Dr. Tony Bates: Learning in a Digital Age (Implications for Business Schools)
Well. Good morning everyone, I'm, delighted to be here I'm honored to be invited to be a, hooker distinguished, visiting scholar I. Have, been to McMaster before, but it was about seven years ago and, I. Really appreciate you coming out when you could be marking, exams. A. Lot. Of things have happened in the seven years since I, was last here. Some. Things haven't changed very, much as well but we. Might want to talk a little bit about that later but. I, feel. The ground shifting, under me to some extent in terms of what's happening with technology and teaching and, for. Many years I thought it, was just a peripheral on the, side thing that wasn't really affecting, everybody but. Now it's. Quite clear that there are major, changes happening. In our universities. So. To give you a quick overview I want. To talk about the, key forces of change that's causing the ground to shift. Some. Current trends, in online, and blended learning. What. The implications. Of both the trends, and the key. Forces the change are for how we design, our courses, and in. Some conclusions, at the end. So. Let's first. Look at the key forces of change affecting. University. Teaching. Well, first of all it's a changing workforce, and. I'll talk a little bit more about this in more detail in a few minutes but. New work and new knowledge and skills required within, the. Workforce and, the. Change in students, more diversity, in the students. Need. For more individualized. Learning as a result, more personalization. Of learning, new. Modes of delivery blended. Online oer. Some MOOCs and. Particularly. New technologies, coming in particularly. Video in social media. And. Let's look first, of all now you're in a better position than me to know how accurate this this, chart is but what, we're seeing is the knowledge-based component. In many. Industries. Becoming. Increasingly, more and more important. And. It. Doesn't matter where your jobs are now the knowledge. Component is much. More important, than the, previous, manual skills and so on. And. The, Conference Board of Canada many, years, ago actually I was surprised I went back and looked. At the conference, I looked this up the reference recently, it's 1995. But. I don't think people quite, picked it up so early as the conference board did what, are the skills that students need to survive, in the 21st century while, good communication.
Skills. Independent. Learning skills, ethics. And responsibility, teamwork, and flexibility. Thinking. Skills of course which universities, have always taught. IT. Skills embedded. In the subject area now that's an interesting one it's not generic. IT skills knowing, how to do use. A keyboard and so on it's knowing, how to use the. Technology within, your subject, discipline, and. One. Example is, for, instance real, estate agents, knowing how did you use geographical. Information systems. Which they are now using, to. Help. Them in. Their jobs and the. Overriding, skill, and the, one that I would like to focus on particularly is knowledge management, there. Is so much knowledge out there and it's increasing, at such a rapid, rate that. Everybody, who's. Going to work in a knowledge-based industry. Needs. To know how to manage knowledge, on a lifelong, basis. And. Look. At the key, let, me go back to that to I how, many of you have read the recent report by the Royal Bank of Canada called, humans, wanted, if. You haven't read it I strongly, recommend you, read it it's. It's quite surprising what. They did was very interesting, they did a big. Data search on all, job online job advertisements. In. What they call future-oriented jobs and, I, looked at what skills employers, were looking for and the. Top of the list was active, listening. Most, important, skill the, second one was speaking, ability. To communicate verbally. And. I could go down that list. At. The bottom was. Programming. Because. Basically, the. Demand for programmers won't, be so great as the, demand for those other skills or even if a programmer, has, the programming, skills they need the other skills in. Order to, succeed. In the jobs and. What the Royal Bank of Canada did tried to look at was what they call transversal. Skills the. Ones that people need if their jobs disappear so, they can get another job. And. The, question is and what they pointed out was first of all employers, aren't ready for this but. They also said Nori's education, because. They're, not teaching, specifically. These skills they're, hoping that students will pick them up but, they're not being expressive about the teaching of these skills. The. Other another, cheney forces, students more diversity. Increasingly. Students, are taking, mothered, multidisciplinary. Programs, so. They come with different levels, of prior knowledge in different parts, of the procore program, come. From different cultures different ways of learning. Different. Motivations, some people are taking a course because they're really interested, in it others because, they require, it to. Get their qualification. But they're not really interested. Different. Language abilities. More. More, employed. And part-time students, so. The, diversity of student it's not like the high. School ever coming straight out of high school now, 18. And studying till they're 23 and then leaving. Students. Are continuing. To come in, transfer. I move out there's a recent study in the u.s. reckoned. That looking, at. Just, graduate. Outcomes, catches. 67, percent of university. Students, and 41. Percent of college students, because they, are moving, around so much between. Courses, and programs and even different institutions. Need. For recognised, qualifications. That are different from the traditional ones people, want. Cognition for short courses now they want a badge or some indication.
They Can take to an employer that they have a common see or skill. And. The. Increase in importance of lifelong learning because. In the knowledge-based economy. People have to go on learning all the time and, their, job base keeps changing and they have to keep learning. And. That means more personalized, learning we need to provide teaching and learning ways that allow for the diversity, of students, and that, means different routes and different approaches, for different students but that's a challenge because that's. Alright when your class sizes are small but when they're large that becomes very difficult, so. How can you do that well blended, learning is one and use learning. Design and use of technology is another to, enable more purpose, personalization. And I'll speak about that in more detail in them later, on and. The. Other key, force of change and new modes of delivery, now. This is a constant, I this this is I went back to my bi. Presentation. At McMaster, seven years ago just in case and I. Actually had this chart it wasn't quite the same but almost the same as that seven years ago but, what's really happened is in this red area here that's a big change over that seven, years so. One end you have face-to-face teaching, with no technology, then you have what, I've got here classroom, aids which are PowerPoint. Which is certainly better than the overhead. No no no none of you are old enough to remember those, the, overhead transparencies. You rode on with ink and. At the other end we had fully. Online or fully distance, and at one time those two were quite separate, but. Now they're, getting mixed they're getting blended, and I, I've. Got flipped classrooms. I think. Most you know what a flipped classroom is you. Record your lecture, and then the students coming what's, the lecture and come in for discussion, or. You can do it the other way around you, can give. Your lecture and then the students go online and have a discussion online. But. That's really. It's. A little bit like the you. Know the the man walking in front of a steam engine with a flag so he didn't go too fast. He's. Just taking an old way of teaching. And just putting. The technology on it what's more interested, is what I would, I've called hybrid, and my. Definition, of hybrid, is where you actually not, only reduce, the amount, of face time but. You do it in deliberately, designed. Way so. As to get the best out of the face-to-face component. And the best out of the online component, and you design deliberately, for that not. Randomly. So. I've got some questions for you do. You feel like I do that the world is changing around you, and, if so how, is it affecting your teaching, is. It forcing, you to do things differently, or is, it the same old same old it hasn't really got to the university, yet.
