USM News

The Kirwan Center is seeking institutional partners from across Maryland to participate in a Kresge Foundation funded project starting in Spring 2018 that will pilot the efficacy and feasibility of replacing the high-stakes mathematics placement exam process currently in use with a process that empowers students to assess and remediate their mathematics knowledge using adaptive learning tools instead.

The Maryland Open Source Textbook (M.O.S.T.) initiative is seeking proposals for a new High-impact OER Mini-Grant program to strategically support Maryland public institutions’ efforts to adopt/adapt Open Educational Resources (OERs) or scale OER adoption.  Learn more about how to apply.

New Designs for Learning: Games and Gamification gathered instructional designers, faculty, and academic leaders from across the University System of Maryland to explore how games and gamification can reinvigorate courses, boost student engagement, and enhance student learning. The Symposium featured Dr. Karl Kapp as the keynote speaker, and was cosponsored by UMUC’s Center for Innovation in Learning and Student Success and USM’s Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation. 

The University System of Maryland (USM) has entered into a groundbreaking partnership with edX, the nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 to increase global access to high-quality education. The agreement is designed to further increase student success, as well as the access, affordability, and quality of higher education in Maryland and around the world.

Far too many students in the United States start their postsecondary education without being able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge deemed necessary to succeed in college-level math. Colleges and universities have traditionally dealt with this problem by placing students in full-semester developmental courses for which they must pay full tuition but do not receive college credit. It has become clear, however, that this approach has serious drawbacks, as students who start out in remediation are far less likely to attain a degree.

(Adelphi, Md., Oct. 26, 2015) – William E. Kirwan Center Director MJ Bishop set the direction for the 12th annual International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age, revisiting instructional message design’s objectivist learning theory and transmission-oriented communication theory foundations, discussing current trends and issues being raised in the literature, and exploring ways the field might continue to serve as a “linking science” between learning theory and instructional practice. In her keynote address, Dr.