New Decade, New Learning: How the 2020s Will Change B-School Teaching

As a decade comes to an end and a new one begins, it’s customary to look ahead to the future innovations likely to have an impact across various industries and sectors. Will robots take over manual jobs? Will there finally be a cure for cancer? What will the workplace of the future look like?

Whatever happens over the next decade, technology is guaranteed to transform the education sector. Just look at how demand for digital education has risen exponentially over the last few years, and the growing number of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and digitalised full-time MBAs offered by business schools from around the world. 

So what can we expect from the new decade? Which technologies will replace traditional teaching methods, or be incorporated into existing lesson plans?

Here’s a few guesses.

Escape rooms

Escape rooms have become extremely popular in the past few years, mostly as a fun activity to do with friends and family and now they’re making their way into education too.

At ESMT Berlin, b-school students are learning successful team-building through cyber-attack simulations. In perfect escape room style, groups of students face an imminent threat which they have to resolve digitally and in-person.

The University of Central Lancashire’s School of Business and Enterprise has done something similar but entirely digital: students have to move through online rooms using clues that appear to them on the screen. Their performance is recorded so they can review it later, as you would do with a regular team assignment.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, attendance shoots up in classes where escape room games are featured, so be prepared to see them feature in education a lot more in the coming years.

Holographic teaching 

From musical icons such as Prince to Tupac, to medical professionals, holographic technology has reached the point where anyone can appear anywhere at any time. The same, of course, can happen in universities.

Imperial College Business School London recently implemented the world’s first live holographic university lecture, for which it won the Gold Award for Virtual/Augmented Reality at QS’ Reimgaine Education Conference.

Students were able to watch, listen to and interact with guest lecturers from Los Angeles, New York and London – all in hologram form – through their own computers at home.

As online education becomes more and more popular, in-person teaching might have an entirely new meaning by 2030.

Learn by playing

Toys have been used in teaching for a while now. At Warwick Business School, students are encouraged to put concepts into practice using bricks. At IE Business School, LEGO is used to help MBA students recreate products by combining physical play with video games and digital programs.

While using toys can help make learning more exciting, it also helps schools keep up with the technologies that already play a fundamental role in students’ lives. Having grown up with computers, tablets and video games, students can now incorporate what they already know to learn quicker and better. 

Who knew studying could be so fun!