AUGUST 20179of push-button revolution to study, learn, unlearn, re-learn, share, practise and experience education like never before.Blogs, online forums, communities have replaced li-braries. Peers and self-assessment have taken over conven-tional pedagogy. Videos, demos, real-world simulations and other digital wonders have wiped out orthodox and obsolete modes. This new Gen Y, wants to go to a flipped classroom where using peers is more powerful than hier-archal system, where campus is not for teaching but for discussion, where they can find something that is conveni-ent but at the same time cost/time friendly, and effective enough to show visible results and not just report cards.A flipped classroom turns the traditional format of a class upside down in many ways. Here, a learner gets the content lined up in advance, the material is not a surprise element that will be revealed during a class but something the learner is pre-equipped with and all that remains is to actually understand and apply what the material teaches. This is a big transition towards outcome-oriented learn-ing. In fact, the new generation of learners will not be content with just the syllabus unless it leads them to a purpose-led outcome.The job market has undergone a drastic change. Linked-in, a career platform, reminds that the top 10 job titles used by employees today (example: social media analyst, big data architect, cloud services specialist) were not around even five years back. People are also changing what they learn, how they learn based on why they want to learn ­ the kind of work they will sink their teeth into.) No doubt, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have become a familiar name today. No wonder, digital learning or cloud-based tools are now dominant waves.If we pause and think as to what could be driving this sud-den surge and interest in a virtual classroom or course module, we might discover many big shifts that are actually re-defining the way people learn, when they learn and why they learn. Learn-ers have changed. There is no going back to the old ways. Their attention spans, devices, tools, mind-maps, and even the purpose of learn-ing have changed tremendously. Nowadays, you have segments like lifelong learners or independent workers or per-sonal-interest learners on the rise. How can education continue the same old way then?People want to learn, they are not opposed to it but they want it to be self-paced, engaging, multi-dimensional, fast, outcome-based, and participative, accelerated, on-demand etc. Pew Research has noticed that 87 per cent of personal learners feel more capable and well rounded, 69 per cent opened up new perspectives about their lives, 64 per cent made new friends, 58 per cent say it made them more con-nected to their local community and 43 per cent got in-volved in volunteer opportunities.In short, education is now turning affordable, acces-sible, continuous and experiential. With this impetus for what a learner actually needs, it is also becoming granular, contextual and pull-based so that it is designed from the perspective of a learner and not based on what the instruc-tor wants or knows. Knowledge has ceased to be a stock asset for this generation. They have made it fluid, per-sonalised, blended, inquiry-based and consistent. This is in tandem with an overall shift in the mindset of modern-age learners who are giving all the space and momentum to a new breed of classrooms.Yet when it comes to credibility of a badge, or course completion status; a lot remains raw and im-mature. There are a lot of places where brick class-rooms and digital ones have to complement and strengthen each other. Both sides would find gaps to fill in and a collaborative approach can equip both the genres strongly. We cannot just swipe away all the intellectual muscle, teaching think tank, lega-cy and experience that old-school for-mats have. We just need to find ways where the fork in the road ends.Brick and Click have to meet on a mid way, and soon enough. Venguswamy RamaswamyThe very aspect of tapping a peer for amplifying fundamentals, seeking out clarifications, practising examples, discussing and debating together has given an action flavour to an otherwise dull classroom
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