Is Digital Technology Changing The Higher Education Culture?

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Changing needs of Learners 

In the last few years, the pattern of students enrollment has changed drastically. This momentous rise in enrollments has become the cause of a prominent diversification of the student population. Now you can find a large chunk of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds pursuing higher education; and most of these learners are adults with jobs and/or part time students. In England, more than 60 per cent of higher education learners in 2002-2003 were mostly over the age of 21; this figure was merely around 21 per cent back in 1972-73. This significant rise was primarily due to the increasing numbers of part time learners.

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Era of International Students

In developed countries like UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, there has been substantial growth in international student enrollment. In Australia, around 21 per cent of the higher education enrollments in 2002 comprised of international students. According to the OBHE, we will witness over 5.8 million international students worldwide by 2020. Such type of international learners, who are adults and pursue mainly part time courses, tend to have much different beliefs and expectations from traditional learners regarding services and facilities offered by schools to facilitate learning. These students also want more convenience and flexibility in the learning and teaching process as most of them usually pursue distance and online courses.

Most of today's learners are identified as digital natives as they have been raised in a technologically inclined environment and continue to be surrounded by latest technologies in their daily lives. Hence, our students now expect that technological tools will be widely utilised in learning and teaching. As a result, now experts believe that higher education must recognise such learning differences and incorporate more multi sensory, spontaneous and technology-driven learning styles.

How our Students Learn 

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In the past decade, a substantial shift in understanding how learning needs to be facilitated in higher education was noticed, with the trend moving towards student-centred learning, instead of teacher-centered education.

Traditionally, learning is believed to be a passive activity, as knowledge is transferred from the already educated individual to the novice or aspiring learner. In this respect, learning is primarily considered as reproducing knowledge by delivering it to the learner. However, the scenario has changed in the recent past with learning now being considered as a constructive process. Now the students take active participation in the development of knowledge via authentic and situated tasks to facilitate deep comprehension of knowledge.

What do you think about the impact of technology on education? Feel free to share your thoughts and views with us by commenting below. We would love to hear from you.

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