Innovation is not always synonymous with the administration
of higher education. In fact, with budgets shrinking and state allocations
frozen or reduced, it has become a challenge to maintain the status quo. To be
innovative is almost impossible. But clearly, much good is occurring at
colleges across the nation and many students are enrolling, learning, and
graduating in ever-increasing numbers. Where is it all heading… what’s the
future of higher education?
Distance learning has been around in many forms for more
than 50 years. Learning via the internet was pioneered by the higher education
community and today there are many opportunities to learn online. But too often
these opportunities are simply a new form of the same old classroom. Instead of
projectors we now have computer screens, but the expectations, content,
delivery, information, and ultimately the learning has not really evolved. The
most creative delivery of content available today is found in the form of the flipped
classroom or the MOOC… but even these courses, certainly innovatively outside
the proverbial box, are offered in a model that is recognizable to most of us. Topical
content is delivered and outcomes are measured without ever changing the
traditional curriculum model.
Competency, measured through student learning outcomes, is
much the same for the online classroom as it is in the traditional classroom.
Tests are created, papers are written, discussion ensues, and portfolios are produced
based on the material presented by the instructor with little effort required
of the student to explore content on their own. True innovation comes when
content is delivered in a personalized approach on an as-needed basis with
outcomes measured through future performance. In this new curriculum,
competency begins to take the form of self-assessment, multisource assessment,
interviews, simulation, and ultimately performance in the required concrete and
abstract skills.
We need to move from a curriculum model of proclamation and
regurgitation to a more enlightened approach that is less concerned with how
much a student remembers and more concerned with the ability to seek answers
and understand their importance in the pursuit of knowledge and ability. This
new curriculum is more about the journey than the destination. No longer should
it be acceptable to expect students to pay a large tuition for the privilege of
sitting in a classroom to hear a great lecture when the same great ideas can be
accessed for much less via the internet. In fact, many of these same faculty
members can be found in both places… albeit with the internet version often
more real and less canned.
Access to this new curriculum can be obtained easily, at any
time, from any location, and in a much more cost-efficient manner than the
traditional college classroom. Gone will be the days that cost is a factor in
learning replaced by a true egalitarian approach to higher education where
anyone of any means can attain a quality education.
While many obstacles exist for such a curriculum to fully be
realized, the concept holds promise and is not that far from possibility. This
new curriculum takes advantage of the myriad information available online and
with a dose of creativity, offers an opportunity for learning that rivals the
traditional college. With the emergence of creative means of documenting
learning such as Mozilla’s Open Badges, Degreed’s repository of learning, and Accredible’s
portfolio, new standards are being created to recognize and verify learning. The
new curriculum has the potential of becoming a viable alternative to college as
we know it. How will you prepare your campus for this revolution?
