Changes in Higher Education

Change Process Underway

As we look around the current  landscape, there is no denying that a significant change process is underway in higher education. Some are calling it a transformation, others use the term (learning) revolution, while still others refer to a paradigm shift. Perhaps it is the beginning of what Peter Drucker forecast in his 1992 book, Managing for the Future, when he stated "it is a safe prediction that in the next fifty years schools and universities will change more and more drastically than they have since they assumed their present form 300 years ago when they organized themselves around the printed book."

Societal Factors

Some of the changes taking place in higher education are the direct result of societal factors such as changing student demographics and the impact of technology. For example, there is a greater diversity among students today including greater numbers of nontraditional students, many of whom have part-time or full-time jobs as well as family responsibilities. There are also many students entering higher education who are not adequately prepared to succeed in college-level courses. In terms of technology, we see distance education, asynchronous education, and open or virtual universities all emerging in response to rapidly evolving technologies. 

An excerpt from the 1998 World Conference on Higher Education emphasizes the changes to come from new information and communication technologies (NICT). "The mass advent of the NICT in the years that lie ahead raises the question of how the teaching profession can prepare for these radical changes. The "new teachers" will have to master this new NICT environment and be mentally prepared for a radical change of role while adding to and updating their knowledge of their subject."

SCANS and Wingspread Reports

Still other changes in higher education, such as movements relating to student outcomes, improving student assessment, and refocusing institutional missions have their origins in reform movements initiated from within and from outside feedback. Both the SCANS Report produced in 1991 by the Department of Labor and the 1993 report, An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education by the Wingspread Group, contained "open letters" to the public calling for change because of disturbing mismatches between what American society needs from its educational systems and what it is receiving. In the case of the SCANS Report, schools at all levels were called upon to transform themselves in to high performance organizations with a focus on a new set of competencies (resources, interpersonal skills, information, systems, and technology) and certain foundation skills (basic skills, thinking skills, and personal qualities). The Wingspread Group report focused on higher education and presented their findings based on three fundamental issues: putting student learning first, creating a nation of learners, and taking values seriously. In both cases, the findings challenge us to consider the primary goal or mission of higher education. Do our colleges and universities exist to provide instruction and "educate" students; or is their purpose to produce "learning" in students through the growth and development of an encompassing set of learning skills?

Paradigm Shift from to Teaching to Learning

The article, From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm Shift for Undergraduate Education (Barr and Tagg, 1995), refers to changes taking place in higher education in terms of a paradigm shift from a teacher-centered "instruction paradigm" to a student-centered "learning paradigm." This new paradigm involves creating environments and experiences that allows for discovery and the construction of knowledge. George Boggs, President of Palomar College, points out in his paper, Accepting Responsibility for Student Learning, that the criteria for success will change as institutions shift from one paradigm to the other. Criteria for success in the instruction paradigm pertain to enrollment growth, high participation rates, revenue growth, curriculum expansion, and physical resources while successful institutions using the learning paradigm identify goals for learning and student success, and document these achievements. The key difference being a focus on the quality of exiting students and their learning skills and not the quality of entering students.

Changes Resulting from the Paradigm Shift

The paper, A Paradigm Shift from Instruction to Learning, by Gwyer Schuyler identifies changes involved in shifting to a learning paradigm. Some of these changes include:

Judgment of institutional success is based on the quality of student learning.

A shared responsibility exists for student learning (ultimate responsibility is upon the student).

The institution views itself as a learner; so that over time it produces more learning (with each graduating class and entering student).

The learning environments that are created support discovery and student construction of knowledge rather than simply a transfer of content or knowledge.

Education that involves "the mastery of functional, knowledge-based intellectual frameworks rather than the short-term retention of fractionated contextual cues."

Making Learning the Primary Mission

Of the changes taking place in higher education, the most profound requires us to look at the mission of higher education. In this regard, Terry O’Banion states "The amount and kind of change going on in education today is enormous, and no institution is untouched by that change. Even if there were no major reform effort in progress, there would be major changes in the use of information technology, in governance and control, in student demographics, in funding and resources, in alliances and partnerships, and in innovations in teaching and management. But it is important not to mistake these related changes for the new emphasis on learning. These other changes will happen whether championed or not because they are natural processes reflecting transformations in the larger society. But it is possible for all these changes to develop over the next decade without a new emphasis on learning. A decade from now, great changes in education will be clearly evident, but the traditional architecture of education could be pretty much in place, and learning could still not be the primary mission and outcome of educational institutions" (O’Banion 1997).