Higher Education in the Context of the New Learning Paradigm
Felix Librero
*Paper presented in the Fourth Regional Executive Conference, Commission on Higher Education, Region IV (Theme: Seminar on re-engineering higher education institutions of Region IV for the 21st century), Nawawalang Paraiso Resort, Tayabas, Quezon, 23 July 1999.
NOTE: This version does not include illustrations and diagrams.
Being steeped in the traditional residential face-to-face instruction, perhaps most of us are probably unwilling to "prematurely" adjust to alternative schemes of delivering education other than the residential mode. Still, recent developments in communication and information have provided exciting options in the delivery of education. Some of these options, however, probably run counter to traditional educational delivery systems that we are used to in the past. This makes it a little difficult form many to make the necessary mental, attitudinal, and behavioral adjustments.
To be sure, there is nothing wrong with the traditional way of instructional delivery. In fact, face-to-face instruction is not faulty. The issue seems to be that residential instruction cannot continually expand to accommodate an ever-increasing number of students. There is a limit to the capacity of educational institutions to expand physically and financially to accommodate increasing numbers of students. At some point, institutions of higher learning will have to at least slow down in their physical growth because they will be unable to sustain continued physical growth and expansion in the face of decreasing amount of resources allocated to them. In general, though, there are significant factors that are influencing current efforts at improving higher education.
Influences Affecting Higher Education
In a paper entitled Teaching and Learning Within a Changing Higher Education Environment presented in the First National Conference on Open and Distance Learning held in the Philippines in September 1998, Professor Reid Lockwood of the U.K. Open University highlighted four influential factors affecting higher education worldwide (Lockwood, 1998). These factors are the following:
- Significant increase in student population without matching increase in funding. Many educational institutions in Asia continue to admit more and more students in the hope that this would justify increased funding allocations. Unfortunately, the increase in enrollment is not always accompanied by increased funding.
- Increased concern for alternative, cost-effective methods of course production and teaching. This requires innovative approaches to the design, production, and delivery of educational materials. It is important that we are able to develop effective instructional materials at the least cost possible and to maintain cost efficiency at all times.
- Potential and availability of "old" and "new" technologies. Where old technologies still work they ought to be used. Simply because a technology is old does not necessarily mean it should be changed. Still, a new technology ought to be used if it is available and affordable because frequently it can be more efficient and effective.
- Local, national and international competition in teaching and training.
More and more educational institutions are expanding their reach beyond geographical
boundaries through distance education programs. Necessarily, the competition
for more students among technical institutions is increasing.
Professor Lockwood predicts that future developments in learning and teaching are likely going to be influenced by key concepts associated with student learning, our understanding of the learning context, a systematic approach to course design, and our model of the teaching-learning system. He also emphasized that " developments in information technology suggest several innovations can be used, to make significant contributions" to the delivery of instruction (Lockwood, 1998). For example, it is now possible to connect students separated by international borders through computer-mediated communication.
Distance Education as Alternative System of Education Delivery
Current Developments in higher education worldwide seem to focus on alternative modes of educational delivery. In the process, there is a concreted effort at clarifying basic concepts and methods, which include the new learning paradigm, open learning, and distance education. Actually, these are by no means new concepts. They have been with us in the last half century. But viewed from the vantage point of educational history, these concepts are relatively recent ones. In any case, it would be necessary to define these terminologies so that we may interact in the same wavelength.
What is the new learning paradigm? In the forum on communications and society conducted by the Aspen Institute in 1996, participants agreed on the following basic observation.
New communication and information technologies are driving dramatic changes in learning. As a result, the paradigm of learning is shifting away from the traditional notion that "knowledge" is transferred from teacher to student within the confines of the classroom, and the mastery of a body of knowledge over the course of sixteen or more years is a goal. Instead a new understanding of learning places the learner at the center of the learning process, with the teacher serving as an important supporting role in facilitating the process. In the new paradigm, successful learning is certified by an individual's ability to apply the appropriate tools and information to the solution of problems encountered throughout a lifetime.