Why. Don't we start with that one how many people feel that things, are changing and, you need to, do something about it. Quite. A few anybody. Feel it isn't really it's just a load of BS. And. Now. It's time to say it. Because. The doors over there okay. Okay. There's a greater focus on skills, and, learning, outcomes undermine, or, reinforce. The academic, endeavor I mean. I often get the comment that what, our job is not to train people for the workforce it's, to make them better. Individuals. And I agree with that actually. But. Is. The focus on skills rather, than on content. And, focus. On what. Students, can actually do when. They graduate, does. That undermine the, academic, Enterprise and. What are you feelings, about that. Is. This a win-win or is it something. That you, actually lose if, you move in this direction. You're. Very shy a bit you're not like that in your own classes. Yes. Please. Don't. Stay here forever. Is. The. Diversity of students challenged for your teaching. Do. You find you've got very, mixed classes in, terms of abilities, terms. Of motivation, and so on I see some nodding heads. Yeah. So. I'm not wrong in thinking that we're no longer getting that very. Heterogeneous. Group. Of students coming, out. Yeah. I, thought. I saw somebody else wanted to say something. No. Okay, yes please. Diversity, is not only in terms of. Yes. Yeah. Okay, good, yes well, I'm glad people see that as a positive because I've often heard it as a negative one, faculty saying that, students, unlike what they used to be and they're, not as motivated etc. It's cetera. And I. Think. We're getting a mix we if we are getting some students who are not motivated but, we're also getting highly. Impala motivated, students and that's a problem when they're in the same class. And. I've. Got this I like, this diagram, you know it's. Called the view cuca future. It's, volatile, uncertain complex, and, ambiguous and. With. What. You need to do is to leave the shore of certainty, and move. Across the sea of complexity. Ambiguity. And so on to, the future state and this. Is what we're really talking about how do we move from where we are to, manage. What's, what's that we, don't actually know what the future is going to be but we know it's going to be different. So. What are the trends then. Well. First of all fully online learning. That's distance, education is. Increasing. Rapidly on, conventional, universities. That's, a graph from the US which ends at 2012. And. Last. Year we I. Led, a research team, that did, a survey of online. Learning in Canada, in universities. And colleges, two-year colleges, it. Was the first fully, national, survey, we, covered all 203, public, universities, and colleges, in Canada. Got. About 70% of the institution's. Responding. And. They covered about 78% of all student enrollment so for, a voluntary survey it was a pretty good response rate and. I, guess, the most surprising, thing was how many universities. Are actually doing fully online credit based learning this is not continuing, studies this, is courses for credit. Within. Their programs, so ninety-eight percent of Canadian universities and, 94%. Of colleges outside, Quebec offer fully, online courses. The, reason the figures are lower in Quebec is that they have something. Called C jeopardy, stars, which is, the online provider for all the colleges, but. At the same time a lot of those colleges, are getting into their own online learning as well as leaving it to see jeopardy stars, and. What. Was particularly interesting was the growth, enrollments. Have gone up about 10% per year in online learning in, universities. And 15%, in the colleges, and Ontario. Is a big factor here because of eCampus, Ontario, got, a lot of colleges moving, into online learning and, catching up. Best, estimate, because we didn't, have a. Census. On your survey but, our best estimate, is that of all. The enrollments, in University 16%. Are now fully online. So. And. About 12% in colleges, and you, can see the growth rate is. Contracted. Lining, and incidentally.
The Completion, rates from the data, that was available is. Pretty. Good, there are about 5% to, 10% below, the on-campus completion. Rates and that's, what I would expect because many of these students are working and part-time. And they're doing, Studies on top of other stuff so. The. And. The, second trend we picked up was. What I called hybrid, learning and we define, this very carefully in the survey as some. Reduction, in face-to-face teaching, and again. A surprise, for us was how many institutions. Reported, they offered. At least some hybrid, learning, but. Few, courses, so. Though it's wide, and thin. 60%, with less than 10% of the courses were hybrid, but. Most. Provost. Felt that this was going to increase the number of hybrid programs, they, felt the faculty were moving into this area and they. Felt that it was leaning to a lot of innovative, teaching he. Was making faculty, think much, more carefully about their. Teaching methods and how best to to. Do, this and, also. Some reported, it was especially, the institutions, that were overcrowded. I need more facilities that, he was helping with the space issues in teaching. So. In the last two years there's been a fairly big move to learning. In Canada, and looking, at some of the plans that. Institutions. Have it. Wouldn't be surprised, if 50% of all classes will be hybrid, by 2020. In five three, or two years time at. The rate of growth, we're, going a lot. Of its flipped teaching but. It can be so much more and. It. Raises a very interesting, question. What. Is the best use of face-to-face time, what is the right mix now. One, time that everybody thought the default was face, to face teaching must be superior to online teaching but. We have so much experience now, to show that online teaching is often, as good as before. If not better than, face-to-face. Teaching, and like everything, it depends, on how well you do it you. Can do face-to-face teaching, badly, or you can do online learning badly, so. It's not a question so much of the delivery, mode it's the question of the quality of the design of the teaching in whichever mode you're you're, working. But. We don't have very good theory, or tools. To. Make a decision, about what is best done online we. Have to draw on your experience. The experience, as a professor, and obviously. Your biases, go if you've taught on face, to face all your life you're going to have more biases, to thinking that's going to be better.
