Introduction to Higher Education
Higher education is a learning state that comprises education set including colleges, technical schools, academies and more importantly, it handles education set up of universities. The higher education system here refers to tertiary as it is preceded by the secondary education or the high school education system. This system of education comprise of undergraduate, vocational education and postgraduate education.
Institutions offering the kind of education described in higher education are collectively referred to as tertiary institutions. Higher education entails real work application like in medical schools, research and teaching. Research work comprises a big percentage of education or the teaching offered.
The key reason as to why I chose this particular area is that this area identifies the field that a particular individual can major in. At this level, any individual goes deeper into the area of specialization (Woolley, 2010).
Historical development of Higher education and current legislation that shapes it
The historical development of higher education system is based on American colleges and universities that exist today. In review of higher education, the history and the development of higher education begun from the nineteenth century and developed to date. The oldest colleges had lots of national prestige that they enjoyed in the earlier years of the nineteenth century.
These colleges were resilient to institutional changes because of their affiliation to the English education system that originated from England. Most of the colleges that practiced this were mostly Cambridge and Oxford. The colonial colleges had their own new structures that best conformed to their demands.
This new structures were put in place after the colleges rejected the educational practices that originated mostly from Cambridge-Oxford models. In the earlier years, the college president had to report to external board.
This board usually determined or held the president accountable of the college’s affairs. The colleges in those days had strong legal charters and the colleges relied on government for funding. Protestant religious denominations had their culture dominate the colleges (Thelin, 2004).
The curriculum in those early days focused on political oratory and economy. The students of those days were young men and of mercantile backgrounds. The students’ racial background was mostly white. Most professions did not require a degree at part of the qualification but parents saw the idea as the only source of insurance for their children.
This insurance was used as a tool that would instill leadership and service in the young generation of the time. The colleges at that important time in history did not have a regulatory system that would have guided and governed their activities.
This meant that each colonial college had its own separate operations that mostly reflected their regional customs. Many changes in the nineteenth century opened new channels that accommodated and transformed communities creating new opportunities for previously neglected groups (Thelin, 2004).
The number of colleges increased as time went by. In addition, the increase of colleges like the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina and the University of Michigan made it possible for poor families to access tertiary education that had been previously expensive to acquire.
Majority of women preferred small liberal art colleges in the early days. The women had overcome the beliefs and the barriers that hindered them to have formal education earlier on. Protestant groups were behind the founding of colleges for the African Americans for practical application and for focusing on economic development. The increase of colleges created middle class of professionals of those days.
Several curriculum changes were effected into the education system and this helped define and exemplify the experience into the modern day college life. In the earlier years, each college used their funding in establishing technical education curriculum that included fields like agriculture and mostly the engineering category. With expansion of the curriculum, other fields like medicine, ministry and teaching were adopted into the system.
The new fields were popular among the racial minorities and the women. In the late eighteen seventies, Yale University was the most emulated model of the undergraduate experience at that time in the American land. The university followed a four-year curriculum, which had class distinctions and athletic teams (Kyvik, 2009).
In the twentieth century higher education underwent several demographic and institutional changes to accommodate the diverse needs of students because of industrialization. Due to this factor, colleges became very complex. After the Second World War, demand for higher education increased and because of this, there was increase in operational costs, strain on facilities and need for more financial aid.
This came with a rapid growth on graduate education and the creation of new programs was inevitable. These new programs served the increasing technological society. Regulation of colleges and universities as ultimately done by regional accrediting agencies, the agencies also got interested in expanding the institutions to accommodate the high number of students who enrolled from time to time.
During the civil rights movement, student protest movements advocated for minority groups’ inclusion. Admission standards were changed as a response by the colleges to this advocacy. In addition, the number of minority higher education administrators was increased in line with the establishment of ethnic studies programs to cater for the minority groups (Cook, 2005).
