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COVID-19 and the evolution of online learning

Anna Johnston
August 19, 2020 路 5 min read

Three industry heavyweights give their predictions for online learning in the aftermath of COVID-19

It鈥檚 May 2020 and Nuno Fernandes鈥檚 six-year-old son 鈥 like most children around the world 鈥 is doing school online. As the CEO and President of Ilumno, a tech platform created to open up access to higher education in South America, his father has a special interest in how his teachers are managing the crossover from classroom to webcam. 鈥淪chools are doing the best they can for their students right now,鈥 says Fernandez. 鈥淏ut most of them aren鈥檛 ready to provide online education. The modality of online education was started in the 90s, so it鈥檚 30 years old. Modern online education is totally different. And COVID-19 has just put the evolution of online learning on steroids!鈥

鈥淐OVID has put the evolution of online learning on steroids!鈥

He prefers not to use the term 鈥渙nline education鈥 when he talks about learning from home in its most modern and dynamic form: the way that top online educational institutions are doing it today. It harks back to a time when filming a lecture and sending the footage to your students was seen as brave innovation. Online learning is so much more than simple remote education, he says.

COVID-19: shining a spotlight on online learning 2.0?

In Latin America, in 2002, 20 percent of people who were eligible to go to university actually went. Last year it was 50 percent. 鈥淥nline education has expanded access to higher education, transforming societies and giving families a better quality of life,鈥 Fernandes says. Even in the US, 80 percent of people eligible to attend university are now doing so, while back in 2002, only 60 percent of people who could have pursued a higher education went down that path. According to Fernandes, the current global crisis is just accelerating a process that has been quietly growing behind the scenes for decades.

Olin Oedekoven is CEO of Peregrine, a global accreditation organization. For him, the COVID-19 crisis has brought both the potential and the pitfalls of online learning into sharp focus. 鈥淲hen people switch to online learning, they often try to replicate the process of classroom learning. Now they鈥檙e realizing it doesn鈥檛 work. The traditional model of getting something out of the teacher鈥檚 head into the students鈥 heads is not effective.鈥

鈥淭rue online learning is about a collective learning experience,鈥 he says. 鈥淟earners take ownership of their own learning process, share it with others, and collaborate. We can鈥檛 just lecture at students for an hour to teach concepts.鈥 Oedekoven calls true online learning 鈥渄iscovery learning鈥, and through his wealth of experience with both campus-based and online universities, he鈥檚 seen what works, both for learners and the organizations that employ them after they graduate.

Coming soon: your AI personalized learning experience

It鈥檚 an undeniable fact that online learning fits the needs of a growing global workforce that must respond to constant change, says Lyndsey Craft-Goins, Director of the US Education Ecosystem at Microsoft. 鈥淭he Institute for the Future says that 85 percent of the jobs available in 2030 do not yet exist.鈥

鈥淐hange is always going to be a constant, so adaptability is key.鈥

According to Craft-Goins, in 10 years鈥 time, artificial intelligence (AI) could hold the key to giving learners the skills they need to succeed in the workplace of the future, delivering truly personalized education that speaks to different learning styles. In one recent study at the Georgia Institute of Technology, students didn鈥檛 realize that a teaching assistant communicating with them online was actually a bot. In future years, AI looks set to do more than emulate a human teacher: it could outperform them. The highly personalized learning that a machine can give, as it 鈥榣earns鈥 how a student learns then adapts its teaching content accordingly, could allow each learner their own path to graduation, agrees Fernandes.

Innovating, outperforming and blazing the trail

Peregrine has data that compares the performance of graduates from online and offline universities. Since its inception, the company has administered 1.5 million exams to graduates worldwide. 鈥淭he punchline is that the online students outperformed campus-based students in all 17 subjects we tested at Master鈥檚 level. The Bachelors was a bit tighter: in 15 subjects the online students outperformed their counterparts. My conclusion is that online is just as good, if not better, than a traditional university.鈥

Fernandes, too, sees online students perform better on exit exams. He cites a study where 61 percent of HR directors preferred to recruit online students because they have competencies they see as valuable: traits that are harder to find in graduates from campus-based universities. 鈥淭he only difference between online and offline is the modality of delivery,鈥 he says. 鈥淎 quality institution will deliver quality learning, whether that鈥檚 online or offline.鈥

Oedekoven was already seeing more universities evolve from the traditional lecture and take notes model before the COVID-19 crisis. 鈥淣ow they鈥檙e realizing more than ever that the old model wasn鈥檛 effective,鈥 he says. 鈥淲hen they return, they鈥檙e going to foster a learning process that gets students engaged. This could be a good thing for purely online universities because traditional universities might produce great content that they share. They鈥檝e seen now that there鈥檚 a better way to learn than talking at people: whether that鈥檚 in a lecture theatre, or through Zoom, there鈥檚 no going back.

鈥淲hen I hire people to work at Peregrine, I look at the skills that they have and the traits they鈥檒l bring to the workplace. And I see those skills and traits in people who鈥檝e got their qualifications online just as much as I see them in people who鈥檝e done it the traditional way.鈥


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Anna Johnston
Anna Johnston

Anna Johnston is an award-winning Head of Content, who tells galvanizing stories with a creative team at 狼友社区.

Anna was the overall Award 2020 winner for the business case: Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset, with Professor Herminia Ibarra and Aneeta Rattan. She is formerly a writer at London Business School, consistently ranked among the world鈥檚 best its MBA.

Anna鈥檚 work has been published in聽Forbes, Thomson Reuters, Huffington Post, HR Magazine, the聽Financial Times, and thought-leading firms such as Accenture and McKinsey & Company.

Anna is a speaker, coach, and presenter. More information about her can be found on .

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