Abstract:

Offering the best possible learning environments to higher education students involves continuous reevaluation of the teaching technologies used, and the abilities to be developed in the students. Higher education keeps changing at a rapid pace, and managers of educational institutions need to be aware of new trends and technologies that are likely to shape the future of higher education and the challenges that will have to be faced. Among these trends and technologies, experts have identified the redesign of learning spaces, the increasing use of blended learning, the rigorous measurement of learning outcomes, or the collaboration of different institutions. As far as the main challenges that higher education will have to overcome in the next few years, they may change depending on the country or type of education, but the following are often mentioned: how to blend formal and informal learning, how to adapt teaching to the needs of each particular learner or how to improve the digital competence in all members of the teaching and learning community. The objective of this paper is to give pointers to the main issues that are going to shape higher education in the next few years, and to discuss two of them in detail. First of all, the use of Open Educational Resources: the sites that started to offer abundant and high quality educational materials will be mentioned, and the impact they are having on the educational community described. Secondly, the need to give similar importance to teaching and research in academic environments, and some of the initiatives that are being taken in this regard will be discussed. It will be concluded that although continuous improvement of higher education is time consuming, careful information research can help the motivated teacher to optimize academic practices.

Keywords:

Future of higher education, open educational resources, teaching versus research