Population demographics and societal attitudes contributed to growth, complexity and expansion of the colleges. Historic colleges influenced the organization structures of American colleges and universities of today to larger extend. The physical layout of most of the colleges and universities reflect the colonial heritage because it represented a tradition of academic excellence (Darbyshire, 2004).
Therefore, higher education expanded rapidly majorly because of this factor. In the late nineteenth century, a new philanthropy of wealthy industrialists and foundations addressed social issues including the sponsorship of the scholars to some levels.
Because of the new philanthropy, major donors helped in the founding of black colleges and colleges for women were put into focus. The new funding helped in establishing of endowments and new facilities at schools. These efforts shaped the future of higher education to date (Thelin, 2004).
There are current legislations such as President Barak Obama’s American Graduation Initiative that helps in shaping the future of higher education by proposing that American colleges to be leaders in graduates by the year two thousand and twenty. This initiative aims at ensuring that every American enrolls in at least one years’ college education or enroll in career training after high school.
On the other hand, the higher education opportunity act of the year two thousand and eight was put in place to regulate the cost of funding post secondary education. This put pressure of institutions to post on their websites a net price calculator that helps protect students and their families based on student’s individual circumstances. This ensures fare treatment for all students when it comes to financial matters (Thelin, 2004).
Current best Practices related to Curriculum and Instruction for Higher Education
To begin with, there are many practices put in place to help improve the performance and mode of instruction delivery to students. The first thing is the benchmarking in higher education. This is where systematic work processes evaluation was put in place. This aims at identifying the best and most efficient practice for higher education for quality improvement. Furthermore, other practices help the students learning process.
One of this is the act of letting the student take control. Here, disadvantaged students are helped to overcome mental and societal barriers and become masters of their own destinies. On the other hand, designing instruction for learning helps in coming up with designs in existing courses to cater for what the lecturers want their students to learn. This also provides for the way in which the students are to learn this (Smart, 2009).
In the view of the best practices, mentorship is seen impact positively on both the mentor and the person being mentored. This practice is helpful for new faculty members who seek help from their senior members. When this practice is done in the right ways, it builds a culture where faculties become a second home for new members who adapts fast to course requirements.
This important step helps in improving the performance generally from the whole faculty as it enhances teamwork in the end. Furthermore, there is the practice of really knowing your audience.
The knowledge of who your students are and how the students take the learning process has great importance as per the curriculum set up. This effort brings in the aspect of expert teaching mode that improves the whole learning process (Cook, 2005).
The best practices may go along way as to the redesigning of the teaching method to meet the needs of all students as the student fraternity comprises of different age groups and every student has his own different goals. The way that will make all the students fit in and get an understanding of what happens will surely improve the education standards within the curriculum settings.
In addition, the best practices may entail the effort of helping the students become adaptive to reading; this effort helps in shaping the students in becoming more research oriented and this impacts positively to students’ learning process. This process will also help the students in embracing deep learning and in the end more effective learning strategies develop as a way of embracing positive changes.
On the other hand, putting in place a universal design in the classroom to accommodate students with varying characteristics or needs may foster improvements in learning. The students have varying abilities and disabilities, which ranges from physical impairment to learning disabilities (Derbyshire, 2004).
The best practices go a long way down to challenging and supporting the first year students. This is where higher level of thinking is introduced to help the students overcome the challenges of college–level work and its requirement.
Finally, when professors rethink expectations about assignments; this is by letting their students know the importance of the assignment through the connection of the assignment by the professor to the students lives. This important factor will ultimately foster improvements in the learning institutions in line with the curriculum requirements.
This goes in line with the Academy for Educational Development, which endeavors in solving critical social problems while building the capacity of individuals, and institutions in becoming more self-sufficient. This is supported through the American Youth Policy Forum; it provides learning opportunities for researchers working on youth issues at all levels in the country as a whole (Kyvik, 2009).
Specific Technology and Future Trends associated with Higher education
The specific technologies include the communication tools used. To this end, one of the communication tools is the internet, which provides a number of options for communication. These include; the e learning processes facilitated through the social sites and student websites.
