Exploiting Disruptive Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Abstract

AbstractWith the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world has been in chaos, turmoil and a changing environment that is chaotic and difficult to predict. In the midst of rapid technological advancements, geopolitical shifts, dramatic demographic changes, ecological disasters and immigration, lives are being disrupted at a level of severity and frequency that seems to only increase. Most importantly, globalization and competitive market forces have created significant growth in the knowledge sector, a development that has a profound effect on society and higher education institutions. Together, these factors have accentuated a state of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that has been termed VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. The interaction between the four VUCA elements can lead to the breakdown of order in almost every organization, including the education and higher education sectors. Since students today have grown up with technology, they expect to have instant access all the time and anywhere to their learning materials.As opposed to this, a black swan event is an abnormal behaviour outside the normal expected behaviour, an event that has an extreme impact and a response that is rationalized retrospectively (Taleb, 2007). Black Swan events, like the COVID-19 pandemic that has just been reported, can throw a wrench in the works in a VUCA world. The twenty-first century has experienced some Black Swan events, such as 9/11, and the 2008 financial crisis; however, the COVID-19 pandemic, a global phenomenon occurring over the next few years, will be a unique blend of VUCA and Black Swan events (Hadar et al. in Rethinking teacher education in a VUCA world: student teachers' social-emotional competencies during the Covid-19 crisis. European Journal of Teacher Education, 1–14, 2020). Therefore, in the coming years and decades, higher education has entered uncharted territory that will require a great deal of agility and profound astuteness to progress.In reviewing the current situation and future challenges in the learning innovation space, we found that there is a need for a new set of tools and an updated framework that will help educators support innovative learning initiatives. It is for these reasons that in the following chapter we propose a two-pronged approach: Integration of the Disruptive Innovation Framework (Bower & Christensen, 1995) and the Transformative Strategic Framework for Learning Innovation (Salmon, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning 17:220–236, 2014). In order to accomplish this, the Gartner hype cycle and Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Model (Roger, 2010) are combined to create a framework for strategic planning and to provide educators with a practical framework to improve the implementation of interventions.