Gregory Fowler, a speaker at the marcus evans University Leadership Summit 2022, discusses the changing landscape of online learning experiences, and how to meet student needs.

1. As an early adopter of online
learning experiences, many of your
students are in online or hybrid
programs. What difficulties are your
facing today, and how are you
handling them?
Being online has always required us to
think differently about how we can
create a community, how people
interact, and how we can motivate
people at a distance. The pandemic has
accentuated this. Mental health
counselling is also a hot topic. Equity is
a huge issue. If our students have no or
low bandwidth, they will not have
access to the high-tech digital experi-
ences we are creating. So how do we
reach out to the very people we are
trying to reach?
What lessons can you share from
your experiences that your peers
would value?
There is no magic bullet, particularly if
you are carving out a new path, but if
you have not built the right culture and
brought people along with you, it will
not work. Online learning is not what it
used to be. We now have tools that can
help identify when and where people are
struggling, and what prescriptive
measures can help.
Taking advantage of these tools will be
an important part of what we do in the
future.
How do you create an engaging
experience for students?
We must understand who our students
are, what engages them, what
motivated them to be here, and what
they need to be successful. What is a
win for them? When they have personal
or financial aid issues, what support
would they need? We try to build a one-
on-one rapport with students with a
success coach model that is built around
relationships. What motivates one
student may not motivate another.
What causes certain students to drop
out? A key part of this is getting to
know your students, and then incorpo-
rating their feedback.
How can the online learning
experience be personalized?
With the digital experience itself, there
are many tools we can provide to
students, but we shouldn’t supply too
many options either. That can be worse.
We try to create pathways with just-in-
time resources, that give students a few
options at the point when we think they
might struggle.
The Future of Learning and
How to Ensure Student Success
Interview with: Gregory Fowler,
President, University of Maryland
Global Campus
“There is a huge population of students
who have not had success with higher
education. There are 40 million
Americans who either have no college
degree or need new skills but do not
necessarily want to go to college. Many
of them have attended several
institutions but have not graduated.
This does not mean they are incapable.
We must ask ourselves what we can do
differently to achieve a better outcome.
That is the big challenge we have in
front of us,” says Gregory Fowler,
President of University of Maryland
Global Campus.
Fowler is a speaker at the marcus
evans University Leadership
Summit 2022.
How is the landscape of learning
changing? What are your projec-
tions for the future?
The definition and understanding of
learning are both changing. We spend a
lot of time creating activities and
programs, but our conversations on the
nature of learning are not always
intentional or deliberate. People are now
questioning the value of a college
degree. If we look at the ways people
can acquire new knowledge or skills,
there are questions around what
learning is, how it happens and where.
Are the different ways equally legiti-
mate? Can we mix or match the types
of experiences in ways that we might
not have considered a few years ago?
Most students have been told they need
to go to college to be successful. Now
we are having more conversations about
short-term credentials and other places
where learning happens, including
internships. These discussions will
continue to expand and gain legitimacy.
It will require colleges to reflect
carefully on what value they bring to the
table.
How do you engage your employ-
ees?
We must look at them as individuals,
just as we look at students. They need
tools to be successful and their voices
must be heard. We have to make sure
they are in the right place at the right
time for the conversations we need to
have.
What does it take to become a next
generation online institution?
We need to go back to the basics and
have a clear sense of our mission.
Institutions need to understand what
they do well and what needs to
improve. In some cases, we need to
partner with other groups that can help
us be better at what we do. Apple does
not create all the little parts that go into
its devices. The learning experience is
similar. We need to look at what
influences the learning experience, and
pull various levers to impact it. We will
have to get much better at working with
other institutions. We have a lot to learn
from each other. In the old version, the
faculty member was the end-all for
everything, from picking the learning
resources, to creating the assessments
and advising students. No-one can be
good at everything. As we move
forward, we must build a 360-degree
support system for our students.
What makes the biggest impact on
student satisfaction?
First, having a good understanding of
who the student population is, and then
creating experiences that mirror what
they need. You need their feedback,
whether it is data pulled from where
they struggled or end of term surveys,
to be able to say you heard them and
adjusted their experience accordingly.
We must build
a 360-degree
support system
for our students

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