Learning, Equality and E-quality
description
Transcript of Learning, Equality and E-quality
Learning, Equality and E-quality
A student-centred approach to reforming higher education
Daithí Mac Síthigh / University of Vienna / 24.11.06
ESIB - The National Unions of Students in Europe
Based in Brussels 45 member organisations Consultative member of the Bologna Follow-Up
Group (BFUG) Structures
Board / Executive / Secretariat Bologna Process Committee Committee on Commodification of Education Gender Equality Committee
Higher education
reform
Cycles and Credits?
Learning Outcomes
Qualifications Frameworks
Framework(s)?
National Frameworks Framework of Qualifications for the
European Higher Education Area (“Bologna” framework)
European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (“EU” framework)
(Mutual recognition of professional qualifications)
EQF-LLL
NFQ - Ireland
Doctoral Studies
PPhhDD
Doctoral Programmes
Structured programmes Career paths Financing Generic and transferrable skills “Professional Doctorates”
Purpose of (Higher) Education
Is the attention paid to HE
a good thing for HE?
Melvyn Bragg (2005)
“In some ways modern universities threaten to return to their origins in the Middle Ages. Then they were primarily engines for the furthering of the authority of the almost unimaginably powerful Roman Catholic Church. They were also the source of the law of the land - an equally utilitarian function”
“Now the purpose of universities, in the minds of many politicians and powerbrokers, is as the engine of economic growth, involved in all the material advancements of the hitherto unimaginably far-reaching consequences of successive technological revolutions”
“Leaders the world over are being advised that in the accelerated Age of Information, the university is king”
Whither learning?
Programmed learning Self-directed learning Problem-based learning Blended learning
Student-Centred Learning
Higher education
reform
Equality and Reform
Nothing about us without us! Social Dimension of the Bologna Process Equity and Efficiency (European
Commission) Higher education is:
Not the answer Part of the solution They keep changing the question!
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights
13(2)(c) Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every
appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education
Building the accessible university
Universally accessible curriculum design Physical disabilities Support for “less than full time” study Technology - a solution and a problem
it’s not (all) about money
•Survey 1: 2005
•Survey 2: 2007
•All action lines
•All ESIB members
•Will be submitted to Ministers in London
Higher education
reform
ACTIONS
Access Costs Teaching and Learning Interactivity and User-Friendliness Organisational Issues Novelty Speed
Bates, Technology, E-learning and Distance Learning (2nd edn.) 2005, p. 49.
Daithí’s Seven Deadly Sins
e-mimicking gee-whiz techno-utopianism vanishing QA universal accessibility investment disconnection
the
medium
is
still
the
message
e-learning
e-learning 2.0!
web 2.0
What is Web 2.0? (and what does it mean for higher education?)
Participation Collaboration Customisation Innovation Integration The triumph of the bazaar?
How can we improve e-quality?
Share and share alike
Legal Open Flexible International Suitable for
education?
Four paths?
Code = Law
E-learning platform design Software choice / market Where does your content go? Academic values in e-learning Don’t forget the deadly sins!
The Trojan Horse?
“Whilst ICT may offer opportunities for the expansion of learning in the distance mode it has - beyond the confines of Europe - been instrumental in higher education losing its exclusive claim to being a public good and being increasingly regarded as simply another trade item to be negotiated under the GATS”
“Internationalising the Curriculum” - symposium at the4th Networked Learning Conference, Sheffield 2004