Source: Vancouver Sun via Academica
In an op-ed for the Vancouver Sun, UBC VP Anji Redish examines how technology is “destabilizing and empowering the educational landcape.” Redish notes that a key characteristic of the current technological moment is the disaggregation, or unbundling, of traditional university functions. Redish identifies 3 common reactions to unbundling. First, she notes that some institutions are investing in technologies that facilitate blended learning and flipped classrooms, or restructuring programs around modularization and personalized, competency-based assessment. Second, she sees more collaboration between institutions in pursuit of common goals, such as when colleges join forces with universities to provide high-quality, hands-on training bolstered by strong research expertise. Finally, she sees institutions expanding access to new segments of students. “Universities will survive this latest turbulence, but not all, and those that do may bear as little resemblance to the universities of the late 20th century as those universities did to the medieval institutions of the same name,” she concludes.