Reimagining Digital Learning for Sustainable Development

How Upskilling, Data Analytics, and Educational Technologies Close the Skills Gap

Sheila Jagannathan, Sheila Jagannathan

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000391220
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Didattica
• Categoria: Didattica inclusiva

Reimagining Digital Learning for Sustainable Development is a comprehensive playbook for education leaders, policy makers, and other key stakeholders leading the modernization of learning and development in their institutions as they build a high value knowledge economy and prepare learners for jobs that don't yet exist.

Currently, nearly every aspect of human activity, including the ways we absorb and apply learning, is influenced by disruptive digital technologies. The jobs available today are no longer predicators of future employment, and current and future workforce members will need to augment their competencies through a lifetime of continuous upskilling and reskilling to meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This book features curated insights and real-world cases from thought leaders throughout the world and identifies major shifts in content formats, pedagogic approaches, technology frameworks, user and design experiences, and learner roles and expectations that will reshape our institutions, including those in emerging economies.

The agile, lean, and cost-effective strategies proposed here will function in scalable and flexible bandwidth environments, enabling education leaders and practitioners to transform brick-and-mortar learning organizations into digital and blended ecosystems and to achieve the United Nation's ambitious Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Chapter 18 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

FOREWORD 1

Digital Classrooms are Reinventing the Way We Teach and Learn

I am delighted to introduce this book, edited by Sheila Jagannathan, that guides education practitioners to lead a transformation to modernize learning and development in their institutions, during this time of rapid and unprecedented change. In addition, the book provides the “how to” aspects of not only sustaining but growing the new normal of digital learning. Equally important, it speaks in a language that is familiar to policy makers and educationists throughout the world, notably by reassuring them that the transition to digital and blended learning is achievable, despite the many challenges they currently face in terms of lack of resources, poor connectivity and institutional capacity. Rather, the digital tsunamiengulfing the world is an exciting opportunity for education and training practices to follow the lead of other sectors (transport, entertainment, energy, healthcare, to name a few), where the overall outcomes created truly transformative and positive change for all key stakeholder groups.

Sheila and many of the other eminent contributors are known to me, and I amconfident their curated perspectives on digital learning will be of immense value for anyone looking to create powerful and meaningful change in education.

There is a very large constituency interested to learn about how capacity building, knowledge, learning and skills development in emerging countries can be supported to solve complex development challenges that range from poverty eradication to addressing climate change concerns. The solutions invariably have a major role for online education. I would venture to say that online learning isthe new normal today, with the lines between the future of work and the future of education blurring because of the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution. The ubiquity of digitization is disrupting safe careers while paving the way for new job opportunities created by the expanding availability of online learning ecosystems. Moreover, the ability to turn around objective assessments of digital course design through big data analytics, supported by artificial intelligence, results in constant improvements in the quality of the learning experience.

edX, a nonprofit digital learning organization established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has been privileged to lead this drive, in partnership with more than 150 top educational institutions around the world.

COVID-19 radically mainstreamed digital learning; with the onset of the pandemic, global online learning coverage expanded from 1.3 per cent to 100 percent. We saw this same surge in interest at edX – we saw as many unique registrations in April 2020 (5 million) as we did the full year of 2019. While such rates of expansion will somewhat contract once the pandemic is brought under control, the new normal in the post-COVID era will have a substantially higher proportion of blended and online learning programs because the key stakeholders – be they policy makers, educationists or learners the world over – have become aware of the benefits of flexible and adaptive learning programs.

COVID may have also accelerated the trend toward blended learning, making it essential for many, but it has always been part of the edX vision for education.

The edX vision has, most recently, taken the form of our five “Reimagine Education Goals.” Rooted in the same vision that drives edX, we present these goals to educators everywhere as critical to the advancement of society. These goals must guide a global movement to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to high-quality education to transform their lives and the lives of future generations.

The goals are: continue expanding education access to planet scale; create quantum improvements in education quality and engagement; establish lifelong learning for all; transform the delivery of education through an omnichannel approach including both online and in-person; and modularize education byunbundling degrees and creating valuable credentials that fit the skills, knowledge and education needed to thrive. In addition, these goals help us all move toward amore connected world by 2022.

