Knewton, a learning technology company, recently posted a fascinating infographic entitled “The Flipped Classroom: Turning Traditional Education on Its Head.” What is the flipped classroom, you ask? According to the infographic, it is a classroom that “inverts traditional teaching methods, delivering instruction online outside of class and moving ‘homework’ into the classroom.” Institutions that adopted the flipped classroom model have already seen significant positive results, including significant decreases in the number of students who earned failing grades.

Though this particular infographic highlights a K-12 setting, it isn’t difficult to imagine the benefits a flipped classroom could bring to professional or career college students.  By combining robust online resources with individualized guidance when needed, students with busy lifestyles can learn at their own pace while still receiving the instruction they need for success. Has your professional or career college implemented the flipped classroom concept? To learn more about this learning model, view the infographic below or visit the Knewton website:

I recently came across an interesting post on Kay Steiger’s blog highlighting a publication from The National Bureau of Economic Research on for-profit colleges and universities.  This preliminary paper provides interesting and important data on the growing number of students enrolling in professional and career colleges across the United States. Here are some of my favorite findings from the study, which Steiger also highlights in her post:

•  During the 2008-2009 school year, for-profit colleges produced 5% of all bachelor’s degrees, 18% of associate’s degrees, 42% of professional certificates, and 10% of master’s degrees.

Date: Thursday, January 26, 1:00 pm EST (1 hour) Speaker: Tim Naylor, Director of Market Development, Blackboard To register: Click this link and enter your information in the spaces provided. According to a 2009 survey by The Campus Computing Project and the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), nearly half of campuses that offer online programs report institutional profits from their online initiatives. And, nearly half of the surveyed institutions say they charge higher tuition rates for online classes.

The business case is clear: professional and career colleges that move online have an opportunity to greatly boost reach, enrollment and revenue – all without adding a square foot of real estate. However, moving to an online model is not simple – whether a professional or career college’s plan is to offer Web-only courses, provide hybrid courses that blend online and face-to-face delivery or complement campus-based courses with online tools – the challenges are cultural, bureaucratic and financial.

It is more important than ever for professional/career colleges and universities to demonstrate student improvement and achievement.  Does your school have the solutions it needs to collect and evaluate the data for highlighting student success? Join Jim Chalex, Director of Product Management at Blackboard, for a webinar to see how Blackboard Learn for Outcomes Assessment can provide your institution with a systematic process to collect authentic evidence of student learning, evaluate student work using rubrics, and use that insight for data-driven decisions.

Mr. Chalex will also be providing a product demonstration so you can see first-hand how easy it is to establish outcomes and measure success.

Who:  Those at private sector colleges and universities who want to streamline assessment strategies with a goal of highlighting and increasing academic performance across their institution.

I’m excited to announce that I will soon be transitioning to the career colleges team here at Blackboard!  As I approach my third year with this company, I can’t wait to leverage my past experiences marketing to corporations to help expand our presence among professional colleges and universities. This is a particularly exciting opportunity for me because of the diversity of students served by the career college community.

Students at professional colleges and universities live life on the go, often holding full-time jobs or supporting a family while enrolled in classes.  In addition, the schools themselves are ahead of the game when it comes to IT, which will make it all the more interesting to follow what’s next in professional college education. I look forward to blogging on subjects of interest relating to what’s happening in the career college sector, and am especially eager to continue dialoguing with our online community.