Experts are demanding more digital training for university faculty
Experts in new learning techniques warn of the need for university faculty to receive more digital training. This is one of the conclusions of the European Leadership School, an international meeting coordinated by the UOC, which this week brought together in Barcelona experts and education leaders from up to fifteen countries as part of the D-Transform project, which is co-funded by the European Commission and addressed at higher education leaders interested in the digital transformation of learning, including both face-to-face and distance learning.
One of the reports, (Open Educational Resource, a lever for digital transition of higher education?), drafted in the months leading up to the meeting in order to prepare its content, had already warned of this problem when it criticized the lack of interest in higher education, particularly among faculty, in using open educational resources, as well as the lack of training in new educational and digital practices. However, the report stresses that the limited use of such tools “essentially comes from the lack of support from institutions, lack of tools allowing for the sharing and the adaptation of resources, lack of users’ time and competence and the insufficient quality of resources".
"The question", the document concludes, "is not only to add more digital [aspects] in educational training but to lead, together with all the actors, the transition of the establishments in a digital world in total turmoil. This adaptation seems to be a question of survival for traditional establishments with the arrival of
new actors (including very strong ones such as Google or Amazon)."
New paradigm
The first two conference days of this meeting analysed, among other aspects, academic resistance to change and the new habits of the millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, the first generation of digital natives. In short, it has observed that this is more than a specific change in methodology and in the use of technology by new generations, given that it signifies the beginning of a new paradigm which also includes the sphere of education. The first working session with managers from a number of different universities concluded that there will need to be a change in learning techniques, although there is no single answer to what this challenge implies.
The European Leadership School is being held at Hotel Silken Diagonal (Avinguda Diagonal, 205, next to the Agbar Tower), except on Wednesday, when it will transfer to the main campus of the UOC (Avinguda del Tibidabo, 39–43). The UOC is responsible for coordination, logistical organization and the educational material, while the Université de Lorraine (France) is responsible for drafting the content. The project, which began in 2014, has a budget of nearly half a million euros and will continue until 2017. The project consortium is made up of seven members from five countries (France, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the United Kingdom). The project is being coordinated by the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (institute of human sciences foundation, FMSH) and is co-funded by the EU Erasmus+ programme.
In addition to academic resistance to teaching with ICTs and to the new technological habits of students, this international conference covers other issues, such as new methods of online assessment, the promotion of digital libraries and study areas adapted to the digital environment and business models for MOOC courses.
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