Top 6 Trends In Education To Watch Out For In 2022 By Higher Education Digest

Article Featured On: Higher Education Digest

Abhinav Mital is the Co-founder of The WorldGrad, a hybrid learning-focused study abroad platform. Alumni of ISB Hyderabad and IIT Delhi, Abhinav comes with nearly 15 years of experience in the education sector and was a founding member and former Partner of Parthenon-EY’s international education practice. Previously, he has worked with various global higher education institutions on growth strategy, international expansion, and improving student experience as well as advised PE investors, publishers, education organizations, and Edu-tech ventures. Presently, Abhinav serves on the operations advisory board of The Education Fund, Australia.

Global educational technology investment has surged from $500 million to $16.1 billion in the last decade. Demonstrating a growing need for transformational technology in the education sector. With the Omicron scare looming, we are not yet out of the woods. University closures and remote learning may also be a possibility in 2022, which is why it is vital to renew our lockdown training and establish plans once again.

Looking back- 2021 marked a turning point in the way we worked and learned. Technology-enabled learning revolutionized education and laid the groundwork for the thriving Ed-tech industry. With the changing nature of the workplace, there was a fresh sense of necessity to upskill the education industry, which by far has happened fairly. Students, parents, and Founders of the Ed-tech companies realized that tech has the potential to improve teaching and learning experiences for both teachers and students respectively. Additionally, we observed reduced administrative strain on both teachers and staff.   Which in return led to more investment in professional development and simpler student-teacher collaboration.

As we step into 2022, here are some top trends in the education space that students, parents, and educators will be watching out for:

1. AI personalization

A study says that AI in the education market is supposed to reach USD 2 billion by 2023 growing at 38% CAGR for the forecast period 2018-2023. To begin with, AI allows us to open more sophisticated systems in 2022, and to personalize instruction in ways never seen before.

Students will also receive more personalized recommendations for what to learn next, thanks to an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered recommendation engine. Moreover, students in higher education who are pursuing a specific professional path can obtain personalized recommendations based on their preferences and choice of career from counselors. Real time feedback, chat bot based interaction, as well as IB curriculum support will be made easier for students especially who have eyes on overseas education.

The adoption of AI within the education framework will improve teacher-student dynamics, as it will make the learning methodologies efficient.

2. Metaverse- The Future of real-time Education

Since March, 60% of students had real-time classes via Zoom and 40% have had pre-recorded classes. Students, on the other hand, were pleased with the real-time classes in which they could interact with teachers face to face.

But since the scenarios don’t quite look in favor of face-to-face classes. A digital realm that could be accessed through virtual and augmented reality, the Metaverse is introduced. This has the potential to transform education institutions around the world since it allows anything to become a learning opportunity in real-time.

The domains of science, engineering, and mathematics will all be touched by this contextual learning experience. Instead, students will be given a real-life scenario that combines all three disciplines into a single, holistic, and engaging learning experience.

3. More power to Hybrid learning

The hybrid classroom is extremely flexible, covering a range of student needs. Allowing both students and the teachers to interact through a virtual learning environment and relate to everything that happens in the classroom anytime and anywhere. In the same light, platforms like The WorldGrad offer ‘Hybrid-Learning’ where students can complete 1 year of their course online before moving to the overseas campus and save huge amounts of money almost in the ballpark of 10-15 Lakhs.

Hybrid education adjusts to the demands of Teachers as well. Hybrid education learning platforms adjust/scale to the demands of educators as well. wherein teachers can use these tech-enabled learning platforms to track progress reports much quickly and efficiently which is more difficult to achieve in a typical classroom setting.

4. Interactive Virtual Learning space

Students learn better in a social context hence, interactivity is vital. An interactive learning area is one in which students interact with a platform in a variety of ways.

One distinguishing trait is that students aren’t just passive content consumers here; they create and share content with their peers. Students can collaborate on projects and submit collaborative assignments using learning platforms. Students can debate classroom subjects, ask questions, and help one another instead of writing essays.

Furthermore, the new Study platform responds to students’ actions. For example, students obtain a badge for completing an assignment or are invited to a study group if they require additional assistance with their courses.

5. Scalability of Ed-tech Platforms

Ed-tech has changed the way we study, and it’s the most significant change in the educational system in the previous decade. We already have the world’s most valuable ed-tech companies, and many more are on their way to creating enormous wealth. Our educational system today employs tech-oriented pedagogies highly.

Understanding and looking at the current scenario, it is evident that Ed-tech platforms will see about 4 times their growth in the future. A potential reason behind this could be, an observable increase in the students aspiring to study abroad because of better education, lifestyle, culture, and scope of careers.

6. Availability of Technology-

Access to technology has been an essential part of all our lives since 2020. With numerous options such as Microsoft teams, Google Meet, and Zoom classes students and teachers could exchange information and keep track of assignments, documents, and with cloud servers they could keep the documents and personal information secure.

Having compatible device availability and updated with technology became a necessity in the blink of time. Moving to how the availability of technology might shape in 2022, it seems to look in great demand as we are shifting to a virtual world for the adoption of anything. We can see that boardrooms have shifted to the cloud, and education is more virtual than ever.

Conclusion-

The requirement for education system transformation is essential to keep up with the ever-changing ecology. This will also encourage the use of novel financial structures in the education and ed-tech sectors.  With the changing nature of learning, it is becoming increasingly important for Ed-tech companies to stay up-to-date with time and technology. Identifying and adapting to Newer operations and development methods for students. Altogether, these Ed-tech trends show how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go in creating a better, more individualized learning environment for our students in both the actual and virtual worlds.

Author: Deepak Shukla