When the pandemic moved education to virtual spaces, some of the concerns that emerged were “should virtual lessons cost as much as in-person?”, “is the quality of the degree awarded based on it as good as in-person?” and “can everyone study-from-home?”.
These are not new problems – cost, validity, and accessibility are ever-green issues in education. Could giving students more agency over their education be part of the solution?
At the pre-conference Workshop of the 2021 Conference of the Association for Business Simulation & Experiential Learning’s (ABSEL) on 24th March, I will be hosting a critical guided discussion on the role of self-directed education in higher education. The discussion will be a “flipped webinar” (more details here), with the pre-workshop conversation hosted here (you can reply on this thread).
Here are my opening remarks:
You might find this time-line useful for skimming:
0:00 Welcome / About Flipped Webinar
1:16 Introduction
3:32 Content will go online in modular form
4:45 Content will be accessible by anyone, anywhere
5:39 A few content providers will dominate the market
6:14 “Lecturers” will cease to exist
7:09 Provision of learning and credentialing will be unbundled
9:15 Faculty will include more professionals
9:42 Credentialing will be based on portfolios
12:27 Working while studying will be the norm
13:40 The value proposition of physical access will change
14:22 It will be harder to cheat the system
15:24 First degrees will be multidisciplinary
16:10 Life long learning
16:42 Conclusion
This content was previously published on Tipping Points (the online magazine of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education), so if you prefer reading to video, you can check it out here.