2015 g. van der perre higher education for the digital
1. 1
Higher Education for the Digital Era
A Thinking Exercise in Flanders
Georges Van der Perre
Based upon the work of D.Laurillard, P.Dillenbourg
and the KVAB reflection group Blended Learning
2014-2015
2. Mission Thinkers in Residence 2014
KVAB Working group 2013: Report (“Standpunt 19”).
Conclusion:
“There is need for a systemic vision on the optimal exploitation of ICT and
internet for the new learning of the 21st century”
Mission for “Thinkers in Residence 2014”
2
“The classical
university is as good
as dead!”
“Do not kill the university!”
“Will universities survive the e
learning revolution?”
5. 5
Diana Laurillard
Professor of Learning with Digital Technology
London Knowledge Lab
UCL Institute of Education, London
Pierre Dillenbourg
Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL),
School of Computer & Communication Sciences
6. Experts Group
• Experts in Blended Learning from KVAB and outside
• The five universities (+ college associations): U Antwerp, U Hasselt,
U Gent, VU Brussels, KU Leuven
• Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR)
• Flemish Education Council (VLOR)
• ICT research and training institutions: IMEC + iMINDS
• The two school networks (GO and NSVKO)
• Ministry of Education
• Dutch-Flemish Accreditation body (NVAO)
• Industry and Employers organisation (Agoria)
• The Young Academy
• Students organisation VVS
• French speaking university: UCL 6
8. 10 discussion items
• 1.How will blended learning change bachelor and master education?
• 2.Blended learning and the teacher
•
• 3.The evaluation, exams and assessment challenge.
•
• 4.Open and distance learning-Lifelong learning
•
• 5.Blended learning and the institution
•
• 6.Inter institutional networking (on national, European and global levels)
• 7.MOOCs
•
• 8.Implications for/interaction with secondary and primary education
•
• 9.Role of government and official bodies (VLOR, VLIR, VLHORA, NVAO…)
•
• 10.Potential for development cooperation
•
8
9. Action plan 2014
• 1. February 18: Kick-Off Meeting:
Thinkers (TH) with Experts Group (EG)
• 2. April 4: Workshop: TH and EG inputs for position paper
• 3. April 14-17: -Writing in residence
-VVS Contact
-Discussion of first drafts with EG panel
• 4. May-September 2014: Ronde van Vlaanderen
• 5. October 2014: Discussion of draft position papers with EG
• 6. November 19: Symposium
• 7. December-January: Writing of final papers
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10. Ronde van Vlaanderen
• May 26: Universiteit Gent (Pierre)
• May 27: Universiteit Antwerpen (Pierre)
• June 2 : VUB (Diana)
• June 3 : Research Seminar CIP&T, Leuven (Diana)
• July 2 : KU Leuven (Diana and Pierre)
• September 17th : ”second meetings” at UGent and VUB (Diana)
• September 29th: UHasselt (Diana and Pierre)
• September 29th : seminar of both Thinkers and KVAB-Experts Group
with MOOCs project group of UCL (Louvain la Neuve)
10
15. Flemish HE: innovations but no
transformation
-Universities operate digital learning platforms , have central
support structures and develop actions for ICT in education
-Teachers and course programs are actively developing,
implementing and evaluating blended learning scenarios
-Universities develop institutional strategies
-Universities set up MOOC and SPOC experiments
-UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) is the MOOC-champion
15
19. Flemish HE: innovations, but
no transformation.
-50.000 Belgians registered for MOOCs (on EdX and Coursera) in 2013-
2014
-Ongoing public debate in the press (“our universities are missing the
boat!)
-Students (VVS) open for credited online courses
-Accreditation (NVAO) and representative bodies (VLIR, VLOR) open for
credited online courses
-The current situation of universities is far from perfect, anyway
(P.Dillenbourg, 33):
• University pedagogy is not very effective
• The academic system is not as useful for the society as it could be.
• Teaching is not valuable for an academic career.
• Do tax payers understand academia?
19
20. SO WHAT? (SYSTEMIC VISION)
To bring about real (“disruptive”)change:
1. THINK DIGITAL! to find out where to go
2. ACT ON ALL LEVELS! to get there
20
21. 1.Thinkdigital
higher education is strongly resistant to change in general and to “technology
push” in particular
21
• E health: “The hospital of the future is one were you only stay in
exceptional cases, as it is largely replaced by an intelligent digital
network fed with patient data from smartphones and smartwatches ”
How about the lecture theatre of the future?