In this new concept of learning, we need to unlearn old habits and notions of how we structure learning. We need to develop new instructional processes that motivate learners to take greater control of their education. The Aspen Institute (1996) emphasizes that individual learners must take responsibility and autonomy for their own learning but may not be prepared to do so. Similarly, teachers have to give up certain measure of control over the learning process and accept the new role of being a "coach" operating in the sidelines.
In a report of the International Council on Distance Education Standing Committee of Presidents titled The Educational Paradigm Shift, they observed that the new learning paradigm is " learner centered and outcome based, requiring new roles for faculty, students, administrators, college campuses, and many non-formal learning sites - and new roles for distance education" (ICDE, 1996) The ICDE emphasized that the new learning paradigm involves many systems of educational delivery that requires constant learning exchanges among learners. The term coactive learning has been coined to refer to this multi-sided, multi-dimensional, constant, participatory, and interactive learning process.
The ICDE also sited Guskin (1994) as having said that "focusing on student learning turns our thinking about the future of our colleges and universities upside down: from faculty productivity to student productivity, from faculty disciplinary interests to students need to learn, from faculty teaching styles to student learning styles, from classroom teaching to student learning" (7). When all these shall have sunk in, we shall realize that the locus of control of the learning activity shall no longer be I the traditional formal institutions but in other learning environments such as the home and the workplace.
We may have a clearer understanding of this new paradigm if we can compare the characteristics of the "old" paradigm to the "new" one. This was a focus of extensive discussion among experts in 1994 at the roundtable discussions at the Maricopa County Community College District as reported by Barr and Tagg (1995). This comparison may be more clearly seen in the following matrix:*(based on ICDE, 1996) is a "philosophy of learning that is learner-centered and flexible enabling learners to learn at a time, place and pace which satisfies their circumstances and requirements" (CHED Proposed Policy on Distance Education, 1999).
An important element in open learning is an emphasis of making education more accessible by democratizing admissions to academic programs, and providing opportunities for students to have under their own control their education. Open learning, therefore, is as applicable to residential instruction as it is to distance education.
What is distance education? Distance education has six basic characteristics, according to Keegan (1983). These are:
- separation of learner and teacher, which distinguishes it from face-to-face teaching;
- influence of an education organization, which distinguishes it from private (self) study;
- use of technical media, e.g., print, audio, video, computers to unite teacher and learner and carry the content of the course;
- provision of two-way communication so that the student may benefit from, or even initiate, dialogue;
- possibility of occasional meetings; and
- recourse to an "industrialized" form of education.
Industrialized education refers to the use of the team approach in instructional design, the assembly line techniques in the production, inventory and distribution of courseware, the search for economies of scale in the cost structure of the distance education programs.
In general, distance education leads to the liberation of the learner (Sharma, 1989) because it:
- encourages the teachers to see what really matters is the facilitation of learning rather than dogmatic instruction;
- informs the learners that learning depends on themselves, their motivation, and their commitment to learn;
- requires self-discipline; and
- informs the learners that most knowledge, perception, and insights come only from their actions.
It should be pointed out that one's best teacher really is himself/herself, that personal efforts are important in the learning process.
Trends in Higher Education
Given the influences of information technology in the design of educational programs and materials in higher education, it is suggested that higher education institutions should probably focus not only on one alternative instructional delivery but on a combination of approaches to the delivery of educational materials and processes.
From my vantage point at the moment, I can see clearly certain directions that endeavors in higher education shall take within the Asian setting in the next five years. These are the probable directions and trends.
- Increasing interest in non-formal courses. There is a large population
of professionals who do not really aspire to earn additional academic degrees,
but who are interested to learn new skills in order that they can become more
productive in their new work conditions. This points to the need to begin
offering non-formal courses, possibly in the distance mode.
