The coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed all industries, including education. Universities, colleges, and K-12 schools acted quickly to build entirely online curriculums for their students. Over 400 million students are currently learning online and all levels of education have adopted distance learning.
As you’ll learn, the trends we expect to play out in 2021 are directly connected to the distance learning initiatives from 2020.
The top 3 predictions for STEM education in 2021 are heavily influenced by distance learning
Education has changed in countless ways since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Teachers had to quickly learn to teach online and eventually found their rhythm in distance learning through resources, grants, and a little trial and error.
Continue reading to learn the trends that have emerged in STEM education during the pandemic that you can expect to be carried over to 2021 and beyond.
1. STEM educators will use more eLearning video services even after the pandemic is over
Because many schools are still operating online, video services such as YouTube, Netflix, SolidProfessor, Khan Academy, TED-Ed, and more are being used more than ever — but they likely won’t be going away. eLearning is essential to STEM education because it’s more likely to be up-to-date information.
After a year of teaching online or in a hybrid setting, many teachers have incorporated video into their virtual classrooms. In 2021, we expect STEM teachers will continue to use educational video courses and content in their curriculum to support self-paced, visual learning. With this new demand for online videos in the classroom, we will likely see more organizations create videos for this purpose.
Nearly 60% of high school and college students prefer YouTube as an instructional tool rather than learning from books. Why? Because video is easier to follow along for most people. Students can start, pause, and rewind videos at their own pace.
Top educational STEM YouTube channels to share with your students:
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2. STEM educators will incorporate social media into their classrooms
Social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram allow for online communication and a way for STEM educators to share information. Educating with social media is also a fun way to learn! There are many different tools that teachers can use to integrate social media platforms into their curriculum.
Here are some examples of how to use social media in STEM education:
- Use Facebook Groups to upload live lectures and a Facebook Page to post class updates.
- Use Twitter to create discussion boards with threads, tweet assignments, and more.
- Use Instagram to create photo essays, share student work, and connect with others.
- Use Pinterest to create class-specific boards. (Check out Pinterest’s Science board.)
3. STEM educators will use more artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has had a considerable influence on all industries in the past few years. Schools have recently joined the trend and added AI to their curriculum.
Here is how AI is used in education:
- Streamlining administration tasks: AI can automate administrative tasks for teachers. Rather than having to spend time grading exams and homework, educators can use technology to expedite the process. Teachers and academic institutions can then allocate more time to teaching their students, instead of doing paperwork and grading.
Did you know? SolidProfessor quizzes are self-grading. Our platform does the work for you!
- Personalized learning: Every student is unique and learns in different ways. As a result, some students fall behind or don’t reach their full potential because of a unified curriculum. AI makes education a personalized experience.
- Tutoring: With AI, students can receive extra help with educational assistants. These “Intelligent Tutoring Systems” look at students learning styles and experiences to deliver personalized instruction and feedback.
- Feedback on course quality: Finally, AInow helps university students to evaluate their professors in a more effective way. For example, Hubert allows students to give feedback on both the class and the professor. After filling out the questionnaire, it categorizes the comments and data and sends it back to the professor. The quality of feedback is higher than more traditional forms of feedback because Hubert is similar to communicating with a human. As a result, you can get more information out of students.
