International Conference of Education Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia

The Global Challenges of Learning Pedagogy During Covid-19 Outbreak in the Industrial

Revolution 4.0:

An Inclusive Perspective

Associate Professor, Ann Cheryl ArmstrongFaculty of Arts Law and Education

University of the South Pacific

October 16 - 17, 2020

Overview of this Presentation

1. The Reach of Covid-19

2. The Industrial Revolution 4.0

3. Caught Unaware

3. The Support System of Learning

4. Rethinking & Reshaping Research: A Case-Study

5. Inclusion: For the Many NOT for the Few

6. Concluding Reflections

The Reach of Covid-19

• Affecting: 214 countries and territories

• Coronavirus Cases: 38,734,694

• Currently Infected Patients: 8,514,969

• Deaths: 1,096,828

• Recovered: 29,122,897

Few countries have not reported any cases of the coronavirus

No Reported Cases

• Kiribati• Marshall Islands• Micronesia• Nauru• North Korea• Palau• Samoa• Solomon Islands• Tonga• Turkmenistan• Tuvalu• Vanuatu

Some Reported Cases in this Region

• Fiji : 32 cases; 2 deaths; 30 recovered

• Australia: 27,357; 904 deaths; 25, 047 recovered

• New Zealand: 1, 876; 25 deaths; 1809 recovered

• Indonesia: 344, 749 cases; 12,156 deaths; 64,742 active cases

The Industrial Revolution 4.0

What does this mean?

The 4th Industrial Revolution

• It is understood in terms of the fusion of the digital, biological, and physical worlds;

• As well as the growing use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, 3D printing, the Internet of Things (including software, real time analytics, smart buildings and offices, smart devices e.g. phones, tablets watches, security systems) and advanced wireless technologies, and so on.

• This fusion has ushered in a new era of economic disruption with uncertain socio-economic consequences for developing countries.

• Included in that mix is LEARNING

• Many developing countries had been left behind during the past industrial revolutions.

• Will there be a change this time?

The World Economic Forum

• In 2016, the WEF stated that the world was at the

beginning of a Fourth Industrial Revolution which

meant that the more industrial countries in the

world were building and extending the impact of

digitisation based on the technologies and

infrastructure developed during the third revolution.

Schwab (2016) writing for the World Economic Forum

predicted that, “we stand on the brink of a

technological revolution that will fundamentally alter

the way we live, work, and relate to one another”.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/agency-wire/504-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-must-benefit-everyone

Faster and More Disruptive …• It was predicted that technology in the 4th Industrial

Revolution will be faster and more disruptive than the first three.

• That's certainly true for the developed world, but history suggests developing countries will probably have a completely different experience.

• So when anticipating how the 4th Industrial Revolution will improve how we experience the world of learning, it is important to consider how to ensure those benefits extend to developing countries as well.

• If we don’t consider the above, there will be a greater divide between the developed and developing world.

Caught Unaware

• A pandemic had been discussed for a several years and had been touted as inevitable.

• A succession of outbreaks and near misses since the late 1990s, along with increasingly sophisticated scientific research, made this prediction clear.

• Most universities were still caught unaware.

• Some universities where there were minimal online teaching activity offering mostly face to face courses were suddenly faced with an urgent imperative to convert these courses to an online delivery mode (Rapanta et al, 2020).

• Not surprisingly, the industrial countries have ‘developed’ more rapidly than the less industrialised nations of the world; and, in this Covid-19 environment, technology has been thrust into the limelight.

• Even within the higher income countries, there are great disparities within communities.

• While this discussion is really about what’s happening in higher education, there is an underlying situation that’s present in the general education system that will undoubtedly affect the higher education system.

World Economic Forum (Kandri, 2020)

• COVID-19 is driving a long-overdue revolution in education

• The pandemic has forced universities to bring their courses online.

• The situation becomes even more challenging when the learners are disabled and live in poverty and located in remote areas for example, in Australia or in Pacific Island communities.

Options available:

• The crisis has caused an acceleration in the development of

online education in a different way to how it was previously

used:

• as an addition to traditional face-to-face classes;

• as a lesser / poor version of face-to-face education;

• using differently packaged information and different ways

of using information;

• Also the development of different interpersonal relations.

The Support System of Learning

Learning requires an entire support system for distance education:

• Institutional Support through the over-arching system including interactive e-tutorial systems, sufficient band-width, communication platforms and so on;

• Subject Support– Appropriate and engaging Curriculum

– Dynamic Online Pedagogy

– Equipped Online Libraries

– Equipment/Software

Simon MarginsonTimes Higher Education (2020)

“ Global HE as we know it has forever changed”.

“rethink [your] online provision”

If the next academic year begins on an online basis,

platforms will need to be better quality than the

temporary – and sometimes brilliant – adaptations now

being put in place.

Significant Challenges

• the urgent and unexpected request for previously face-to-face university courses to be taught online;

• a certain type of design and organisation is required to enhance the learning experiences and creating distinctive learning environments using digital technologies;

• teaching some ‘non-expert’ university lecturers to upskill themselves during these challenging times;

• variable connectivity across locations.

• variable costs for connectivity, hardware and software across locations

Opportunities

• To develop/convert material that supports social interaction among participants;

• Caters to cognitive engagement so that the learning is interesting and captures the imagination of the learners;

• Facilitating Independent Learning – guiding and assisting learners to explore concepts and develop an inquisitiveness for learning, though self exploration and dialogue.

• We also need to ensure that our assessmentstrategies are modified and adapted to suit the ‘new’ mode of learning.

