FASCINATING HIGHER EDUCATIONAL MODELS FOR THE COVID-19 GENERATION AND BEYOND

Having joined the policy making arm of a tertiary institution just prior to the advent of the coronavirus pandemic has increased my awareness of  the magnitude of efforts of Vice Chancellors, Faculty, Staff  and Students to pivot to online provision to ensure continuity of teaching, learning, exams, administration and management.  I have been attracted by the extensive range of information that provides fascinating higher educational models for the COVID-19  generation.  My interest was piqued by  how some of these models  may yet be embedded as templates for the future of higher education. The 5 models presented are drawn from a limited number of references and therefore may not represent the very best examples of possibilities.  But, at least,  they ought to trigger further discussion.  
 
The Context 
 
Inside Higher Education  (February 10)  has advertised a webinar on 'Overcoming Faculty Pandemic Burnout' for February 26, 2020. It will no doubt amplify that:

• College and university faculty members and administrators are exhausted and stressed after months of responding to the harsh personal and professional requirements of coping with COVID-19. 
• Institutions have had to respond to immediate and pressing needs regarding safety, health and online technology, as well as navigate concerns articulated by different stakeholders -- including students, parents, faculty, staff, alumni and trustees. 
• The pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality, as women including female faculty and staff have reduced their work hours more than men due to combining schooling and  care giving demands. 
• Higher education staff, in particular, women faculty members, especially those with children have been less likely to submit grant proposals and journal articles and register new projects.  

 
A  case study by the World Bank on  how tertiary educational systems  in Europe and Asia are responding to the COVID 19  pandemic is very instructive.  It provides key recommendations  of how higher educational institutions successfully pivoted to COVID 19 requirements. It noted that the  transition was comparatively easy for those countries like Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany that had invested in pre-crisis digitalization in a strategic way. Those countries that had not developed such strategic approaches toward digitalization and had in addition, been decreasing investment in higher education faced significant difficulties. These difficulties apply to specific issues like student financing, quality assurance, and the status of academic staff.
 
Other reports and studies like those of the Carnegie Foundation for Advanced Education,   identified  more broad based holistic concerns for the entire education system. They imply that  R&D techniques provided by higher educational institutions may  provide useful ways  to address public/private sector policies for the COVID19 generation and beyond with specific  relevance to community, national, regional and international arenas.  These include:

• Building Resilience in the face of the pandemic 
• Changing the culture of learning to foster equity 
• Dealing with the mounting concerns of students' mental health that require  redesigning the ecosystem for remote learning

 
Some outstanding Models 
 
Of the many models that I have come across, five were selected,  of which four seem to engender approaches in what is commonly referred to as "thinking outside the box".  The fifth one,  however is completely "without the box ".
 
Model 1: An Iterative Approach: Embracing  Six Principles of Scientific Improvement 
 
Last week's Blog introduced this approach. It identified the strategies  required to evaluate, course correct, document, and scale new approaches that can help power up schools over time. These involve real-time teams of practice-oriented researchers working to scale up and sustain transformative change in education systems.  However,  this approach draws on  six principles in The Harvard Study (2015)  Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better.  Subsequently, the Harvard Education Review’s comprehensive summary of the study, draws  the significant lesson learned i.e.  we cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure. The six related principles include :

• Identifying user specific problems 
• Establishing  what works for whom under what circumstances 
• Making recommendations of what local conditions shape the work process 
• Measuring key outcomes to track improvement as well as unintended consequences 
• Embedding  measures of key outcomes and processes to track changes and determine if  they are improvements 
• Accelerating improvements through networking since more can be accomplished together than even the best of us can accomplish alone

 
Model 2: Make Equity and Inclusion a priority during the crisis and beyond 
 
The current coronavirus pandemic is having a profound impact not only on people's health but on how they learn, work and live. While we have dealt with this issue previously, a recent OECD study (November 2020)  using data from  36 countries in Europe , North America, Latin America, The Caribbean and Africa developed a combined profile of strategies for education continuity  to  support  at-risk students who are particularly affected by the crisis.  Successful outcomes of the strategies below  depend on partnerships, parental  and family engagement, information on health and education and  additional finances:

• Supporting education of disadvantaged students including students with special needs 
•  Ensuring  food distribution, well-being, and provision of social services and social    development
• Addressing emotional needs including the reportedly high incidence of mental health  
• Supporting  students with limited command of the main language(s) of instruction 
• Easing requirements for course completion and extending student funding arrangements (stipends, grants, loans)

 
http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-student-equity-and-inclusion-supporting-vulnerable-students-during-school-closures-and-school-re-openings-d593b5c8/
 
Model 3: Expand on multilateral approaches revolving around Global Stars
 
A study by Ellie Bothwell in the  Times Higher Education Supplement shows the importance of International Cooperation  in research focusing on  artificial intelligence and how  leading institutions are focusing on becoming more comprehensive than specialists.  It highlights historical ways of working in computer science in Europe  over the past 30 years across different cultures and languages. Also, by bringing together expertise across different areas of artificial intelligence (AI),  university alliances  demonstrate that notions of academic excellence are increasingly linked to interdisciplinary orientations for solving global challenges. Most prominent in interdisciplinary research projects with high societal impact  are the engineering and STEM fields.  In addition the technology-focused institutions, not only attract research funding more quickly than many other fields but they also tend to relate as part of the immediate needs or  "low hanging fruit" to government development policies and the area where industry is mostly looking for cooperation.  Hence this provides the rationale for higher educational institutions to  tap sources of public/private financing for  equity and inclusion priorities  during the crisis and beyond.
 
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/top-echelon-world-universities-finds-room-new-arrivals
 
Model 4: Peer Observation is valuable even online 
 
Anna McKie  provides  interesting results from a study on a development model of peer observation of teaching (December 2019). https://www.timeshighereducation.com/career/teaching-intelligence-peer-observation-valuable-even-online.   She is of the view that while standard ways of discussing and improving teaching practices that have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, there are models of   swift movement   to online learning. The project, based on evaluation of medical staff and students consisted of four phases: a pre-observation meeting, the observation, the post-observation debrief, a report and group feedback process. According to feedback from participants who all had initial reservations about peer observations, the process contributed greatly to their development.   Staff cited valuable changes in teaching methodology and the students referred to the steep and satisfactory curve of  adapting to the new mode of engagement and assessment.  However,  they both agree that  the importance of teaching skills has not lessened, and  that peer observation – in essence, watching another teacher teach online,  enforced by these socially distanced times will no doubt remain a useful tool beyond the COVID-19 era.  
 
Model 5: Discover A New Education Model That Gives You Better Advantages Than A Harvard Degree For Under $500 A Year

This model is "without the box"  which makes it exceptionally fascinating. It is the idea  of  Vishen Lakhiani,  founder of Mindvalley, an award-winning education movement acclaimed to have  millions of students worldwide and growing fast. Mr. Lakhiani has spent over 15 years "reimagining the human experience by exploring the science of helping humans reach their fullest potential". It offers the following:

• Customized curriculum based on individual needs
• A campus in each major city
• A new human to human introduction service or algorithm connecting people to game-changers from around the world from their  mobile phone
• Acquiring  MINDSET rather than a degree
• A disruptive learning calendar that is lifelong 
• The cost is 1/100 that of a Harvard University Degree   

Listen  to the video in the link for details of  this incredible idea by Vishen Lakhiani  https://www.mindvalley.com/membership/masterclass 
 
 
Eddie Greene