Innovating the Education Landscape

*Note: This edition talks about #digitaleducation / #digitallearning

For most educational institutions in a post-pandemic world, digital learning encompasses an objective that goes way beyond just augmenting or supplementing their traditional learning environment. It is also not just about converting their traditional learning environment into a digital one. If at all, digital learning should provide an institution with fresh opportunities to incorporate innovative approaches and strategies to their leaning initiatives. Digital education should be where learning meets innovation.

Digital technologies cannot transform education by themselves, but they have the capacity to open new horizons and innovate teaching and learning practices. At a minimum, digital technology can aid in the following:

1. Transformative pedagogic paradigms
2. Experiential learning through the use of simulations or virtual online laboratories
3. Cross-cultural communications and collaborations that provide a rich multi-cultural background to the whole process of learning with others
4. Autonomous learning using massive online open courses or MOOCs
5. Just-in-time assessments that help teachers monitor students’ learning progress as they happen

Quality education has always been the holy grail of the education industry. But from a financial point of view, quality often translates to higher costs of education. Innovative use of technology can bridge this gap and help educational institutions find ways of achieving the quality that they desire without breaking the bank.?

Technological innovations in education can add value both by improving learning outcomes and the provision of education itself. The mass-production character of most educational environments has for the longest time disadvantaged individualized learning and has resulted in an inequitable access to quality outcomes for its students. New trends in personalized learning have been made possible through innovations in education technology.

Beth Hamilton was the founding principal of the Wilburton Elementary School in Washington State, USA. It is part of the Bellevue School District and was the first elementary school in the district to implement 1:1 Technology, a movement that advocated for every student to have their own mobile computing device for learning.

The initiative at Wilburton extended to include the intentional use of technology by their faculty. They did it by providing devices and professional development for their educators. The main goal was to use technology to enhance learning for student. It further implemented a professional learning plan for their educators to adopt computer science thinking. The intention was to make computer computational thinking integrated into their students' classroom experience.

Just a few years ago, several glaring headlines jarred a lot of higher education institutions. Sometime in 2018, big companies the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM, and about 8 other more announced that they no longer require prospective employees to have a degree.

On Glassdoor, a website where millions of people flock to search for jobs, salary information, company reviews, and employment tips, a 2020 article listed 15 big global companies that are not requiring college degrees from prospective hires.

The rising gig economy, where companies hire independent contractors and freelancers instead of hiring employees for temporary, flexible jobs, has also contributed a lot in this growing view of the diminished value of college degrees.?

How then should educational institutions react?

Institutes of higher learning provide curricula, which list subjects that do not necessarily reflect skills or competencies. Companies are therefore looking at these transcripts of job applicants, but they are not seeing conclusive clues that point to their being hirable or fit for the job they are applying for. Schools need to innovate the way they approach the attainment of degrees to position it in such a way as to convince prospective industry partners that their educational processes are successfully equipping their graduates with the outcomes necessary to get them hired. In the growing outcomes-based education model, the true learning outcome that is required is that their graduates get the job.

Modern pedagogy should adapt new strategies to achieve this requirement.

References:

1. A rich source of ideas for digital learning innovations. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/sections/digital-learning-innovations
2. Transformative Pedagogy: A Paradigm Shift in Higher Education https://www.rsisinternational.org/3ICMRP-2016/332-337.pdf
3. This article and the next talks about how big tech companies have stopped requiring a college degree for employment. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-require-employees-to-have-a-college-degree.html
4. https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/no-degree-required/
5. https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/10-innovative-learning-strategies-for-modern-pedagogy/
6. https://www.thelearnerfirst.com/our-team/meet-beth/
7. https://www.edtick.com/en/glossary/1-1-one-to-one-technology

*Cover image by Wokandapix from Pixabay.

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