With every new year come new education trends. Whether you’re an administrator or classroom teacher, keeping tabs on these higher education trends and incorporating them into the running of your classrooms can help your institution and your students find success in school.
Let’s take a closer look at five trends in 2023 education:
Hybrid, Online Learning
The global Covid-19 pandemic forced schools, universities, and course providers to develop the capabilities to deliver education at a distance. In schools, remote and online learning means that educators can reach students no matter how isolated their communities are.
It offers the best of both the in-person and digital worlds: students can chat in class and online and engage with materials in person and through digital community. Hybrid learning gives students a deeper feeling of community while offering the flexibility of digital education.
Project-Based Learning
Most students will encounter a work environment that focuses on completing projects independently or as a team, so educational institutions are shifting to a focus on more project-based work. In project-based work and learning environments, “soft skills” such as collaboration, communication, and problem-solving become key to students’ success. Students also learn how to try out ideas and learn from trial and error.
Today, the responsibility of teachers is to facilitate learning experiences that foster student curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking – and which help them to apply what they know in authentic, real-world contexts.
Gamification
Today’s students have grown up online with games such as Minecraft. Gamifying education isn’t just part of elementary school classrooms; it can be part of higher education as well. Gamification brings real-life problems into the classroom, and it makes them engaging for students, drawing them into solving problems in a familiar way.
Play is a powerful way to learn. Gamification has been shown to increase classroom engagement, aid in cognitive development, and offer a host of other benefits to young learners. Instead of having students compete against each other, leverage the power of competition and collaboration simultaneously by having students work together to beat a class goal or to show improvement over time.
Social-Emotional Learning
Following the events of 2020, more and more schools are including SEL in their curriculum. SEL is all about teaching students to manage their emotions, practice healthy communication, and collaborate successfully with others.
Both students and teachers are struggling even more than before the pandemic. Along with the higher rates of depression and anxiety, the academic and emotional pressures that comes with recovering pandemic learning loss continue to affect student wellbeing. The demands of teaching have led to high rates of teacher stress and anxiety, and K-12 educators have the highest burnout rate of any profession in the U.S.
AI, VR, AR
Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) were all projected to become more prevalent as educational tools and resources in 2023. VR allows users to step into a virtual world, and there are a vast and growing number of “experiences” to learn from. Augmented reality still requires a device (e.g., a phone, tabled, or a headset) but is different from VR, as it involves superimposing computer-generated images onto what the user is seeing.
While some are excited about the possibilities that AI will unlock, many are rightfully concerned about its unethical usage and potential for cheating. While it’s still too early to fully know what AI holds for education, teachers can implement it positively by pitting their students against AI and learning how they can improve upon its work.
What was your favorite 2023 educational trend?
Sources:
https://www.ringcentral.com/us/en/blog/education-trends-2023/
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