But. I think if you are offering a blended course it's a really good question to ask what. Is the added value of students. Getting on the bus in the morning and coming, into the, campus, if they, can do most of their stuff at, home online. And, that I think the challenge is and we know how to design online very. Well but. What we don't know is what, is it that that, added, value to face-to-face. And the answer will be different from subject, to subject from, instructor. To instructor, but. We don't have very good theory to help instructors, make that decision we're. Relying on your gut instincts, and so. On. The. The other thing that we asked, institutions. Was, did. Did. What, what did they how, important, did they think, online. Learning will be for their future, and, over two-thirds of all, the institutions, in Canada and more less the same in colleges, and universities. Estimated. That online. Learning will be very important. For their future and. Most. Have or are developing a strategy, or plan for, online learning now. It doesn't mean the necessary they've got a good plan or. That the plans been implemented. Or that, the plan goes right across the university, but. They do have a plan which is great because. A few years ago the answer to that would be much less. Another. Trend of course is MOOCs driven. Primarily by Stanford. Harvard and MIT and I want to say comment, about that Stanford. Harvard and MIT were very late coming, to online learning, online. Learning had been around for about 15 years and, as. You see it's been it's. Been fairly extensively. Used in many, other universities. So. They had to reinvent online, learning in their own brand this is what they're very good at these elite universities, is reinventing. Stuff in their own brand and MOOCs. Incidentally. The. Term MOOC was is a Canadian, term came from the University of Manitoba but. It was hijacked by particularly. By Stanford, originally. And. So. It's, another kind, of online learning, and, I want to make that distinction, very clearly, it is not the same as, fully online, learning, for credit courses. So. It's a different design model, from credit based online learning and it's very heavily lecture. Focused. And. Attempts, at accredit 8:00 they've been attempts at accreditation. But, it's. A massive challenge when, you've got very very large numbers, of students, to have an effective. Valid. Assessment. Of very. Large numbers of students and virtually, very, few, instructors. But. It, is very useful for non-credit, continuing education. I there's. A lot of demand for it as you can see that people want these kind of programs and, they're, great but they're not going to give you. Not. Going to make you a qualified, engineer, or a qualified, doctor. And so on but. It can, add to your lifelong. Learning in a very constructive. Way and, we. Found not in the survey we found no MOOC mania, in Canada, less than 20%, of institutions, are offering MOOCs and very. Few and sorry it's critical to their future. But. Another trend which, is more, under the radar but. I think is much more significant. Than MOOCs is the. Open education, movement open. Textbooks, open. Research. Publications. Now, for, any federal, grant have to be published in an open access journal, there's. All kinds of games being played by the publishers, to make people pay to get them published but. At least they're openly accessible, to.
People. Who. Want to read them open. Educational resources and. The. Important, about an open data to increasingly, government, and making data, more open, not. Facebook but other agencies. And. The. The key thing here is that content, will. Be it will, be free, abundant. And nearly all online. And. That's, a big big shift, because. This. Is no longer the kind of monopoly. Of universities. It's. Now everywhere. Even university. Knowledge is now everywhere. And. MOOCs. Are a good example of that. My. Grandson, has just started doing physics at a British University, and. I, came home one day and I said he. Was on his computer and I he usually plays games as I said what, are you doing he sudden do my homework, so. When you mean your homework he says oh I didn't do physics, I said yes but, what. Are you doing online and. He said well I've. Got a textbook and all my act and all the, exercises, are, online I'm just going and I practiced all again right, I said, does your professor know you're doing this he says no and. I. Said do you go to so. Do. You go to his lectures he says well I, we. Have a group of five of this and we go to one in five lectures. And. I said what do you mean you go to one in five he says well we. Take a note of what the topics are and, then, we circulate, that then we go to two. Open, courseware mit OpenCourseWare and, look up the lectures because they're much better there now. You. Know we can argue about whether he's doing the right thing or not but that's my point that that stuff is all out there now and if you're not a really good lecture, lecturer. Then students are going to go elsewhere and get that now. In fact we could actually. Make. Use of that. But. What I'm saying is that this, shifts the role of the faculty member, from. Content. Selector. Organizer. And deliverer, to. A facilitator. It's the students, now who, ought to be going out and finding, the information, evaluating. It and applying. It what. We do in a lecture is, exactly, that but, we do it for the students, in. A knowledge-based society the, students, are going to have to do that for themselves, now. We can model it as a lectures, and that's a very good way of doing it but, do we follow up on that and say to the students okay no you go off and do it here's a topic you research it you, come back with that and tell, us what. It is so I think this is the big game changer, the fact that content. Is open, and freely. Available and. You. Can use it as well you don't have to deliver the stuff you can tell the students go and look at the MIT lecture, on this it's better than anything I could do but, what I want you to do is to criticize it, and come back here and discuss, it with me all right so it. Does change the. Role of the faculty member and. Open. Publishing free. Online open, textbooks. I'm. Fortunate, to, be in British Columbia, where we have the BC campus open textbook they. Now have 165. Books they've covered, all the, first and second year you know and college standard. Programs, they, all have open, textbooks, now written or approved. By BC. Faculty. For. Their courses. And. It's in been adopted they've been adopted by 2125. Post-secondary. Institutions. In British Columbia and, it, saves students, over two million dollars so far in, textbook. Fees, and. My, book which you've, got on your desk there it's, been downloaded over a hundred thousand times now and. Actually. Translated, into eight languages, that's too under way but once in Iranian, at one in Farsi, and one in Turkish and I'm a bit of problems getting, those finished. And these are all done by volunteers I've, no no. Publisher, involved, here people have said well we need, this book we'll, translate it's, a good way for us to, learn as well. Now. It doesn't mean it's not like a hundred thousand, books else it could be one demented, person in California who's. Downloaded, all 100,000. But. You. Know it depends what you want do you need it do you need to. Get a book published to. Get tenure and promotion, or do, you want to get your ideas, out to everybody and if, you want to get your ideas out to as many people, as possible then, open publishing is the way to go if, you want to get tenure that's another matter, and.
