The Need for Active Learning Platforms

Development of active learning method:

Before starting, the need for active learning platforms, it’s better to know the history of the modern internet industry. In the 20th century, the engineering and science curriculum aimed to educate young people with the skills needed in industry and society through face-to-face classrooms. The teachers and professors were the main speakers, and the audiences were the learners who should have listened carefully and may ask questions if opportunities existed.

Today, the world faces a digital revolution in all aspects of society and industries. The term “Industry 4.0” (i.e., initiated and led by German experts since 2013) and, more recently, the term “Industry 5.0” denote the notion of the upcoming, current industrial revolutions. The main goal of these revolutions is to develop intelligent, flexible, and reliable systems that can adapt autonomously to their environment and, thus, are safe and robust against unpredictable production processes and friendly to the environment. Due to the progress in digital technology, new skills have been attained to cope with these changes.

The Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Everything, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), additive manufacturing, cloud services, and extensive data management are evolving rapidly. Along with these, the experts’ capabilities for building more sophisticated systems with higher capabilities in some challenging environments have increased significantly. It has also provided new tools and technology-based opportunities to be discovered and invoked toward new solutions. Creating digital twins of everything is an example and outcome of such options. With such trends, the concepts and criteria of Education 4.0 and Skill 4.0 and, consequently, 5.0 have been introduced.

The bases of these trends are the collaborating contents, scenarios, simulators, and tools with the great possibility of students’ engagement and development in the learning cycle.

 The concept of “active learning” has formed with an emphasis on these facts. the “Learning by doing” method and experiencing closer examples to real life, lifelong learning, flexible learning, and all with the possibility for more creativity and social learning.

21st century in teaching and learning content:

1. Personalized learning.
2. Equity, diversity, and inclusivity.
3. Learning through doing.
4. The changed role of the teacher.
5. Community relationships.
6. Technology.
7. Teacher professionalization

Employer perspectives on STEM graduate skills:

STEM employers are looking for a workforce with strong STEM content knowledge and skills to compete in the global economy in a crew with twenty-first-century solid skills. The traditional curriculum has led to employability skills gaps (i.e., lack of communication, teamwork, or problem-solving skills)

• As essential for business competitiveness, prosperity, and fairness, employability skills are often underestimated and under-trained in educational institutions.
• Many STEM programs seem to be falling short in teaching employability skills.
• STEM students need 21st-century skills to be able to communicate their ideas, understand corporate and personal ethics, develop social skills, and respect a culturally diverse team of peers

To maximize the promise of technology-based learning, managers and educational professionals must understand, control, and manage the obstacles that affect the learner’s persistence in technology-based education systems.

Suppose a reasonable effort is made to apply technology properly and make it the center of the development program. In this case, the educational system will be one of the most considerable resources in cultivating skilled and thoughtful human resources in the digital era.

Conclusion:

Therefore, concerning some of the existing issues and challenges, LiFA proposes a platform based on social learning and micro-learning to be active with the integration and combination of formal and non-formal education.

We mean active learning strategies such as the below methods must be considered adequate. Designing a platform can create depending on the learners’ needs and the nature and capacity of the learning content.

• Project-based learning
• Problem-based learning
• Game-based learning
• Team-based learning

In the upcoming written materials, we mean to help all better understand and helping to implement such ideas.

Written by Ali Akbar Safavi (Ph.D.)