The Online Degree Dorm Room

online degree programs psychology | Penn State offers online Psychology degree

Posted by bposton on November 24th, 2007 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

OK, my little dorm room buddies, this is it.

This is the news I’ve been waiting for. For the first time ever, a public university is offering online psychology degrees.

Beginning this month, Penn State will open admission to its bachelor of arts (BA) and bachelor of science (BS) degrees in
psychology to online degree students. Students can begin applying to the program later this month, and courses begin in summer 2008.

The program is from the University’s College of the Liberal Arts and delivered through Penn World Campus.

This is HUGH!!

Why? - Because it;s PENN STATE, that’s why…

Penn State College of the Liberal Arts educates more than 5,000 undergraduates in 43 majors and over 800 graduate
students in 16 programs, in addition to being the largest provider of courses for Penn State World Campus.

The World Campus at Penn State specializes in adult online education, delivering more than 60 of Penn State’s most highly regarded graduate, undergraduate and professional education programs through convenient online formats.

It was founded in 1998, and now serves more than 7,000 students in all 50 states, 43 countries, and on 7 continents.

And now they’ve added two online psychology degrees–a bachelor of arts (BA) and a bachelor of science (BS) in psychology. 

The BA program is geared towards professionals who want to pursue psychology with a focus on the human-services aspects of the field, or plan to continue on to a master’s degree in psychology. The BS program follows a business track–for professionals interested in psychology-driven aspects of business–such as human resources, management, leadership development, and marketing.

As with all of Penn State’s online programs, the new psychology degrees are designed to empower working adults to
pursue life and career-enhancing higher education without sacrificing personal or professional time.

This is definitely a milestone for online education; the first public university offering of online psychology degrees.

Hat’s off to Penn State!!
 

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online degree programs psychology | The real reason for the lack of online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

OK so you’ve read my posts about what the Sloan report has to say about why 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

But as I delve into the report in more detail, I see what I personally beleive is the biggest reason why this is:

According to the report, over 72% of the CAO’s beleive that online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.

Although the report doesn’t confirm it, I beleive that these CAO’s also believe that online education is still best ONLY for those types of students.

What I mean by that is this:

While it is true that the majority of CAO’s beleive that online education is becoming a more critical part of their institution’s long term strategy, I think that they see this growth only for students that can’t take advangtage of face-to-face traditional classroom programs.

Remember, as with all things internet, it begins with a split between the “brick and mortar” world and the virtual world. Then it is later embraced. Think about how Amazon lost money for years and now all the major retailers have an online presence for the typical shopper. Now replace the shopper with a college student…see what I mean?

So these CAO’s think that there is still much more value to the typical college bound student to have the brick and mortar classrooms and the face-to-face instruction than a virtual online class or degree program.

But I think that there are many college bound students, in addtion to the typical “non-traditional” student population, who would love to take online classes rather than cozy up to a smelly dorm room.

Take MySpace and FaceBook as an example. Can’t these be seen as Virtual dorm rooms?

OK so that’s my opinion. Am I right? Don’t know. but it makes sense to me anyway

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online degree programs psychology | More barriers to online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Here’s another reason why 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

According to the latest Sloan report on online education, professors say that it takes more time and effort to teach online.

My take - well I’m certainly not a professor, and I don’t “profess” to know what they’re doing

But I wonder if some of that is due to the reluctance to accept the technology that would make teaching online easier.

And maybe the professors are ready to accept it, but the college they work for isn’t - maybe due to the cost.

But I also think that there is still this stigma out there with many faculty whenever you say “distance learning” that invokes diploma mills and things of lower statue than a prestigous Ivy League environment.

They beleive that they want and need that face to face interaction on a classroom for their students to be challenged.

I don’t disagree with that thought, I just think that the technology is there that can come very close to replicating that environment. Both to teachers and students.
More to come…

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online degree programs psychology | What are the barriers to online education acceptance

Posted by bposton on December 7th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I don’t know about you, but when 95% of all the CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there big barriers to the odoption of online learning, I sit up and take notice.

That figure is from the latest Sloan report on online education.

So why do so many of the CAO’s out see barriers to the acceptance of distance learning.

I’ll start with the information from the Sloan report, and then some of my own ideas.

According to the Sloan report, two-thirds of the faculty reported that online students need to have better discipline.

My take - well I’m still trying to figure out what that exactly means

you could take it to say that there is a need for more management of student’s activities online, including what actions to take if students abuse the online system, or fail to complete their assignments.

But I think it means that students learning online need to remember that it does take more self-discipline than with a traditional class. I’ve talked about this before. If you’re online you often don’t have a dorm mate telling you to wake up and go to class, for example.

So that’s one reason professors say that there is a barrier to distance education acceptance.

More to come…

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online degree programs psychology | Educators see barriers to online education

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

In the latest Sloan report on online education, I found am intereting and somewhat disturbing fact.

The data shows that only 4.6% of all CAO’s (Chief Academic Officers) of higher education agree that there are no big barriers to the odoption of online learning.

OK, so that’s sort of like a double negative.

It means that about 95% DO see problems with online education being adopted nationwide.

Scary number to me.

So Why do to they see problems in this area?

It has to do both the students and the teachers. And the report confirms that.

