With teaching approaches becoming more student-centered and classroom designs becoming more flexible in schools, it is no hidden fact that the education system is evolving every day. Just like with all industries, technology has influenced education, changing it for the better.
So many teachers and schools now rely more and more on different technologies like AI (artificial intelligence), and even virtual education.
An aspect of education that has evolved, is the role of the teachers in school. Before technology crept into the education field, teachers used to lecture and feed information to students in front of a classroom but they now play more of a facilitating role i.e they now guide students towards thinking for themselves. They also provide projects and different activities for students to work on in groups.
There are so many recent trends in technology and some of them are:
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented reality is blurring the lines of reality. While it is still in its early days, it influences educational development every day. AR is a combination of different interactive digital elements. It superimposes images onto a user’s view of the real world and enhances it with touch, sound, and even smell.
AR allows for a more three-dimensional experience that introduces abstract concepts to life for students. This has made it popular in schools. To motivate students to study, AR animated content could be used to teach them in classrooms. Students find it easier to understand topics better if historical information, fun facts, and other extra data are added to classroom lessons. It would be great too if videos, texts and voice notes from teachers pop up when students scan parts of their books. When learning involves audio, visuals, and videos, students’ knowledge retention improves drastically.
Using AR to teach is a feasible option for teachers to teach students complex concepts because students can just experience the subject being taught.
Personalized Learning
This approach to education is not one size that fits all. It is tailored to each student’s strengths, skills, needs, and interests. A learning plan based on what a student knows and how he learns is made for each student. Allowing students to have a say in their learning experience lets them develop essential skills. It also makes them more motivated to reach goals they helped set for themselves. This is a game-changer for students with specific weaknesses and special needs as they are able to learn without the stigma of ‘special-ed’
Artificial Intelligence Learning (AIL)
AI develops a personalized curriculum based on the specific needs of each student through diagnostic testing in which what a student knows and doesn’t know is identified. The rapid advancement of AI has made a great impact on the education system and it keeps altering both educational institutions and the tools used.
There are many sites that make use of Artificial Intelligence to assess the progress of students. While we might not see humanoid robots acting as teachers anytime soon as so many science fictions has predicted, many projects that use computer intelligence to help students and teachers are already in the works. Artificial intelligence can automate some basic activities in education (e,g grading), it can also point out places where there are gaps in courses, and it can fill in those gaps.
Vocational Education and Training (VET)
While higher education courses provide theory-based knowledge, vocational education and training focus more on practical and work-oriented occupational skills. It emphasizes skills needed for a specific job, craft, function or trade.
There are so many job functions under this category, such as property management, computer network management, floral designing, retail training, etc.
It has been said that VET is a link that connects the real working environment and theoretical education.
VET is less expensive than traditional academic education, and they promote a hands-on training learning style instead of the passive activities linked with conventional education.
Bite-Sized Learning Modules
Bite-sized learning is just like it sounds. Instead of the traditional e-learning courses that are 30 minutes to 1 hour in duration, bite-sized learning takes between a minute to 15 minutes and sticks to one idea. These modules are small, self-contained nuggets of information.
This approach to learning is specifically good for students that have a short-term attention span and also students who cannot cope with long, intense texts.
Bite-sized learning primarily increases a learner’s psychological engagement which makes it a promising antidote to boredom. Students can just easily scan a page that has bullet points of quick, meaningful facts and information.
This module increases the effectiveness of learning while reducing its intensity.
Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT provides a more collaborative and better-connected future for education. In an attempt to boost learning experience, campus security, and operational efficiency, institutions have turned to IoT.
IoT makes tasks like research and schedule making easier to do. It has made it easier for educators to grade students’ work faster, it tracks the completion of homework easily and it also shares results of students with their parents or with other teachers in real-time.
Special kids respond to the use of technology in education better than they do to traditional education. Children with special needs like dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning disabilities are helped with any educational technology including IoT.
Professional Development of Teachers
This is any type of continuing education for teachers. It is a way educators can use to learn skills they can use to properly teach students, whether these students have special needs or not.
It is important to train teachers on present generation skills and competencies because they are an integral part of the educational system.
To help educators make an impact on present-day education trends, many schools arrange learning programs and training for teachers of all levels. You can find this trend of continuing education of educators in trend both private as well as public sector educational sectors.
From the above listed recent trends in the education sector, it is obvious that due to developing digital technologies, the education sector has started understanding the unique learning and working towards meeting the needs of each and every student.
