INDUSTRY
Education
Digitizing education for blended and immersive learning experiences
Highlights
- Higher education institutions strive to produce skilled graduates and drive economic growth through diverse courses. However, translating theoretical knowledge into practical application poses a challenge.
- Academic leaders are using immersive learning with AR and VR to connect classroom education and workforce readiness. This approach allows users to practice skills and tasks in a safe environment without real-world consequences.
- Immersive learning boosts productivity and economic growth by providing students with real-life skills and confidence from the start of their career journey.
From classroom theory to workplace reality
Higher education institutions are the backbone of economic growth in today's globalized world.
The primary objective of higher education institutions is to nurture skilled professionals who can contribute to a country's economic development. A competent workforce with technical, managerial, and professional skills generates tax revenue, increases savings and investment, and leads to a better entrepreneurial and civic society.
Higher education institutions offer various courses across domains to cultivate competent and practice-ready professionals. However, it is challenging for these institutions to ensure that students entering the professional world can effectively apply the theories learned in the classrooms. According to multiple surveys, more than 50% of undergraduate students across the globe lack the confidence to start their careers post-graduation.
Employers also face the challenge of significant handholding for graduate students in the initial years of their career journey. This results in an additional burden on employers regarding extra training costs, longer turnaround for freshers to become job-ready, and reduced productivity. Employers today desire a workforce ready to be productive from day one, and they turn to higher education institutions for solutions. However, higher education institutions are struggling to bridge the gap between actual workplace requirements and theoretical knowledge provided in the curriculum.
Bridging realities
Immersive learning technologies are emerging as a solution, offering more practical and real-world experiences.
Thought leaders in the academic world are looking to use advanced educational pedagogy, such as immersive learning powered by AR and VR and mixed reality (MR), to bridge the gap between classroom and workforce readiness. Immersive learning technologies enable the user to interact with objects and perform tasks that mimic real-life situations, which allows the learner to gain new skills and experience without facing any real-world consequences.
Immersive learning technologies can create a simulated environment for learners to learn and practice their skills safely. This type of learning can help learners be better prepared for their jobs in several ways:
a) Replicate real-life scenarios: Extended reality (XR)-based learning can create a virtual version of a real-life scenario, such as an oil rig field or a medical operation theater. This augmented virtual world can help learners experience the real world even when they are in academia.
b) Safe environment: The virtual world is safe, eliminating the possibility of the learner getting hurt or damaging anything. Suppose a student is working in a virtual chemistry lab, for example. In that case, the teacher or parents do not have to worry about the safety of the learner, as there is no possibility of accidental fires or gas leaks in the virtual environment.
c) Real-time feedback: Immersive learning enables learners to make decisions just like they would in the real world, and those decisions directly impact the experience. The learner will get immediate feedback from the XR technology if they are accurate. This helps the learner know the consequences if the learned skills are not practiced accurately.
d) Opportunity for repetition: Learners can practice their skills as often as needed until they are confident to apply them proficiently at work. In traditional learning, repetition is not always possible due to its impact on the teacher's time, cost, and effort.
e) Better collaboration: Remote learners can have a better collaborative learning experience with the help of immersive learning technologies. For example, in some technical fields, experts can provide remote assistance to novice technical people while sitting in a remote location, saving the time and cost of traveling by the experts to resolve the issues.
f) Involvement of emotions: Immersive learning makes the learner feel present in the actual world, which invokes realistic emotional responses like stress, anxiety, and satisfaction. This triggers higher engagement as all their senses are attentive to the learning experience, which helps better retention and more extended recall.
g) Boost self-confidence: As the learner gets a chance to practice their skills in an actual environment with safety, their morale is enhanced, and they have high self-confidence compared to learners who have not practiced in a virtual environment.
h) Cost-effective: Allowing learners to practice their skills in a virtual environment is highly cost-effective as it does not involve the cost of travel or usage of materials (such as in a chemistry lab) and failure cost (if the learner fails to use the equipment or mishandles the equipment, then maintenance cost is incurred) or loss of production hours (if the learner is not ready to be productive on the job, then it is a loss of production hours).
Major oil and gas companies have implemented virtual reality learning programs to increase employee safety and reduce training costs. The use of virtual reality learning in defense is growing faster. Leading army academies have been using VR technology to provide a simulated combat environment to upgrade soldiers' skills.
Similarly, medical and engineering colleges and universities worldwide have implemented immersive learning technologies in their pedagogy to enhance the learning experience and improve outcomes.
Facing the future
Higher education institutions want to embrace immersive learning due to its numerous benefits.
However, institutions face several challenges when implementing immersive learning pedagogies. Significant challenges include the high development costs, the need for expensive infrastructure such as the latest technology hardware, and access to high-speed internet. Additionally, the availability of tech-savvy faculty can be limited since immersive learning technologies are new, and present faculties may not be confident in using them. They may need training before they can teach their students.
Moreover, higher education institutes need a skilled IT department to acquire and maintain the necessary technology and infrastructure. They may also need to deal with compatibility issues with existing systems. Furthermore, they need to ascertain the accessibility of immersive learning technologies for learners with disabilities or different learning styles.
Resistance to change can also be a significant challenge, as adapting to high-quality immersive content requires building expertise, which can be time-consuming and effortful. There can also be fear of new technologies.
Finally, excessive use of immersive technologies can cause strain on the eyes, nausea, headaches, addiction to technology, and a tendency to remain aloof, reducing social and human interaction if the usage is not balanced.
Implementing immersive learning in higher education can be challenging; however, the benefits are significant. Institutions must overcome these challenges to produce job-ready graduates.
Harnessing technology for shaping the future of education
Higher education institutions can leverage immersive technologies to offer experiential learning opportunities to students.
Institutions must develop cost-effective, interactive learning solutions using immersive technologies and elevate the present learning ecosystem. To make the most of immersive learning, they should focus on the following areas:
- Identify the scope of immersive learning: Identify the critical skills learners need to gain. Since building immersive learning experiences can be costly and time-consuming, select only the essential objectives that require hands-on experiences. This will help determine the outline of the immersive learning experience to be created.
- Choose immersive learning technology: Decide which immersive technology best suits the learning objectives. Select the technology that matches the desired learning outcomes and justifies the development cost. It is essential to consult with experts to make the proper selection.
- Build an immersive ecosystem: Procure the hardware and software required for the immersive experience. Since immersive technology is relatively new for most people, seeking help from experienced partners to build the immersive ecosystem is crucial. Budgets play a critical role in deciding the immersive ecosystem.
- Analyze the effectiveness of immersive learning: Evaluate the effectiveness of the immersive learning experience by analyzing the learners' performance and assessing their feedback to justify the expenditure made on immersive learning. Measure the readiness of the learners to identify if they would be productive in the first quarter of their joining any line of business.
Developing an immersive learning ecosystem may seem expensive initially; however, in the long term, it proves cost-effective. Immersive learning technologies can help students practice real-life skills before joining the workforce, which makes them confident. When these practice-ready students join the workforce, they are productive from the beginning of their career journey, reduce production loss, and support generating larger revenues.
As freshers are confident in their jobs, it is easier for them to focus on their careers. This way, immersive learning technologies help students be successful in their professional journey and help society be at the forefront of economic development.
