In the post-pandemic world, colleges, universities, and other higher education institutions are focusing on keeping students safe while planning and implementing the learning process. They need to allow students to acquire knowledge, hone skills, and get certifications without attending classes in person. Many higher-educational institutions these days leverage sophisticated learning management systems (LMS) to implement learning processes and manage the workflow of education efficiently.
According to the latest statistics posted on Guide2Research.com,
“90% of students prefer learning online to traditional learning methods. About 49% of students have taken at least one form of online course. The education sector accounts for one-fifth or 21% of the entire global LMS market.”
The statistics depict the growing importance of the learning management system in higher education. The learning management system features help educational institutions to seamlessly integrate online digital learning and instructor-led learning. The new-age learning management systems are designed with features to enable students to learn remotely and conveniently. At the same time, they help teachers to spend their time only on teaching students.
Assessing the Importance of Learning Management System in Higher Education
Facilitating Remote Learning
The LMS helps colleges and universities to implement remote learning. The students can access the LMS anytime and anywhere over the internet. Also, they can access the content using either computers or mobile devices. That is why; the higher-educational institutions can use LMS to enable students to acquire knowledge at their own pace and convenience while managing the learning process effortlessly.
Making Content Elaborate and Engaging
The LMS these days provide learning content in a variety of digital formats – documents, eBooks, images, infographics, podcasts, videos, and audio. The multiple digital formats make it easier for students to understand complicated concepts and retain detailed information. The sophisticated LMS solutions come with features to enable students to discuss topics and ideas with other learners and instructors.
Making Teachers Focus Only on Teaching
In a conventional classroom environment, a teacher has to spend time on activities like taking attendance and evaluating grade books, in addition to teaching. The teachers can impart knowledge more effectively only by focusing on teaching. The LMS enables teachers to focus solely on teaching students and monitor student performance through automation of routine activities. The built-in tools and modules provided by the LMS make the teacher spend no time on enrolling and managing the learners.
Tracking Student Performance and Goals
In addition to teaching students in a virtual environment, the teachers can avail the features provided by LMS to set individual student goals and evaluate the performance of the learners. The teachers can design online tests and quizzes to evaluate the performance of learners immediately without putting in extra time and effort. At the same time, a learner can measure her performance by checking the grades in no time.
Implementing Blended Learning
The LMS helps higher-educational institutions to set up effective classrooms by bridging the gap between online digital learning and instructor-led training. The new-age learning management systems enable students to attend classes and lectures online according to a preset routine. At the same time, they allow learners to interact with instructors through chats, video conferencing, and emails. Hence, the students can stay connected with other learners and instructors despite studying in a distributed environment.
Learning through Discussion
Many LMS systems help students to clear doubts and understand concepts through discussion forums. Firstly, they allow students to share ideas, ask questions and reply to queries on a wide variety of topics. Secondly, asynchronous communication helps students to evaluate a concept from multiple angles. Also, they can participate in online discussions actively to hone their critical thinking skills. The sophisticated LMS allows both teachers and students to initiate discussion topics without putting in extra time and effort.
Simplifying Learning Process Management
The learning management systems have become an integral part of higher education due to the effectiveness of the software in simplifying the management of the online learning process and education workflow. The administrator can use the LMS to create multiple courses and assigns students to each course. Also, she can monitor the courses and gather real-time information by generating reports on the go. The higher-educational institutions use LMS systems to track and manage both administrative and instructional activities from a centralized location.
Curtailing Cost of Higher Education
According to BusinessInsider.com,
“The cost of college has made a degree less advantageous than it was 10 years ago.”
The universities and colleges have to explore ways to make higher education affordable to more students to make degrees more advantageous. The higher-educational institutions can leverage LMS to bring down the operational cost in several ways – not spending on infrastructure and automating instructional and administrative activities. They can even use cloud-based LMS to curtail ongoing costs without building and maintaining onsite IT infrastructures.
Optimizing the Existing Software Ecosystem
In addition to supporting multiple learning models, the cloud-based LMS can be integrated seamlessly with the existing software solutions and systems used by a higher-educational institution. A college or university can improve the performance of its existing software ecosystem by integrating the right LMS. The integration also helps educators to adopt remote learning capabilities in a short amount of time. Also, the educational institution can automate many administrative activities by integrating LMS with existing software solutions.
Preparing for the New Normal
According to CNBC.com,
“The coronavirus crisis laid bare how ill-prepared most schools were when it came to remote-learning capabilities. Going forward, many educators are adopting a “hybrid” approach to teaching in and outside the classroom.”
In the near future, higher-educational institutions will adopt blended learning to keep students safe. The importance of LMS supporting blended learning will increase consistently in the post-pandemic worlds. Many colleges and universities will keep using the virtual classroom and LMS software despite students returning to conventional classrooms.
Conclusion:
The importance of the learning management system in higher education can be assesses based on the common and innovative use cases. The next-generation learning management systems help higher-educational institutions to manage the learning process and set up digital libraries. The colleges and universities can also easily lunch new courses and manage multiple courses by integrating the LMS with digital libraries.
About Mintbook:
At Mintbook, we have been providing customized eLearning solutions for Universities and Colleges. Our LMS for Universities and LMS for Colleges enhance the learning experience for students with its native features to facilitate gamification in the classroom to increase engagement for all students. It also comes with a complimentary digital library and options to create content. You can also customize Mintbook’s LMS according to the requirements of the educational institute to experience effective and efficient learning.
