Welcome to Higher Education 4.0

Welcome to Higher Education 4.0: Certifying the Future. Our team in the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at Dublin City University (DCU) is pleased to welcome you to this online learning experience, in partnership with the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU). Taking the form of a masterclass, we have designed the course experience to raise critical awareness, foster discussion and get you thinking about this overarching big question:

• What is your vision of what Higher Education will look like by the year 2030?

To help set the scene and get you thinking from the start, watch this brief video produced by Jisc (2020) on Education 4.0…

One of the important lessons from this video is that we need to be critical about who is defining the future for us. Will the future of universities and colleges be shaped in an inclusive way or left to men already in positions of power and responsibility in established institutions in well-developed countries? This is one of the reasons why we think this masterclass is important in giving more people a voice to help shape the future.

What does the masterclass cover?

While there is no right answer to this big question, by the end of this 3-week, 2-hour per week masterclass, you will be more informed, knowledgeable and better equipped to express your own vision and viewpoints on the following three topics:

In this first week, we will explore the future skills agenda. Week 2 moves this discussion onto the topic of micro-credentials, as we look at how these two new educational trends fit together. We will demonstrate the clear opportunities that exist to design more flexible learning pathways, which might enable the development of more active citizens, lifelong learners and innovative, globally-oriented and curious work-ready graduates. In the final week, we will bridge the discussion about future skills and micro-credentials with an exploration of new and authentic pedagogies, as we explore efforts to reimagine the future of higher education.

Save the date – Online Webinar with Prof. George Veletsianos

Before we move on, we also ask you to place a special date in your diary – on Thursday, the 11th of March, 2021, at 5pm, you are invited to join an online webinar delivered by the course educators, with Prof. George Veletsianos, entitled “Learners and Universities in the 21st Century – Future-ready?”. This webinar is delivered as a part of a wider scholarship which Prof. Veletsianos has been awarded; the Irish-Canadian University Foundation’s (ICUF) D’Arcy McGee Beacon Scholarship (you can read more about the foundation’s critical work in promoting Trans-Atlantic research ties here).

Prof. Veletsianos has extensive experience researching online, and will offer a presentation on how social and technological trends, such as automation, are disrupting and transforming the nature of skills development for 21st century learners, and in particular, how these changes are reflected in educational practices and systems. The subject matter is extremely-topic for our discussion this week, and we hope that you will join us!

Please click here to register for the event, and if you have any questions before the webinar, make sure to post them in the comments section.