2009 Day 3 Tony Bates: Is E-Learning Failing Higher Education?

From OUCEL Wiki

Presentation PPT

• The CCL Report on the state of e-learning in Canada suggested that there is no progress on e-learning in last 10 years. This presentation is a result of the author unhappiness with that report.

• Questions that need to be asked: What are the indicators of failure (or success) in e-learning? What are expectations and goals for e-learning? What would innovation looks like? What are barriers to innovation? What can be done to encourage innovation?

• Lack of return on IT investment; costs of HE continue to rise (EU, U.S.)

• Lack of innovation/transformation of education (WEF, Sagra, CCL, Anderson)

• Technology ‘absorbed’ into traditional model (Tirney & Heinkel)

• There are lots of individual innovations, but there is no significant change in the system; one study examined policies for IT in five EU universities and concluded that most institutions do not have strategies, objectives, performance measures for IT;

• All this negativity needs to be addressed; one study in the USA noticed that there is more innovation in private universities than in public ones;

• All negativity is more perception than reality;

• There is lack of both quantitative and qualitative data on technological innovation in HE; lots of ‘little stuff’ is happening but it is not always recorded, reported and measured;

• Goals and expectations are not clear

• So, what are we trying to achieve by using IT in teaching and learning?

• How would we know whether we have met our goals?

• Different stakeholders have different goals (administration, policy makers, instructors, educational developers, students, etc.)

• What is opinion of this group on these issues?

Comments from the group members:

• Linda Murphy-Boyer: Last transformation in teaching was in the 1970s; there was no much transformation since then; technology cannot change much without greater social change;

• Richard Pinet: We talked during last three days about lack of measurement tools, lack of data, etc. Do you work on set of procedures that would help us to change things?

• Tony Bates: It is difficult to measure ‘increased learning performance’. However, we can measure costs of IT – for example, if we move from Blackboard to Moodle, what would be costs. -We should be able to measure single things but very often we do not do that; this has to do with management, not lack of tools for measuring.

Possible goals for e-learning:

1) increase access/flexibility

2) enhance quality of teaching

3) develop skills needed in the 21st century

4) improve cost-effectiveness

5) meet learning style of ‘millennials’

• Linda Murphy-Boyer: We should also add –increase students’ engagement – as one of the goals;

• Tony Bates: There are number of goals for using technology and we will talk about them;

Goal: Increase Access

• Distance education – 14% increase per annum for 7 years for online courses, 2% p.a. overall (Data: Sloan, ITC, UBC)

• Blended learning – we don’t know, there are no data;

• This is most successful e-learning goal

• US Department of education published the report with the conclusion that online learning has more success than face-to-face learning (link to the report)

Goal: Enhance Quality of Teaching

• Use of clickers, multiple screens, PowerPoint slides, etc.

• This is most common goal among instructors

• Note the terminology: ‘enhance’ NOT ‘improve’ – i.e. teaching is already ‘good’;

• We know have ‘mass’ higher education; we did not radically change our institutions to deal with larger number of students;

• Current model does NOT work;

• While some things still work well, but, for example, large lecture classes are not working well;

• Some research indicates that if you have class of 200 students, you are getting questions and answers from only 10-20 students during the term;

• We need to think about how people learn in general. To learn, they need to be engaged, active and contribute to the learning process;

Goal: Develop Skills for 21st Century

• Ensure students have intellectual and digital skills needed in their profession/occupation

• Skills for knowledge-based society (communication, independent learning, problem-solving, collaborative, digital literacy, entrepreneurial)

• Use of ICT in teaching essential

• Skills embedded in discipline

• Implications for assessment – need to assess ability to ‘know’ AND ‘do’

• Enable students to use digital media to demonstrate competence

• Thus, needs change in curriculum + teaching + methods + technology

• NOT doing well with this goal

Comments from the group members:

• Patrick Lyons: In large part agree, but there are also examples where technology is incorporated in discipline;

• Aldo Caputo: In number of programs at the University of Waterloo the curriculum review is ongoing and during this process people are becoming more aware of blended learning options. Also some disciplines are incorporating technology, especially professional programs; they look in tools such as e-portfolio and others;

• Wendy Hardman: faculty members often do not see the need to change anything in their teaching;

• Richard Pinet: Institutions are designed in such way that teaching and technologies are separate units;

Goal: Increase Cost-Effectiveness

• Can we do more or less?

• Reduce overheads; 53% of non-teaching costs at UBC (e.g. more buildings or more distributed learning?); for example – Alberta wants to enroll more students – how you want to do that; it must be strategic decision;

• Students services: better, quicker, cheaper with IT

• More students, less instructors?

Goal: Serve ‘Millennial’ Students

• Millennial students (digital native) (technology savvy, socially dependant, multitasking, short attention span, sense of entitlement = ‘it’s all about me”)

• Danger of stereotyping and false assumptions

• Research suggests digital divide is NOT necessary age-related;

What Would Innovation Look Like?

• Need new vision for teaching and learning in HE which should combine:

• Skills development embedded in content;

• Flexibility and access;

• Learner empowerment and differentiation;

• Integration of digital technology;

• Measures;

• Abolition of semester system requirements for full time attendance on campus;

• Courses/programs designed to accommodate face-to-face, blended and distance learning students

• Collaborative international online programs with foreign universities;

• Assessments by challenge, e-portfolios, peer assessment, project work

• Work study programs between industry and universities

• Full cost recovery model for lifelong learners; use this to hire new faculty;

• Team teaching;

Barriers to Change

• No incentives to change

• Faculty untrained in modern teaching methods

• Research more important than teaching

• Poor IT governance, poor management

• No vision for future

What Can Be Done to Encourage Innovation in E-Learning?

1) Federal level

• Link e-learning to national development/knowledge-based society

• Collect statistics/performance measures for use of ICTs in HE

• Earmarked funding for research into ICTs in HE, linked to productivity national standards for teaching in HE

2) Provincial level (in collaboration with institutions)

• Funding linked to innovation in teaching through annual plans

• Province-wide accreditation for teaching in HE (tenure requirements)

• Leadership in setting goals for ICTs

• Training programs for senior administrators

3) Institutional level

• Develop vision, strategies and performance measures for the integration of ICTs in teaching and learning (annual plan)

4) Individual level

• Get trained in teaching with technology

• Lobby

Question: Does Tony Bates has some advice for the group?

• Tony Bates: A broad cross institutional groups are good, but core place to make decisions n technology and teaching are individual departments; inside one department faculty members need to come together and make decisions n curriculum, teaching and technology. If we can link our group with academic departments, that would be really good.