Innovating pedagogy – 2013 trends report

Many of you will be familiar with the annual  Horizon reports, that describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning and teaching. The current 2013 Higher Education report for example lists flipped classrooms, MOOCs, mobile apps and tablet computing as current areas of interest with augmented reality, game-based learning, ‘the internet of things’ and learning analytics as areas to watch out for in the near future. Matt Jenner reflected on the history of Horizons’ trend spotting on this blog earlier this year in When does a technology no longer become a technology?

However there is now a new kid on the trend-spotting block. The Open University this month published the 2013 version of Innovating Pedagogy, a series of reports that started last year and which “explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation“. What makes this particularly interesting is that it has a UK focus and outlines some areas that are being actively discussed in UK universities, UCL included, but don’t feature (yet) in Horizons, though there is some overlap naturally.

The ten themes the OU pick this year are

• MOOCs (of course)
• Badges to accredit learning – an open framework for gaining recognition of skills and achievements
• Learning analytics i.e. data-driven analysis of learning activities and environments
• Seamless learning – connecting learning across settings, technologies and activities
• Crowd learning – harnessing the local knowledge of many people
• Digital scholarship – scholarly practice through networked technologies
• Geo-learning – learning in and about locations
• Learning from gaming –exploiting the power of digital games for learning
• Maker culture – learning by making
• Citizen inquiry – fusing inquiry-based learning and citizen activism

A fascinating and sometimes surprising list, and the report gives a quick overview of why the OU thinks these are or may be important and some links to further reading.