For many aspiring students, taking time away from families and work make returning to school prohibitive. If they do return to school, they study in a local vaccum where knowledge gained is theoretical and often irrelevant to their professional goals. The University of the World does not follow the model of taking courses and getting degrees based on prescribed “time-at-task” (i.e. years in school), nor does the university presume that assigned courses are useful to every student. The University of the World is designed to suit the student’s own pace of learning, to allow the student to pursue coursework that is relevant to their specific context, and to connect students globally so that they learn from within their own community and from expeterise that resides around the world. Moreover, the univeristy is designed to improve in its pedagogy as it grows through an evaluation system that creates a constant feedback to refine the pedagogical process.
Student-Centered
Learning begins and attends to the individual. This is not a generalized curriculum that the student then figures out how to apply. This curriculum is grounded in a localized Learning Plan prepared by each individual student and students are evaluated based on proof of their competencies in skills related to their degree area. Learning Classes that the student joins enable that. The tuition structures and financial model build from that in order to offer an educational experience that is both affordable and directly relevant to the students’ needs. Everything is focused around the individual students – expanding out into a great global network.
A New Role for Faculty
The university brings expertise from around the world to students who are now linked together from various locales through their Learning Classes. This changes the tradiational role of faculty, who now help students prepare their Learning Plans, finding the specific learning experiences, guide and mentor the peer-driven learning engagement, and assure learning rigor at the end through assessment. Faculty are not teaching their subject in the traditional session of lecturing, assigning readings, etc. Students bring forward most of the subject content from learning and where they need directional help, they look at faculty for guidance.
The Pedagogy of Applied Blended Learning and the Practicum
The University of the World’s pedagogy of Applied Blended Learning focuses on four key points:
- Online Learning – demonstrated capacity and familiarity with local, online, and specialized resources needed to complete the Learning Plan.
- Site-based Demonstrations – successful applications of specialized practice; description of planned demonstration visits relating to applied application.
- Independent Practice – learning is to be done by the student; specified goals that will be accomplished are to enhance professional performance.
- Supervised Practice – specialized mentorship; students must explain how they plan to measure progress or assess specialized skills they obtain.
Students are expected to apply skills with greater and greater sophistication as they acquire professional training. Learning expectations will evolve from the initial vision into a verifiable product of application – the Thesis. This evidence can be presented as a document, a video, or as a portfolio of applied work. It needs to be available for and subject to independent objective confirmation. A Thesis shall:
- Demonstrate knowledge acquired in work, community, and research
- Prove by portfolio with activities from at least two academic disciplines
- Document knowledge and skills informing the practicum product
- Assess of the significance of demonstrated competencies
The Impact
Like present higher education products, significant social benefits will also result from the University of the World. The focus for the University of the World’s product is that it focuses on the home and community. This will:
- Create a global feedback loop of understanding on how to improve life well being
- Extend these practices to the marginalized sectors of humanity
- Engage local action that affects social dynamics such as:
- Individual & Community Security
- Creation of Conservation Areas
- Effective & Transparent Governance
- Income Generation & Poverty Alleviation
- Peacebuilding among Communities
- Intra-community engagement, nurturing larger social stability
Learning from Existing Models
This university model, while innovative in many aspects, is also proven. A diversity of institutions has been working on such approaches; though, not offering academic degrees. Unions and guilds are a long-standing example. The Barefoot College in India has shown the effectiveness in reaching the marginalized. The Commonwealth of Learning illustrates how governments can coordinate to extend open education. However, in accredited higher education, the Future Generations Graduate School has proven the instructional mode of residentials in experiences with mentored student work back home. Also, the Open University has pioneered access in education, achieving demonstrable academic rigor with more than two and a half million students. Coming out of established higher education, the Massive Open Online Courseware concept (MOOCs), in the span of several years, has proven software-based learning. BRAC is one of several nonprofit organizations that have blended their organization with one of applied higher education. The University of the World grows from such deep roots in the history of education.
Capitalizing on Information Technology
Along with such institutional experience, making the University of the World’s approach now possible, are information technologies that have enabled two phenomena:
- Mobile Broadband Internet has grown more rapidly in one decade than any technology in world history, equaling now almost the penetration of literacy.
- Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOCs) in the span of several years has proven software-based learning with courses from hundreds of universities around the world now accessible to students all over the world.
Around the world, mobile devices connect students as buildings and walkways connect on campus. With this capacity, in the University of the World students mentor each other (learning by teaching), and faculty members guide this process, also providing oversight to assure excellence of learning. The educational result is that in their communities, students can start a skill, and with feedback from around the world, improve their skills. Learning journeys are taking place in their place and all over the world – supported by other learning journeys. The mobile devices not only create a worldwide campus, they also access books, films, lectures, events, even from the beginning of recorded history. These devices present a student’s work to the world, and that becomes the basis for grades and graduation while others can learn from and build on that student’s work.
A New Business Model for Higher Education
Current higher education models are costly: campuses must be constructed and maintained, and computer based models, while reducing cost, by being all in simulation do not excel in skills learning. The University of the World’s design offers a parallel approach – one that goes beyond that of university as apart, whether on campus or computer. It places both research and learning in the real world. As a result, not only is mission of relevant learning for student achieved, but also financial costs decrease, and the product, now with a skills focus, becomes socially productive.
In sum, higher education finds itself at the beginning of the 21st Century on the forefront of significant change. New models are coming forward. In this evolution, the University of the World brings together proven ideas and connects them to real-world needs to provide life-improving skills-based educations, open access to populations which previously could not attend higher education, and connect together learning communities around the world.