The email provides a way of communicating between the teachers, students and parents. Important information about course work including assignments is shared through the internet in emails to be specific.
There are technologies today that have expanded the library services where digital libraries provide the most favorable solution. Teleconferencing is another option where meetings are held without much wastage of time and space needed for these meetings (Derbyshire, 2004).
Computers have been helpful as part of the technology required for higher education studies. This use of computers has helped in most research works, data analysis and reduced the amount of time and resources that one requires to carry out a research work. Embracing technology in higher education goes to an extent where electronic discussion groups enhance learning where space is an issue.
This technology is also important as the participants may be miles away but still the complete learning process goes in form of discussions. There are online modules and case studies that offer a good way of enhancing classroom learning as a curriculum tool (Smart, 2009).
On the other hand, interactive whiteboards provides touch control of computer applications enhancing classroom experience by showing all the applications that is found on a computer. This way, the whole classroom may participate in research works while sitting at respective positions without interruptions of movements from one place to another.
This interactive white board applies in visual learning and helps students to draw and manipulate images on the interactive white board without any problem. Furthermore, podcasts allows the students to publish files on the internet where subscription enables individuals to receive new files from other students.
This may be helpful in sharing educational materials for higher education students who handle many files concerning their learning or course work. This technology has the capacity of advancing the students education beyond classroom coverage thus improving the educational performance in the end.
In addition, streamed video websites like the teacher tube and United Streaming helps so much in classroom lessons where a lecturer uses it to communicate with students during class time. Mobile devices like smart phones and clickers have been used to enhance communication in classrooms where the professor gets feedbacks concerning class work through them (Cook, 2005).
Improvements, Challenges, and Controversial Issues facing Higher Education
Through embracing of technology, research technologies and methods have improved the educational standards to new levels. These improvements range from the mode material delivery of to communication as a whole. Many ways of information sharing have been devised to cater for all learning processes. Communication between parents and teachers is simplified by the many options that the technology of today offers. Technology has also paved way for improvements in educational evaluations.
This has clearly led to more advancement in service delivery in institutions. On the other hand, there has been a challenge in ensuring fare and free additions for all students who intend to peruse higher education. This is mainly because of the higher number of students who wish to pursue higher education.
The other thing is the issue of corruption, as transparency has not yet reached to a point where all matters concerning higher education admission (Altbach, 2011).
The other source of challenges is of how to accommodate the ever changing needs of students in one classroom as there exists varying differences in age, goals and languages each student speaks. This brings many challenges especially on the aspect of social responsibilities that affects all students. The distance learning faces the challenges of quality improvement (Cox, Matthews & Associates, Inc., 2005).
Here, there is much critic concerning the distance learning. This is because majority of the students enrolled do not participate directly in classroom work, therefore assessing the group brings in more emerging issues that have to be dealt with properly before any substantial amount of work is accomplished.
The controversial issues are about the language barriers that inhibit international students from participating in most of the higher education affairs. The other controversial issue is that of different cultural practices that cannot be accommodated in the institutions at the same time. There are instances where some students feel left out by the institutions during cultural practices (Altbach, 2011).
References
Altbach, G. P. (2011). American higher education in the twenty-first century: social, political, and economic challenges. Washington, DC: JHU Press
Cook, E. C. (2005). Lobbying for higher education: how colleges and universities influence federal policy. Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt University Press
Cox, Matthews & Associates, Inc., (2005). Black issues in higher education. Virginia: University of Virginia.
Darbyshire, P. (2004). Instructional technologies: cognitive aspects of online programs. North Carolina: Idea Group Inc (IGI)
Kyvik, S. (2009). The dynamics of change in higher education: Expansion and contraction in an organizational field. New York: Springer
Smart, C. J. (2009). Higher education: Handbook of theory and research. New York, NY: Springer
Thelin, J. R. (2004). A history of American higher education. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press
Woolley, R. (2010). American higher education in the twenty-first century: Social, political, and economic challenges. Toronto: Taylor & Francis