A LEARNING COLLEGE FOR THE 21^ST CENTURY

How will we incorporate those 21^st century skills into the fabric of our institutions? How can we transform our students, ourselves, and our institutions? 

The answer is embedded in the concept of the Learning College.

We are getting wiser about learning. By making use of what we know about cognition we are making learning more productive. If, for example, students retain more when they teach than when they listen, shouldn’t we redesign our learning environments to capitalize on an 85% gain in retention?

Expand with Technology

LEARNING-CENTERED

To be sure, being learning-centered means having a focus on the learner as well as adopting customer service principles. However, we must be sure that our institutions are learning-centered as well as learner-centered. This implies that we must invest in faculty, staff and administrators and in their ongoing professional development.

RENEW ADMINISTRATION

Because no enterprise will ever have all the dollars it needs, we must look for savings. One approach is to make policies and procedures more efficient. Are there any triplicate forms or multiple signature protocols we could eliminate? Can time, effort or resources be redirected to academic programs instead of administrative processes? Many institutions are eliminating unnecessary paperwork, dismantling unproductive policies, reengineering processes and leveraging the IT infrastructure as they renew administration.

LEVERAGE PARTNERSHIPS

Education is a massive and complex undertaking. It is one that we can all contribute to. But to do that effectively we must define how we will work together—how we define an effective partnership. Partnerships are not synonymous with philanthropy. To develop effective partnerships we must spend time working together, sharing goals and developing trust and understanding. Education, government and business can learn from each other.

CONCLUSION

As we move toward the 21^st century, technology, learning, and community are even more important than ever. Technology stimulated the structural changes that have resulted in a global economy, a networked world and unprecedented competition. We will compete by using technology and by being successful learners. Technology will help us create and sustain the necessary learning communities.

However, technology has limitations on what it can accomplish. You do not. A word processor might have made it easier to write the Declaration of Independence, but it required the genius of Thomas Jefferson to capture the American cause. Sophisticated technology made possible the triumph of the moon landing. It did not instill the dream to go there (Gerstner, 1998).

Our challenge is to think creatively about the future of education. Technology is changing the way we live, work, and educate. It has created a global, networked world. We will all benefit by being part of this learning community and challenging each institution to be a Learning College.