• E banking: Personalized customer service in smart synergy between
digital technology and human consultants
How about personalized learner support?
• Google knows everything about you!
What does your teacher know about you?
• “E learning” politically incorrect, must be “blended learning”
How about “blended health”?
22. 1.Thinkdigital
digital change is a moral duty
22
• More is needed than just a further introduction of digital
technology in an otherwise unchanged teaching and learning
system… The development of digital technology faces the
universities with the unique opportunity (and the duty) to
transform themselves into institutions with a significantly
enhanced and broadened service to society and the capacity to
adapt flexibly to rapidly changing needs (KVAB Position Paper
34)
• We have a moral responsibility to think through what it takes
for HE to be an adaptive learning system (D.Laurillard, KVAB
Position Paper 33)
• Focus on the education challenges, and then demand the most
imaginative solutions from the technology, being aware of what
it can do, and dreaming of what it might do (D.Laurillard, KVAB
Position Paper 33)
23. 1.Thinkdigital: (1)solutionsforchallenges
Focus on the educational challenges and then demand the most imaginative solutions from the
technology (Laurillard 33)
23
• Challenges:
1. Success rates: study orientation , students selection
2. Access to HE for everybody: less favoured societal groups
3. Support for “flexible learning” (e.g. part time students)
4. Inefficiency of lectures and practical sessions (problem
solving)
24. 1.Thinkdigital: (1)solutionsforchallenges
Focus on the educational challenges and then demand the most imaginative solutions from the
technology (Laurillard 33)
24
Challenge 1
Success/failure rates: study orientation , students selection
Too many students? On the purpose, legitimacy and adequacy of
university entry and orientation tests
14th Ethical Forum of the University Foundation, Brussels,
Thursday November 12, 2015, 14.00-18.00
25. 1.Thinkdigital: (1)solutionsforchallenges
Focus on the educational challenges and then demand the most imaginative solutions from the
technology (Laurillard 33)
25
Challenge 2:
Access to HE for everybody: less favoured/ vulnerable societal
groups
(Flemish press debate october 2015)
• OPINION PAPER 1: REDUCE ABSTRACT LANGUAGE!
• OPINION PAPER 2: ABSTRACTION IS ESSENTIAL FOR
UNIVERSITIES:
“we better invest in good teachers”!
No mention at all of potential digital solutions
26. 1.Thinkdigital:(1)solutionsforchallenges
Focus on the educational challenges and then demand the most imaginative solutions from the
technology (Laurillard 33)
26
Challenge 3:
Support for “flexible learners” (e.g. part time students)
“ I think universities should develop a parallel digital learning track in
addition to the classical offer”, Bob Stouthuysen, Honorary president of
VOKA (Flemish Enterprises Organisation), in Knack, August 2015
Flexible learning as the default model, based upon digital learning
materials and support that can be used in different modes, from full
time on campus to distance learning and all blends in between?
27. 1.Thinkdigital: (1)solutionsforchallenges
is studying at the university= being taught in lectures?
27
Challenge 4: Inefficiency of a) lectures
-Knack, 14 October 2015: “E learning is for later-University
auditoriums are overcrowded!”
28. 1.Thinkdigital: (1)solutionsforchallenges
digital technology for direct interaction with the professor
28
Challenge 4: Inefficiency of b) practical sessions (problem solving)
“Students come unprepared to practical sessions!”
(P.Dillenbourg 33)
• Flipped class experiments with variable results
• This is a very old pain!
-Skip those sessions and replace them by MOOC-type web applications
allowing a direct interaction with peer students and the professor (who
must have a unique experience in how to learn the matter).
- Encourage students to organize their own workshops, with or without
teachers support.
29. Think digital: flipping
education
• The question is not: to develop technological tools to support
face to face education, but to develop effective models for
learning groups and individual learners to make optimal use of
the knowledge that is ubiquitous “in the cloud”
• Lectures to support online autonomous learning instead of
online learning to process lectures
• Challenges and pitfalls
-is elearning watching a (PC, smart phone, projection) screen?
