In days gone by, the world was far less complex than it is today. To illustrate our point, take the world of employment. After school, you went to university, and you got a job in which you stayed until retirement. Nowadays, if people stay in jobs for more than five years, this is a lot.
In addition, people are opting to forgo 9-to-5 employment and are choosing to work as freelancers (who are also called GIG workers) where they work for themselves on projects for other people. As the world of work, and many other aspects of life, has become non-linear education has had to remain current with the times and has had to forgo a linear element and has become more flexible.
However, before we respond to the question of why linear education is dead, we first need to unpack what exactly ‘linear education’ is (because it’s not just as simple as ‘education in a straight line’) as well as what flexible education is.
What is linear education?
Linear education involved pedagogical or learning strategies that are centred on a specific learning programme and also have a linear structure. Other characteristics of linear education are that these types of learning programmes are directed, conducted, controlled and guided by a particular study programme.
In practical terms, what the consequence of is that in linear education if you want to learn the content of the third module in a programme, you need to have mastered the contents of the first and second modules. (Your mastery of this content is shown through assessments at the end of each module.)
What is flexible learning?
In stark contrast to continuing education, flexible learning involves a mixture of the following:
- Education philosophies,
- Pedagogical or learning strategy,
- Delivery methodologies, and
- Administrative structures.
This mixture allows students the freedom to choose what they want to learn, the most convenient time that they want to learn and how they want to learn – and this is not dependent on any particular learning programme.
So, why do we say that linear education is dead?
Well, it’s not dead and buried because there will still be people who prefer to learn in face-to-face situations in a classroom. However, even recognised learning institutions realise that people want to be flexible in their learning styles and, as such, are putting their courses online and allowing people to study the parts of the course that are relevant to them and that they are interested in.
A well-known example of this type of learning is the MOOC, which stands for ‘Massive Open Online Course’. The MOOC is utilised as a way to offer students the opportunity to provide courses to the student, even if no local premises or faculty that can organise such courses exist. Well-known tertiary institutions to offer MOOCS are:
- Stanford University
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- University of California
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Yale University
- Stanford University
- Princeton University
There are other universities and colleges around the world who recognise the value of MOOCs and have started to add these to the offerings which they provide students.
The world is embracing flexible learning and is turning more and more to this, in favour of linear education, as it fits in with the new digitally savvy environment that we find ourselves in. Now, no one can utilise the excuse that they don’t have time to learn as it’s so easy to fit it into your busy life.
Enjoy Flexible Learning with Future Self Academy
At Future Self Academy, we’ve done something that no one else has ever thought of before. We’ve taken best-selling authors’ books on a variety of subjects such as psychology, business and finance and have turned these into courses. The reason behind this is that people retain much more information when they are asked questions about a particular material, bespoke assessments have been designed so that students remember more about the course than if they were to read the book merely.
So, if you want to learn from these fantastic authors and use the information that they impart in order to improve your life (just as they have), why not go to our course catalogue page and see the variety of courses that we have on offer.
