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5 trends in learning that will help increase the learning of our students!

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GUEST COLUMN | by Max Azarov

Despite losing momentum following unprecedented pandemic-fueled growth during 2020 and 2021, the global edtech sector continues to grow, with numerous technology-led trends driving the next evolution in digital learning.

The potential for continued growth is enormous. The 2022 Evolution of Edtech: Activity in Private and Public Markets report from Brighteye Ventures and Dealroom, states that the $6.5T global education industry is still in the early stages of digitization, with less than 4% of the market currently digitized.

'...the $6.5T global education industry is still in the early stages of digitization, with less than 4% of the market currently digitized.'

Technology trends that will fuel adoption include direct-to-consumer models, enterprise learning and skilling, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled personalized, self-guided and adaptive learning, and the growing integration of extended reality (XR) technologies for augmented and more immersive learning experiences.

Trend 1: Higher investment in technology to meet demand

Various technologies will shape trends in 2023 and beyond, which will contribute to the continued rise of edtech globally as schools, tertiary institutions, businesses and governments embrace more aggressive technology adoption strategies to facilitate blended learning and remote work.

These digital technologies will allow the sector to accommodate the expected surge in demand for K-12 learning and democratize English language proficiency across the globe through broader access to services at a lower cost.

The 2022 Owl Ventures Education Outcomes Report estimates that an additional 800 million K-12 graduates and 350 million post-secondary-school graduates will enter the market over the next decade, fueling unprecedented demand for up-skilling and re-skilling solutions.

Given this growth potential, the edtech sector continues to attract significant investment. While total global venture capital activity is unlikely to exceed the $20.8B invested in global Edtech startups in 2021 and $14.8B in 2020, total investment is on track to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

Trend 2: Greater focus on personalized learning experiences

According to Nitin Ramrakhyani, Product Vice President at Novakid, personalization is the next frontier in K-12 learning.

"There is already a great deal of personalization that happens during on-boarding as we determine student preferences, learning style and capabilities, and match learners with teachers based on their specific skill sets and personality. However, much of this personalization happens manually at present."

As technologies such as AI and machine learning advance and filter into more learning platforms, more of this personalization can happen automatically and at scale.

Perhaps more significantly, intelligent technologies will empower learners to personalize their experience by choosing elements like their preferred teacher or content delivery method, be it music, animation or game play, as examples.

"Technology-enabled personalization will ensure learners can create their preferred experience because, at the end of the day, learning should feel like fun, and the definition of fun is different for everyone," continues Ramrakhyani.

As these capabilities evolve, AI-based machine learning solutions and recommendation engines will analyze user behavior on the platform and will make automated personalized recommendations to enhance specific skills or deliver the appropriate content to enhance the learning experience and improve outcomes.

Trend 3: Student-centered learning will take center stage

More sophisticated solutions will build on the ability to deliver hyper-personalization at scale and will support another big edtech trend - student-centered learning.

With the shift to remote learning since 2020, the sector has already witnessed a shift to asynchronous learning, where students increasingly prefer to complete their lessons and submit projects at their own pace.

Edtech guided self-practice solutions now give students the ability to work on their own, and then use the remaining time for lessons or direct engagements with the teacher.

"This guided self-learning model is not a complete independent self-learning experience, but technology enables multiple guided learning opportunities, including high-dosage tutoring and differentiated or individualized instructions," explains Ramrakhyani.

"The teacher still gives an introduction, explains concepts, and provides learners with a learning path. They also intervene during lessons to check progress and provide feedback in real time."

In this emerging new model, teachers still guide the process by recommending learning paths and supporting learners, but students retain greater autonomy over their learning with the freedom and flexibility to shape their experiences.

"Our current platform development is focused on increasing the time spent by learners independently on our platform to 70% and reducing teacher-aided lesson time to 30% through the use of intelligent technologies such as AI and chatbots," explains Ramrakhyani.

When implemented effectively in this way, guided self-learning can improve a teacher's capacity, which enables them to provide more individualized instruction to students on a one-on-one basis when needed.

And with access to rich real-time data, teachers or course coordinators can track student progress to identify any potential problems or recommend additional content or course work to accelerate learning progress in stronger areas at an individual level to help students develop holistically.

Trend 4: The journey to self-guided and adaptive learning will accelerate

By harnessing AI, machine learning and data analytics, edtech solutions will create more personalized and interactive learning experiences that empower students to learn more by themselves in collaborative and flexible ways.

This will allow students of the appropriate age to take more, if not full control, of their learning experience. Fully autonomous adaptive learning solutions will use AI engines and machine learning to tailor educational content to the learner interacting with the platform, without assistance from teachers or tutors.

These solutions will take multiple variables into account, such as learning style and aptitude, and can adapt lessons in real time to provide the content and exercises needed to bridge knowledge gaps and reinforce concepts.

"Creating truly autonomous self-guided and adaptive learning solutions will ultimately democratize education across the globe, making more learning opportunities available to millions," adds Ramrakhyani.

