With the new year around the corner many educational leaders are wondering what the future will bring for colleges and universities. The short answer is: More focus on Education 4.0.
The use of technology in education pre-Covid pandemic was sluggish. During lockdowns in 2020 the Fourth Education Revolution or Education 4.0 began to bloom.
According to a recent study, 81 percent of teachers in the United States reported that their experience with educational technology went up as a result of the pandemic while 58 percent said they had more confidence on the new tools that before, and 93 percent of those surveyed said that they conducted some form of online teaching from home by the summer of 2020.
Since then, the evolution and adoption has been escalating. More educators understand now the importance of the Fourth Education Revolution that is transforming and bringing a new era in higher education. Education 4.0 describes mainly the learning preferences of the Generation Z (Gen Z) students.
Education 4.0 involves the use of tablets and smartphones as supportive tools in the classroom and focuses on smart and innovative technology. These technologies are the ones that will dominate the life of today’s students in the future.
Institutions must embrace this massive educational transformation bringing to campus the tools that will help both students and faculty embrace the new model as quickly as possible.
Education 4.0 includes online assessments, robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and virtual environments as tools set to replace the clumsy old procedures of obsolete conventional education through creativity and student centricity where personalization is key. Education 4.0 is about innovation-based education and 21st century learning skills.
21st century skills include:
- Critical Thinking
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Growth Mindset
Dissecting trends in Education 4.0
Research published by the International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies has examined nine trends related to Education 4.0.
- Learning can be anytime, anywhere: e-learning tools offer opportunities for remote, self-paced learning. The flipped classroom approach plays a role allowing interactive learning in class while the theoretical parts can be learned outside the class time.
- Learning is personalized to individual students: Harder tasks are introduced only after a certain mastery level is achieved. Positive reinforcements promote positive learning experience, boosting students’ confidence about their academic abilities.
- Students have a choice in determining how they want to learn: Although the learning outcomes of a course are presented by the institutions, students are free to choose the learning tools or techniques they prefer. Options may include blended learning, flipped classroom, and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).
- Students will be exposed to more project-based learning: Students apply their knowledge and skills in completing short-term projects which allow them to practice their organizational, collaborative, and time management skills, all of which are useful in their academic careers.
- Students will be exposed to more hands-on learning through field experience including internships, mentoring projects, and collaborative projects. Technology advancement enables the learning of certain domains effectively making more room for acquiring skills that involve human knowledge and face-to-face interaction.
- Students will be exposed to data interpretation in which they are required to apply their tech or ethical knowledge to numbers and use their reasoning skills to make inferences based on logic and trends from given sets of data. The manual part of mathematical literacy will become irrelevant as computers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will perform the statistical analysis and predict the future trends.
- Students will be assessed differently: The conventional platform to assess students may become irrelevant or insufficient. Factual knowledge can be assessed during the learning process, while the application of knowledge can be tested when they are working on their projects in the field
- Students’ opinions will be considered in designing and updating the curriculum: Students’ inputs help the curriculum designers maintain curriculum contemporaries, up-to-date, and usefulness.
- Students will become more independent in their own learning: This will force teachers to assume a new role as facilitators who will guide the students through their learning process.
Education 4.0 shifts the major learning responsibility from the instructors to the learners, with instructors playing their role supporting the transition.
Education 4.0, a part of the era of Industry 4.0, sees changes in approaches and technologies. Faculty need to take time to reflect on major technology trends and their application in learning and teaching processes. Trends in Education 4.0 must not be overlooked at the time of reviewing and reflecting on change.