-group models for participating in online learning
-knowledge versus social skills and attitudes
-”deep learning” (Carr)! 29
30. 1.Thinkdigital:(2)towardsanewuniversity
Beyond the short term challenges
30
Think digital: first to design imaginative solutions for current
education challenges (1),
but then (2) to create “a new university”:
• To discover and design new rich learning experiences and new
powerful learning environments
• To improve and extend the societal role of universities
31. Thinkdigital: (2)towardsanewuniversity
Teaching and learning design: new powerful learning environments
31
Blended learning and the teacher
(Laurillard 33)
0ptimal use of technology involves a new kind of activity for the teacher:
planning how students will learn in the mix of physical, digital and learning
spaces designed for them:
• selecting and adapting digital content resources and online tools for
active learning
• designing independent and group learning activities
• designing means to guide large groups of students
• developing personalized and adaptive teaching
• managing tutor role for online discussion groups
• improving qualitative feedback
• designing and using learning analytics…..
These are the high level complex skills that make teaching a form of “design
science”: teaching and learning design.
32. 1.Thinkdigital
Teaching and learning design: new powerful learning environments
32
teaching and learning design (Laurillard 33)
• This design science develops through the professional community of
“teachers as learning design scientists”
• It merits full academic recognition (research funding, papers, academic
promotions)
• Every teacher can/should become a design scientist for his course (and
will acquire a deeper insight in his course contents and goals!)
• Evidence based discipline built on interdisciplinary research (including
economic and financial aspects) and sharing of experience
34. MOOCs : societal service of the
university (P.Dillenbourg33)
High School
Bachelor
Master
Alumni
7
1, 2
3
Academia
Basic School
Society
Teachers
Citizens
Corporate
Training
Continuing
Education
Economy
12
9
4,5,6
10
8. 11, 13, 14
• [1] “LargeClass” MOOCs
• [2] “Twins” MOOCs
• [3]“USP” (unique selling
proposal) MOOCs
• [4] “Lab Debriefing”
MOOCs
• [5] “Crowd Data” MOOCs
• [6] “Lab Passport”
MOOCs
• [7] “Gate” MOOCs 34
35. MOOCs : societal service of the
university (P.Dillenbourg33)
High School
Bachelor
Master
Alumni
7
1, 2
3
Academia
Basic School
Society
Teachers
Citizens
Corporate
Training
Continuing
Education
Economy
12
9
4,5,6
10
8. 11, 13, 14
• [8] “Lifelong” MOOCs
• [9] “Teacher Training”
MOOCs
• [10] “Alumni Refresh”
MOOCs (diploma with
service contract)
• [11] “Corporate
Training” MOOCs
• [12] “Citizen” MOOCs.
• [13] “Tangible”
MOOCs.
• [14] ”Spitz” MOOCs
35
36. 1.Thinkdigital:(2)towards anewuniversity
Big data for educational research
36
MOOCs can boost educational research (P.Dillenbourg, 33)
• The empirical methods used for many years on education
research can now be applied at large scale by MOOC platforms
• The massive learning traces can feed machine learning
algorithms. Learning analytics brings education to the era of
large-scale inductive science that is already shaping many other
sciences.
• The movement of ‘open analytics’, i.e. sharing empirical data
across labs worldwide, mimic phenomena that boosted other
sciences one decade ago.
• In the future, educational research should not be only
conducted by educational scientists, but by any scholar involved
in education
37. 1.Thinkdigital:(2)creating anewuniversity
Professors and labs love peer collaboration. How about institutions?
37
Interuniversity collaboration and networking
• Online courses are everywhere and come from everywhere, hence no
need to locate them within a particular university or at a particular
campus . Interuniversity collaboration in education was never as
feasible as now:
DOCCs: Distributed Open Collaborative Courses
• Extending the societal service of universities is only feasible through
inter university collaboration:
DOCCs: Distributed Open Collaborative Courses
• Improving quality : course modules taught by the best teachers and
from the leading research centers in Flanders/Europe/the world
DOCCs: Distributed Open Collaborative Courses
38. 1.Thinkdigital:(2)creating anewuniversity
This is not ERASMUS but another kind of international-intercultural experience
38
Virtual Mobility
“Bologna is an asset.