Coupling this technology with a subscription-based model for learning - a prolific trend to emerge since 2020 - will give more children around the world access to a more affordable quality K-12 education.

Trend 5: Immersive learning through XR

XR - the umbrella term for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), or a combination of related technologies - has already begun to penetrate the K-12 learning environment, but the prohibitive costs will slow the adoption rate of this technology trend.

"Before VR and virtual environments like Metaverse become mainstream tools in the learning environment, more people will need to have and use these devices and technologies in their homes," elaborates Ramrakhyani.

However, some schools are already using XR tools to create more immersive learning experiences and save money on physical equipment. For example, AR allows students to view 3D depictions of animals, chemical elements, the human body and other relevant physical objects.

And digital tools like Google Expeditions allow students to take virtual field trips to places or locations anywhere in the world without the time and cost associated with physical travel.

Max Azarov is co-founder and CEO of , an online English school for children aged 4-12 that provides lessons with native speakers using a syllabus that corresponds to the European Standards CEFR. Connect on LinkedIn.

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2023 Edtech Trends in K-12 Learning - EdTech Digest

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A founder shares the top 5 trends in edtech likely to see traction this year. GUEST COLUMN | by Max Azarov Despite losing momentum following unprecedented pandemic-fueled growth during 2020 and 2021, the global edtech sector continues to grow, with numerous technology-led trends driving the next evolution in digital learning.

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Creativity is important in our classrooms and this article expresses how we can improve upon it!

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Engagement and creativity play such important roles in the learning process, but with the myriad of other requirements and obligations, they can easily get lost in the abyss of deadlines and mandates. Creativity helps develop a deeper sense of learning, yet we keep our "creative" units until after state testing is over. Recently, I met with two education leaders to discuss how to improve teacher and student engagement through creativity.
Why does creativity matter?
Sir Ken Robinson says, "Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value." In schools, creativity can be harder to imagine in core subject areas like math and easier to associate with humanities and arts. However, creativity shouldn't be reserved for just those content areas. Building in more creativity comes down to student agency-teaching students to find their voice.

"It's about empowering students to find what is unique about them, finding their own voice, their story," says Ben Forta, a senior director of education initiatives at Adobe. "It's letting them discover the joy of learning."

Ultimately, we want our students to be successful beyond the classroom walls. Being future-ready is more than just being ready for college or securing a job; it's thinking creatively about the problems we face as a society. Creativity is about making a major impact on learning. According to a Gallup article, schools that promote creativity see improved scores on standardized tests and results of deeper understanding.

Creativity encourages problem-solving, critical thinking, iteration, collaboration and making deep connections in students' learning material. Schools can struggle with fostering creativity when they are too focused on a desired outcome, too prescriptive and not allowing for individuality and student agency.

Learning should also be somewhat uncomfortable. Many of the world's most creative ideas have come as a result of an unconformable struggle. Staff and students working in a space that allows for creative risk-taking rather than compliance and conformity can struggle at first. Presenting a project without a true, correct answer can jar the more traditionally aligned student or teacher. Creativity is about giving students room to play and grow while recognizing that individual students may grow in different ways and at different paces, and that's actually desirable.

Martha Bongiorno
School Library and Instructional Technology Lead at Fulton County Schools

How did the pandemic affect creativity?
During the pandemic, schools with the infrastructure in place for moving to online learning found greater immediate success. They already had student devices and an established method for digital transactions between home and the teacher. But more important than infrastructure is a mindset. How flexible were the classrooms before the pandemic? Did students have agency and choice regarding how they completed their projects and showed understanding? Staying nimble and flexible as a regular state of operation has a higher likelihood of success during a major learning disruption like a pandemic.
What are the hurdles to overcome so that creativity happens more in schools?
Why aren't more schools pushing a creative mindset if we know it is powerful for learning? Several factors create roadblocks to creativity happening in classrooms.

Sometimes, there is a belief that creative projects should be saved for the end of the week or even the end of the semester. Martha Bongiorno, a school library and instructional technology lead at Fulton County Schools in Georgia, describes how creativity is sometimes the "dessert" content that is only offered to students who mastered the main course. During the pandemic, she saw creativity pushed away as schools scrambled to get the traditional core content out to students. Even though teachers modeled creative problem-solving to virtually reach their students, there was limited time for creativity as a skill. Bongiorno argues that creativity can't be an afterthought in the curriculum. Creativity needs to be embedded in everything we do with students; it needs to be part of the school culture.

Forta notes that it often comes down to prioritization. Teachers are overwhelmed, now more than ever. They have so much that they must do, and creativity takes a back seat to all the other initiatives. Time is always a concern. Some of the most interesting and complex project-based lessons take many hours to prepare and score. Assessment is more involved as projects being graded for creativity are more challenging than just checking a worksheet to see what answers the student got right or wrong. It's about evaluating the process and the product of what they learned, which can be intimidating and time-consuming. Add to all of this the external pressures of standardized testing, top-down mandates, traditional grading and parent pressure-teachers find less controversy in just using traditional teaching practices.

