Although colleges and universities embraced online learning during the pandemic, the World Economic Forum argues that this only provides an illusion of reform for higher education. Offering online courses does not address many other problems facing colleges and universities. In most countries, university studies are not accessible to everyone and they focus on certifying outdated knowledge, so they fail at both quality and access—two driving issues in higher education today.
However, there are some examples of true reform beginning to emerge for 2022:
1. Learning from everywhere
The experiment of online teaching has led to a reexamination of concepts of time and space in education. There were benefits to students learning at their own pace and some students thrived in distance learning. So instead of just thinking of hybrid learning as combining a physical and virtual classroom, we can design immersive and experiential learning that enable students to apply concepts they learn in the classroom out in the real world.
An example of this is the European business school, Esade, which combines physical classes on campus in Barcelona, and remotely over a purpose-built learning platform with experiences working in Berlin and Shanghai, where students create their own social enterprise.
2. Replacing lectures with active learning
Lectures are an efficient way of teaching but an ineffective way to learn. Since digital information is free, why would you pay someone thousands of dollars to tell you what they know? Remote learning was a moment of visibility for this outdated teaching methodology as bad lectures were seen by parents of college students.
Institutions must demonstrate more effective learning outcomes. The science of learning confirms that we don’t learn by listening, but through active learning. It also reduces the education gap with historically underrepresented communities. At Paul Quinn College in Texas, they have applied fully active learning since 2020 in addition to internships at local employers. This has provided traditionally marginalized students the opportunity to apply knowledge from college in the real world.
3. Teaching skills that remain relevant in a changing world
There is a disconnect between universities, students, and business leaders in how they view the job universities are doing in preparing young people for the work force. 96% of Chief Academic Officers at universities think they are doing a good job; only 41% of students and 11% of business leaders share that view. Institutions continue to focus on teaching specific skills with technologies that support them that will eventually become obsolete. Consequently, universities are always trying to catch up to current skills.
San Francisco-based Minerva University, which shares a founder with the Minerva Project, has designated competencies, such as critical and creative thinking, into foundational concepts and habits of mind. These are taught across all disciplines throughout the four undergraduate years.
4. Using formative assessment instead of high-stake exams
Many students enter higher education based on standardized tests that are inherently biased, rather than on any real measure of competency. Some US universities are starting to eliminate these tests, beginning with Harvard. Formative assessment, using both formal and informal evaluations, encourages students to improve their achievement beyond just having it evaluated.
The International School in Geneva uses a Learner Passport that allows students to get credit for demonstrating competence inside as well as outside the curriculum, including measures of creativity, responsibility, and citizenship. In the US, a consortium of schools has launched a similar program that has redesigned the high school transcript to a more holistic view of students’ competencies.
To be successful, higher education reform should look at what is being taught (curriculum), how (pedagogy), when and where (technology and the real world) and whom we are teaching (access and inclusion). The World Economic Forum believes that once institutions are ready to address these issues, they will succeed in transforming higher education.