Post-Pandemic Trends in Education in 2021

Few months into the pandemic, and we knew that remote learning is here to stay. A year later, it is no longer a question if online learning will be the future of education in India and across the globe. Even as we emerge out of pandemic returning to normalcy, there are going to be generational changes that we will observe in education.

We have adapted and evolved to stay afloat amid this situation, by making judicious use of technology. Similarly, educators across the globe have figured out how to maintain continuity in academic activities even in the presence of Covid-19 restrictions. Several new trends have emerged in the field of education and are expected to stay with us for a long time.

Here are few emerging trends of post-pandemic education that are here to stay.

Innovation in Learning Resources

The pandemic hit all of us without a warning, but teachers and educators were quick to adapt and evolve. Teachers piqued their learning resources in an innovative way to make them more accessible and engaging at the same time. They started using PDF or Word documents laced with multimedia objects like images, graphs, infographic, etc. to help students understand better.

Parents Got More Involved with Students’ Learning

With classes moving to home, it added a responsibility on parents to make sure that their child is learning better. Remote learning gave an opportunity to parents to become more involved in their child’s education and become an active part of it. As a result of this active involvement of parents, students feel more encouraged to learn.

Hybrid Learning

To mitigate the risk of gathering too many students under one roof, many schools are expected to go hybrid with their teaching model. Under this model, students can be broken into batches; one which will receive education on school premises and the other that will learn simultaneously via online learning. This can become a norm for the foreseeable future, at least until the pandemic wanes completely.

Reliance on Digital Content

Hybrid Learning will become a normal in schools and colleges, therefore maintaining physical notes can be a tedious job for students. Therefore, educators are now relying on Digital Content or Digital Notes for such models where students receive education via physical classrooms as well as online classes. Digital Content will mitigate the Covid-19 risk while also help students to focus more on learning and less on useless exercises of copying notes.

Complete Remote Learning

While some schools will still opt for Hybrid Learning, certain educational institutes especially the Higher-Ed ones are more likely to go complete online for some of their programmes. With the pandemic in place, students and educators have realized that online learning is a very much doable exercise and can result in even better academic performance. Therefore, colleges are expected to go completely digital for some of their programmes with frequent on-campus sessions for laboratory practical, on-premise training sessions, etc.

Conclusion

Today, we can say that the Digital Era of Learning has arrived fully. Before the pandemic, there was an partial absorption of technology in learning. Very few learning institutes evolved according to the technological advancements. With the pandemic in place, almost every educational establishment opened doors for smart learning solutions, online learning and hybrid learning.

All this has culminated into an education system that will be more student-centric, learning-oriented and yielding. It will have far-reaching effects on learners for years to come.