Photo by Julia M Cameron from Pexels

In ten years, this blog post may write itself.

It may even pop up on your mobile screen or dashboard when you ask your smart device for a succinct view on individualized instruction. But why am I bringing up scenarios related to individualization or the future of work in a blog post about customized learning models?

Preparing for such a future calls for a new approach to education.

The World Economic Forum, for example, projects that the coming decade will see up to 50 per cent of job changes due to automation. And instead of being ‘replaced’ by smart machines or computers, future talent will work alongside these machines with proclivities that are uniquely human.

Preparing for such a future calls for a revamp of the education system. It must put individual students and their unique learning styles at the heart of teaching initiatives in a way that allows learners to learn at their unique pace, with an approach driven to boost their pedagogical outcomes.

Why? Because the economy will need a workforce that is creative, collaborative and with a willingness to quickly drop what doesn’t work to start from scratch and learn again. It means learners today will need to be equipped with skillsets that can empower them to fit in with what such a future holds.

Consider, for example, what Indian online learning platform, Byju’s has been able to do with personalized learning. By focusing on teaching primary and secondary school students math and science through animation videos, the company has flipped how these subjects are taught and how students learn.

What the company does is meet students where they are and provide them with just the kind of course material, customized mentoring and engaging digital content in keeping with their individual learning style to empower them to stay ahead.

It is clear to me that anyone in the education space keen to stay relevant in today’s evolving marketplace will have to pay close attention to personalized learning. The current one-size-fits-all model of education has lost its function and will need to be replaced by individualized approaches to teaching and learning.