Continuous learning and learner-orientation – nothing new?

In the blog series “What changes with Digivisio?”, Project Manager Eeva-Leena Forma shares her thoughts along the journey of transformation. Eeva-Leena led the transformation program from 2022 to 2024.

In the early days of the change programme in autumn 2022, we took a plunge with higher education institutions, when we asked each of them to come up with their own Digivisio-oriented change plan during the first two months. At that time, there was a particular interest in the strategic readiness and desire of higher education institutions to join others in a united front to advance the digital transformation enabled by Digivisio over the next few years. The two major issues in this stage were continuous learning and learner-orientation.

Initially, continuous learning and learner-orientation were not quite so easy to link with the subject of change in higher education institutions. Lifelong learning, student-oriented approaches and student-centricity were already well established elements of strategy discussions in their own right.

The relationship with the learner was described particularly from a degree student-centred standpoint and the term ‘learner-oriented’ provided a new way to highlight the continuous learner’s perspective. Lifelong and continuous learning were familiar concepts, such as in examining the offering of open studies, specialisation studies or continuing education.

Now there is a desire to provide a variety of opportunities for learning and knowledge to learners with a wide range of interests. Support for this work came in December 2022, when the Finnish National Strategy for Continuous Learning in Higher Education (Kansallinen korkeakoulujen jatkuvan oppimisen strategia) was published.

Nothing new – until informal and non-formal offerings were included in the discussion

Informal and non-formal offerings gave new meaning to the subject of continuous learning and learner orientation. We introduced informal learning and uncredited offerings from higher education institutions to the discussion. Someone might initially suggest that we do not have such offerings, or it is felt that they do not generate as much value as investment would.

This sparked months of activity in the change programme and higher education institutions. The study offerings of higher education institutions were examined from a fresh perspective. It could soon be said that, for example, various seminars, events, thesis defences and research projects produce interesting offerings all the time, but this appears to be missing a couple of important things: overall coordination and processing of activities.

Digivisio’s first product, the Opin.fi service, could be an opportunity to increase the visibility and impact of one’s own higher education institution, but there have also been reflections on whether it would actually reach new learners and to what extent such offerings are generally in the interest of the higher education institution. After all, each higher education institution has to solve this itself.

In Digivisio, the idea of what constitutes a continuous learner has been composed together with learners by means of, for example, surveys, interviews and testing. Although a continuous learner can be anyone, in the first stage of developing the Opin.fi service, the focus has been on an enthusiast and a watcher who wants to see the opportunities provided by the higher education institution to know more, who wants to supplement their competence with varying scopes of content, who is interested in the latest research data and topical issues, following them, for example, on blogs and podcasts or attending seminars. All of this can be found in our higher education institutions.

Asking “why?” could be changed to “why not?”: Why not take advantage of the opportunity to be visible and to influence the shared service for higher education institutions through our own work? One might ask whether this would further enhance the role or profile of their own higher education institution in education and research.

One change coordinator described the change within their own organisation as a change in multidisciplinary cooperation. Change is discussed and brought about through practical operative measures and from administration to the academic field.

Change concerns operating methods, processes, pedagogy, quality and systems, to name just a few. It is also constantly linked to national Digivisio development through representatives of higher education institutions. Each and every piece is needed to make the puzzle whole.

During its two-year journey of transformation, each higher education institution has verbalised its goals, choices and cuts, and will also examine them in the future in relation to the view that the service and its analytics will provide.

At this stage, however, it can be said with great satisfaction that, from the perspective of operational change, we have had excellent goal and process discussions and measures concerning informal and non-formal offerings, a new kind of continuous learning and a learner-oriented approach. This will then bear fruit in the spring when the Opin.fi service is launched, and the journey of transformation continues.

At TAMK, learner-orientation was discussed in a blog in November 2023:

“We still need to deepen our learner-centricity and focus as part of the opportunities for continuous and flexible learning. On the other hand, we must continue to consider what a learner-centric approach means from the perspective of each higher education actor, as an operating method and as participation. We must also examine how continuous learners will be at the centre of formal, informal and non-formal learning. What are the pedagogical measures that guide learner-oriented implementations?”
Ruhalahti, S. & Kinnari-Korpela, H. (2023). Olemmeko oppijalähtöisiä vai -keskeisiä? TAMK blog. 7 November 2023

Eeva-Leena Forma
Project Manager
Support for operational change and change management

Eeva-Leena Forma, known also as “higher education institution whisperer” at the Digivisio project office, has led the change programme in 2022–2024. The programme supports higher education institutions in the operational change and change management promoted by Digivisio. Work has been carried out in close cooperation with the change coordinators of 37 higher education institutions. It has focused on the changes required by the services and operating models developed in the project and on promoting them in higher education institutions. The change coordinator network has shared expertise between higher education institutions, and supporting its work has been an important part of the change programme.

Read also the first part of the blog series: