Lillian sat with her coffee steaming as she read over her assignment for this week. As a first year surgical resident at Columbia University she had a lot on her plate, but the virtual surgeries were her favourite assignments. The waves crashed softly in the background as she read on. Being able to study abroad was one of the reasons she chose Columbia’s residency program, much of her learning was virtual and could be done wherever she had a reliable internet connection, her parent’s home in Cambodia was doing quite nicely. Her father was a property lawyer and was able to continue working from home ever since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019. Her parents relocated to a luxury beach home in Cambodia shortly after where she finished high school and obtained her undergraduate degree through online courses.
The future of education can not be know, but predictions are possible as we move towards a predominantly digital educational system. Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and digital tools are increasingly used to deliver information. The classroom is fading away and being replaced by ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning. Widening of the digital divide is producing a new breed of student: independent, digitally competent, and informed.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how quickly we can transition out of a traditional classroom environment and into a digital-based learning structure for both K-12 and postsecondary education. The days of having to get up and go to class are over. Selwyn et al (2020) discuss how a flexible almost nomadic education has blurred the lines between school time and leisure time creating a distance learning environment that is unlike the normal classroom education. In the future it will become normal for students to study from anywhere (Pelletier et al, 2021). Many students will reject the formal model of education in exchange for a system that worked for them. Mature students also find distance education more fitting as their jobs and lives become more flexible. “Working nine to five in a location-bound job, investing oneself in the rat race, and converting time into wages was rejected by these expanding nomadic networks” (Macgilchrist et al, 2020, p.81). The post COVID-19 world caused unprecedented work from home, allowing families to relocate around the world and created a need for these ‘nomads’ to continue to educate themselves and their children from abroad.
As technology continues to advance, digital competency and access to educational technology or tools will become the new currency for admission (Pelletier et al, 2021). Students who are ill informed, unable to possess digital tools, or unfamiliar with the latest technologies will be exempt from participating in the new education system. Students must be capable users of digital technology as digital literacy becomes an important competency of the new standard for education (Macgilchrist et al, 2020). There will however, continue to be disparity in the way students use and navigate digital resources as not all students will be well connected and digitally savvy (Williamson et al, 2020). Students who do not have access to internet at home will have less digital skills than their peers, and as educational technology advances, the necessity and reliance on these digital skills will continue to increase. Digital competency is important and those students who are better off will be more able to benefit from the digital educational system (Williamson et al, 2020).
‘Going digital’ and the changes to curriculum for an online based system will replace textbooks and formal classroom resources. Virtual resources are increasingly used in education and will continue to do so in fields such as healthcare. Virtual reality learning environments will provide education to medical students who previously have limited access to patients. They can revisit lessons by resetting virtual environments to maximize the exposure to certain patient presentations and conditions, increasing their learning opportunities (King et al, 2018). Predicting patient outcomes to therapy or treatments is best learned from experience. Virtual based medical scenarios give students this invaluable experience as virtual environments provide more immersive experiences (Pelletier et al, 2021).
Surgical residents are one group that has positively responded to the integration of digital technology into their learning. Orthopaedic examination videos, interactive orthopaedic radiology skills, webinars, podcasts, and online interactive feedback with faculty are all replacing the use of textbooks in medical programs. The integration of more elearning in orthopedic surgery students increased both their hands on physical assessment skills and psychomotor skills (Thompson et al, 2021). With an increased digital curriculum, access to subject matter specialists and other resources will become easier, increasing the quality of education. Students will have access to subject experts rather than relying on the institution’s internal faculty (Thompson et al, 2021). This is particularly interesting in the healthcare field where information can change rapidly and being current is of particular importance to patient outcomes. The integration of virtual resources allows students to experience ‘safe fails’ to practice procedures and skills without impacting live patients (King et al, 2018). The increased use of elearning in healthcare also addresses the heavy burden of teaching being placed on practitioners. Along with administrative tasks and limited clinical time, elearning resources will overcome these challenges: faculty will prerecord their lectures and can respond to students digitally from anywhere (Bhatti et al, 2011). Elearning allows students to work without time constraints and is beneficial to learning in groups and as independent learning (Jäger et al, 2014). Virtual reality learning environments will allow students to participate in their own learning at a time and place that works for them, for healthcare students, creating any number of clinical practice scenarios (King et al, 2018).
The changes brought about by Covid-19 pandemic have forever altered how education is delivered. Remote living, teaching, and learning will continue to be a reality decreasing barriers for students (Pelletier et al, 2021). The previous ‘gold standard’ of teaching face-to-face will be obsolete as the geographical limitations and demand on resources becomes unacceptable by institutions and students, the advantages of virtual learning are clear (Thompson et al, 2021). The future is shaped by the consumer: students will shape an environment they want and need. Self sufficient learning, self directed distance curriculum delivery, and the emerging reliance on digital learning tools will be the future, a student driven education system.
References
Bhatti, I., Jones, K., Richardson, L., Foreman, D., Lund, J. & Tierney, G. (2011). E-learning vs lecture: which is the best approach to surgical teaching? doi.org/10.1111/j.1463-1318.2009.02173.x
Jäger, F., Riemer, M., Abendroth, M. et al. (2014). Virtual patients: the influence of case design and teamwork on students’ perception and knowledge – a pilot study. doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-137
King, D. Tee, S., Falconer, L., Angell, C., Holley, D., & Mills, A. (2018). Virtual health education: Scaling practice to transform student learning: Using virtual reality learning environments in healthcare education to bridge the theory/practice gap and improve patient safety. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.08.002
Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., & Bruch, A. (2020). Students and society in the 2020s. Three future ‘histories’ of education and technology, Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 76-89. https://doi-org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1080/17439884.2019.1656235
Pelletier, K., Brown, M., Brooks, C., McCormack, M., Reeves, J., Arbino, N., Bozkurt, A., Crawford, S., Czerniewicz, L., Gibson, R., Linder, K., Mason, J., & Mondelli, V. (2021). 2021 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Edition. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2021/4/2021-educause-horizon-report-teaching-and-learning-edition
Selwyn, N., Pangrazio, L., Nemorin, S., & Perrotta, C. (2020). What might the school of 2030 be like? An exercise in social science fiction. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 90-106. https://doi-org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1177/20427530211022951
Thompson, J., Thompson, E., & Sanghrajka, A. (2021). The future of orthopaedic surgical education: Where do we go now? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surge.2021.05.005
Williamson, B., Eynon, R., & Potter, J. (2020). Pandemic politics, pedagogies and practices: digital technologies and distance education during the coronavirus emergency, Learning, Media and Technology, 45(2), 107-114, doi: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1761641
