Education

4 trends that will shape the future of higher education

From World Economic Forum: 

“1. Learning from everywhere … So rather than shifting to a ‘learn from anywhere’ approach (providing flexibility), education institutions should move to a ‘learn from everywhere’ approach (providing immersion). 

2. Replacing lectures with active learning Lectures are an efficient way of teaching and an ineffective way of learning. … Education institutions need to demonstrate effective learning outcomes, and some are starting to embrace teaching methods that rely on the science of learning. This shows that our brains do not learn by listening, and the little information we learn that way is easily forgotten (as shown by the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, below). Real learning relies on principles such as spaced learning, emotional learning, and the application of knowledge.

3. Teaching skills that remain relevant in a changing world According to a recent survey, 96% of Chief Academic Officers at universities think they are doing a good job preparing young people for the workforce. Less than half (41%) of college students and only 11% of business leaders shared that view. … What we need to teach are skills that remain relevant in new, changing, and unknown contexts. For example, journalism students might once have been taught how to produce long-form stories that could be published in a newspaper; more recently, they would have been taught how to produce shorter pieces and post content for social media. More enduring skills would be: how to identify and relate to readers, how to compose a written piece; how to choose the right medium for your target readership. These are skills that cross the boundaries of disciplines, applying equally to scientific researchers or lawyers.

4. Using formative assessment instead of high-stake exams … Formative assessment, which entails both formal and informal evaluations through the learning journey, encourages students to actually improve their performance rather than just have it evaluated. The documentation and recording of this assessment includes a range of measures, replacing alphabetical or numerical grades that are uni-dimensional.”

View the full article from World Economic Forum.