The Evolution in Education
Healthful Vitality | 12/22/2020 | The Evolution in Education
Traditional education has evolved radically within the last couple of years. Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic forced radical transformation in education. Moreover, the advancement of technology and the social conscience of great educators to offer free education to improve quality of life intensifies this transformation. Education is a continuously progressing function of several factors:
- Communal norms
- Social changes
- Progress in different fields
- Technology
- Needs of the students
- Expectations of the students and parents
Owing to the alterations in these factors, education and the means of education have experienced a paradigm shift in only the past few decades.
Tablets have replaced traditional blackboards. Besides, professional teachers have been replaced by bloggers/ordinary people. And, notably, the education itself reincarnated into a limitless, skill-oriented, need-based curriculum of choice from an orthodox program of standardized subjects that was limited in the extent of syllabus and practicality of knowledge.
Evolution is always applauded and appreciated in every field of life, and education is no exception. However, how this evolution questions, challenges, refutes or impacts the conventional approaches to teaching and the means of education could be a matter of concern.
It is time that we foresee, evaluate, and brace for the impacts of evolution in education and the means of education to prepare ourselves for the results we will be experiencing in the near future.
The Evolution in Education – A Quick Glance
Not too long ago, education was restricted to the classroom. It was also restricted to the on-campus courses, the strict, authoritative teacher, and his command over the subject. The students were the passive recipients of education with no choice. This situation was education 1.0.
Over time, education developed to 2.0. It connected with the students; however, the focus mainly remained on teaching and less on learning. Education 3.0 opened doors to cross-cultural, cross-institutional education through social networking and online means. Learners gain focus and authority in this type of education.
This learning-focused and need-based education with plenty of applications and online resources has culminated into mushrooming online courses. In this learning-focused and need-based education, neither conventional teachers are required, nor traditional means of education are necessary. The internet and smart devices made education less costly, easily accessible, and widely available.
All students need today is Wi-Fi and a screen so they can:
Learn whatever they wish;
According to their own pace;
As per their own choice.
With this advent of digitalization in education, education 4.0 is where we are heading. Artificial intelligence and robotics-based learning is the future of education. But there is more to do today than daydreaming of a future still afar.
Online Education – A Norm and Need of the Hour
Many free education sites recently started, like uopeople.edu, quantic.edu/mba, edX, Udemy, Coursera, Udacity, and many other universities. And other online courses like the ones offered by Khan Academy. Multiple factors contributed to the acceptance of online education. For instance, technological growth and ease of access to the internet technology factors are vital forces. In addition, social distancing and work-from-home norms have recently strengthened the popularity and need for free and online education.
With the expanding technology connectivity, the world is evolving at the speed of light. This expansion results in education no longer being restricted to campuses and teachers. Today, everyone who has something to teach can teach it to anyone willing to learn.
It is about capability, capacity, and choice of learning in the learners. The power rests with the students today!
The Evolution in Education – Impacts and Expectations
With the changes mentioned above, many impacts have been observed in the past few years, and many more are expected to surface very soon.
Cost of education
A significant impact has been the decreased cost of education. The increased access to the internet, the availability of devices, and increased competition in education have contributed significantly to reducing the cost of education. For example, today, Boston University, one of the USA’s top universities, offers MBA online only for approx. $24,000 through edX. A Master’s Degree in Analytics or Cybersecurity from The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) or a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin through edX cost only nearly $9,900. The edX platform offers courses on several subjects, including health and medicine, from the most reputable universities and institutions around the world, including several free courses.
The Evolution in Education: The Georgia Tech OMSCS exemplar
In this topic, we can recognize an Online Master of Science in Computer Science as an exemplar of embracing technology in education. Notably, it is The Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS). The Georgia Tech OMSCS is the best exemplar of embracing technology in education. Unfortunately, research shows that the United States and other developed nations have a significant shortage of talent for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As a result, the status quo is unsustainable for their competitive growth and survival. The Georgia Tech Master of Science degree is offered by the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. This program was conceived by former Dean of Computing Zvi Galil and Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun. Notably, as of Fall 2021, The Georgia Tech OMSCS has 11,923 enrolled students located in 120 countries and growing.
Georgia Tech has received attention for successfully delivering a complete master’s degree in computer science for under $10,000, allowing students from all over the world to enroll in a top 10-ranked computer science program. We need visionaries like Zvi Galil and Sebastian Thrun to make education affordable and reachable worldwide while maintaining the best possible quality. Like their vision, every educator’s vision should be unique. National prosperity is created, not inherited. Education contributes to the competitive advantage of nations. After all, education helps eradicate poverty. We need Georgia Tech similar programs to provide in every educational institution in every country.
