The Application of Kotter's Model of Change in the Higher Education: A Case Study in Vietnam Private Universities

With the changing demands of higher quality teaching profession, especially the increasing trend of studying at private universities, many fail to produce desired effects, even when guided by organizational change models. Educational specialists, educators, academics, school administrators, and even scientists have all contributed to the development of change management as a significant concept. The purpose of this study is to apply Kotter's 8-step model of change to educational administration of private universities in Ho Chi Minh City. Change efforts focus on enhancing faculty capacity to support diverse student success. The change process is planned using Kotter's (1996) eight-step change model and is therefore a regulated, linear, sequential change process. The initial steps were reviewed, and the strategies considered workable. This approach enhances faculty acquisition and project success. Characterization of each step provides insight into ways to apply Kotter's model of change in higher education settings.

Embracing Technological Change in Higher Education

Access to information has never been easier, thanks to the rapid development of the internet and communication technologies, and the ubiquity of smartphones and other internet-enabled devices. In traditional classroom learning, teachers provide students with various sources of information that are known to be reliable. Nowadays, especially in a post-pandemic era, students increasingly rely on a host of resources available on the internet. Exposure to vast amounts of scattered information could adversely affect students’ learning process. Meanwhile, pedagogical approaches, classroom learning practices, and student learning activities have evolved significantly to cope with contemporary challenges. This study reviews the current learning practices and the technological interventions in a rapidly evolving higher education landscape. In particular, the challenges when integrating technology into higher education are considered in detail and ways put forward for doing so in that context.

Agile Change to Digital Teaching during and after Corona Pandemic for Flipped Classroom Courses

The Corona Pandemic has a major impact on teaching at universities. Various stakeholders have to face new challenges when face-to-face courses are no longer feasible. The management of higher education institutions, teachers and their teams as well as the IT and didactics support are called upon to develop digital teaching and learning formats at short notice. This article aims to identify specific tasks and responsibilities with the help of two literature analyses and to transfer the results into a holistic overview of agile change for Flipped Classroom courses. This overview is based on a Change Management (CM) process to which tasks of agile development and change are assigned. It thus combines both short-term development under time pressure from an agile perspective as well as long-term necessary steps of CM. The necessity and usefulness of such an overview was determined before its creation. For this purpose, a short quantitative survey was conducted with 65 people, who have already passed through the entire CM-process of digital change in higher education teaching and are therefore regarded as experts. The usefulness and necessity of the overview were confirmed. The concluding recommendations for action address the possible use of the overview, the implementation of individual tasks and the joint action of the stakeholders during and also after the Corona Pandemic, which should support the change to digital higher education teaching.

An Institutional Perspective for Evaluating Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Insights from the Chilean Case

From a managerial perspective, the rapid diffusion of actions and strategies accelerating the digital transformation of institutions is critical for success. However, in education, business, and management studies, digital transformation can be understood as simple evolutionary processes that enable business models, operational processes, and experiences to be made quickly and efficiently by institutions and agents. This aspect can sometimes lead to opposition, especially when little information is available or in situations of high uncertainty. This research aims to evaluate the involvement of an institutional ecosystem in the digital transformation at universities. Using data collected in Chile, this paper analyzes how the adoption of technologies by universities provides a context for understanding digitalization, measured by the IAU World Higher Education Database (UNESCO). The main finding of this paper is that there is a wide and relevant range of impacts of technological change in higher education institutions, particularly in the categories of values and operations. Additionally, this work serves as a repository of knowledge applicable to similar situations considering the specificities of each particular case. The importance to intervene in relation to certain variables at different levels of managerial performance is described and the implications for higher education institutions are discussed in these pages.