This document discusses trends in higher education globally and in specific regions that are driving disaggregation in teaching and learning. It notes the rise of massification, cuts to funding, market pressures and private providers. In Africa, there have been massive increases in student numbers but underfunding, and a rise in private institutions. Research shows that online learning can negatively impact certain student populations more than others. New players are entering higher education, increasing private sector involvement and raising questions around values and institutional control. Harnessing the opportunities of disaggregation while ensuring quality, access and affordability will require strategic alignment of pedagogy and technology.

1. DISAGGREGATION
IN TEACHING AND LEARNING
EXPLANATIONS & IMPLICATIONS
Laura Czerniewicz
8th
International Conference on E-Learning
27 June 2013

2. THE CONTEXT
Higher Education Trends

3. GLOBAL TRENDS
o Massification
• 2000-2008 enrolments from 100 million to
150 million students
• Implications include
• Financial challenges
• Infrastructure challenges
• Quality questions
• More graduates than the economy can sustain
Altbach 2011

4. GLOBAL TRENDS
o Cuts in government funding
• E.g. UK , California system
• Effects of financial crisis throughout system
o The emergence and pressures of the
market
• Private higher education
• Long standing, new forms & effects
• Rise of private for profit for teaching only
o Tensions of public interest and private
sector aims
Altbach 2011

5. TRENDS IN AFRICA
o Massive increases in student numbers
• 1991-2006 increase from 2.7 million to
9.3 million students
• 2015 projections of 18-20 million (World Bank)
o Gross underfunding of higher education
o Huge rise in number of private providers
• Soon more than public institutions
Jegede 2012

6. TRENDS IN AFRICA
o Challenges include
• Shortages of resources, infrastructure, funds
• Staff teaching in both public & private
universities affecting quality & performance
• Privates focusing on marketable courses
(reducing revenue for public universities)
• Absence of research (affects quality of
teaching)
Jegede 2012

7. TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICA
o Gross enrolment rate (no of students at particular level)
• 16%, Low internationally, & considering 700 000
matriculants qualifying for HE
o Low participation - high attrition system
o Throughput & success critical concerns
o Serious divides continue
• Participation rates over 50% for white students,
13% for African students
• White students twice as likely to graduate in 5 years
• Only 5% of African youth succeed in any form of
higher education
o 1st
year attrition
• 40% of 1st
year students leave HE
Fisher & Scott 2011,
Letseka & Maile 2008.

8. TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICA
o Low participation high attrition system
o Throughput & success critical concerns
o Serious divides continue
• Participation rates over 50% for white
students, 13% for African students
• White students twice as likely to graduate in 5
years
• Only 5% of African youth succeed in any form
of higher education
o 1st
year attrition
• 40% of 1st
year students leave HE
Fisher & Scott 2011
Letseka & Maile 2008. 2013

9. TECHNOLOGY
o Pervasive
• A cause of change in the higher education
environment
• Seen as solution for higher education
problems
• Mediating all higher education practices

10. THE CONTEXT
Affordances of the digital

11. AFFORDANCES
o …the properties and possibilities inherent
in a technology making certain uses
and behaviours possible and others
unlikely or impossible
o .. how the characteristics and qualities
of different technologies can be
instantiated in different contexts, &
through users’ individual preferences
and interactions

12. DIGITAL CONTENT
o Granular
o Dynamic
o Non-linear
o Device-agnostic
o Free & easy to share
• Sharing means multiplying not dividing
o Communication visible
• a form of content

13. THE STATUS QUO
Teaching and learning

15. Teaching & learning interaction
Assessment & certification
Content
SINGLE PACKAGE
Time Space

16. DISAGGREGATION
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Assessment & certification
Time Platform

17. DISAGGREGATION
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Assessment & certification
Time Platform

18. DIGITAL CONTENT
o From products to services
• From tangible to intangible
• Control no longer with customer when
purchased
• From ownership to access/license
o Intermediary - platforms
• Services via an intermediary
• May need to buy the platform, or access to
the platform, not the content

19. Authorised
Digital
Analogue
Unauthorised
Textbooks
Some
photocopying
E-
TextbooksOpen
Education
Resources
Photocopying
Pirate sites
File
sharing
ACCESS TO LEARNING
CONTENT

20. OPEN CONTENT
o Free to user
• To download (gratis)
• To re-use & remix (libre)
o Available under an open license
or public domain
o Grants permissions not copyright

21. OPEN CONTENT
o From small chunks to whole courses
o May include some inbuilt pedagogical
aspects
o Stand alone
o Abundance, not scarcity

25. CHANGES IN TEACHING &
LEARNING
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Assessment & certification
Time Place

26. On campus Remote
Internet
supported
Fully online
F2F only
MOOCsFormsofprovision
Location
of students
Internet
dependent
Online-
intensive
Blended
(mixed
mode):
combines
F2F and
online

27. http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/sheilamacneill/2013/03/19/preparing-for-the-second-wave/

28. Open content MOOC Online course
Cost to user
(for access)
Scale
Entrance
requirements
Providers
Analytics and
automation
Certification
Synchronous
(time limits)
Copyright
Pay to re-use
Free Student pays fees
Massive Small(er) scale
No Yes, as per f2f
Residential universities
Private-university
partnerships
Traditionally distance
ed providers
No, not conventional Equivalent to f2f
Yes, important No, or limited
Register, start & end date,
asynchronous within
Register, start & end date,
asynchronous within
Variable, often proprietary
including user generated
content
Generally proprietary may
include open content
Free
All sizes
None
All
None
None
None
Open license or
public domain
No Yes, mostly likely Yes

29. THE VALUE OF MOOCS
o The jury is out
But
o They have served to legitimise online
learning

30. DISAGGREGATION
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Certification
Time Place

31. DISAGGREGATION
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Certification
Time Platform

32. http://www.deltainitiative.com/bloggers/author-phil-hill/snapshot-of-lms-market-for-large-online-programs-in-the-us-2

33. DISAGGREGATION
Content
Teaching & learning interaction
Certification
Time Platform

34. CERTIFICATION

35. BADGES
o Micro, granular certification
o Some sort of formal(ised) recognition
• for informal learning processes
• for chunks of content
• for competencies

36. PRIVATE ASSESSMENT

37. If
content is open
and
the course/interaction is increasingly
out- sourced to the private sector
& certification is taking new forms
What is the role of the university?

38. WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH
SAY
about teaching, learning & technology?

39. WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS
About teaching and learning - a lot
About distance education - a lot
About online learning - quite a lot
especially from the
global north
About MOOCs - nearly nothing

40. TEACHING AND LEARNING
What we know

41. WHAT WE KNOW
o We know what our key challenges are
• Diversity of academic readiness
• Inequality
• Throughput rates
o We know a lot about what constitutes good
learning
Shay 2013
Slides 42-48

42. WHAT WE KNOW --
ENGAGEMENT
o Learning is more likely to happen when
students are actively engaged

43. WHAT WE KNOW - MEDIATION
o Learning requires mediation

44. WHAT WE KNOW ---
ALIGNMENT
o We are more likely to get the learning
outcomes we want when the curriculum is
aligned
• and assessment is key

45. WHAT WE KNOW – FLEXIBILITY
o Learning is more likely to be successful
where the teaching is cognizant of what
students bring with them: prior knowledge,
language, experience
o Flexibility- multiple
entry points,
multiple pathways

46. WHAT WE KNOW --
TRANSFORMATION
o Learning involves some degree of
transformation of self.
Knowing
Acting
Being
..students begin to understand
the stakes not merely of
studying physics or philosophy
but of understanding and
engaging the world as
physicists or philosophers do.
They become fully vested in the
knowledge they have gathered,
which ceases to be something
external and becomes a part of
who they are (SUES).
..students begin to understand
the stakes not merely of
studying physics or philosophy
but of understanding and
engaging the world as
physicists or philosophers do.
They become fully vested in the
knowledge they have gathered,
which ceases to be something
external and becomes a part of
who they are (SUES).

47. F2F Blended Fully on-
line
Engagement ✓ ✓ ✓
Mediation ✓ ✓ ?
Alignment x ? ?
Flexibility X ✓ ?
Transformation ✓ ✓ ?
THE TEST: pedagogy - technology alignment

48. DIVERSITY?
STUDENTS ONLINE
o Surveyed 40 000 students in
nearly 500 000 courses
o Findings
• …While all types of students in the study
suffered decrements in performance in
online courses, some struggled more than
others to adapt: males, younger students,
Black students, and students with lower
grade point averages
Xu and Jaggars’ 2013

49. HOW WILL GOOD LEARNING
HAPPEN
in a disaggregated environment?

50. PLAYERS IN HE LANDSCAPE
o New players (& roles)
• For profit educational / service providers
• Eg Coursera
• Non-profit educational providers
• eg Ed-X
• Varying degrees of expertise in T & L
• Eg Futurelearn
o New roles for old players
• E.g. Educational publishers as providers of
services

51. http://chronicle.com/article/Major-Players-in-the-MOOC/138817/
FUNDERS
WITH
INTERESTS

52. INCREASED PRIVATE SECTOR
INVOLVEMENT
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Boom-Time-for-Education/131229/

53. VALUES & CONTROL?
o Values
• Private sector imperatives
vs
• Higher education as a public good
o Control
• How much & which parts of higher
education do universities want to
outsource?

54. MANY CLAIMS

55. ..the budding
revolution in
online
education.
Nothing has
more potential
to lift more
people out of
poverty-
Friedman 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/friedman-revolution-hits-the-universities.html?
_r=0

56. THE IRON TRIANGLE
Quality
CostAccess
In the f2f classroom none
can be stretched without
damaging the other
In the digitally mediated
landscape it is possible
that these can be
stretched
Daniel, 2013

57. IT IS UP TO US TO TAKE CONTROL
The disaggregated teaching and learning
landscape will make a difference
to higher education

58. THANK YOU
Laura Czerniewicz
@czernie
http://openuct.uct.ac.za
Laura.czerniewicz@uct.ac.za
http://lauraczerniewicz.uct.ac.za

59. REFERENCES
o Altbach, P (2011) The Past, Present, and Future of the Research University in Altbach, P
and Salmi, J (Eds) 2011 The Making of World-Class Research Universities- The Road to
Academic Excellence, The World Bank
o Daniel, J (2013), Education Across Space and Time, Open and Distance Learning
Association of Australia, 2013 Summit – Sydney, 4 February 2013
o Fisher G and Scott (2011) ‘The Role of Higher Education in Closing the Skills Gap in South
Africa’ The World Bank, Human Development Group, Africa Region, October 2011,
Background paper for the World Bank project 'Closing the Skills and Technology Gap in
South Africa'.
o Jegede, O (2012), The Status of Higher Education in Africa, paper for Panel Discussion in
the Launch of Weaving Success: Voices of Change in African Higher Education- A
project of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) held at the Institute of
International Education, New York, , February 1, 2012
o Letseka, M. and Maile, S. 2008. High University drop-out rates: a threat to South Africa’s
future. HSRC Policy Brief. www.hsrc.ac.za.
o Shay, S (2013) What we Know about Good Learning, presentation at UCT Online
Education Workshop, 4 June 2013
o Xu, D., & Jaggars, S. S. (2013). Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences across Types of
Students and Academic Subject Areas, CCRC Working Paper No. 54. Community
College Research Center.