The fifth area of potential opportunity identified by Drucker is process needs. In light of the growing concerns that our graduates are emerging from our institutions without appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities, we must begin to question our traditional process of educating students. Our current model of undergraduate education has been based on an epistemology, methodology, and instructional paradigm focused on the transference of information and assimilation of knowledge. As technology transformation has accelerated and problems have become more complex, we have responded by adding courses that attempt to accelerate information transfer. However, it is becoming apparent that covering more or different content is not the solution.
We must begin to question the belief that knowledge in and of itself is valuable. In answering this question, more and more institutions are shifting their focus from knowledge to learning, from information transfer to helping students develop lifelong learning capacity in order to make the educational experience a transformative one. Adding more courses, transferring more information, does not transform students. Students will be transformed by increasing the depth of their learning and their self-awareness of how they learn. Our process of educating students must address this fundamental need if we are to develop lifelong learners with the capacity to readily adapt to a changing world.
While we are closer to reaching consensus on what the new graduate must know in order to succeed in the changing world and the twenty-first-century workforce, we have yet to agree on how those outcomes are best achieved. As Guskin and Marcy (2002) write, “Higher education now faces a critical choice about this process [by which knowledge is delivered]. Present forces in higher education will either lead to significant reform in the undergraduate educational environment or to a significant diminution in the quality of faculty work life because of sharp increases in faculty teaching loads and related work”. Answering this question of process is an opportunity for innovation.
We must begin to question the belief that knowledge in and of itself is valuable. In answering this question, more and more institutions are shifting their focus from knowledge to learning, from information transfer to helping students develop lifelong learning capacity in order to make the educational experience a transformative one. Adding more courses, transferring more information, does not transform students. Students will be transformed by increasing the depth of their learning and their self-awareness of how they learn. Our process of educating students must address this fundamental need if we are to develop lifelong learners with the capacity to readily adapt to a changing world.
While we are closer to reaching consensus on what the new graduate must know in order to succeed in the changing world and the twenty-first-century workforce, we have yet to agree on how those outcomes are best achieved. As Guskin and Marcy (2002) write, “Higher education now faces a critical choice about this process [by which knowledge is delivered]. Present forces in higher education will either lead to significant reform in the undergraduate educational environment or to a significant diminution in the quality of faculty work life because of sharp increases in faculty teaching loads and related work”. Answering this question of process is an opportunity for innovation.
