Trends in the Field of Adult Education

According to a recent blog post written by Bernard Marr at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/02/18/the-five-biggest-education-and-training-technology-trends-in-2022/?sh=2be843a32f4d the trends in adult education show a heightened increase in online education. This is certainly a trend catapulted by Covid 19 where even Universities and Colleges were forced online.

However this was already an emerging trend, it's simply that covid catalyzed the rate by which this was occurring.

The 5 main takeaways from the Forbes articles are:

1. An increase of education moving online. I've already witnessed this at the College I work for. Before Covid this was a completely on-ground educational institution. Covid shifted the landscape of the school where the entire curriculum went online, even subjects that at one point seemed they could only be held in person. This required innovative thinking, creative leadership, openness, and adaptability from instructors and students.

​2. Learning is extending beyond high school and college. Although for our grandparents generation and even likely our parent generation most education happened pretty early in life, today, the rate by which technology changes, ongoing trainings and education is required in order to keep up, and learning is really a lifelong process. 

Additionally, I find many people enrol in education programs for their own personal development and not always just to get a job. In the field of mind body wellness, I believe this is an advantage, as it shows that people care about enhancing their lives.

3. There are new immersive intelligence trainings that simulate environments to support the training process such as with surgeons and firefighters (Forbes, 2022). I think this is brilliant and an effective way to strengthen the learning process. I think if this was brought into the various fields of mind-body wellness, that it would serve students-in-training in their confidence as they build their skill in working with individuals and groups in their chosen area of expertise.

4. An emerging trend of artificial intelligence includes an ability for things such as grading papers. This I find a bit unnerving as I don't feel any robot can have the human connection that cares when grading a student's paper. It seems to take the soul out of it. I guess it does depend a bit on the subject matter. I am not really a fan of this trend. However I can see how it helps logistically when it comes to time, especially as teachers are rarely compensated for the time they put into grading.

5. Another emerging trend is called nano-learning - learning in bite sized chunks. I can see the benefit here of clear focused learning. And, I can see this playing into the epidemic of increasing low-attention spans and expectation of instant gratification. I am not sure if this is effective in the long run, however I might be biased coming from a time where it was expected to read whole textbooks for every course. 

Overall, the implications of these trends in the coming years, and the preparation required will be an overall sense of adaptability and willingness to remain open and learn. Already with the move to online education it has required swift adaptability to learn zoom classroom, online learning platforms such as Moodle to post course content, assignments, and tests, as well as learning online softwares for grading.  As the field and technology continues to develop it will require instructors to remain adaptable to learning new and emerging technologies and online platforms that may enhance the overall learning experience for learners.

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Reference:
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/02/18/the-five-biggest-education-and-training-technology-trends-in-2022/?sh=2be843a32f4d 
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