Facilitating the adoption of technology-enhanced active learning strategies in Middle Eastern colleges and universities

This discussion was originally developed in April 2009 for Ideagora when we were using the Ning platform and was subsequently moved to Ideagora on the Grou.ps platform. Given that Denise is moving Ideagora activities to Linkedin, it now resides in an archived state at http://www.uliveandlearn.com/ideagora/Middle_East_Discussion.docx

Although there can be no further discussion of this topic in the archive, we can use Linkedin’s comments section to continue the discussion. I look forward to reading and responding to your comments.

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We have had a rich and productive discussion in Ideagora regarding faculty resistance to implementing a technology-enhanced active learning instructional approach (see http://tinyurl.com/24v7p5b). This discussion resides at the intersection of these two topics: how can the adoption of technology-enhanced active learning strategies in Middle Eastern institutions be fostered?

Background: Several years ago, I served as a consultant to the ministry of higher education in a Middle Eastern country tasked to assist them plan for the future of the higher education system in their country. The ministry had found that most employers thought that the graduates they employed were ill prepared for their jobs. Thinking that this condition might be a consequence of the lecture/recitation pedagogy that characterized instructional approaches in the country’s education system, I recommended that they consider adopting more authentic/active learning strategies that would assist students acquire the skills they needed in an environment more closely resembling the real world where those skills would be needed.

The approach I advocated is one designed to affect organizational culture by engaging faculty members at the departmental, school, or institutional level in thinking about the future and its implications for their institution, their curriculum, their students, and their careers. This approach is detailed in workshop format athttp://horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/ELME.html. However, this model is designed to work with people who are empowered to make and implement decisions and who are accustomed to free and open discussion with peers and superiors.

I am not at all sure that this approach would be effective in the Middle East environment, characterized by a top-down cultural orientation and a deep commitment to lectures and recitations as the primary instructional paradigm. I recall a planning workshop I led in Dubai with high-level administrators that used a similar approach to institutional planning. The workshop evaluations made it clear that the participants would have preferred me to lecture (i.e., tell them about the trends and events that would affect their future and how) instead of working with their peers in deriving critical trends and potential events that could affect their future (see http://tinyurl.com/2b4qbhe ).

After a similar workshop with college faculty members in an Egyptian institution, a professor told me that there was no need to include faculty members in such workshops because they had little role in curriculum or institutional planning.

These cultural differences present a barrier to the adoption of innovative pedagogical programs in higher education in the region. How can faculty members be invested in a curriculum or a future in which they have little influence in developing? How can educators deeply committed to a traditional lecture-based pedagogy be encouraged to investigate more innovative ways of teaching and learning that can teach their students essential 1st-century skills? It seems to me that addressing these questions must be approached from a perspective that respects the cultural traditions of the region and I am a bit unsure of how to do this.

Thoughts?