There is a misunderstanding that creativity has to be separate instead of infused in all content. Forta insists we need to help teachers find ways to incorporate creativity into what they're already doing to increase engagement and learning outcomes. The objective is happier and more engaged students and a reduced burden on our teachers. It sounds impossible, but there are educators and schools out there that are proving that it works, and educators like Bongiorno are leading the way.
Watch the full "Improving Teacher and Student Engagement Through Creativity" webinar on-demand now. What should professional learning look like to help foster more creativity in the classroom?
Forta suggests professional development (PD) needs to be "empathetic, meaningful and pedagogically sound without worrying too much about the mechanics." He is less concerned about the step-by-step details of how to use specific tools, and more about ensuring that educators understand why these tools add value, the right way to integrate them into lessons and how to make them meaningful and relevant. Just as the learning has to be meaningful to students, it must also be for adults.

Ben Forta
Author, educator and Senior Director of Education Initiatives at Adobe

Sometimes there's a disconnect between people delivering professional learning and those receiving it. Bongiorno and Forta agree that PD should be created by teachers for teachers. The same agency we need to encourage in students should be provided to teachers. Whenever possible, ask fellow educators to lead the learning, as it can be much more impactful coming from a colleague who is a practitioner.

Bongiorno's district uses a Vanguard team of educators from several schools to help facilitate professional learning. The Vanguard teachers are selected based on having a curious mindset and willingness to take risks to learn new tools and strategies, passing such techniques to their colleagues. Bongiorno asserts that creativity can be taught. It is a matter of tapping into individual strengths and encouraging them to develop.
How do we scale creativity?
For students and staff, sometimes infusing creativity needs to be built on a small scale. Not everyone feels creative, and even those that do sometimes have blockers that inhibit their creativity. However, all students and educators have different strengths that can be tapped for creativity when activated. Using the variety of challenges like those at the Adobe Education Exchange can be a place to start. Bongiorno notes these tools can serve as launching points for "community building, playing and designing" while building confidence. Using tools like the Innovator's compass, students can see the value of using design thinking to solve community problems. Bongiorno adds, "It's important that there is an authentic audience and that students can see that the things they are creating are making a difference."

Most schools can point to a classroom or two on their campus where some really innovative ideas are happening. These pockets of creativity need to be celebrated and modeled. To truly help creativity spread, there need to be people that are local and vocal to really get out and talk with their peers to expand creative ideas. Forta adds, "We need to empower passionate educators within their own communities to tell the story for us. There's an authenticity that can't be matched when educators are hearing from other educators."

And this energy around creativity then spreads to students. The more creativity you can infuse into your daily classroom routine, the more engaged students become. An engaged student with a sense of agency creates an atmosphere where their creative potential knows no bounds.

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Improving Teacher and Student Engagement Through Creativity - EdSurge News

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Engagement and creativity play such important roles in the learning process, but with the myriad of other requirements and obligations, they can easily get lost in the abyss of deadlines and mandates. Creativity helps develop a deeper sense of learning, yet we keep our "creative" units until after state testing is over.

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Mr. J makes math learning fun! His videos are so instructional and they are great to assign for students to watch on their own.

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Math with Mr. J is a math education channel that offers instructional math videos to anyone looking for a little extra help with math! Follow Mr. J on Twitter: @MrJMath5 Email: math5.mrj@gmail.com Thank you for checking out Math with Mr. J and until next time...peace ✌️✌️✌️

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One of the best YouTube channels to help students remember math content! Great for the elementary level.

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"math songs" "telling time" "3d shapes" "times table song" "math videos" "multiplication song" fractions measurement "skip counting" numberock "3rd grade" "4...

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We make animated, educational songs for kids that make math learning more fun and math teaching more effective! To date we have created nearly 70 animated videos that cover mathematical concepts from 1st Grade - 5th Grade; with concepts like; Rounding Numbers, Ordering Decimals, Subtraction with Regrouping, 3D Shapes, Angles, Place Value, Multiplication Times Tables and much more!

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My favorite classroom management behavior system! It's interactive, students can create their avatars, and can share everything we do with our class parents!

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ClassDojo helps teachers, parents, and students build amazing classroom communities.

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Great tool where students can compete in local and national math competitions. Also great for students to practice their math skills on a daily basis.

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Sumdog works!

A recent study demonstrated that using Sumdog for just 30 minutes a week almost doubled children's fluency growth. With Sumdog, you can easily see student activity at a glance and the powerful diagnostic tool enables you to quickly identify strengths and areas for development.

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A recent study demonstrated that using Sumdog for just 30 minutes a week almost doubled children's fluency growth. With Sumdog, you can easily see student activity at a glance and the powerful diagnostic tool enables you to quickly identify strengths and areas for development.

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Awesome interactive game for students to practice all their skills!

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Gimkit is a game show for the classroom that requires knowledge, collaboration, and strategy to win. Get started for free!