In a post-vaccination world, what stays and what goes?
What changes to education during COVID are lasting trends and what are quarantine only innovations?
So we have this vaccination coming 🎉🎉🎉
And while we all remember how to put real pants on, I thought I would break down what innovations in edtech during #COVID are quarantine only and what changes are here to stay.
As you may have seen, the market reacted dramatically to this news, with “stay at home” stocks dropping. In the edtech space Zoom (yes this is an education company now), Chegg, and 2U all took a dip. The reality is that education will be forever changed and for the better because of COVID, but not everything that popped up in the last 6 months has staying power.
What’s here to stay, and what’s a pandemic fad:
Stay: Increases in enrollment to online universities or online credit bearing courses that can be transferred to traditional institutions. I would bet big on companies like Outlier that offer online courses, taught by university-affiliated professors, with credits transferable to traditional universities. Outlier takes it a step further and produces their courses with movie studio quality, to match the type of media modern students are accustomed to. As I mentioned in my recap of ASU GSV - today’s higher ed students will stop at nothing to get low cost credits for general ed courses, and that’s regardless of a stay-at-home order.
Go: Pods that were all the rage this spring and the management software that pivoted to support these pods will not last (and i’m not just saying this because these software companies used to be Clark competitors), at least not in a venture back-able way. Yes, a fraction of the top 1% will continue to support homeschooling pods for their privileged children, but this is not something that will scale. We forget that school is the largest daycare service in America and the majority of parents do not have the luxury of time needed to supervise their children's homeschooling. I’m not a fan of pods because they decrease diversity in the classroom, increasing the educational gap between economic groups. Furthermore, the ability to solve complex problems in diverse teams was named the number one thing entry level employers are looking for from first time candidates. Thus, pods make you smart, but don’t prepare you for the real world, and if students can’t get jobs after pod-life, they will start to go away.
Stay: Microschools will stay and to be clear, these are different from pods. The addressable market of pods is the Hamptons. Microschools, however serve an important need, and they predate the pandemic. These small school environments have a higher likelihood of being state-approved and accredited, and are almost always outside the home. They are a lower cost option to private school, prioritize personalized learning, can accept scholarship students once accredited, and unlike public schools, are built to flex in classroom size based on student interest - which means they can flex based on safety regulations as well.
Stay: Overall, bravo to Outschool. Previously just a product for homeschool students, Outschool found its way into K-12 core curriculum by teachers overwhelmed by trying to plan 6+ hours of digital programming for their students and by parents wanting to supplement their students subpar remote learning. When students go back to the classroom, I believe teachers will continue to use the product because of its ability to expose students to social- and interest-driven learning and now that parents outside of just the homeschooling market know about it, I believe they will turn to Outschool before purchasing other more expensive extracurricular learning products for their kids, such as bootcamps.
Go: The majority of the copycats to Outschool that launched during the pandemic. There’s really only room for a few industry leaders once kids go back to the classroom - there simply isn’t enough time in a students day once they are being supervised in physical classrooms for all the new startups that launched, but a few of the best will remain.
An now, another day, another podcast:
I recently discussed the importance of experiential learning and how college students can actually be prepared for the modern workforce on Undergrad Easier
GerardDawson3 and I talked about why now is the "EdTech Super Bowl" and how to give students a clear and meaningful path to their first job on The EdTech StarupShow