Education in the Future

It’s sometimes hard to imagine what the year 2025 will be like when 5 years ago if you told me I’d have a phone that has internet, touch screen, and Facebook on it, I would have thought you were radical. Of course, now you can’t go anywhere it seems without seeing these mobile devices. I think it would be interesting to re-read these predictions in the future to see how accurate they are.

In a post by Blake-Ploch, he suggests that in the future typical school items like desks, homework, standardized tests, paper books, and even paper itself will be obsolete in the schools of the future (2011). I think some aspects of education will be better off without these things, but depending on the school, I don’t know if all of this would happen in 15 years. If schools do not have the resources or organization to implement technology in the schools, then the current ways of teaching will still be around. Even at my school, we had a 1:1 laptop grant, but it fell through partly because teachers weren’t using them or did not use them the “right way”. So with the laptops that we did receive we were going to just divide them up into class sets and share them in our departments. They had all summer to do this, and yet I still do not have these laptops. It’s like the right idea is there, but if people do not know how to efficiently run things, then it stays an idea and doesn’t become action. To me this is a small scale example, it seems like my school cannot be the only school with this issue.

                So if I were to make my own assumptions on how the learning environment should look in the future, first I would predict that there would be no more textbooks. That content will either be in the format of an “e-book” or students will find content by searching for it. They will be able to find videos showing them the concept they are learning within the reading or by searching for it. I have read a little about “semantic” searching which gives search results not just based on text, but based on meaning, I see this being the norm in the future which will enable students to find “better” information.

 The setup of a classroom should be designed to allow students to collaborate with each other more effectively, no more rows of desks. I read an article that even suggests classrooms should have couches and coffee tables instead of desks, making the learning environment more comfortable. While that may seem farfetched, it would be nice to see. I currently have my classroom arranged in tables where students sit in groups of 4 and they face each other in their groups. Unless I get couches in the future, I think this is something that I would keep, having students sit in groups versus rows of desks.

Future classroom setting?
From learningspacedesign.wikispaces.com

In the future, students will work together to solve problems about world issues, there will be less independent work focused on memorizing facts. Games will be used to help students learn the basics of the different subjects. Many games will be “social” so students will compete against each other or work together to reach a goal. There will be more “virtual reality” and simulation activities to teach students basic concepts. The teacher standing in front of the classroom giving notes will no longer be effective. The teacher will give directions and let the students explore the world using the technology they have.

However, with all of this technology and students being glued to computers, I believe that there will be some techniques that will stay. Lab activities will still be part of the science classroom. You can run simulations of labs on the computer, but I believe it is not as fun as doing the real thing. The types of labs may change, such as the growth in biotechnology, and labs may be incorporated with technological tools. But to extract one’s DNA, you simply have to do it in real life to see how your genes match up with everyone else’s in the class. Demonstrations and doing live chemical reactions will also still be part of my classroom. You can watch a video of a cool reaction, but doing it with the students is better. Even now if I show a reaction on youtube, students will ask if I or they can do it in class. The fun of hands-on science will still be around in the future in my opinion.

I wonder how the institution of schools will look like not just as a teacher, but as a future parent. Ken Robinson has a great talk about how we need to change the whole educational paradigm. That schools should not be “factory” based, but places where their creative minds can learn about the world and come up with new ideas (video below). I do not see schools themselves being radically different in 15 years, mainly because of money and lack of training to teachers about these technologies. Some schools that are in communities with strong economic backgrounds may take the lead in pushing this new way of teaching and learning. And teachers who go out of their way to get the training will be taking the lead as well. But if schools cannot afford to implement technology or the students do not get technology at home because they cannot afford it, then these changes will be slow. Hopefully technology will be cheaper for schools to handle.

Changing the paradigm-

Schools will always be around, the role of a teacher may change, but in the end there will always be a place for young people to learn. We as teachers need to recognize the need for creativity in learning not just for our students, but for ourselves. We have to be the leaders and show other teachers that 21^st century skills are different than the 19^th century skills we still teach. I work with some teachers that say “well if a student comes to school, takes notes, and studies them, then they will do well in school”. Sure they will do well in the current setting we have, but I think we need to redefine what “do well” means. Spitting out facts is not as important as learning how to find the answers and figure out solutions to the problems we all face in the world, I hope to see this in 2025.

References

Blake-Plock, S. (March 2, 2011). 21 Things that will be Obsolete by 2020. Retrieved from http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/03/21-things-that-will-be-obsolete-by-2020/

 RSA (poster). (2010, Oct) RSA-Animate- Changing Education Paradigms by Ken Robinson. [Video] Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html