- Can you tell us a little about your background and your role at Boundless Learning?
- What are the long-term goals you’re focusing on right now with Boundless Learning?
- AI is transforming many industries. How do you see AI impacting online learning, and what excites you the most about it?
- Can you share an example of a recent project you’re proud of?
- Can you explain the Boundless Learning Academy offering and why universities should be interested in it?
Voice of a Leader: Dr. Aaron Wijeratne
When it comes to leading innovation in online higher education, Dr. Aaron Wijeratne knows what it takes. With years of experience as an educator and senior lecturer on topics like learning development, human resources, and leadership, Dr. Wijeratne combines his pedagogical expertise with forward-thinking leadership. He’s passionate about expanding access to quality education and building systems that empower learners and educators alike.
We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Wijeratne about his role, current projects, and the future he envisions for online learning. His insights reflect why Boundless Learning continues to be a trailblazer in the education space.
Key takeaways:
- Dr. Aaron Wijeratne is Director of Academic Services at Boundless Learning, overseeing academic delivery, global bids, and the product roadmap.
- He aims to position the company as a next-generation OPM that integrates tech, data, and design while sharing its expertise more widely.
- Generative AI will shift education from content delivery toward deeper focus on the learning process and personalized support.
- AI can free educators from repetitive tasks so they can concentrate on teaching.
- Expanding Boundless Learning Academy into a global product is one of his proudest recent achievements.
- The Academy offers practical courses that quickly upskill university staff for effective online teaching.
Can you tell us a little about your background and your role at Boundless Learning?
“My role as Director of Academic Services is threefold. First, I oversee the academic delivery for our University of Adelaide and University of Oxford partnerships. This includes managing a talented team of academic staff who bring expertise to our programs, ensuring seamless delivery for learners.
Second, I’m focused on global bid management, which means developing strategies for how Boundless Learning positions itself in new markets as we grow. This entails differentiating our service offerings and building a coherent, global vision for the future.
Lastly, I work closely on defining our product roadmap, particularly our learner lifecycle models and educational service offerings. We’re innovating ways to enhance learning design and make Boundless Learning’s strengths in academic delivery and subject matter expertise more apparent in the market.
It’s an exciting mix of strategy, product development, and operational leadership.”
What are the long-term goals you’re focusing on right now with Boundless Learning?
“My long-term goal is representing our business as a next-generation OPM with a strong focus on integrating tech, data, and design in our practices.
I want to take the skills, capabilities, and experience that we’ve gained over 30 years in the business and share them more broadly.
That could be through fee-for-service offerings, but it’s also through training and professional development for organizations to enable them to build their educational businesses.
We’ve really transformed how we look at our relationships with the educational sector and we are now driving educational growth in a number of areas. We’re the experts in doing this, and we’re happy to share that knowledge to build the industry as a whole.”
AI is transforming many industries. How do you see AI impacting online learning, and what excites you the most about it?
“AI represents the shift that education has needed for decades. For too long, higher education has used the same model to share information with students.
Through generative AI, I think we’ll see a shift away from content generation and toward the learning process. It’s not just about knowledge acquisition, it’s about ensuring that students can understand what they’re learning.
For the overall architecture of a learning ecosystem, AI will offer on-demand learning when and where learners want it. Moving forward, students will have access to personalized tutors that can provide live support.
From a Boundless Learning perspective, we can combine AI with the real-person support system of our Student Success Teams. It’s exciting to consider how we’ll use AI to enhance the student experience and ensure that we’re operating at a high level.
Online learning and teaching can be perceived as taking on an additional workload, but educators can utilize AI tools to streamline repetitive work processes and complete research efficiently, allowing them to focus on what they’re meant to do – educate.”
Can you share an example of a recent project you’re proud of?
Can you explain the Boundless Learning Academy offering and why universities should be interested in it?
“As part of our partnership with the University of Adelaide, we needed to develop their internal capabilities around online learning design, online facilitation, and how they could transition their academic staff into a purely online environment.
This program started about five years ago and is designed by academics, for academics. Designing and delivering education in the online environment is very different from the traditional face-to-face classroom. It’s a different type of experience and it requires skilled educators to really be able to do it.
We have a team that understands online learning, and we share that knowledge with colleagues across institutions. We’re enabling universities to develop the capabilities to deliver high-quality online education.
Formal academic training doesn’t often involve developmental training through online facilitation. A lot of training and learning is done on-the-job. With Boundless Learning Academy, we give institutions access to a range of courses to upskill their academic staff quickly so they’re ready to effectively teach in an online environment. It’s for inexperienced academics as much as it is for experienced academics, so we’ve got a range of options. The courses are very practical and give the staff skills that can be applied to their jobs right away.”
Discover more about Boundless Learning Academy and other learning solutions here.