More in the next few posts…

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online degree programs psychology | An interesting conflict

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I was just taking a look at the latest Sloan Consortium report on online education, and I found what appear (at leadt to me) to be something of a contridiction.

Not that the data is wrong - not at all.

I just found this a little curious:

According to the report, of the 3.1 million people taking online courses over 80% of them are at the undergraduate level.

Yet when you look at where they are taking their online course, over half (51.5% to be exact) are taking these classes at a two-year associcates institution. I take that to mean community college or Junior College.

Compare that percentage to the overall higher education population and you’ll find that only about 38% of all higher education students are enrolled in a two year program.

So here’s what I don’t understand. What does the Associate institutions know that the others don’t?

It think it must mean that there still must not be enough of a selection in courses or full 4 year undergraduate programs online. That’s maybe why students are turning to Associate degrees first.

Anyway, my mind is shot on this one.

Maybe I’m just looking at the data wrong, but it appears to me that folks may be having a hard time find a four year degree program that fully online.

Ben

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online degree programs psychology | Universities start marketing thier online programs

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

It’s a sure sign the online programs are becoming more popular when you hear about
Universities beginning a marketing campaign to highlight their degree offerings.

It’s music to my ears

For example, Regent University, has selected a marketing group called Tocquigny to
help them communicate their online degree programs to the world.

The press release actually mentioned that they want to “drive exponential growth for the University’s online degree programs”.

Sounds like they’re pretty serious about this…

Tocquigny will begin working on this campaign next month. It will include development of a more clearly defined brand, primary research, messaging strategy and online marketing and lead generation programs.

I’d me remiss if I didn’t give you a little more detail about Regis:

Regent University was founded in 1978 and is one of the nation’s premier Christian graduate university. They’ve grown to have campuses in Virginia Beach and Washington, D.C., as well as having a strong presence online around the world. Students can earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, communication, divinity, education, government, law, leadership studies, and psychology and counseling.

For more, visit regent.edu.

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online degree programs psychology | Universities start marketing thier online programs

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

It’s a sure sign the online programs are becoming more popular when you hear about
Universities beginning a marketing campaign to highlight their degree offerings.

It’s music to my ears

For example, Regent University, has selected a marketing group called Tocquigny to
help them communicate their online degree programs to the world.

The press release actually mentioned that they want to “drive exponential growth for the University’s online degree programs”.

Sounds like they’re pretty serious about this…

Tocquigny will begin working on this campaign next month. It will include development of a more clearly defined brand, primary research, messaging strategy and online marketing and lead generation programs.

I’d me remiss if I didn’t give you a little more detail about Regis:

Regent University was founded in 1978 and is one of the nation’s premier Christian graduate university. They’ve grown to have campuses in Virginia Beach and Washington, D.C., as well as having a strong presence online around the world. Students can earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, communication, divinity, education, government, law, leadership studies, and psychology and counseling.

For more, visit regent.edu.

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online degree programs psychology | Three Tips for Test Day

Posted by bposton on December 6th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

OK, so other than cramming, what are some other ways you and improve your chances on exam days?

Here’s three tips:

First - sleep.
Now I know that you college kids sleep til noon anyway, but what I mean is - get a GOOD night’s sleep. This is where cramming actually gets you in trouble. If you stay up all night studying (i.e. cramming), you’ll probably be at less than 100% and have difficulty concentrating.

The National Sleep Foundation 2005 “Sleep in America” poll found that only half of adults get a good night’s sleep a few nights each week. And students can have poor sleep habits. All that school-related or social pressure trigger stress, and stress is considered the number one cause of short term sleeping difficulties.

Second - Eat
Eat something before a test. Brains run on glucose and if your blood sugar is low, your brain doesn’t function well. Just ask the pre-med student down the hall.

Third - Relax
Hey. it’s only a test, right? Don’t get so stressed out over it or you’ll have a harder time recalling the information you’ve been studying. And don’t study just mintues before a test either because although you might gain some last minute reinforcement, you’ll be in the wrong state of mind before the exam begins. Just take deep breaths and stay calm.

So in summary:

Eat a good meal, relaxing and get a good night’s sleep.

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online degree programs psychology | Cram, I am for the Exam…

Posted by bposton on December 5th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

It’s that time of year again…

Nope, I’m not talking about Christmas time. I’m talking about

EXAM TIME!!!  :-0

Yep, that holiday favorite - the end of semester exams - are fast approaching for many college students.

Which of course mean less time for sleep and increased stress and anxiety.

Just a wonderful time of year

So along with the age old exam comes the age old question:

Is cramming worth the effort?

Well, that depends on who you ask:

Most research has proven that cramming is useful for memorizing data and is stored in the short-term memory.

BUT…cramming does not build lasting memory connections to what you’ve studied.

So if you’re only interested in the grade and not the lesson to be learned, then go ahead and burn that midnight oil.

But if you really want to grasp and retain the material, try studying and regular reinforcement of ideas through repetition.

That will help build those little neural connections in the brain that help you recall and understand what you’re recalling.

OK, so now that I’ve preached about how cramming is not good, I’m sure most students will do it anyway.

So now I guess I’ll give you some tips on how to improve your chances on those tests:

But I’ll cover that in my next post…:-)

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