Phygital Learning

Digital Technologies Will Fill The Gaps In Our Education System, Be It Virtual Field Trips, Use Of Ar/vr In Experiments Or Online Lessons On-the-go

- Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera

Higher education systems around the world have been crippled by Covid-19. In India alone, over 37 million students in the country’s higher education system have been affected by campus closures. The demand for online learning continues to surge as colleges in India ensure academic continuity for students though remote teaching. Three months down the line, institutions have, in some form, adapted to virtual learning despite being largely unprepared for an abrupt shift.

Now that the near-term response is implemented, universities in India, much like their global counterparts, will have to make enduring changes in the medium and long-term. The strategic nature of their response will determine how well they adapt to the rapidly-changing future of higher education.

Medium-term: Blended Classrooms

As this crisis has shown, universities will need to futureproof their role with dynamic, resilient approaches that can empower faculty to quickly switch from on-campus to fully online on demand. For most colleges, developing high-quality online content from scratch remains a formidable challenge. But with technology, any college or university in India can integrate online courseware taught by experts from renowned institutions into their curricula, widely available through online platforms.

The ‘forced experimentation’ colleges have come through with this crisis could lead to lasting changes, fundamentally transforming how students learn in the future. The new normal will eventually make way for ‘blended’ classrooms that combine online and traditional in-person classroom learning.