Toward new models of coherence: Responding to the fragmentation of higher

education

George Siemens, PhDFebruary 7, 2013

University of Victoria

The Big Change(s)What is happening with MOOCs?What is actually important?What is our future?

On the Last Digital Frontier

Investors give education technology firms the nod

Joseph Wilson, Special to Financial Post | Sep 10, 2012

IBIS Capital: Global e-Learning Investment Review, 2013

GSV Advisors, 2012

The Conference Board & McKinsey & Co

McKinsey Quarterly, 2012

NYTimes, UNESCO Data

Meeker & Wu, 2012

“The Board believes this environment calls for a much faster pace of change in administrative structure, in governance, in financial resource development and in resource prioritization and allocation. We do not believe we can even maintain our current standard under a model of incremental, marginal change.  The world is simply moving too fast.”

Global Education Digest, 2009, UNESCO, Institute for Statistics

150.6 million higher education students globally. 53% increase from 2000.

Altbach, Reisberg, Rumbley, 2009

Moody’s Investor Services, 2013

Education Sector Factbook, 2012

Allen & Seaman 2011

2012 Canadian federal budget: focus on research for commercial innovation, economic growth

Ch. 3.1

Lack of national elearning [learning innovation] strategy hampering development of sector

State of elearning in Canada, CCL, 2009

CVU-UVC, 2012

Stats Canada Higher Education Data Sources (disjointed,

incomplete)Access and Support to Education and Training Survey (ASETS)Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC)National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS)National Graduate Survey (NGS)Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)Post-secondary Student Information System (PSIS)Registered Apprenticeship Information System (RAIS)Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) University and College Academic Staff Survey (UCASS)Workplace Employee Survey (WES)Youth in transition survey (YITS— Statistics Canada)

CCL, 2007

MOOCs and need for Canadian response

There is wide agreement that we need new models of education, and not simply new models of schooling, but entirely new visions of learning better suited to the increasing complexity, connectivity, and velocity of our new knowledge society.http://connectedlearning.tv/

Participatory Pedagogies(Collis & Moonen, 2008)

(Askins, 2008)(Harvard Law School, 2008)

Distributed Research Lab

Connect globally with expertsConnect with other PhD studentsContribute to researchBuild a dual knowledge profile: - digital footprint and academic

http://www.distributedlab.net/

The Big Change(s)What is happening with MOOCs?What is actually important?What is our future?

MOOC Players

Big ThreeBoutique MOOCsContent providers (Pearson, McGraw-Hill)LMS providers (D2L, Canvas)

"We have 10,000 colleges in this country, so when you get down to the very bottom, [a qualification] is worth nothing…a fair fraction of the very bad universities in the US will disappear. It may take 10 years, it may take 20 years, but that is going to happen."

“The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students.”

“challenge exams,”…may be the fastest and most inexpensive way to earn credits.

“The University of Wisconsin System (UW) will develop a new, flexible college option, using online instruction and other innovative methods, to deliver the competencies students need at an affordable UW price”

The Big Change(s)What is happening with MOOCs?What is actually important?What is our future?

Fast growing: non-traditional learnersCompetency-based learningPersonalization/adaptationAnalyticsAlternative assessment: challenge exams, PLAROpenness (content, scholarship, teaching)

Increasing diversity of student profiles

The U.S. is now in a position when less than half of students could be considered fulltime students. In other words, students who can attend campus five days a week nine-to-five, are now a minority. (Bates, 2013)

American intelligence communities are interested in your YouTube video, flickr uploads, tweets -- even your online book purchases -- and for over a year they've been laying down some serious cash to get a better look at all of them.

“…the fundamental task of education is to enculturate youth into this knowledge-creating civilization and to help them find a place in it…traditional educational practices – with its emphasis on knowledge transmission – as well as newer constructivist methods both appear to be limited in scope if not entirely missing the point”

Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006, Cambridge Handbook of Learning Sciences)

Coherence is an orientation about the meaning and value of information elements based on how they are connected, structured, and related

Antonovsky 1993

Agents in a system possess only partial information

(Miller and Page 2007)

…to make sense and act meaningfully requires connections to be formed between agents

Knowledge in pieces

diSessa, 1993

Knowledge development, learning, is (should be) concerned with learners understanding relationships, not simply memorizing facts.

i.e. naming nodes is “low level” knowledge activity, understanding node connectivity, and implications of changes in network structure, consists of deeper, coherent, learning

Content is fragmented (not confined to a course)Knowledge is generativeCoherence is learner-formed, instructor guidedDistributed, multi-spaced interactionsFoster autonomous, self-regulated learners

Networked information doesn’t have a centre

So we (socially) create temporary centres:Shared sensemaking

So we (technologically) create temporary centres:content and conversation aggregation

The Big Change(s)What is happening with MOOCs?What is actually important?What is our future?

Growing need for life-long learning and related technology/knowledge infrastructure (eportfolios, competency-based systems, personal data ownership, etc.)

ICDE 2009Redecker et al, 2008

Social and academic connection to the university

Boyer (1987), Tinto (1993)

Psychological sense of community:“Acknowledged interdependence”

Sarason (1974)

Harvard’s General Education Curriculum Goals

- prepares students for civic engagement- teaches students to understand

themselves as products of—and participants in—traditions of art, ideas, and values.

- prepares students to respond critically and constructively to change

- develops students’ understanding of the ethical dimensions of what they say and do.

How is this trend different than others?

Context: socio-techno-economic

Fragmentation of higher education

Development of an integrated system

Futures Scenarios for Canadian Universities

Status QuoAccreditors (teach globally, accredit locally)

-Outsourcing of services (tech, curriculum, testing)

Unbundled (teacher/research separate)Localized/specialized“Transformed” (online, blended)Successful universities as “new integrators”

- Formation of integrated value ecosystem

EdTech Innovation Conference

Calgary, May 1-3, 2013www.edinnovation.ca

Twitter/Gmail: gsiemens