The, Next trend is the, last trend is multi media, now. Print and talk have historically, been dominant, in higher education and. Print. Particularly, is very important, because it allows, you to. Take. Abstract, ideas, present, them in a linear, logical. Sequence. And you. Can make it open to challenge and discussion, so, print is a very, important, medium and is still a very important, medium but. Knowledge now can be represented. Through many different kinds of media through. Text, audio video, computing. And virtual reality and. I've. Got a graph here showing, the continuum, medium of. Media richness. Single. Media like radio or, a telephone you can only this two very rich media like virtual, reality which has all, those modalities. And, so on. And. The research in this is very interesting this is a lot of research on learning, from media and the, research shows that learning, is usually enhanced, by, multiple, representations. Of knowledge in, other words if you talk about something you, show them a video and you, ask them to do something they learn much more than if you just talk. And. The, the really one of the most. Significant. Pieces of research is, on the importance, of recording, because. Students can stop start, and repeat. So. If you're giving a video. Lecture for instance, the student will, spend much more time on the video lecture than if they come into class it just goes through and they get their notes and they go, so. It allows learners to work at their own pace and this. Use, of meet media is really important, for facilitating, learning and. It allows students to move from the concrete to the abstract in, Reverse this video is very good at that usually, the soundtrack, is the abstraction, the explanation. And the, video is what's actually happening. And. This is really great for case studies for instance you want to pull, out some general principles about, how to run a meeting for instance you, can have the meeting and you can have the soundtrack, which, explains, what's going on and so on. And. Presenting. In different media meets, individual, preferences, for learning so it's another way of personalizing, the teaching by offering a variety of media. To the students, you offer meet. A different ways some people like to listen I have. A hearing problem I'd rather read. And. So having. Different media enables, you to accommodate, the student differences. So. I have some questions, for you now your. Homework do, you see these trends as significant, or just, passing fancies, or BS, have. You adopted any of these trends in your teaching and if so how and what. Teaching issues could one or more of these trends, address for you. Anybody. Want to make, some comments on those questions. How. About the first one do you, think these are significant, trends or is. It just, some. Some. TEDx. Oted. TEDx guy coming, and trying to sell you a pitch on this. Yeah. Yes, I think the important, thing for me is that. In. The digital world, we. If we want students to be. Competent, in that digital world they're acting if you want to earn digitally, you're gonna have to learn digitally. I. Think. That's a really, important, because, you. You can't learn in some kind of abstract, way and then go, to another kind of context and hope you can just easily transfer, that over to that context, so, yes. I'm, not saying it's a good thing that everybody, is in the digital world but nevertheless. That we, are now and therefore. How can we teach a subject if it's not embedded within, the teaching. Or blended medium to. What extent you think and where, is. It better, outcomes. Versus. Yeah. I think it's a very fair question, and the. Evidence is it's a scaling issue how much can you scale up. And. There are some parts of online learning you can scale, like. The content, delivery, you, can scale that up what. You can't scale is the, interaction, the assessment.
And. You can scale that to a certain extent if you can do multiple choice questions, if you want to just the. Students just to check that they covered everything but it, doesn't get to the higher learning skills, of. Critical thinking and so on you read the essays and then it gets or into doing, other ways or project, work or something and then it gets very difficult. To scale up in terms you're, still the instructors, to do that that's a good thing by the way I think we, will go on needing faculty. For. Quite some time yes. McMaster. We're, teaching. Issues are addressed by technology, and it's our masters, of Health Program where the individuals, that are busy professionals that would normally come into class very frequently or, live in remote, areas, has. A big place they, can get their education online, and provide that huge value yeah I mean these the colleges didn't exist it, would never gotten this education, so in that case we. Can't believe demographic, it honestly transforming. We, teach. Yeah. Access. Is a critical, issue for, many students. Particularly. When they're working or they've got young, families, to look after. The. Cost of childcare, for instance. Ideal. For, people who are, in that context, so so. There's. Two issues here one is the. Student, needs. And. I think the case, is over whelming, about, the flexibility, and. Value. Of online learning for access. The. Other what. I call the teaching needs which. Are how do I teach my subject, given, the context, in which I'm working and, there. I think it's. Less clear-cut what, the advantages, are but, there are advantages and, what we're we're. In very much the early stages of identifying. What. Are the advantages, and disadvantages, of going, online, from. A teaching and learning, in. The sense of this, is the subject I'm trying to teach and what are the requirements of that subject. And. It's not something, I think, the important thing is not to think of a subject, as something, solid. And I've. Got this subject over here therefore I've got to teach it online. And. I will teach this subject without changing, this subject area when I go online there. May be things you can do better online that you can't do in class there, may be things that student can go off and do in, in context, that they can't in an on-campus context, and you might want to go back and look at your curriculum and say well maybe I should be doing something different here, because, this would be more useful for the students in the long run, so. It's. A question. Of attitude as well. Okay. I like this, implications. For teaching and learning, we, could have empty lecture theatres. Okay. Let's go back to. That. This continuum. Of technology. Use and. I. Think for every instruction now you've got a you've, got a question in here where, should I be on that, continuum with, my course. Now. I could, say you well. Maybe it's not a question for you it's a question for the students, where did the students, want to be on this, and could.
