Visuality in blended learning: A promising future for learning success

The year 2020 will always stand out as the year when education experienced a steep learning curve of its own. More than 1.5 billion students across the globe were affected by school and university closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure continued learning, governments, educational institutions and educators quickly re-examined the current modes of teaching. Schools everywhere leveraged technology and online engagement to bring new-age learning concepts to the fore. Of the many methodologies launched, the blended learning approach has met with considerable success. Powered by visuality, blended learning brings immense possibility, not just as an interim solution, but as a long-term viable answer to the many challenges currently being faced by learning and education.

Blended learning brings many positives

In 2019, the World Economic Forum published a report titled 'Schools of the Future: Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution’. This report highlighted the inadequacy of current educational systems and suggested the importance of more cohesive educational models. It further drew attention to the outdated educational systems which was heavily driven by direct instruction and memorization, rather than critical thinking, the essence of today’s innovation-driven economy.

While the last decade has witnessed many educational institutions realizing the importance of digital integration and introducing some form of digital learning in their curricula, it was COVID-19 that accelerated the process of digital adoption. It prompted schools to extensively leverage digital tools to enable learning continuity and make learning more seamless, productive, and enjoyable for students. As per research by McKinsey, Google Classroom doubled its number of users within a month into the lockdown. Now as schools are starting to reopen, educational institutions are looking to adopt a more comprehensive model of education while maintaining social-distancing guidelines. This is where the concept of blended learning brings extensive possibilities for teachers and students to operate in a new hybrid space.

Defined as a unique educational methodology, blended learning combines physical ‘in-person lessons’ and virtual ‘online classes’, providing flexibility for teachers to deliver content in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of the new digital economy. It gives the educators a chance to utilize online resources which creates a more active, personalized, student-centred learning experience. This model of differentiated instruction also presents an opportunity for teachers to address specific needs based on students’ aptitude, learning styles, abilities, interests, and skills. It further improves classroom participation and collaboration among students by accessing innovative digital tools to enable learning beyond classroom walls.

Blended learning leverages the ‘visuality’ factor

What makes blended learning a viable model for the future of education is that it is powered by ‘Visuality’. It has been established that 65% of people are visual learners and with the advent of the age of screen our way of experiencing the world today is highly visual. With our eyes processing 36,000 visual messages per hour and our brain processing visuals 60,000 times faster than any text, it is only natural that all new learning models should have high visual integration. Incorporating visual elements gives blended learning an edge as it makes learning more engaging and appealing for the students.

Emerging technologies that enhance visuality have further fuelled the case for blended learning. Several innovative and practical learning solutions now offer solutions to bridge any ‘digital divide’ between in-class and remote students. Hi-tech digital tools like smart projectors, interactive smart screens, web-cameras and monitors enable video conferencing and cloud collaboration. With easy wireless sharing of teaching material across devices, teachers are able to seamlessly connect while paying individual attention to the students. With the possibility of two displays, such as an interactive flat panel with a webcam in the centre as a core teaching tool and a smart projector as a second display, the teacher is empowered to see real-time reactions from online learners. Another technology shift that is benefitting blended learning is bigger display sizes. The increasing display sizes bring to life flipped classrooms which increase student engagement and self-reliance in learning.

The growing concern among parents on the harmful physical effects of prolonged hours of screen time is often discussed in blended learning scenarios. In a survey of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years it was reported that the screen time for kids had shot up by 100% since the first lockdown leaving 84% of parents worried about this increase in screen time. Technological advances have however resulted in smart screen solutions that regulate exposure to constant flickers and harmful blue light to minimize digital eye strain for students—furthering the case for blended learning.

Building the future with blended learning

The future depends on today’s learning, and educators are constantly looking for new ways to redefine this future. According to a study by Accenture, if all nations do not equip their learners to better prepare for the needs of the future economy, we can lose as much as US$11.5 trillion of global GDP by 2028.Post-pandemic, educators have also realised that the one-model-fits-all approach to learning will not work anymore. Adopting a visuality powered blended learning strategy provides a complete package to fulfilling the needs of educating future generations.

By Rajeev Singh, MD, BenQ India