Oliver Burnham
Policy Analyst, Universities UK
Allowing universities to innovate is the best way to prepare students for their future work.
Innovation in learning is nothing new; universities have always updated teaching to suit a changing curriculum, new opportunities and students’ needs. Digital innovation has become central to these discussions, but it isn’t just about online, remote provision. There are many ways in which technology can replace older approaches or enhance existing best practice.
Adopting digital teaching
The use of multiple-choice ‘clickers’ has been boosting engagement for years. Instead of the lone raised hand in the front row, clickers encourage all students to respond – albeit anonymously – giving every student the chance to self-reflect. Labs for science and engineering students go beyond ‘physical’ lab work and include data analysis, modelling and computer-aided design of experiments. And when practical work is being done, it’s increasingly enhanced by digital tools.
Rather than medical students moving directly from static practice manikins to real patients, the use of augmented reality – overlaying a virtual image onto the physical world – brings manikins to life, providing medical trainees with a responsive ‘patient’ and easing the transition between learning and work.
All of these innovations represent a better way for students to learn and understand their subject, but also reflect more closely how they will continue to work after graduation.
Learning from the pandemic
All of these innovations represent a better way for students to learn and understand their subject, but also reflect more closely how they will continue to work after graduation, with the ‘digitally-enhanced’ degree preparing students for the modern, increasingly digital workplace. While, in general, universities and employers no longer follow the fully online approach adopted at the height of the pandemic, they do retain those changes that have proved most useful.
The most recent technology-based innovations are sometimes tarnished by association with the pandemic, but they are no less useful to students – and no less valuable to employers – than previous changes. No one is calling for students to stop typing essays and return to writing them by hand; equally, there is no reason to miss out on other skills that are now sought by employers, such as presenting online, contributing to online meetings, and building an online portfolio.
Preparing for work
Nobody wants to return to the world of March 2020, where the emergency pivot to online learning left lecturers overworked and students isolated. But taking the best innovations from the pandemic – and from the years before it – these newer ways of teaching will help students to cover course content more flexibly and effectively, while training them to work in a modern, increasingly digital workplace.