You Design a course that. Would allow students, to, come in any one of these points so, if they were high. School students not very, independent, and they're learning schools they could do everything face to face but. You could gradually perhaps, introduce, some online learning as. Part of a fully face-to-face. Course to get them used to being responsible for getting stuff done on time bringing it back into class and so on. By. The time they get to the fourth year of their undergraduate, program, they could probably handle three or four courses fully online because. Your, program, has worked you up towards, that. So. The questions where in the curriculum should I be, I think. The motor delivery, should be driven, primarily by, the needs of the students, so. In your I. Always, get this bacon. Lettuce, and tomato. MBA. Yeah. Thank you. You. Got. 25. To 35, year-old people. With work experience, right. They're. Going, to be much more tolerant, of fully-online. Than, your 18 year old coming out of high school who wants the campus it wants to me other boys. And girls once, the social atmosphere wants, the sports and so on so, I think it should be as much driven by the needs of the students, as by the subject, matter although. Obviously. Some, things are harder to teach online than others. But. If. We accept that lifelong, learning is going to become increasingly important. Then. From. A purely market, point of view you've really got to start looking at that market, because if. You look at the demographics. The number of students coming in from 18 are going to go down and the, number of lifelong learners are going to go up so. You need, to have programs that are going to accommodate, those lifelong, learners, and that's, going to be as important, if not more important. Than dealing, with the high school ever. The. Second is this distinction. I make which is a bit artificial. I accept. That between, content, and skills let, me give some definition. Here content. Are facts ideas, principles. It's basically knowing stuff. Skills. Are about understanding. Analyzing. Evaluating applying. Doing. Stuff, it's. Not that simple because you can't do stuff unless you know stuff, but. The emphasis. Both. Are necessary but emphasis. In post-secondary education all, over the world has been on content. Delivering. Content to students and, as I said earlier that's B going to become less important, because they can access the content. But. They. Do need help developing skills, they can't do that on their own so easily yeah. We. Know a lot about how to teach skills, first. Of all it's context. Specific, to some extent now. What, I mean by that well let's take problem-solving, as a skill. Problem-solving. In medicine, is, different, from problem-solving, in business. Not, only is the content base different, but. The approach to problem solving is different, for, instance in medicine, they, are very risk-averse, so. Problem solving is all about avoiding risk in. Business, it's different there's a much higher tolerance for risk in, problem-solving so. It's, not just you you become a problem solver and you can go anywhere and solve problems you, have to solve problems within a certain context. And there are ways of doing that now, mind you if you did learn how to solve problems in, medicine it might be a lot easier to move into business and transfer. That knowledge more. Quickly than if you never done a problem-solving, course at all but it wouldn't be the same you'd still have to learn something different. The. Second thing we know is that learners, need a lot of practice to develop a skill and, you see where the technology comes, in how, do you give students practice, since a, problem-solving. Or critical, thinking you, give them lots of examples, to work through and you, can do that through the technology, they can work through those examples you, can't, always give them the right answer but you can give them some guidelines and you. Know what is they, can share the answers for instance among each other and so on so they can get some feedback, from students, as well as from you, they. Need small steps. They. Need regular, feedback from an expert so that's, where the instructor, and the knowledge. Where. The content specialist. Comes in they, need that feedback from an expert. But. I don't. Know if how many of you heard of competency-based, learning. Yeah. Big thing in America at the moment employers. Negotiate, with, the program the competencies, they need within, a particular, industry. Now. What. I'm talking about is different from competencies, combina sees you get to 100%, performance. So, you can do a specific job and that's done, right.
And, There's nothing wrong with that and it's very good for. The short-term market, skills. Are very different, skills. I like, to think of you. Know a hockey player a hockey, player isn't, concerned. To just be competent they, want to get better and better and better and, they want to go on learning how to do that so they want to go on practicing, and practicing, or. Golfing, analogy Lee, Trevino was, once he. Chipped in from off the green four times in one round and the instructor. Said the interviewer, said to him well you're, a bit lucky with your chips today weren't you and Trevino. Said yeah but. It's funny isn't it the more I practice the, luckier I get you, know. So. You need lots of practice small. Steps regular, feedback but. That the important, thing for teaching. Is if, we're talking about critical thinking skills. It's not something you teach in one course, so. How, do you hand on from one course to the next what do you develop in one course and when, they going in the second year what's gonna be different in what you're doing critical, thinking so. What, is the link through a program. Now. I came, across a very interesting development. At Dalhousie, they. Had a Bachelor, of computer science. And only. Two-thirds of the students were graduating before, the two-thirds of entry. Cohort were actually going out with a degree so, their big problem, so. What, they did they, looked. At what, were the learning outcomes, of each professor, their. Program, was at that stage developed, like most University, programs, they found a number that found how many professors, were willing to teach in the program and they cobbled together the, interest of all the different professors and some. Said I'd like to teach first-year students, some subsides I like to teach third-year students so, there was no cohesion, in the program at all so they got the professors. To write down their learning outcomes and, then they worked out which, ones had to be, taught. First before they went on to the next course and, what they found was they were teaching theory, at the end of the program and students, need a theory right at the beginning because without the theory they, couldn't handle all the other developments, that came so. What. They've got now is a very nice little tool which, says. First-year. Students here the learning outcomes, and here. Are the courses that that. You need these learning outcomes for, and if. You're in a third year here, all the learning outcomes and the courses that you need to get into this course, and so on and the students can go in they just click on the course and they can find out exactly what they need No, and, now guess what they've got 95%, completion.
Rates Now. You. Can't always do that in something, like business I know because it's not that kind of sequential linear but, there's a lot of things you need to know before you move on to something else and if. We're talking about skills, particularly, how. Are we going to make sure that continuity. Of skills runs through a program. So. And, development, skills is about teaching method, it's about method, about. Design. So. There are various ways to teach skills and I. Won't, go through the whole list but obviously experiential, learning is one way and this is where McMaster. Is very strong I know but. There are other ways to teach skills as well but so. When you're designing on, a curriculum, before you even think about blended, learning or, online, what. Are the skills we want to teach and how, will the technology help, us develop those skills. What. Role can technology play in, in helping you develop those skills and, the other thing is what do we assess and how, so. If we're teaching skills, how do we assess those skills, now. I think there's a lot of I. Think. Students, do learn critical thinking but if they do it's almost accidental, they pick it up by. A by chance and, and some, kind of osmosis, now. I I don't want to go to the other behaviorist. Route we have to write down everything you do but. We need, to define skills a lot better we need to say how we can assess those skills a lot better and then, we need to look at the teaching methods that will get us there, and. Then we need to look at how technology can help so that's the kind of order of decision. So. What are the teaching, methods for skills development, well discussion, and social. Learning for testing and developing, ideas problem-based. Learning, experiential. Learning and getting students to do stuff, communities. Of practice putting. Putting. Students not just in their own community. But, in the broader community, so. For instance if they're studying real. Estate bring, in real estate agents, and so on and put. Them online into. Real. Estate. Real-estate agent discussion. Groups forums and so on I hate, st. maybe even put them into a Facebook, group. Common, sea based learning and knowledge management so, there are different different. Skills that you can teach when. I say something particularly about knowledge management. We. Need to move from information, transmission, to knowledge management combining. Skills, development. And content and. That. Means to me replacing. A lot of lecture based courses, with, student projects, problem-based learning collaborative, learning get, the students to go out and find the information, you. Advise them where, to look what, kind of information is, relevant and so on you get in to think critically about what they're finding but. They do the work, and. This again somebody says isn't online looking online, teaching, more work but, it can be but. The trick is to get the students to do the work. And. Goodbye, written exams now in business particularly I think this is a huge role for eportfolios. See portfolios, aren't magic it's, basically, a student. Reports. Or, videos. Or writes, up their experience. In experiential. Learning for instance, so you can see what they've done they, actually, show what they've done they it's like a like. A diary if you like but, it's online and. You can have it in a format where the students can take it to an employer, and say not. Only did I get a degree but this is what I did now. That might be a bit scary for some of you but nevertheless. I think it's, a good thing I don't think it will get the student the interview, but when they get to the interview it, might help the difference between, the. Other people on on the interview if they've got a good e-portfolios.
