The year 2020 shattered all forecasts and showed how fragile life can be. One of the few areas that showed stable growth last year was the online education market. Quarantine showed that thoughtful and well-organized online education can be an alternative to offline courses. And 2021, by all projections, will be a continuation of progressing – both qualitative and quantitative – of the online education market.
Here are 9 trends that were tangible in 2020 and will remain influential in 2021.
- Learning with the feedback
The market is gradually moving away from info business stories to the creation of an educational product. This means that a modern online course is an educational environment, where students receive the necessary educational experience and achieves results. Feedback from a live person (tutor, curator, expert), not from a robot – becomes an important part of such training.
- Adaptive learning
Online course attendees in 2021 will prefer flexible programs that adjust to their individual needs. Products will have an advantage over competitors:
- with a personalized educational trajectory. This can be realized, for example, in the modular system of education, when the methodologist compiles an individual program of ‘bricks and mortar’ modules at the request of the student;
- which allow the user to study at a convenient time (the possibility to listen to recorded lessons).
- programs that adjust to the student’s level of knowledge and change the educational trajectory depending on the feedback.
- Student’s active position in learning
In demanded online courses, the student is increasingly not in a passive position of information consumer, but in an active position. His active participation in the educational process becomes possible due to:
- interactive formats: simulators, quizzes.
- project-based learning. Students work on their project, consolidates their skills, and receives a case for their portfolio;
- assignments for group work. For example, online learning includes discussions, mastermind groups, case studies, and other formats that involve active student work in mini-groups.
- Skills-based learning
Online learning is becoming extremely popular, the result of which is not knowledge, but acquired skills. Skill-based learning is popular both in the niche of learning professions, and in the niches of learning foreign languages, leisure (for example, learning to draw, calligraphy, dance), and others.
- Comprehensive offerings
Projects that offer users a comprehensive service are in demand:
- Projects with a broad product line, where the user, for example, can be trained from junior specialist to middle and senior. Or train in related areas;
- package offers. For example, an offer to buy a subscription to an annual training at a discounted price, and choose which programs are included in this subscription.
- package offers for team training.
- employment assistance.
- Emphasis on networking
For many people, training becomes an opportunity to expand their social circle (and meet people from other cities and countries), get useful acquaintances, talk to interesting people.
This means that online schools that highlight networking as an important component of the educational environment get an advantage. It can be:
- networking sessions with students;
- extra activities: online graduations, celebrations in which students participate;
- practical tasks where students get to know each other. For example, pair up and do an assignment. Or do a project in a mini-group.
- Networking with the online school team
Be ready that some of these students are not actually interested in your course. Probably, all their efforts are “OK, Google, do my assignment for me cheap”
- Variety of formats in one course
Online courses’ students are used to study in different ways: some are better at absorbing text in writing, some prefer to watch webinars, some prefer to listen to podcasts.
This means that in 2021, there is an increasing demand for training that uses a variety of formats.
For example, you could augment webinars with a separate audio track so listeners can listen to lessons rather than watch them. Include an outline of the lesson in the supplementary materials of each assignment for those who are more comfortable reading the text rather than listening.
- Blended learning
Blended learning was popular in 2020, where some classes are held in an online format and some offline. This format is in demand in corporate training, and on the open market such courses are part of the premium segment: offline communication and interaction with an expert are becoming an increasingly expensive service.
- Microlearning
The trend toward microlearning has been going on for several years, and interest in this format is unlikely to wane in the coming years.
Microlearning involves:
- short lessons (up to 15 minutes)
- additional materials in the form of an outline, an algorithm, or a step-by-step plan
- practice-oriented homework, which does not take more than 30 minutes
- The structure of the lesson “one lesson – one idea.
It is important to understand that the format of microlearning is not suitable for all topics. However, in many cases, it becomes a convenient solution for users who do not have the opportunity to study long one-hour lessons.