Education on Demand (EOD) offers both student and educator multiple options to optimize learning and teaching. EOD, in its truest form, is a panoply of content, processes or experiences, and products. This panoply plays out across f2f and digital platforms. It is the variety of options tethered to a defined curriculum that launches a life-long journey of learning.
How does EOD benefit the learner?
The learner, especially the youngest among us, knows his needs and wants. Inquisitive, exploring, and asking questions are behaviors that permeate the early years. As students matriculate through education systems, all too often, innate curiosity is suppressed consistently. The student learns not to be inquisitive, not to ask questions, and certainly not to think out of the box. Therefore, the fire of curiosity, questioning, and exploring is extinguished. With EOD, the learner has the opportunity to re-ignite this fire by entering a world of learning with options to build his/her own education. Through portals of online lessons, asymmetrical courses, videos, podcasts, e-books, paper materials, and, yes, classroom experiences, the learner designs and drives his/her learning.
How are these portals different from the current mélange of online and f2f education offerings?
The difference in these portals is in the cohesive planning and deliberate design of true EOD. An articulated framework is required for real EOD including:
- Infrastructure;
- Delivery methods and related requirements for seamless end-user experiences; content, processes, products based on best practices for the type of learner; parameters set by culture, e.g., PK-12 standards or career path, e.g., certification or credential requirements;
- Measures of success, e.g., tests, portfolios, performances, models;
- Pathways to next levels, and most importantly,
- Delineated, aligned curriculum.
EOD must not be taken lightly. Simply slapping an education on demand label on digital courses does not create the optimal EOD.
How does EOD benefit the educator?
When the teacher has a defined yet open EOD framework, she can prepare lessons to meet individual student needs. Any teacher worth her salt knows that every student is unique and, to really learn, differentiated instruction often is necessary. EOD, fully developed, provides the educator with options and capacity for designing a variety of learning experiences. The cohesive EOD framework outlined above provides the educator with tools and resources to design and deliver quality learning options.
To achieve maximum benefits for learners and educators, EOD must be designed end-to-end, developed cohesively, and delivered across multiple platforms. Now is the time for associations, colleges, universities, public & private schools to offer EOD.
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