Let me share a few key examples:

• Transforming the delivery of education: the Information Technology University in Pakistan is an excellent example of how a developing country institution is able to extract value by blending virtual courses on more advanced technical subjects with foundational in-person offerings on campus.
• Creating valuable credentials: MicroMasters® program credentials are examples of bite-sized, quality learning that are already recognized by industries. In addition, these credentials are designed to be “stacked” to open up opportunities for more in-depth learning through degree programs if desired.
• Providing the skills, the global community needs to thrive: an introductory course on how to operate mechanical ventilators that was offered by edX in March 2020 attracted over 300,000 persons mainly from healthcare professions who urgently required upskilling themselves to serve COVID-19 patients requiring intubation.

Achieving these goals critical to the advancement of society requires full support from decision makers, ranging from policy makers at the national level toeducationists and instructors. These goals can and must guide a global movement to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to high-quality education to transform their lives and the lives of future generations.

I wish the readers a smooth transition to the new normal of blended and online learning, for which this book edited by Sheila Jagannathan will provide useful insights.

Anant Agarwal
Founder and CEO of edX and MIT Professor,
the trusted platform for learning, founded by Harvard and MIT

FOREWORD 2

Accelerating a 21st-Century Learning Ecosystem That Supports Countries in Leapfrogging From Learning Deficits to Upskilling and Reskilling

To achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, countries will require substantial investment in human capital development, particularly as about 825 million persons are estimated to reach adulthood without having acquired the skills necessary to meet the job requirements of the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution.

More fundamentally, the mass production education system of the past 250 years with a standardized curriculum and the instructor assuming the role as the sole “imparter of knowledge” is no longer suitable for the rapidly evolving digital economy of today and tomorrow. Pedagogical design, so far, has failed to emphasize the idea of learning to learn. There is a need to shift the focus from vertical learning to horizontal learning, especially as many of the current universal concerns (e.g., pandemics, climate change) are multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral in nature. Society is changing, and the direction of learning must transition from aone-size-fits-all model to an adaptive and personalized approach that is acutely and comprehensively cognizant of individual student needs. Such a learning transformation is feasible today because of artificial intelligence (AI) that leverages algorithms and big data analytics to customize learner support on a real-time basis. For emerging countries striving to improve their education systems, there is an opportunity to break the severely outdated mass production mode and mentality of learning – and “leapfrog” to a more appropriate model of adaptive, individualized approaches.

My efforts as Chair of Education Commission Asia (the newly established Asia Hub of the Education Commission) have been to introduce and proliferate these new ideas in a way that is accessible, impactful, and sustainable. One key element is the “High Tech” AI-assisted adaptive learning that tailors instruction to individual levels and needs; the other, equally integral component is the “High Touch” teacher-provided personalized guidance – delivered in the form of mentoring and active learning experiences – that cultivate higher-order cognition and soft skills. This “High Touch High Tech (HTHT)” learning framework has been piloted for middle school students in Vietnam with remarkably positive results in terms of accelerating the speed and impact of learning. Given the promising results, plans to scale up this approach in Vietnam and starting to implement it in other countries are underway. During my time as Minister of Education, Science, and Technology in Korea, I led the development of a highly successful, nationwide upskilling program through Meister Schools. This initiative has evidenced the importance of engaging the business community throughout the entire process of designing the courses, training the students and future workforce, and expanding job opportunities that match the skills demanded with the skills supplied.

Given the current context of unprecedented change, this volume is timely and important. Sheila’s thoughtful curation of the experiences and insights of influential thinkers, policy makers, and practitioners provides much-needed strategic direction and guidance on effectively harnessing the power, potential, and promise of technology in learning going forth. Such a comprehensive and practical “howto” guide will be critical in transforming the mindset and priorities of diverse actors within the educational ecosystem, serving as an invaluable source of inspiration to modernize – and revolutionize – learning for students today as well as for future generations to come.