Europe has a unique opportunity to build the largest educational
ecosystem, since it has already the currency for sharing courses,
the ECTS credits, as well as the basis for collaboration, the Bologna
treaty” (P.Dillenbourg 33)
The student evaluation and examination question hinders awarding
and recognition of credits for online courses:
Creative solutions in the make: proctored exams, online exams,
learning analytics
So far, MOOC certificates are not considered as course credits in
most European universities. But students (VVS), accreditation body
(NVAO), representative councils (VLIR, VLORA) are (conditionally) in
favor.
40. The global demand for education (D.Laurillard)
The new UNESCO goals for education:
• Every child completes a full 9 years of free basic
education …
• Post-basic education expanded to meet needs
for knowledge and skills … (UNESCO post 2015
goals)
By 2025, the global demand for higher education will double to ~200m
per year, mostly from emerging economies (NAFSA 2010)
Student loan debt in US is higher than CC debt so students will demand
new models of teaching and learning
40% Student loan debt in UK will never be repaid
How is HE to meet the demand for bachelor and master
education in a way that is affordable to students, maintains
quality and increases reach?
42. UniversiTIC
Flemish (VLIR-UOS) and French Speaking (ARES-CUD)
universities in partnership with
• – Université de Kinshasa,
• – Université de Lubumbashi,
• – Université de Kisangani,
• – Université pédagogique nationale,
• – Université du Burundi,
• – Institut supérieur des techniques appliquées,
• – Université catholique du Congo,
• – Université catholique de Bukavu
Establishing now collaboration with EPFL :MOOCs@frica
42
43. SO WHAT? (SYSTEMIC APPROACH)
To bring about real (“disruptive”)change :
1. THINK DIGITAL! to find out where to go
2. ACT ON ALL LEVELS! to get there
43
45. 2.Actonalllevels
Academic credits for MOOCs and full equivalence for OU diplomas?
45
Diplomas & Credits: The KEY enabler/driver
• Universities rule the world through their diploma
monopoly
• Awarding credits to MOOCs ( other online courses,
courses taken from an other university) in regular
study programs would be a real breakthrough in
online learning
• Full equivalence of OU diplomas and classical
university diplomas (because of merger of education
modes) would be a breakthrough in flexible learning!
46. 2.Actonalllevels
Academic credits for MOOCs: welcoming the Trojan horse
46
• Awarding credits to MOOCs (other online
courses, courses taken from an other university)
in regular study programs would be a real
breakthrough
48. 2.Actonalllevels
On drivers and enablers
48
Pierre Dillenbourg (33)
• Effect of MOOCs at EPFL:
Teaching became transparent and hot
• Suggestion: 50’000 MOOC participants = 1 paper in
Nature!
49. 2.Actonalllevels
On drivers and enablers
49
Practical recommendations KVAB reflection group (34)
• Flemish universities and colleges to sign “mutual
accreditation” agreements with partner institutions
(networks) home and abroad for credit transfer and OER
recognition
• Rethink partnership with OU-Netherlands
-Fading difference between classical and distance teaching:
flexible learning for various target audiences and contexts
-Complementary expertises
-Same language
• Participate in European networks (OpenUp Ed)
50. 2.Actonalllevels
On drivers and enablers
50
Practical recommendations KVAB reflection
group (34)
-Digital educational innovation as an essential criterion
for accreditation and quality management of institutions
(five years plans)
-Percentage of institutional subsidies linked to digital
innovation
-Flemish community: financing for interinstitutional
networking (EU example: ERASMUS+)
-Digital course innovation criterion for appointments and
promotions of academics
-Teaching and Learning design recognized as a design
science with competitive R&D
51. 2.Actonalllevels
On drivers and enablers
51
Practical recommendations KVAB
reflection group (34)
Support structures for digital innovation of
higher education
-On institutional (or association) level:
Interdisciplinary R&D and Support Center for
digital educational innovation: research,
development, training, support
-On Flemish level:
Inter University Center for Digital
Educational Innovation: collaboration
support in blended learning studies and
MOOCs development and operation (model:
SURF)
52. 52
Thanks for the pleasant collaboration
-to the thinkers in Residence: Diana Laurillard and Pierre
Dillenbourg
-to the members of the Local Experts Group and all others
who contributed
Think digital