Where, Employers can see what they've actually done but it's also useful for the students, because. If we're talking about lifelong, learning they. Need to be able to build up that e-portfolio. Not just on a degree but. For the rest of their life so, they they, can continually, refresh that, e-learning portfolio. And. It's. A lot more fun looking at a student e-portfolio. In the marking essays believe, me. I want. To give one example of, a, focus. In business, on teaching. A specific. Skill these are collaboration. Skills now Tom Browns a professor, at, the SFU, School of Business I don't. Know what GDP a stands, for you probably know better than I do he's a fully online course a, program. And. His. Complaint was that students, in business don't like collaborating, they're very competitive and it's. Not a skill that many of his students he felt were very good at was collaborating. So. He. Put them into virtual, teams with a project to do and, so. And. And they were assessed both on the project, and on, how much and how well they collaborated. In the team and he, did the assessment of that the students did not do the assessment, of that but. I think, it was 5% I can't see the figure from here I think five was seven percent on the mark was given by the students, of how, much. The other students, contributed, to the class. And. Again. He found that their collaborative, skills increase, rapidly as a result, of doing that is fully online incidentally. Wasn't Dunning in class. So. What. Would an advanced, online blended. Course look like well. For instance we could take a course skill like knowledge management had. To fine analyze evaluate and apply information. Using. Open, content, students. Going out and finding it or you're supplying, the open content but, within a learning design they're learning outcomes, there are. Things. The students have to do there's a schedule, and timeline for them doing that. Student. Generate, multimedia, content, through online project, work they're assessed by e-portfolios. And I'll give you an example from UBC. Interestingly. This, is a course designed by David. Porter who's no the director of eCampus, Ontario, but, was at that time in. BC, and an. Entrepreneur, called David voice who runs his own software company in in. Vancouver, and this is an education, course it's how to set up. A business. Based on. An. Education, business based on technology. And. The course is different every year so. The students, come and they choose that they go out and research. Technologies. Under development mainly apps, under. Development and. They may not be for education but then they have to come back with, the business plan and they end up by doing a two, and a half minute elevator pitch, which, they. Share and then once it's been peer reviewed it goes up on YouTube for everybody to see and they get this 20%, of their assessment, for that. And. The instructors don't know year from year what the content is going to be except. They have to have a like, there's. A module on developing. A business plan and things like that but, generally the. Students, do the research so one year it was all on mobile learning the, next year it could be on virtual reality, but. It's the students who find the topics and then, the faculty have to be nimble and react and these. Courses. Apart.
From The general preparation of, getting knowing they have to do a business plan what. The outcomes have to be and so on there's. Very little advance planning, the. Professor's have to work on their feet so, this. Is a very different design model, from a lot of online courses where everything's done up front before the course is delivered the, professor, walks away and adjuncts teach it this, is a very different model indeed, but. We need a lot more new designs. The. Other thing is I noticed. In your report. And. For the e-learning. Strategy, you know there was the, this is new there. Are new developments we have to be flexible and absolutely, agree with that but. We. Do have past experience in this field we. Have over twenty years of, research, and, evaluation on. Fully online learning so, in fully online we, know what works and what doesn't we have good design models, for fully online and, what. We know is you just can't move lecture, content online. And, without, adaptation. And so on it has to be made more interactive, the students have to have activities, they, have to have clear. Timelines. For doing work and so on. But. In a blended, model we don't have good models, but. We need to ask that question what's. Best on on campus and what's best done online. The. Other thing is that teaching performance I think will become a major competitive. Advantage, in the future not at the moment. Institutions. Are ranked by their research and. The. World, rankings, take almost, no account of teaching. It's. An absolute, disgrace what happened, with the world rankings, I don't know why though. Why why. Universities. Are now with our ranking agencies, to get away with this because, good teaching, institutions, suffer, very badly as, a result, of these rankings, and what it does it forces, faculty. Further, and further away to spending, time on teaching rather than research, but. I think that will change when because, of students, and students will start saying look. I can get the content anywhere what I need is this University's, really good helping, students succeed and graduate and. I think that will, become. A competitive, advantage but, he's not at the moment, and. Obviously instructors. Need more pedagogical. Knowledge and technology, skills you're, trained for research not for teaching, PhD. Is a good training in research not. A good training in teaching. That. Requires, both pre-service, and, in-service training. And also. A tenure and promotion, system that rewards good, teaching, at the same level, as good, research, so. Is no good having 10 tenured. Teaching. Professorships. And. To. 2,000. Research. Tenured. Professorship. So you've got to have 5050 if it's going to have any impact and. You need a lot of learning technology, support, and working. In teams. So. In conclusion the, digital economy requires, high-level intellectual. Skills. Teaching. Methods should include opportunities. For, skills development. Technology. Enables more flexible, delivery and more ways to practice skills but. It needs to be within a specifically, designed learning environment, that supports, the learners. So. Question. Time, any. Questions, but I put three up for you which you can read I, appreciate. Your point about, recognizes. The importance of teaching protect, your emotion. For whatever, how. Do we assess, good teaching how, do we know whether your teaching is taking place well, that's the danger of online learning, because. You've actually got a record and the teaching as well. So. You can see what the teacher has done, and.