• Using tried and tested traditional distance learning modalities like: Radio programming, educational television; print; distribution of USPs with pre-loaded materials; distribution of tablets with pre-loaded materials.

Variability

• distance learning in high income countries covers about 80–85 %.

• this drops to less than 50% in low income countries.

• This shortfall can largely be attributed to the digital divide.– the disadvantaged having limited access to basic needs like

food and health care and household services such as electricity;

– a lack of technology infrastructure; and,

– low levels of digital literacy among students, parents, and teachers.

United Nations (2020). Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond.

Rethinking and reshaping international

research collaboration: A Case Study

Covid-19 & Pacific Island Countries

• Countries immediately closed their borders;

• Students at the university who are on the main

campus were ‘stranded’;

• Interviews by Zoom or some other communication

mechanism;

• Employing facilitators to conduct aspects of face-to-

face research.

One Ocean Hub – UK Research & Innovation

• Appraisal of the potential impacts of our research for our beneficiaries

• What do we hope to achieve by the end of the research?

The OOH Team in South Africa

Our Living Aula

Covid-19 is forcing us to review the way we conduct research

• Learning pedagogies take place in our classrooms whether they are face to face or virtual and they also take place through our research.

• This is especially so in these times of research-informed learning and teaching.

• We need to conduct the research so that the findings could inform the communities whom we serve as well as our students, colleagues, research partners across the globe and our funders.

The One Ocean Hub

• As a team we had to rethink our strategy of working in 2 countries in the Pacific and having critical friends from around the world.

• The USP with a team of six lead co-investigators, is uniquely placed to build strong long-term innovative and collaborative research programmes to address real world sustainable development issues that are directly impacting our member countries on a daily basis.

• We adopted a trans-disciplinary approach to conducting the research on the intractable challenges of the Ocean.

OOH Pacific Island Stakeholders

Island Explorers

• Island Explorers is an education programme that represents one aspect of OOH. It puts the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability at the forefront of primary education for generation 2030.

• The programme aims to first pilot the project with three primary schools in different coastal locations in both Fiji and Solomon Islands.

How has Covid-19 changed the way we work?

• Can’t travel to locations that are outside of Fiji for meetings.

• Cannot visit commissioning artists in other Pacific Locations.

• Cannot conduct the field work in Solomon Islands.

• Our timeline has changed several times.

• We have been forced to become even more resilient and to stay solution-focused.

We continue to experience … Fragility

• Challenges with remoteness and access

• Cyclones

• Floods

• Variable internet connectivity

• Electrical outages

• Fragile Health Services

• Prohibitive cost for connectivity, hardware and software.

• Now Covid-avoidance is added to the list

Using the technology to our advantage…

• Online Living Aulas (classrooms) using Zoom for 60+ researchers across the world in the Pacific, Ghana, Namibia, Kenya, the Caribbean, South Africa and the UK.

• Break out rooms for discussions.

• Chat functions.

• Video stories of the work taking place in our various locations across the world with talanoa sessions.

• Hiring highly experienced persons who cannot travel to their place of work as consultants in their local contexts

• Relying on emails, zoom, telephones and any other communication channel available (Skype, Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber)

• Being solution focused and developing relationships based on TRUST.

In Conclusion …

Policy Brief on Education during COVID-19 and Beyond (August 2020)

• this health crisis “… is exacerbating pre-existing

education disparities by reducing the opportunities

for many of the most vulnerable children, youth, and

adults – those living in poor or rural areas, girls,

refugees, persons with disabilities and forcibly

displaced persons – to continue their learning.

(United Nations, 2020: p.2)

The Panacea???

• Technology may enable institutions to continue some sort of educational engagement.

• The question is:

– Will technology be able to solve our educational problems?

• This is an opportune time to be creative and reflect upon the question that Veletsianos(2020) poses:

• “What should the future of digital, online and flexible learning look like?”

• We are the creators of this new world of learning

Perhaps we need to ask ourselves and reflect upon the following…

• In what ways do the work that we, our

colleagues and our students do contribute

to better educational futures?

In determining our futures we should seek to:

• be Inclusive, Equitable and Just;

• serve all our learners in the best possible ways by being flexible to their needs;

• exhibit care for our students;

• prioritize collaboration over competition.

We are expected to Publish or Perish.

Is that still relevant in this era?

Inclusion involves a process of systemic reform

embodying changes and modifications in content,

teaching methods, approaches, structures and

strategies in education to overcome barriers with a

vision serving to provide ALL … with an equitable and

participatory learning experience and environment

that best corresponds to their requirements and

preferences.

How can we be more inclusive?

TEACHERS/LECTURERS/EDUCATORSARE CUSTODIANS OF INCLUSION

How do we work for the many NOT

for the few ...

Creating an Inclusive Education System:So what do we do about it?

We reflect and examine our:

• Values (PACIFIC VALUES)

• Processes

• Practices

• Culture

Then we we take the first step and begin to make small changes in the way we do things

Inclusive Spaces

• What makes an institution and an

education system genuinely inclusive?

• They provide opportunities:

– for learning and social engagement for

all learners; and

– value all learners

How do we strengthen INCLUSION by using traditional Pacific Values as we

navigate the Covid-19 Reality in which we live?

Family - Connection Place, Identity & Ancestry

Relationship (Living in the Communities)

Social Responsibility (sharing/giving back)

Respect & Humility

Religion & Cultural customs

Vinaka Vakalevu / Terima Kasih/ DhanyavaadMalo ‘aupito / Tangkyu tumas /

Fa'afetai Fa'afetai tele