Trends for maximising learning
If learning is about taking in, processing, and applying information – then you can bet how people learn today is radically different. The sheer wealth of knowledge at one’s fingertips, and the change in attention spans has meant the learning process has dramatically changed. Here, we examine the trends for maximising learning – both in formal and informal settings.
Personalised learning on the rise
The last couple of years has seen personalised learning take off. When an educational curriculum is adaptive to a student’s unique needs, it’s more likely to promote student progress because each person can move at their own pace. Plus, adaptive software programmes allow teachers or professors to use the same programme for all students in their classrooms.
Digital citizenship strives to find the balance in use of tech
Digital citizenship is the ability to use technology and the internet effectively and appropriately. Good digital citizenship is increasingly necessary, especially as assignments and lessons shift to online – so students can develop the skills for a healthy relationship with digital media.
Online learning sees schools shift to ‘little and often’ approach
Many schools/courses are now creating content that promotes bite-sized learning. It’s an educational technique that provides individuals with brief, intensive content targeting specific skills. In a guest post with Cambridge University Press, teacher trainer Jade Blue describes it as an approach that “takes into account the contemporary demands of learner lifestyles that might hinder longer periods of focused study and time spent on one subject.”
If people continue to learn primarily online, bite-sized learning content may be especially useful and the only way people will stay committed to expanding their knowledge base.
Gamification keeps learners hooked
Gamifying learning both in formal and informal education helps people stay entertained by a subject – and learn in enjoyable ways. Creating either a reward system and / or a game out of the topics that you're learning is becoming increasingly popular. People just find it easier to commit if there are multiple motivations for continuing with their learning.
Teachers shift into learning facilitation
As technology has grown to become more central to people’s lives, so has the amount of information at people's fingertips. Students today are able to uncover a staggering amount of facts and knowledge independently. In this environment, many students value less of a top-down delivery method. And so, teachers/instructors have gradually shifted into more of a facilitative role – where they help students understand how to learn, develop a love of learning, and how to uncover and understand the information they find.
These are just some of the ways in which the world of learning is evolving. As new technologies come online, and the world adapts to these ever-changing methods, we’re bound to see new and improved ways to learn in school – and in our own time. Finding ways, such as Sparks, to manage the tidbits that pique our curiosity, and stimulate our imaginations will increasingly become key to building our knowledge and navigating a world of exponentially growing information.
