From Cell Chemistry to Cognition

While in Vancouver last week for ICCSE 2014, I met with Andrew Coward. Andrew is an Associate Professor at the Research School of Computer Science at the ANU in Canberra, but lives in Vancouver. Andrew researchers the way the human brain works, by adapting theories from electronic systems. This is not about building a human brain, but using insights from computing to understand how real brains work. His latest book, Towards a Theoretical Neuroscience: from Cell Chemistry to Cognition was published by Springer in 2013.

This is of interest to me as next week I start a course on  educational design, which begins with the neuroscience of learning, using the textbook "Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective" by Dale H. Schunk.

Teaching Innovation at UBC

While in Vancouver for ICCSE 2014 I dropped in on Philippe Kruchten at UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is involved with the "New Venture Design" course (APSC 486), where engineering and business students learn to produce a business plan for a product. The students are encouraged to enter a innovation competition or program as part of the course. An example of such a competition is Innovation ACT. Unfortunately I am not aware of any of Canberra's universities incorporating the competition in any of their courses or programs.

Flexible Education Strategies for at Canadian Universities

After attending a  Flexible Learning Strategy Workshop at University of British Colombia (UBC) in Vancouver last week, I went across town to see what was happening at Simon Fraser University (SFU). There is a SFU have a Task Force on Flexible Education. This goes beyond just flipping the classroom with some on-line videos and considers how to redesign campuses and programs of study to make them more flexible.

I met with David Porter  from BCcampus, which works to get collaboration between BC's post-secondary institutions.  David is the co-author of the course "Ventures in Learning Technology" at the University of British Colombia and will be visiting NSW and Tasmania in early November for open education meetings of OERu. The OERu is providing low cost open educaitonal materials. One which got my attention was the e-Learning Maturity Model (eMM) course.

The SFU Task Force on Flexible Education Terms of Reference are:

1. Produce an inventory of institutionally-supported learning technologies and service units at SFU that support credit and non-credit programs,
2. Perform an environmental scan of trends and directions in flexible learning being used at other post-secondary institutions,
3. Engage in a broad consultation with the university community on the objectives for and issues concerning the development of flexible learning environments,
4. Identify effective and leading-edge practices by referring to the academic literature and efforts undertaken at other institutions,
5. Rely on the investigative work carried out in 1. though 4. to establish thematic working groups consisting of members of the university community with appropriate expertise that would explore various aspects of flexible learning and develop recommendations on an institutional strategy for flexible education at SFU, and
6. Develop an implementation plan for putting the recommendations into effect, including
   
   a) a resource model which supports the growth and sustainment of flexible education at SFU,
   b) a compilation of examples of effective practice that could be adopted and/or refashioned by SFU to create its flexible learning environments, and
   c) a support model which facilitates faculty engagement in the use of new technologies and pedagogies. 

The BC Campus Open Textbook Project currently has 62 free open access textbooks available for use.

Meanwhile in Australia, UNE has decided to discontinue its disaggregated approach to charging for on-line courses, where students could undertake a course for  $495, plus $35 an hour for group tutoring and $150 an hour for individual tutoring ("UNE shuts down its loss-making MOOCs", Tim Dodd, The Financial Review, 25 August 2014).

Future of University Education Being Discussed in Vancouver This Week

Greetings from the University of British Colombia (UBC) where I am attending a Flexible Learning Strategy Workshop. I got off the aircraft from Sydney two hours ago, so this posting may not make much sense. I am here to speak on "Chinese and Australian Students Learning to Work Together Online" at  the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE 2014) which starts tomorrow. I am also speaking to UBC and Simon Fraser University (SFU) people about their e-learning plans next week, but I noticed this seminar was on for staff, but open to anyone, so I signed up.

UBC, like other universities, is under pressure to deliver more vocationally orientated programs which match the best in the world, while containing costs. Also full service universities have to compete with institutions offering specialised education.  These issues are very familiar from discussions in Australia. UBC is  addressing these issues under the term Flexible Learning.

UBC is formulating its Flexible Learning Strategy in consultation with the university community. Other universities have tended to either ignore the issues, or leap into signing up with some product or consortium. Some of the issues revolve around what the broad mission of a university is and how flexible learning can help this.

UBC has three goals for Flexible Learning:

1.     enhance educational outcomes,
2.     enable greater access to UBC learning,
3.     improve  effectiveness with new learning models.

UBC had priorities for the Flexible Learning Initiative:

1. Transformation of undergraduate courses to blended mode,
2. Targeted growth in professional programs: Applied Master’s & certification,
3. Flexible continuum between credit and non-credit sources,
4. MOOCs

However, there does not appear to be a specific "strategy" as such, instead there are a collection of projects to address the priorities.  This is a similar approach to ANU, which does not have one single approach to education. I did notice that UBC has a draft policy "Use of Learning Materials in UBC Credit Courses", which encourages the use of Creative Commons licenses.


UBC is not new to flexible learning. One of their flexible learning projects which is of interest to me is "Engineering for Sustainable Development" and their UBC's online courses includes "Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Change Conversations" (through Coursera).

It appears that although UBC already offers courses through Coursera, they UBC is considering joining the edX Consortium.  ANU is already a member and has run two free open online courses (I am supervising a post-graduate student who has surveyed the students on their experience). However, it should be noted that membership of such a consortium is not an education strategy in itself (just as installing learning management software is not). The real questions are what you are going to do with the technology, why you are going to do it, how it will help the students (the community and of course the university) and how thousands of staff (and students) are going to learn new skills to implement the strategy.

I took part in the group discussion, the details of which I agreed not to reveal, however the themes were familiar from Australian universities. On a less serious note, transport metaphors seemed to feature in the discussion. One person commented that being asked to envision flexible learning was like asking a bus driver about the future of transport: they may think of a flying bus, but it would still be a bus. Another commented that they felt like they were tied to the bow of a ship and were wondering where it was being steered and by whom.

I will be talking about what I found in Canada, at the ACS e-learning SIG Meeting at the Australian National University in Canberra, 3 September (all welcome).