An interesting variation of this is to offer credit courses that may not necessarily be part of an academic program, but which can be credited towards an a degree program in the future. In other words, these courses may be stand alone formal credit courses that deal with specific skills development that are needed by the individuals already in the workplace. Or they can be courses that can become part of a plan of study towards a specific degree program in the future.
- Consortium arrangements. That the preparation of quality course materials is expensive is a given. This alone should encourage joint efforts among institutions in the development and offering of courses and programs. Such an arrangement would lead to sharing of resources and poling expertise.
- Cross-crediting mechanisms. Resulting from the consortium arrangements, there will be a system of cross-crediting where courses a student may have taken from one institution may be credited towards his/her degree program in another institution.
- Computer-based instructional delivery system. Vastly among open universities,
telecommunications-based delivery of educational materials has been in place
in the last decade. On the other hand, computer-based instructional delivery,
such as computer-based video conferencing, has practically just began.
In the last couple of years, there has been a significant increase in the number of courses offered through the Internet. My gut feel is that in the Philippines in the next five years the volume of course materials from various institutions of higher learning shall become more available through the internet, and is likely to increase by as much as 300 percent. This shall be hastened by consortium arrangements.
- Mixed mode schemes. Within the next five years, students shall be
able to take their courses through both residential and distance modes while
pursuing their degree programs. Current experience shows that one of the reasons
students o not graduate on time is that they cannot be accommodated in residential
courses due to lack of facilities and teachers. It is not going to be surprising
if our students shall be enrolled both in residential and distance education
courses at the same time.
It is entirely possible as well that students in the future may satisfy the requirements of their respective curricular programs by putting together the courses they shall have taken from various institutions through mixed distance and residential odes. In fact, this is one of the targets of the U.P. Open University, to offer its courses in general education to students from other universities.
- Demand for faculty as instructional module writers. More and more
we will need professors who are skilled and creative in designing interactive
learning modules for independent self-study. This means that we must have
a working knowledge of information technology and the new learning paradigm.
We must become creative designers of learning packages, whether high-tech
or otherwise.
These trends in the delivery of instruction are already in various stages of application in various fields, including environment. Increasingly, there will be efforts towards all these directions in the next five years among increasing number of institutions.
REFERENCES:
Barr, Robert B. and John Tagg. 1995. From teaching to learning: a new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, 27(6):12-25.
International Council on Distance education. 1996. The Educational Paradigm Shift, Implications for IDCE and the Distance Education Community. Report of the Task Force of the ICDE Standing Committee of Presidents, Lillehammer, Norway, June 10, 1996.
Garmer, Amy K. and Charles M. Firestone. 1996. Creating a Learning Society: Initiatives for Education and Technology. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.
Guskin, Alan E. 1994. Reducing Student Costs and Enhancing Student Learning Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Occasional Paper No. 27.
Keegan, Desmond. 1983. On defining distance education. In David Sewart, Desmond Keegan, and Borje Holmberg (Eds.), Distance Education: International Perspectives, Crown Helm, London. pp.6-33.
Librero, Felix. 1998. Towards Quality Higher Education in Agriculture: the Information Technology Imperative. Paper presented in the 12th Asian Association of Agricultural Colleges and Universities Biennial Convention, SEARCA, College, Laguna, Philippines, 8-11 December.
___________. 1998. Distance Education and the Emerging Learning Environment. Paper presented in the Philippines Librarians Association Conference, center foe continuing Executive Education, Asian Institute of Management, Makati City, 15 May.
Lockwood, Fred. 1998. Teaching and Learning Within a Changing Higher Education Environment. Paper presented in the First National Conference on Open and Distance Learning, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines, 9-11 September.
Sharma, Motilal. 1989. Liberation of the learner: a self-reliance strategy for education. Distance Education in South Asia. Manila; Asian Development Bank. pp. 15-28.
