From technology-enabled teaching to digitally enhanced learning: a new perspective for HE
Explore the key digital learning and teaching trends, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for universities, staff, students and founders
UK higher education (HE) is at a crossroads. In one direction, the emergency online-only experience of the majority of learning and teaching during the pandemic. In another direction, a return to the past, the ‘in-person is best’ position urged by the government in England and amplified by certain sections of the media.
The choice has been framed by some as stark and simplistic: technology and isolation versus on-campus teaching and community. This is a false dichotomy. A third path is possible.
What difference can digital make to the learning journey if designed in from the outset rather than added as an afterthought? How can digital tools facilitate a good on-campus experience for full-time students while also making learning more flexible, inclusive and personalised for students who are learning off-campus? Now is the time to stop thinking about how individual technological tools can enable teaching but how a holistic digital outlook can enhance learning wherever it takes place.
In collaboration with Jisc, HE advisory board convenor Mary Curnock Cook, and Ian Dunn, Provost of Coventry University, we’ve created a report examining the current context of digitally enhanced learning in universities, and mapping out where the sector is heading from the perspective of university students, staff and leaders.
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From technology enabled teaching to digitally enhanced learning: a new perspective for HE is based on interviews with university leaders and sector specialists, alongside a poll of stakeholders, from students and staff to startup founders.
- If you are a university leader, you will find out how your peers are reviewing what’s worked and implementing lessons learned since 2020.
- If you are a policymaker, you will see our group’s actionable recommendations.
- If you are a founder you can discover how to partner effectively with universities and understand how to position your product to meet complex sector needs.
UK HE has under-invested in digital for years. When it comes to bricks versus clicks, the past decade has seen a strong focus on campus expansions, with UK institutions investing two to three times the amount in buildings as in IT.
But two years on from the start of the pandemic, UK universities have made widespread progress with technology-enabled teaching, and most now realise that investment in technology is strategically vital.
This offers an opportunity to take stock, share insights and build together on lessons learned from the emergency measures of the pandemic to shape the future.
Looking back: what HE has learned since 2020
Despite the challenges of rapidly pivoting to online-only teaching during the pandemic, universities have discovered a wealth of positive changes and good practices associated with digital innovation.
- Inclusivity and accessibility: As online and blended provision has expanded, universities have seen an increased sense of belonging among part-time students, distanced, disabled, parents or carers, or just have to balance work and study to pay their living costs. Support requirements differ in complexity, but the increased flexibility has been widely welcomed and has helped to overcome existing barriers such as attendance.
- Greater openness to innovation: Among staff and students alike, there has been more awareness of what’s possible in learning and teaching.
- Enhanced staff and student digital skills: The growth in awareness, capability and agility in a relatively short time has been extraordinary.
- Embedded skills for employability: For graduates entering a changing hybrid world of work, it is vital that they feel comfortable using technology to do everything from job interviews and presentations to sales pitches and collaborating online.
- Changes to assessment: The pandemic offered an opportunity for universities to make assessment more relevant, adaptable and trustworthy, and many experimented with testing knowledge and skills in more authentic ways.
- Narrowing attainment/awarding gaps: The move to digital teaching and learning has coincided with a narrowing of attainment/awarding gaps aligned with gender, disability and race.
Digitally enhanced learning and teaching must now integrate digital tools seamlessly into the learning journey to improve and augment it, ensuring better outcomes for students.
This requires not only a digital strategy but engagement from across the university — from IT, estates, HR and other professional services, academic staff, and learning and teaching support. How can universities bring everyone together around a shared vision of what digitally enhanced learning might achieve?
Looking forward: what HE is doing now
Based on interviews, research and case studies, the report highlights five key areas where universities can seize opportunities to enhance the student learning journey using digital innovation.
- Design for the digital age
While it is essential to continue building staff and student digital capabilities, these are not a guarantee of a good learning experience unless the learning has been properly designed for a digital context.
2. Enable flexible spaces
Physical and digital spaces need to be co-designed and co-managed in future so that integrated learning environments work for in-person and online learners. The compartmentalisation of physical and digital into siloed professional service functions within most institutions will need rethinking.
3. Community is key
Feeding into this is a growing understanding of what students want and the value they place on community and belonging. They don’t necessarily want to sit in a lecture theatre but do appreciate social contact, access to services and informal learning opportunities with peers.
4. Co-create with students
Different student cohorts have different needs and preferences, so universities must collaborate with students to create flexible learning opportunities at a time, place and pace that suits them.
5. Be data-driven
Digitally enhanced learning leads to increased online activity and interactions across various systems, increasing the amount of data available to institutions. Collected, processed and aggregated efficiently, this data has the potential to enrich learning analytics and improve decisions on how to best support student learning journeys, from individual to curriculum level.
Moving forward: how HE can get from here to there
Universities are currently trying to work through many different factors. Some are still at an early stage, while others have been on a digital journey for many years.
To take advantage of what’s worked really well during the pandemic and accelerate this digital journey means:
- Change the underlying perspective of HE from how students are taught to how they learn, with the learning journey as an integral part of the whole student experience.
- Provide greater guidance and transparency about what students will experience and why, alongside more consistency in understanding, expectations and experience across the university.
- Collaborate with students in curriculum co-design and as participants in transforming their educational experiences.
- Invest strategically in technology alongside physical spaces. Digital representation in the boardroom is an essential start.
- Keep building staff and student digital capabilities. Recognise the critical need for digital capabilities among senior leaders. Benchmark skills using national tools and data.
In conclusion
In 2020, emergency measures were generally seen as good enough. Decisions were made quickly and under pressure. There is now an opportunity to build on these benefits and shape the future rather than react to circumstances.
Digital must become a core and intentional part of learning and teaching wherever it takes place.
Universities are negotiating this change against a backdrop of multiple and varied pressures, but there is a huge opportunity to bring digital tools seamlessly into the learning journey and for digitally enhanced learning to contribute to better inclusion, engagement, accessibility, attainment and outcomes for students.
It will require bringing people, practice, pedagogy, space and technology together into conversations. It also means serious thought needs to be given to how we design learning in the digital age.
Institutions, and those working to support them, need to be prepared to be quite radical.
To explore key trends, challenges and opportunities in digitally enhanced learning and teaching for HE and see recommendations for university leaders, policymakers and founders, download the full report here.
Emerge Education welcomes inquiries from new investors and startup founders. For more information, visit emerge.education or email hello@emerge.education.
Thank you for reading… I would hugely appreciate some claps 👏 and shares 🙌 so that others can find it!
Nic
Nic Newman
