Higher education technology evolves with each academic year. Though keeping pace with innovation can be challenging, institutions that leverage the latest advances enjoy enhanced student success and administrative efficiency. The key is anticipating the technologies that can help achieve your institutional goals and creating strategic plans to adopt them.
If your institution values cutting-edge technologies as tools for success, read on to discover the 15 edtech trends that will gain prominence in the upcoming school year. You’ll learn how to incorporate these tools to improve results across your institution.
Educational technologies are tools to advance your institutional priorities. The best reason to adopt any technological tool or software solution at your institution is that it aligns with these priorities. Choosing effective educational technology can improve:
As your institution prepares for the 2025 academic year, the technologies you embrace could help maximize your potential for success. Keep your eyes on these 15 trends in edtech and consider how you could leverage them to realize your strategic objectives for the year.
The diversity of student learning styles, competencies, and interests has driven innovation in adaptive teaching tools and methods. Personalized learning experiences allow students to pursue learning pathways optimized for them. This can involve:
Innovative learning applications are using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate learning pathway personalization. This creates an adaptive learning experience without demanding additional time investments from teachers to customize their instruction for each student.
Self-driven or self-directed education takes the personalization principle and combines it with a commitment to empowering student autonomy. This approach prepares students to enter fast-paced digital workplaces where initiative and decision-making skills are vital. Students can own their roles as the catalysts of their learning journeys when they:
Social-emotional learning (SEL) prioritizes student well-being and holistic self-formation through learning. As mental health awareness grows in higher education communities, expect to see more emphasis on digital learning experiences that cultivate empathy, resilience, communication, and self-worth. Technological approaches to social-emotional learning include:
Generation Z students prefer interacting with bite-sized content in their free time. Microlearning accepts and leverages that preference in the classroom for academic success. Brief lesson components avoid overtaxing attention spans and reward students with quick wins as they learn. This can enhance student motivation and engagement.
Your teaching faculty can also explore even shorter nanolearning segments, which last from a few seconds to five minutes. Microlearning and nanolearning are compatible with adaptive and self-driven learning systems, as the smaller content units leave more room for customization. It also aligns well with edutainment material, supporting comprehension with captivating minigames, informative vertical videos, and virtual adventures.
As institutions seek to maintain or grow their enrollment numbers, reaching students located further from campus or those with family and work commitments is a vital strategy. This will prompt forward-thinking institutions to expand hybrid and remote learning opportunities. As educational technologies make digital touchpoints more interactive and enriching, these alternative learning modes are becoming more compatible with collaboration and interpersonal skill development.
Key edtech tools for effective remote learning include:
Immersive learning through extended reality (XR) technologies will continue to gain ground. These engaging simulation tools allow remote learners to meet in a virtual space and collaborate. They also empower teaching faculty to take their on-site classes on interactive simulated field trips without the hazards and expenses of leaving the class. XR tools include applications, headsets, and controllers. Specialized versions of these tools can unlock three main types of XR for students:
Each year, higher education software enhances our capabilities for collecting, analyzing, and applying data points. Teaching faculty can now automate this entire data cycle, freeing them up to invest their time in the most impactful areas for student success.
For example, student success software can collect course data from your LMS, apply predictive analytics to identify students needing additional support, and trigger adaptive learning tools to adjust the student’s learning pathway. Meanwhile, teaching faculty receive alerts flagging students who need early intervention to support persistence. This data-driven approach helps improve student engagement, retention, and results.
As generative artificial intelligence becomes more reliable and gains new functions, its applications in higher ed expand. GenAI’s contributions in 2025 will include:
Cloud-based platforms allow teaching faculty and students to collaborate and access resources in a shared digital space. Session participants on a cloud-based platform can share text and media, discuss ideas, and interact with content in real time. These tools are especially useful in remote, hybrid, and project-based learning contexts. Cloud-based software tools tend to be cost-effective and scalable across an entire institution.
As theoretical knowledge becomes more accessible to curious minds outside the formal classroom, higher education institutions must focus on skill mastery to stay relevant. Competency-based education emphasizes proficiency in sought-after skills over time spent in class — these include job-specific hard skills as well as soft skills.
As workplaces become more technologically advanced, technology’s role in competency-based education expands. For example, a competency-based approach to a module on computer-aided design (CAD) would guide students through a series of practical challenges they could complete at their own pace. This would culminate in the student using engineering software to create a functional CAD model that meets assessment criteria.
Gamified learning uses game elements like points, leaderboards, and badges to engage students. These elements help make learning fun and rewarding. They allow students to hone their problem-solving skills and key competencies while getting instant feedback on their decisions.
Students can access educational games through mobile apps, tablets, desktop and laptop computers, or even XR devices. The research on gamified learning shows students improving in:
Seek out partnerships with innovative industry leaders. Cloud-based platforms, video conferencing applications, and extended reality tools can connect your students to global experts in the professions they aim to enter. These partners can:
3D printing technology is a powerful tool for bringing concepts to life. It’s especially useful in design and engineering fields, as students can create physical models of their designs to interact with and explore their functionality.
Teaching faculty can also leverage this technology to help their students visualize complex concepts. Beyond engineering and design, possibilities include:
There is reduced confidence in higher ed due to the perception that it fails to teach relevant career-oriented skills. Overcoming this perception to attract more students will require leveraging edtech to develop work readiness. Ways to achieve this include:
Leveraging technology for career and technical education (CTE) can attract career-minded students, enhance graduate employability, and build your institution’s reputation among industry leaders.
Online learning materials and even some assessments are accessible via smartphone. As these devices are constant fixtures in daily student life, expect strategic shifts toward more mobile-friendly content. Mobile-friendly learning will be most impactful for busy, non-traditional students with complex schedules. When program resources perform well on smartphones, these students gain the flexibility to learn anywhere, anytime. The content types well-suited to mobile learning are:
Higher education administrators measure the value of new technologies by their contribution to student success. Watermark Student Success & Engagement gives you data-driven insights to support students throughout their academic journey. This software solution helps you maximize student engagement, retention, and results by:
Try a free demo of Watermark Student Success & Engagement to learn more about this innovative solution for student success.
