One of the keynotes on “University Teaching of the Future – Social Opportunities and Challenges” as part of the Day of Learning and Teaching 2023 at the University of Freiburg.
Lecture title
University of the future? A service for society!
Summary in the LinkedIn post of the University of Freiburg
Dr. Anja C. Wagner, co-founder of the digital education agency Frolleinflow, has been advising universities on their digital transformation for many years, develops OER self-learning materials and is a sought-after speaker as a creative trendsetter and “educational maverick”. The speaker focused her presentation on AI and new challenges for society and individuals, but also the opportunities that arise from it.
In a digression, Ms. Wagner first provided the participants with an overview of how all previous technological turns have changed and will continue to change the (economic) world. AI as the basic technology of the 21st century will have far-reaching consequences for human gainful employment and for society as a whole, which will have to be rethought and reorganized, including its security systems and education. In contrast, she explained how Germany and the EU are lagging behind in terms of technological change. In order to keep up with the rapid pace of development, Germany needs a new mentality and a “resilient culture of error and experimentation”. According to estimates by the World Economic Forum, 1-1.5 billion workers worldwide will have to undergo radical retraining in soft skills by 2030. Soft skills (e.g. digital skills) are now more important than pure hard skills (i.e. specialist knowledge) when it comes to career opportunities[1].
A brief historical digression should show how urgent challenges and technologies of past and present societies have also changed the understanding of (higher) education: According to Wagner, the conventional top-down understanding of education was in a “battle” with the bottom-up knowledge transfer approaches of social learning, e.g. in third places, crowd sourcing, peer-to-peer learning, learning in networks.
Wagner cited two recent surveys in response to the questions of which skills will be needed in the world of work in the future and how universities will deal with generative AI. According to a global survey of the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2023 , ChatGPT has already risen to fourth place after YouTube, Google Search and Microsoftteams[2]. According to a flash survey commissioned by the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung in its community[3], ChatGPT has long since arrived in everyday university life, but still too few universities offer supportive regulation or assistance for generative AI, let alone access to ChatGPT licenses.
In the “future skills turn”, which is already taking place today, convincing future concepts are needed for higher education. These will no longer focus on the function of knowledge transfer, but on supporting students in the development of future skills[4]. “Future skills are competencies that allow individuals to solve complex problems in highly emergent contexts in a self-organized manner and to be able to act (successfully)”[5]. In addition to the acquisition of knowledge, the reflection of values and the development of skills are important[6].
At the latest when artificial intelligence replaces human personnel and we are no longer or only marginally gainfully employed, the personal development and individuality of people will come to the fore. Accordingly, it will be the task of the education system to form personalities, shape characters and provide development orientation, according to Wagner.
In summary: education is not just a question of limited resources, money or time. The problem is not the lack of investment in education nationwide, but the will to bundle and reorganize existing educational resources across society so that they can be used more efficiently. As a learning space, the internet has offered such synergy opportunities (e.g. OER) for over 30 years, which could be used even more. According to Wagner, most universities still lack visions and concepts in the area of lifelong learning.