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Now is a good time to focus on a collective response to the accelerating changes of AI and on what we have learned from the COVID-19 crisis.
The first three New Horizons columns in 2020—published in February, May, and August—set out to explore the ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) will challenge the traditional model of higher education and how the sector should respond, explains Kristen Eshleman, Director of Innovation Initiatives at Davidson College.
These challenges lie in how we will learn and work in the future. Our response depends on our shared sense of urgency, our willingness to lead, and our ability to experiment.
In the first column, George Siemens describes a "post-learning" era in which learning is evolving into a cognitive partnership between humans and the AI technologies that outperform us in traditional educational tasks. AI, he argues, will push educators to respond by exploring and designing the range of learning activities that are likely to remain human.1 In her column Allison Salisbury reminds us that AI is also fundamentally changing the nature of work and the types of jobs that will be needed. Colleges and universities should respond to that change by creating experiences that go beyond domain knowledge to develop occupational identity, social capital, and skills.2 In the future, graduates' agility may matter more than their degree.
AI is a change pressure we should not ignore. In the aftermath of COVID-19, we can expect an acceleration of AI and automation as companies seek ways to continue operating while protecting public health.3 Those jobs—many of them frontline jobs—are unlikely to return...
Online learning was demonized at most traditional institutions in the spring. "Zoom U" was practically a slur. But the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that institutional leaders will acknowledge that some of the affordances of online learning and a pared-down campus are worth keeping. Do we actually need all of the committee work we had in place before? If learning is happening and if we can maintain an intellectual community from afar, how might we leverage online processes to do things we previously thought impossible to accomplish except in face-to-face situations? Are students learning as much in less time? If so, how might we lower the cost to a degree?
Source: EDUCAUSE Review
