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Top Trends You’ll See in Online Learning This Year

This blog has been sponsored by the University of Birmingham, University of Bath and University of Glasgow.

If you’re interested in studying online, but you’re not quite sure what to expect, then we’ve had a look at some of the top trends in the industry at the moment that will influence how you’ll learn during your online Masters degree. Be prepared for your studies to be shaped by micro-activities, gamification, and more mobile-friendly activities!

Learning in short bursts, not long slogs

You may have heard of microlearning or nano learning, where you’re offered a super short and snappy activity, like a video that teaches you something in 60 seconds (think TikTok recipes or YouTube shorts!) and the education sector is taking notice! Although you can’t learn everything you need to pass your exams for your online Masters in 60 seconds, modules and activities are being designed in a way that provides you with bitesize learning and natural study breaks.

The responsibility for learning sits with you

We’re seeing an increasing amount of interactivity within online courses. Universities are opting for tools that encourage you to be more proactive like drag and drops and hot spots where you click to get more information. They may recreate a conversation between you and the tutor using pre-designed questions and answers that you have to click to show. The whole platform is more like a treasure hunt where you have to dig around to find the extra bits of knowledge, putting the learning directly in your hands!

Mobile-friendly learning

When we spoke to David Rowson, Director of Academic Services at Wiley (who builds online teaching materials for universities) in a previous blog about learning online, they mentioned the trend of students using their phone to interact with around 30% of the content. While we’re not suggesting that you can study your whole Masters from your phone, universities are looking at platforms that replicate more of what our daily digital experiences are, helping you to learn on the go without sacrificing the content or the learning experience.

Getting competitive

Now we’re not saying that playing Super Mario is going to get you a Masters, but there is a bit of a shift in online learning towards gamifying your experience. Tools that mirror social media feeds like discussion boards are coming out which have extra functionality, such as the ability to like a comment. In turn, this creates a leaderboard where the most liked comment appears highest and is hopefully the most relevant to your course.

Designed to add more soft skills to your CV

We’ve written before about how an online Masters can stand out on your CV and how it helps you become more tech savvy but studying online is also helping to develop key soft skills such as communication and teamwork. Along with problem-solving, these skills are the most important ones for anyone in the job market according to the most recent Future of Work survey by Monster jobs. The development of more collaborative platforms that encourage you to work and communicate with course mates, teachers and the whole cohort are all helping you to become a ‘must-hire’ job candidate.