Teacher Education and its Critical Role in Today’s Higher Education
Higher education pedagogy is defined by the diverse elements of academic proficiency, skill development, research, simulation, and career orientation. Facilitating the nurturing of theoretical and empirical knowledge and making learners future-ready require special competencies among educators.
Three distinct influences have a bearing on higher education. Firstly, advances in technology are bringing radical changes in the learning content, methodology, modes and even the learning environment. Secondly, new pedagogical breakthroughs and the emergence of new curriculum are increasingly transforming the teaching and learning practices and experiences. Add to the two the dynamic nature of the 21st century industry to which business education has to constantly align itself. These cumulative influences make continual teacher professional development pivotal to higher education.
To better understand the critical role of teacher education in today’s higher education ecosystem, we must consider the changes taking place along the following dimensions.
The Changing Role of Teachers
From the ‘sage on the stage’, teachers are now transitioning to the new role of ‘guide on the side’. Student-centric learning is redefining the role of teachers as knowledge facilitators. Managing learning processes, integrating summative and formative assessments, acquiring tech proficiency for hybrid teaching, data analysis, Learning Management System tools, and updating with modified curriculum and applying outcome-based education (OBE) methodology are some of the competencies teachers need to be up to speed with.
The educator profile is changing in conjunction with the profile of the learners who need to develop higher cognitive skills such as critical thinking, quantitative analysis and statistical prowess. Teachers need to constantly upskill and reskill themselves to help nurture these capabilities in students along with an aptitude for complex problem solving, risk management and research and development. At the more holistic level, teachers have to be mentors and guides in facilitating a harmonious social, emotional, physical and spiritual development of learners.
Keeping Up With Technology
Technology is turning out to be a game changer in Industry 4.0, and teachers have to keep in step with latest innovations to deliver learning experiences that best fit corporate needs. The systemic shift to online learning during the pandemic is now giving way to a new paradigm where remote learning digital tools have become integral to blended pedagogy. According to a study conducted by McKinsey, higher educational institutions are continuing to leverage eight learning methodologies that are reliant on technology. These are:
- Group work: virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing between teachers and learners
- Connectivity and community building: This comprises tools through which teachers connect with students and build a large learning community
- AR/VR: Augmented and Virtual reality provide an excellent form of experiential learning which may, in the future, transform learning experience through the emergence of the metaverse
- Machine Learning-powered teaching: This constitutes automated apps and chat-bots that can be good assistants to educators
- AI-driven adaptive learning: Personalized learning journeys created by AI powered algorithms
- Student progress monitoring: Tech-driven assessment tools and LMS to chart out learning pathways
- Classroom interactions: Breakout rooms, chats, group discussions, quizzes etc facilitated by tech
- Classroom exercises: Ludic learning, gamification, simulation exercise through tech
Aligning Education With Ever-Changing Industry
The Future of Education and Skills 2030 report by OECD asserts the potential of education and educators to equip learners with a sense of purpose – apart from knowledge, skills, values and attitude – to shape their own lives and contribute towards societal growth and global sustainability. For this purpose educators have to bear the huge responsibility of nurturing the agency (or sense of purpose) in today’s learners. Given the dynamic nature of the industry, plenty of future jobs and job profiles will be added anew each year in this third decade of the 21st century.
Some of these new jobs include:
- Human-Machine Teaming Manager
- XR Immersion Counsellor
- Augmented Reality Journey Builder
- Algorithm Bias Auditor
- Cyber Calamity Forecaster
- Metaverse Planner
- Data Detective
Continuous teacher professional development programmes, as advocated in the National Education Policy 2020, shall be the prominent means to prepare educators who can meet the pedagogical challenges arising out of these new jobs and profiles. Over and above the new-age pedagogy, teachers also need to be in sync with the global realities, geopolitics, cultural dynamics and societal transformations to be best positioned to nurture learners into change-makers and leaders who shall confidently navigate through the new world order and define the future of humanity.
