By Wejdan Al Thuhli -
Covid-19 struck the world without prior notice and forced it to adapt to a fully new manner of life in all its aspects. From the global recession to the exposure of broken health systems, the pandemic revealed the importance of needing to reimagine the education systems to meet the noble purposes of the process of learning.
Education all over the world jumped into an advanced overnight adaptation. Thus, contemporary teaching styles employed by virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), student-centred learning, and knowledge accessibility are significant areas that lead to forming an engaging learning environment.
Make the unreal real with VR and AR
It’s astonishingly amazing to see how technology is developing at such a massive pace; to reach the possibility of creating a wholly virtual environment. Isn’t it fascinating to design a virtual tour for college freshmen to wander around their college without even taking a single step? To wander around the classes, cafeteria, the main library and the parks using a virtual environment?
Can you picture a chemistry class without experiments? Absolutely not! However, it would be wonderful if experiments are carried out without any danger of explosions. As to make an interactive textbook enhanced with augmented reality in which videos are displayed in 3D and experiments conducted as if they are real.
Imagine if medical trainees are holding surgeries without the need to touch a live human being. They can virtually make surgery and enrich themselves with all sorts of details of the human body. That should create a qualified generation of doctors.
Enough with the One-Size-Fits-All learning approach
Typical education is confined within four walls, with about 30 students inside and a single teacher in the middle. No wonder why students constantly look at the clock to escape back to home!
Probably, after the virus threat subsides, a whole different approach is likely to be followed in teaching.
We should rethink the concept of one-size-fits-all. And start giving learners the freedom to customize the style they find convenient for them to acquire the level of knowledge they desire and skills they need to sharpen individually, without the need to be constrained with their peers’ individual capabilities. Personalization approach encourages learners to actively pick the style they enjoy the most when learning, whether videos, or textbooks, or pre-recorded lectures, or reading articles, or mini-quizzes. By adopting such an approach, learners would have tailored their own curriculum to meet their needs, interests, and abilities and not wasting their time on unnecessary content.
Call for accessible knowledge
The spread of Covid-19 exposed the importance of knowledge sharing. To share information and date for free with every possible student has a major role in widening students’ participation.
It would be also advisable if studies conducted by different educational institutions are open to the public to share the updated discoveries with the whole world, and by that students would have access to lifelong learning. In addition, educators of all the world may distribute their content, course material, ebooks and software without the need to have a license to access them.
All the rich educational content published freely shall improve the quality of education worldwide. Furthermore, more initiatives should be released to encourage education suppliers to publish their knowledge to others, including libraries with rich and valuable resources.
If only these technologies and methods are employed in all different educational fields, creative minds will be born. Learners will interact with the process of learning effectively. Many skills will be gained including communication, critical thinking and leadership. After the virus outbreak is over, a new dawn awaits the field of education, hopefully.
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