January 11th, 2019
As we start the New Year, we are curious as to what 2019 has in store for higher education. We are already hearing about trends that will be influencing higher education this year and would like to share some of them with you.
In a recent piece posted on Forbes, Anant Agrawal, CEO of edX (www.edx.org), an online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT, and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT states: “In 2018 we discussed the increasing value of soft skills; how the skills transformation is affecting the way we work; and the rise of the non-linear career path. These topics merely scratched the surface of the changes we’re seeing in education and in the workplace, which we’ll continue to debate in 2019.” Professor Agrawal, suggests we keep an eye on the following three trends this year:
- Education emphasizing hybrid skills – higher education degrees creating flexible and customizable credential offerings rather than single subject major studies over a course of four years.
- Education goes omnichannel – combining in-person with on-line experiences.
- Education underscoring soft skills remains critical – as technology advances, soft skills such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, ability to make quick decisions based on a set of information will become even more critical.
Danny Iny, the author of “Leveraged Learning“ and CEO of the online business education company Mirasee, also sees the emergence of hybridized degree programs and the importance of developing soft skills as AI takes over hard skills. Iny cites the following trends:
- Education will become learner and more outcomes-driven
- Shift toward lifelong “just in time” learning – employees accessing training just in time/when needed rather than “frontloading a career’s worth of training into a four-year program”
- Businesses will take on a lion’s share of the training
- Experts from various fields will step up to provide the required on-going education
For more on Iny’s projections, click here
And, we cannot forget the continued advances and trends expected in e-learning. In her January 1, 2019 piece on the blog Model e-Learning, Jessica Bishop, Instructional Designer, cites the following trends in the world of e-learning:
- Augmented Reality (adds to the read world), Virtual Reality (replaces the real world), and Mixed Reality (adds virtual elements to the real world that behave as if they truly belong) – by incorporating these 3 technologies, e-learning will become highly immersive. To learn more about these 3 technologies, click here.
- Open Systems and Open Pedagogy – Through open systems, faculty can collaborate to develop new curriculum and even receive input from students. And, with open pedagogy they can use open technologies to help streamline the process.
- Blockchain – We’ve heard this term used before mostly as it related to Bitcoin, but it is now being used for education as a secure digital ledger.
We would like to hear from you. What trends do you see for education in 2019? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Links:
https://www.georgetownmortgagebank.com/10-higher-education-trends-to-watch-for-in-2019/
https://modelelearning.com/2019/01/01/three-elearning-and-higher-education-trends-for-2019/
The Academic Credentials Evaluation Institute, Inc. (ACEI), was founded in 1994 and is based in Los Angeles, CA, USA. ACEI provides a number of services that include evaluations of international academic credentials for U.S. educational equivalence, translation, verification, and professional training programs. ACEI is a Charter and Endorsed Member of the Association of International Credential Evaluators. For more information, visit www.acei-global.org.