Parents and students
As more and more subjects are now getting available online, parents and students can easily enroll and afford their preferred courses, including engineering, sciences, and management sciences. Applauded as a great benefit to students and parents, this positive impact has the potential to affect the universities and teachers adversely.
Revenue impact
In the future, we may see universities shrinking or closing down their campuses, downsizing their administrative staff, teachers, and teacher’s assistants because the online education trend tends to lower the universities’ revenue, and they may find it challenging to operate conventionally. In addition, the shrinking number of international students in many universities, mainly due to the pandemic, has already impacted the revenues of many universities.
Uncertainty of jobs
Teachers/faculty members and the administrative staff can lose their jobs or be pushed to work as adjunct or part-time teachers. This shift can lead to greater unemployment or low incomes in campus-based teaching or saturation in online education as more and more teachers may switch to teaching online personally. It can discontinue a teacher’s career growth, be kinky, or decelerate.
Literacy rate at risk
Ironic it may sound, but online education is more about skill-based learning and less about formal school years. Online education proposes many promising benefits, but one of the critical elements it requires is self-discipline in students. Students need to be more self-disciplined and motivated and aim for career growth by themselves. A student with inadequate direction, no discipline, a tendency to procrastinate, and a lack of attention can quickly go astray and leave/drop out of their educational courses in the middle without any check or fear ( of public shame, the exam, or bad grades). This situation may even lead to decreased literacy levels, where many students may not complete their formal school years.
Education – no more a barter with job
Online education has proven to be of great benefit to students who wish to work as well as learn. Corporations can even finance students without them taking long leaves for their studies or break from work. Learning and getting a degree is no more a barter with the job or living with family, etc. With online courses, one can eat the apple and have it too.
Business over education
With online teachers, universities, facilitators, and tutors mushrooming to make their careers and businesses, it is becoming harder to differentiate between quality teaching programs and educational courses aimed at increasing revenues for institutions. This standing requires strict regulations and standardization of online academic practices by a centralized agency so people can easily distinguish between an online business and an online quality education program.
Some fields of education still lag behind
Fields of management, engineering, and most sciences have easily switched to online education and are widely available today. However, practical subjects still need hands-on training and require lab experience for proper training and learning. Therefore, online education needs to look into incorporating practical lessons into the online education program to bridge this gap.
Practical subjects need to explore hybrid programs
Even though change happened in management and engineering, some fields like medicine and physical education still await this change. For example, there are shortages of medical doctors in many states. Also, trained coaches for specific sports have yet to be available. These areas still need to evolve to include yet hybrid programs: offering all the theoretical parts of these degrees online and facilitating more and more students to receive medical education online. For practical training, hospitals or sports institutes can be affiliated/linked with online course providers to provide students with a functional, practical learning environment. There could also be conversion programs (e.g., nurses convert into medical doctors with the additional practical part at authorized hospitals).
Tutor-student synergy
In a virtual classroom, the tutor-student synergy is of utmost importance. Their communication and synchronization are everything in an online medium. With many students in a virtual class, this communication can seriously lower to a point where it becomes more like an individual’s journey and not a class’s. Keeping this synergy is in the hands of the tutors. We need to train online education leverage to tutors first before advocating massive online education for students.
The Evolution in Education: Things to Note
Let us examine things to mull in to conclude the evolution in education subject. Online education has not only become a norm but a necessity. Diminishing the conflict between work and study, or family and study, online education provides an opportunity of learning from anywhere, anytime by anyone, from any location. It diminishes the boundaries and borders and opens a world for those who wish to learn.
- Online education, unquestionably, as we know it today, is beneficial for adult learners who are motivated and self-disciplined. However, young children and teenagers need a more conventional and strict policy for online education that lacks most online programs.
- The facilitators, teachers, and students must be carefully considered, balanced, and synergized to make an online program a success.
- Technology breakdowns, equity, and accessibility to technology are the key players in online education, which needs to be deployed everywhere globally, which by far is not possible in most parts of the world.
Indeed, the coronavirus situation is only one of the factors in the disruption. These are only the impacts we could observe or assess in this time and age. With massive open online courses (MOOCs) gaining support and also more and more top-ranked universities begin offering online education programs, the acceptability of online education may increase, and as well as it may be more cost-effective than traditional courses. However, only time will tell us if online education proved to be a blessing or detriment to generations due to the lack of campus interaction.
(The Evolution in Education Related Article: Ending Learning Poverty: All Stakeholders Are Invited)