You Can see how they interacted, with students for instance in the online discussion, forums it's. Much more transparent. Online, learning than face-to-face classes, it's there someone. You can go in and look at if they want to now. I don't think that's the right way to do it I. Can. Look at what's taking place. Not. Like, a. Performance. By a tribal DHS, trying on them but, I think. It, has to be based on student performance but, that's difficult because you have to know what. Students could do before they came in as well as what they can do when they go out so, you have to take that into account so, yes. Okay and we also need to know what they do. And. I think I, really. Hate the standard, student, evaluation, forms that don't they absolutely. Meaningless. In, terms of what students have actually learned and. Often the most uncomfortable classes are the ones I dislike the most one where they learn the most, so. Exactly. So do you have any good recommendations. For how we can improve well, I. Do think many people specify, the outcomes, and particularly, what skill students are learn and, you can evaluate, their, level of school performance, then. I think. And, it certainly if if you have a program you can see what these skill level is when they come in and you can see here an e value of these professor as they go through the program so. So. I think there are ways to do but it's difficult they've. Tried it they, try to get you break they tried they, had a very good way of evaluating research, they, try to apply the. Same process. To evaluate your teaching and it collapse within three or four years because there, are so many factors. Other than the instructor, that affect learning outcomes, and, so try you, know if, you're looking at a multi variable analysis. I hate, to say it but professors, have about a six or seven the same influence, of what students learn I, mean. The students their parents that morning probably, even in terms of what they compare their kids to do when they get in university, that, you were having one, semester with a group of students, so. I think it is a very difficult question, but. I think as I said online learning is more transparent, and you can tell whether for, instance. Professors. Are interacting. With students and what the level of interaction is, now. Again. This. Is where you, learn, a lot about learning analytics. Data-driven. Analysis. And. But unfortunately. The level, of learning. Analytics at the moment is counting, the number of clicks that. A student, has on the learning money, which. Is you know again useless. You've got to have much more sophisticated measures. I'm not saying learning out it's couldn't be better but. Until, we find ways of measuring. Qualitative. Interactions. Then, it's. Going to be very difficult but there are ways of doing it no I think it's too much of an excuse to say can't be done we. Need to put more effort into it but. It's, nevertheless I recognize, that if you do. Cigarette. Is part of an online course versus, asynchronous part. Because. We. Get we, can be lazy and just. PDF levels, in our point. Form. And having students read and consume that information whatever they want right we, want to, incorporate. The, actual live, classroom. Experience our colossi version of the live classroom experience to do an online platform, what. Places are doing that really well because I find that's, a very difficult process. To replicate, online okay, there are two or three things here the first one is. Why, do you try to get from the synchronous experience, that, they wouldn't get from a nice, okay. So, you have if, I can answer that question the, asynchronous, one is really like you said in your slide earlier just. The absorption, of certain technical, content, right, then they, can do at their own pace at their own time given a certain window, the, synchronous, part is really the interaction with, the, professor, for QA and, with themselves, from a collaborative perspective, well they can do that online - yes. They can but, I find that the quality, of, collaboration. When they're chatting, in a chat window is. Aware, here but, then actually set up the discussion forum and in. A more, structured. Manner than that so, you use a discussion forum you said put topics for discussion. Require, every student to participate, etc. And, you. Go in at, a regular period to supervise, what they're doing right okay feedback so again. It's a question of how well you do it if, you can do good, acing you can do a good synchronous, one and a bad asynchronous, mode but now you also do the opposite we get that right, so the question comes then what is the added value of students. Being together in. Real time with, a professor. What, is that added value that you can be shipping on to that. Okay. Say, something happens in the news today, that, morning, how.
Does That Matt lon - a, case, discussion, that, we had that week given. The. Framework, or the concept, of the beer who are trying to teach those very. Complicated. Don't misunderstand me I'm not saying you shouldn't do that yeah right but you want to do it synchronously, yes. Portion. Of that on you see I wouldn't, try to do that what what I would do is if if you want students, who are. Dispersed, to, communicate, I would be online. That, I would do that for a discussion forum yes but, if you wanted, them to interact. Thank, you in a live situation. Covers. Okay. Yeah. Well. I'm. Not very fond of recording, well. What, happens is a lot of the students won't but as, you archive, them and I'll archive, them and then you don't ever interact, you never show up I'm strats right so that I. Would prefer to not okay, well don't do it. Or. Don't do it don't, do it if you can't see any added value in doing it don't do it I. Mean. Everything, you do you, have to say what. Is it what is it that's better doing it this way than doing it that way and, there's a different answer for every context, and situation. Depending, on your experience as, well I mean if you're a very. I mean when some professors, don't like discussion, but, when they go online they. Can have this discussion because it's asynchronous they. Can see what the students are doing and they can intervene, at the right moment, whereas. In class they don't like that they, don't think that they're nervous about me and other professors, get, a real buzz from doing night with the students, in front of them and don't, want to do it online and, that's fine it's what motivates the students amad is not. Not, some kind of theory about we, are online worse. Or better than face-to-face. Why. Don't that make the safety of it. Yes please. So. Thanks. Of opportunity, a couple, of. So stepping, back a bit. This, morning. You tell me what change. We're talking about strategic ways, in which some. Universities. Are now recognizing. That this is the way to go and the data supports, that but. If, we're still at the strategy. Level and we're talking about change. This. Party I was reminded, by of course Peter Drucker's, thought. About, culture. Eating strategy, for breakfast, and maybe also for lunch and. So I guess my comment in. Question. Is it is about culture, so. Great, question raised, about assessment. For example and. Just because we are only able to assess, teaching, as well as we say assess research doesn't. Mean that it can't be done, because other places are doing it and they're doing it quite well they're using peer assessment, 14. Great models that are working, but. When they are not working in a particular institution, that. It seems like more of a cultural question of. Certain. Traditions, and behaviors, that. Or, perhaps, you. Know such, a density, of, means, for. A university, like McMaster, you, have to give up something in order to make those changes that. Sort of suggesting, what. Should be what you. Invest. I. Would. Say two things I think you're absolutely right it's the. Cultural change must, come first there, must be a will and desire to. Challenge if there isn't it's not going to happen and, that has to come in in the end this, is why I'm here try. To get you and. I'm sure if you were if you're already yet you already had that world to change so he said once we're not here. But. Basically yes. You've, got that because you can't imposed from the top down you've got to come you. Know universe. It's got to come from the faculty so, they have to believe that it's important, to do now. There's. Two things there's. Blaming exported to do when this being rewarded, to, do it and, they're not necessary, always. In sync so, again. How do you reward now, one way is to have a fund for by professors, own to redesigning, courses so. You, keep that clear they're teaching for one semester but, they can design. Blended. Or online for, the online course working. With instructional, designers, in that time I. Find. Up on ABC's yeah I look at UBC that's how how, the whole system work for getting online going.