Ju-Ho Lee
Chairperson and CEO, Education Commission Asia
Professor, KDI School of Public Policy and Management
Former Minister of Education, Science, and Technology, South Korea

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Sheila Jagannathan is a lifelong learner and the Head of the Open Learning Campus at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. She serves as the organization’s focal point on digital learning and issues at the intersection of technology use and education in emerging countries. She is an internationally recognized thought leader, advisor, author and forward-thinking senior leader with over 35 years of experience in leading capability building, human capital development and transformation change across public and private organizations. She has been responsible for designing and implementing world-class solutions in challenging global environments, resulting in performance and productivity improvements. Sheila also provides policy advice and technical assistance to World Bank country-level capacity building programs (both government and training centers of excellence seeking to introduce technologies in their educational systems) in East Asia, China, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa and South Asia. Her specialties include skilling and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 60-year curricula, workforce education, designing corporate universities, talent management, MOOCs, experiential pedagogy, online/hybrid strategies, immersive learning (AR/VR), use of disruptive (AI/MI, IoT, Blockchain, 5G) technologies in education, data analytics, and learning ecosystems (LXPs, LMS). She regularly writes articles for various peer-reviewed publications and journals. Sheis on the advisory board and planning committees of major professional associations of learning such as the Canadian Foreign Service Institute, Global Distance Learning Network, Indian National Skills Development Council, George Mason University, E-learning Africa (Annual International Conference for developing E-learning capacities in Africa), International Conference on E-learning (ICEL), Skills Councils, UNSDG-Learn and UNICEF.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank and acknowledge the contributions of many persons without whose encouragement and steady support this book would not have been possible. Many conversations have influenced the design of the book. Thanks to colleagues, friends in the learning practice as well as the thousands of global learners who joined the Open Learning Campus who have helped me expand my thinking and insights about this ever-changing field.

Vijay, my husband, everlasting gratitude for giving me the confidence, space and nurturing to realize this dream that gave me true joy!

My sons Pavan and Jay, Mary and, grandkids Adrian, Avi and Aria, and sister Shobha, who consistently enquired about how I was doing during the frenetic months when I was visioning, drafting, reviewing and finalizing the contents.

My parents, who would have been very proud of this accomplishment. Curtis Bonk, for your generous guidance, thought leadership and inspiration. Professor Anant Agarwal and Dr. Ju-Ho Lee, for your generous endorsement by agreeing to contribute to the two forewords.

Daniel Schwartz and the Routledge team, for invaluable guidance, insightful comments and encouragement.

Last but not the least, my sincere thanks to the contributing authors – who are leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of digital and blended learning – for their enthusiastic sharing of valuable insights. We started this journey in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic burst upon the global scene, but despite the disruptions and uncertainties, all the contributors worked tirelessly to meet the tight production deadlines.

The views of the editor/author do not necessarily represent the official view ofthe World Bank, United Nations or its officials or Member States.

ACRONYMS

...

4IR	Fourth Industrial Revolution
5G	5th Generation (cellular network technology)
60YC	60-Year Curriculum
AI	Artificial Intelligence
AR	Augmented Reality
BL	Blended Learning
CoP	Community of Practice
DL	Digital Learning
EdTech	Education Technology
F2F	Face-to-Face
ICT	Information and Communication Technology

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword 1
• Foreword 2
• About the Editor
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms
• Preface
• Theme 1 Learning in the 21st-Century
• Theme 2 Innovative Pedagogies to Advance Reach, Relevance and Quality Learning Outcomes
• Theme 3 New Models for Deeper Learning
• Theme 4 Digital and Blended Learning in Action: Good Practices and Cases
• Theme 5 Future of Content Development: Leveraging Open Resources
• Theme 6 The Power of the Platform: Smart Technologies and Tools
• Theme 7 Modernizing Learning Measurement, Evaluation and Credentialing Through Data Analytics for Insights and Decision Making
• Theme 8 Mobilizing Partnerships to Support Pathways to Work
• Conclusion
• About the Contributors
• Index