The tectonic shifts of the last few years, including a multi-year pandemic and a technology tsunami, have resulted in wholesale adoption of digital learning tools and a new focus on what it means to be a teacher and a learner. Colleges and universities will now be judged by how well they serve students’ needs in designing teaching and learning that works for all students, not just some.
Four key factors of student success are a direct result of the digital transformation we’ve been experiencing in higher education, according to a recent report.
Digital Faculty for a Digital Future
Students have the right to expect a certain level of digital sophistication from their schools. Students lead digital lives. The pandemic catapulted even the most reluctant faculty member into the digital landscape of teaching and learning. However, faculty still need professional training to develop additional innovative instructional strategies and technologies. Institutions must ensure that faculty have the digital fluency to provide creative, equitable, and innovative engagement for students.
Learning from COVID-19 to Build a Better Future
Unfortunately, we are moving into our third academic year of COVID. One thing we’ve learned is that students, faculty, and administrators can work effectively in a variety of settings with the right support. Institutions have produced technology systems that are student-centric and equity minded. Digital systems are now just as important, if not more important, than brick and mortar campuses. Faculty have been successful with Zoom and other video conferencing platforms, but they need help with learning space design, instructional design, and courseware.
From Digital Scarcity to Digital Abundance
The quick fixes of remote learning for students without appropriate technology access and support must be replaced by permanent solutions for distance, hybrid, and classroom education. Students from rural and other historically underserved communities need equitable access to devices, software, and the skill development necessary for them to be successful in school as well as thrive in the workplace. Administrators must re-imagine what equity means for the university community. Leaders may need to make decisions where return-on-investment is not the measure of success. For example, leaders may need to plan for a wider set of circumstances than was true earlier in the pandemic, such as periodic shutdowns of the physical campus due to outside forces.
Radical Creativity
Employers complain that college graduates are not being prepared for the reality of today’s workplace. Future jobs will be even more demanding, so not only do institutions need to teach students higher level skills now, they need to prepare them for jobs that don’t yet exist. This shift in the university’s primary purpose of preparing good citizens will require immense and radical creativity to provide learning experiences and spaces that help students learn how to collaborate across disciplines, approach work with a creative mindset, and problem solve real-world challenges.
Higher education is changing. Digital, flexible, and real-world are watch words for adding value for the mixed groups of adult students that make up today’s enrollment. Putting students at the center of the learning experience means huge shifts for some institutions. But it’s clear that in the future of higher education, institutional success is a direct reflection of student success.