Del Casino is the UA's vice provost for digital learning and student engagement, and also associate vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Del Casino also holds a tenured position as a UA professor of geography and development. He continues to teach and write on his major research areas, which include the study of health, medical and social geography, focusing particularly on the history of geographic thought, sexual politics and health care related to chronic and infectious disease. Del Casino currently teaches the online section of "Geography 251, World Regions: Global and Comparative Perspectives."

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