Today s learners need to be well-prepared for the complex demands of ever-fluctuating, international business environments. To help students contend with this rapid pace of change, our institutions of higher education need to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to ensure their success. But how to achieve this when what we teach learners today can easily change and even be irrelevant tomorrow? Heutagogy provides meaningful, pedagogical guidance for navigating a shifting higher education landscape, as well as a rapidly evolving technological one. This keynote will discuss the barriers that have kept us from implementing heutagogy within higher education in the past and the more recent developments that are causing those barriers to slowly begin slipping away. We will also consider why it is necessary for higher education to adopt forms heutagogical practice in order to prepare students for lifelong learning and the web 2.0 and social media that help us do just that.

1. LEARNING FOR LIFE:
Preparing Learners for the Complexities of
the Workplace Today and Tomorrow
Lisa Marie Blaschke
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

2. HEUTAGOGY IS ABOUT…
Learners at the Center
Reflecting
Self-
on what is
determined
learned and
in learning
how
Developing Assessing
competencies own
and development
capabilities and progess

3. HEUTAGOGY IS ABOUT…
Non-linear Designs and Connections
creative commons
image from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w
iki/File:Internet_map_10
24.jpg

4. HEUTAGOGY IS ABOUT…
Instructors as Guides

5. HEUTAGOGY IS ABOUT…
Institutions as Support Networks

6. BENEFITS OF HEUTAGOGY
 Improves critical thinking and reflection
 Increases learner engagement and motivation
 Gives learners more control over learning (learner-centered)
 Improves ability of learners to investigate and question
ideas – and apply knowledge in practical situations
 Supports development of independent ideas and self-
confidence
 Makes learners more capable and able to adapt to new
environments
 Better prepares them for the complexities of the workforce

7. HEUTAGOGY DEFINED
Heutagogy is the study of
self-determined learning and
applies a holistic approach to
developing learner
capabilities with the learner
serving as “the major agent in
their own learning, which
occurs, as a result of personal
experience”
(Hase & Kenyon, 2007, p.
112)

8. WHY AREN’T OUR INSTITUTIONS DOING IT?
Heutagog
y

9. EDUCATION TODAY
"Employers say that recent graduates often
don't know how to communicate effectively, and
struggle with adapting, problem-solving, and
making decisions”

10. INSTITUTIONAL RESISTANCE
 Fear of losing control of:
 Certification / Assessment
 Learners
 Influence of oversight
agencies

11. INSTRUCTOR RESISTANCE
 Fear of losing control
of:
 Classroom
 Learning and teaching
 Learners
 Shift from center court
to the sidelines

12. LEARNER RESISTANCE
 Fear of taking control
of and being
responsible for
learning

13. BUT CHANGE IS COMING
“The increasing
demand for education
“An avalanche is coming”
Institute for Public Policy Research
that is customized to (2013) Report
each student‟s unique “If you‟re a student…it is
“The State University of New
needs is driving the York‟s Board of Trustees on no longer a question of
development of new Tuesday endorsed an ambitious choosing a degree
technologies that vision for how SUNY might use course you want to do at
prior-learning
provide more learner a university…It‟s a
assessment, competency-
choice and control and based programs, and massive question of
allow for differentiated open online courses to help thinking…„How will I
students finish their degrees in
instruction.” keep learning through my
less time, for less money.”
HORIZON (2013) Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of life, how do I combine a
Report Higher Education, March 20, 2013 range of educational
experiences not just from
“Revolution hits the one university but also
from a range of
universities” Thomas Friedman,
New York Times
(January 26, 2013)
universities - potentially
around the world?‟”
Sir Michael Barber, Times Higher
Education (March 13, 2013)

14. DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGY
# Twitter
#heuta13
Blogs
Massive open online
courses (MOOCs)
Wikis
Badges
(Mozilla)

15. HOW WEB 2.0 ENABLES HEUTAGOGY
 Connectivity with
others Wikis
(Collaborate
 Discovery and sharing Open and create)
Educational
of information Resources Blogs
(OER) (Create and
 Personal collection and (Collect and reflect)
adapt) Self-
adaptation of
information determine
(McLoughlin & Lee, 2007)
MOOCs d learning Twitter
(Connect,
collaborate, (Discover
and share) and share)
LinkedIn
(Connect)

16. HEUTAGOGY IN THE CLASSROOM?

17. DEVELOP LEARNER AUTONOMY
 Consider learners‟ level of
autonomy and adjust
accordingly
 Learner questionnaires
 Learner contracts
 Learner-directed questions
and discussions

18. ENCOURAGE REFLECTION
 Build learner skills while
allowing them to
determine and reflect on
their learning path
 Scaffolding of learning
activities to create
frameworks for
learning/discovery
 Learner-directed questions
 Action research

19. LET LEARNERS CREATE AND PLAY
 Incorporate activities
for self-reflection, self-
and information-
discovery, experimenta
tion, and collaborative
information creation
 Learning journals
 Collaborative group
work
 Communities of
practice

20. BUILD SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES
 Support development
of personal knowledge
management, digital
literacy, and social
collaboration skills
 Skill building activities
 Social networking and
collaboration tools

21. ALLOW LEARNERS TO DEFINE SUCCESS
 Assess learner
achievement by
negotiating the
assessment process
and making
curriculum flexible
 Formative
assessment
 Learning contracts
 Self-assessment

22. USE OPEN LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
 Choose a learning
environment that
supports free and
open learning
 MOOC
 Personal learning
environment (PLE)
 Communities of
practice (CoPs) and
community
networks

23. CHANGE IS COMING
 Our approach to teaching/training needs
to be learner-centered, not institution or
instructor-centered.
 We need to give learners the freedom –
and the guidance and support – to
become self-determined learners.
 Social media tools help us do both.

24. JOIN US!
 Heutagogy Community of Practice:
 Website: http://heutagogycop.wordpress.com/
 LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Heutagogy-
Community-Practice-4776262

25. QUESTIONS?
Lisa Marie Blaschke
Lisa.Blaschke@Uni-Oldenburg.de
For more information:
(www.slideshare.net)