A Lot, of faculty got their time you know that. Gets if, you look at Rogers curve, of innovation, that gets the early adopters. And. If you're lucky you get professors. About a lot of influence, in the department, doing it and then, you get the followers, who come on you can't go on doing that forever giving, money but. Eventually becomes, a way of doing, things so it becomes accepted but you have to get over that gap from. The early adopters, into the main body of the faculty. And a little bit of money helps. Content, being acquired by students. And. They think they. Can do that. Access. That content. And our job is more, about, interpreting. And discussing, and raising. The bar for for. The learning to occur well I think it's also about setting standards to, about. What counts as academically. Reliable. Information, and, what kind says. Reasonable. Argument, and so on, so. It's about setting standards as, well. As monitoring, say, no that's not good enough. This, is what you have to do to get up to the next level. Yes. Please. Your experience, at UBC other institutions or. Preferably. There's the empirical evidence of this when. It changes a purgative institution, the. Come from. Ten. Years back. Because my container truck PhD. Students and how does one protect, the, faculty, whose incentives when we misaligned, with engaging. In these activities. Okay, um. This. Is very, qualitative. Impersonal, okay, so I know. I'd, like to see a lot more research being done about changing, universities, than their act that has been but I. Found. Often that, it was. The. More senior, professor. Who already made, their career. Who. Were a little bored with their teaching, who. Were often the most innovative in. Going online, because. They had a deep understanding of, this subject they, realized, we, couldn't told you different ways and. I'll. Give you one example, you got a professor, of forest ecology, and. He told. A first-year class 200. So. He had ten groups of 20 that he took out you to the forest, nearby for. It took an hour and a half to get them all organized, get them out do the walk, through the forest explain. Way what, plants were growing where they were and come back and he deep down ten vines, and. He. Said you know this is a killer you know. So. We. Did a virtual walk between, the forestry, so. Students. Could sustain. With, their mouse. Different. Parts of the forest it was those who saw 360-degree. And, when they clicked on the point oppression. Would come up why, is this line here, and. Then little. Then. See, this little. Notes where they could go and find the answers and so on so and. Now that was the professor, who's very secure, in, his tenure, and knew what. He was doing but, he had. Killed. The work was. Actually done by two. PhD. Students, who then eventually, became professors, everything. Went on to teach using, technology, in very good ways because, they. Worked, with a professor. That had a lot of respectful, and. That. Carried over so, it's. Change management's, passive change, now. It. Doesn't always work like that but but, you know it happened quite often to me and I see because. That. Professor. Had nothing to lose by, doing something different, in fact he had something to go, now, if you take somebody trying to get tenure and they've gotta get their research papers, published, and, you say well you've got to find another 12. Hours a week to do this it's, not going to happen no. Matter how keen and enthusiastic. Yeah. Just. Interested in.
Rubrics. Of grading, of online discussions, like. I've, been wanting to. My participation to, the having. Class, in. A classroom setting, with, online partners, finding something biggest there but, I struggled, with how to like great. Discussions, any advice like that yeah. Grading, discussions, is interesting. I. Wish. To tell of students, that the purpose, of this discussion, is, to enable you to do, better assignments. Right. Now. I, would, ask the potato I, have, tried various things I have great students, say, very small great but it can make a difference between a, B+. And. B. You know about, participation, they don't participate they. Lose the grade or lose a couple of grades you know, but. You know to be honest I have a learning outcomes, and I don't really care how the student, gets to those learning outcomes so. If some students would prefer to sit and read a lot rather than going to your 9 discussions, and, can perform well at the 9 outcome, therefore that's fine, other. Students, need that discussion, because they haven't really got a grasp of topic, they they need help, to. Try their ideas, out and that works for them and that's fine, so I'm a little reluctant to gray different bits of an, online course separately. From the, overall learning because. Peoples have different ways of getting to those ideas, I don't, that helps those. Yeah it kind of died this -. Students often don't do, things. There's. No grades assigned to them and so that you created an environment, in which they learn and I guess says do, you give the assignments, at. The beginning of the course. Yeah. The exam, questions, do you give them an arrow pennies and exams, it's okay because. What, I would do is I, would either give them a previous, year's assignment. And say. Okay this discussion, forum is related, to you answering, this assignment, okay. Now, it may not be the same exam assignment. In the exam but it'll be about the same kind of topic and so on so. That's, the motivation to, do the work there, has to be motivation. But. It doesn't have to be a greatness there's, other ways to motivate students. To participate. The, other one that I like you receive done they. Have the online class, discussion, and then, they have an open wiki and. This. Is of course in Latin American, Studies and. Rep. Salt our. Continued gesture nationalize reps already Spanish. All our company and. They've been discussing the. Pros. And cons government. Monopolies. And so on and. So. The student said look, we're. Talking amongst ourselves in, British, Columbia about, this I wonder what the up urgent Indians are thinking so. They did a wiki and they put all their comments up on the wiki and within two weeks their. Professors, from Latin, America. Attacking. Them be, hidden about. Why it was a bad thing, why. It was a good thing to. Nationalize. The old company, what have the old come in screwed. Argentina. Lessing's and they've got a really good discussion, going now, that was in an open wiki, which anybody, could share but they, could say things within close, range but, they couldn't say that they wouldn't want to have to say it outside. So. They've got quite the best of both of us then. The students study each. Student. Now this is something that we strongly, recommend, U
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