The COVID-19 Pandemic will have long-lasting impacts on our society. One of the sectors where normalcy has been the most disrupted and which will likely undergo the most change is education. Millions of students have had to move from in-person classrooms to remote learning almost overnight. While not all of the long-term effects of this pandemic will be positive, I believe that the evolution education will undergo will be long overdue.
Our education system has been deteriorating for decades. A system predicated on conformity has not been able to keep pace with the tools and methods necessary to best equip learners to flourish in modern society. I believe that the coronavirus’ impact will be less of a seismic shift for education and more of a wake-up call to the massive impacts that technology has been making on the learning environment. The three technology trends that I think will leave the largest impressions on education are the rise of remote teaching, more personalized lessons, and life-long learning.
Remote Teaching
Whether we wanted it or not, remote teaching is here and my guess is that it will be here to stay. As school districts and universities have tried to flip the switch on remote learning, what has become clear is that teaching remotely requires a different skill set and tool kit than teaching in person. This may sound obvious, but as I have spoken with those who are experiencing this first hand, it is striking how different the experience can be depending on whether or not your teacher was prepared. Teachers who were prepared had developed asynchronous lectures, experiential modules, and environments where students could collaborate. Teachers who weren’t, propped up an iPhone on some textbooks in the back of the room and continued trying to teach as if nothing had changed. The reality is that there isn’t an inherently superior type of learning. Both remote and in-person education have their shares of pros and cons. I expect that in the future we will see the rise of more blended styles of learning that combine the collaboration and communication of in-person learning with the convenience and asynchronicity of remote education.
Personalized Lessons
Modern education’s most fundamental flaw is the forced structure of the one-to-many classroom. Teachers are put in the impossible situation of trying to keep 30+ different students with different needs and learning paces in lock-step as they navigate government-imposed standardized curriculums. Inevitably some portion of the class is left behind. Either lessons move too fast and struggling students are left in the dust or they move at a snail’s pace with high achievers becoming bored (and if they are anything like I was growing up, resorting to distracting their fellow students). Technology now allows us to meet students where they are and not where a one-size-fits-none curriculum tells us they should be. Students can learn at their own pace, investing more time to understand concepts they struggle with and speeding through those that are intuitive to them. This technology is already in use and its adoption will only increase as a result of forced experiences with remote learning. Altitude Learning develops software that empowers existing schools to build a more personalized learner-centric curriculum. Lambda School has gate assessments that their students must pass in order to move forward with their education. Once a student has mastered a certain section or skill, they become student teachers to help mentor newer students, developing even further mastery.
Life-Long Learning
As the trend of increasing automation continues to accelerate, workers will be required to continuously upskill throughout their careers. Technologies supporting life-long learning will make it easy and enjoyable for people to take courses in subjects that interest them. I have been keeping myself busy through quarantine by going through Bram Kanstein’s No Code MVP course. I am sure it won’t be the last course like this that I will take. I believe we will continue to see more and more courses built off of an individual’s personal expertise. These are a great way to learn no matter what age you are and a nice cherry on top is that they allow people to monetize their expertise in a powerful way (they are a great example of micropreneurship). With the proliferation of technologies like no-code software, it has never been easier to build and consume educational content over the course of your life.
The cat is out of the bag. Education has been too broken for too long and I believe that the coronavirus pandemic is exactly the spark the sector needs to start reinventing itself. What impact do you think COVID-19 will have on education? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments below!