Activity 3: The Future of Schooling
In this task I researched the future of schooling and how I would like to see education change for the better in the future. You can listen to the podcast I made about the topic below, or if you prefer, you can read the transcript.
james_podcast_.mp3 |
Today I want to talk about the future of education; specifically how traditional schooling can be re-imagined to lead to greater impact on student learning, development, and growth. I’m going to explore the ways in which the education environment can be redesigned to meet the needs of 21st century learners.
Let’s first start with the purpose of schooling. Education started as something for the elite. In fact, it’s been that way for most of human history. Education didn’t become a right in most places until the past 100 years. So what is the purpose of schooling and how has it changed over time? Countries depend on their population and in a modern economy, prosperity depends on having an educated population ready to solve the challenges of tomorrow that those of us today can’t even imagine. Furthermore, a healthy democracy depends on having an educated and informed populous. I would like to see how schools better prepare our students for these two key things: to have the skills to solve complex problems and to become critical thinkers.
And what kind of learning environment would help cultivate such learners? Already we can see across the past 100 years, both at school and in work, that people learn best in different ways and that creativity flourishes through choice. A positive learning environment should be one that is adaptive and inclusive for all students, regardless of their gender, race, abilities or any other special needs. Students shouldn’t be sat in rows the entire class, but instead be free to move around to facilitate them best completing the task they are working on. That may take the form of pair work, group work, computer time, outside work or even whole class work. We need to be firm in having a welcoming, inclusive learning environment where students feel safe, but flexible in what that learning environment looks like.
Teaching methods too need to be adapted to meet the needs to the adults of tomorrow. I would like to see teachers limit their teacher talking time and act more as guides, or better yet, a fellow learner who doesn’t have all the answers. The use of ‘we’ rather than ‘you’ is a step towards this. For example instead of a teacher saying ‘Today I am going to tell you why planes can stay in the air”, it could be phrased as ‘Today we are going to discover why planes can stay in the air”. Teachers should spark curiosity in their students and use methods which grow and develop students critical thinking and problem solving skills, rather than focusing on memorization of facts.
The academic curricula too needs to meet the needs of tomorrow’s society, rather than today’s. We should be making the curricula as accessible and adaptable as possible to ensure it is a right fit to not only our diverse group of students today, but our even more diverse group of students tomorrow. The curricula needs to take into account that most facts are an internet search away, and that old-world skills are not as important as new-world ones. The curricula needs to allow the teachers of the future to implement the changes mentioned earlier.
Social and emotional skills are aspects of today’s education which I believe need more focus moving towards the future. Schools need to understand that all students are different, come from different backgrounds and need different levels of support. I would say that in terms of social and emotional needs, schools of the future need to focus on equity, rather than equality. Not all students have the same social or emotional needs and the schools of tomorrow need to recognize this and develop plan to help all learners.
As I alluded to earlier, students of tomorrow need to be taught skills and strategies rather than facts. Students should learn higher-order skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, rather than lower order skills such as memorization and dictation. If we don’t change what we place importance on in schools, we as a society are going to be burdened with an entire generation of young adults unprepared for the world of tomorrow. One way of improving students competencies is to follow a strength-based approach. Students need to see a link between the theory they learn and real world applications. I think students need more practical tasks outside the classroom in order to gain real world, transferable skills.
Finally, schools of the future need to harness a community of learning in which schools, students, parents and the larger community are involved. Students are at home more than they are at school, so it’s vital that parents realize that schools aren’t places they can simply drop their kids off at to have their brains filled with knowledge. Teachers shouldn’t be viewed by parents and the community as people who teach their children, but as facilitators who guide their children to learn. The closer the link that parents have to their children’s education the better. I would love to see more involvement between the community and schools, such as students allowed to practice the skills they are studying in various businesses around the local community. Parents should also be encouraged to spend more time at school observing and participating in their child’s journey through school.
I think if other teachers agree with some of these opinions, there’s no reason that they can’t be implemented to make the future of education more useful to our future students and society.
Let’s first start with the purpose of schooling. Education started as something for the elite. In fact, it’s been that way for most of human history. Education didn’t become a right in most places until the past 100 years. So what is the purpose of schooling and how has it changed over time? Countries depend on their population and in a modern economy, prosperity depends on having an educated population ready to solve the challenges of tomorrow that those of us today can’t even imagine. Furthermore, a healthy democracy depends on having an educated and informed populous. I would like to see how schools better prepare our students for these two key things: to have the skills to solve complex problems and to become critical thinkers.
And what kind of learning environment would help cultivate such learners? Already we can see across the past 100 years, both at school and in work, that people learn best in different ways and that creativity flourishes through choice. A positive learning environment should be one that is adaptive and inclusive for all students, regardless of their gender, race, abilities or any other special needs. Students shouldn’t be sat in rows the entire class, but instead be free to move around to facilitate them best completing the task they are working on. That may take the form of pair work, group work, computer time, outside work or even whole class work. We need to be firm in having a welcoming, inclusive learning environment where students feel safe, but flexible in what that learning environment looks like.
Teaching methods too need to be adapted to meet the needs to the adults of tomorrow. I would like to see teachers limit their teacher talking time and act more as guides, or better yet, a fellow learner who doesn’t have all the answers. The use of ‘we’ rather than ‘you’ is a step towards this. For example instead of a teacher saying ‘Today I am going to tell you why planes can stay in the air”, it could be phrased as ‘Today we are going to discover why planes can stay in the air”. Teachers should spark curiosity in their students and use methods which grow and develop students critical thinking and problem solving skills, rather than focusing on memorization of facts.
The academic curricula too needs to meet the needs of tomorrow’s society, rather than today’s. We should be making the curricula as accessible and adaptable as possible to ensure it is a right fit to not only our diverse group of students today, but our even more diverse group of students tomorrow. The curricula needs to take into account that most facts are an internet search away, and that old-world skills are not as important as new-world ones. The curricula needs to allow the teachers of the future to implement the changes mentioned earlier.
Social and emotional skills are aspects of today’s education which I believe need more focus moving towards the future. Schools need to understand that all students are different, come from different backgrounds and need different levels of support. I would say that in terms of social and emotional needs, schools of the future need to focus on equity, rather than equality. Not all students have the same social or emotional needs and the schools of tomorrow need to recognize this and develop plan to help all learners.
As I alluded to earlier, students of tomorrow need to be taught skills and strategies rather than facts. Students should learn higher-order skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, rather than lower order skills such as memorization and dictation. If we don’t change what we place importance on in schools, we as a society are going to be burdened with an entire generation of young adults unprepared for the world of tomorrow. One way of improving students competencies is to follow a strength-based approach. Students need to see a link between the theory they learn and real world applications. I think students need more practical tasks outside the classroom in order to gain real world, transferable skills.
Finally, schools of the future need to harness a community of learning in which schools, students, parents and the larger community are involved. Students are at home more than they are at school, so it’s vital that parents realize that schools aren’t places they can simply drop their kids off at to have their brains filled with knowledge. Teachers shouldn’t be viewed by parents and the community as people who teach their children, but as facilitators who guide their children to learn. The closer the link that parents have to their children’s education the better. I would love to see more involvement between the community and schools, such as students allowed to practice the skills they are studying in various businesses around the local community. Parents should also be encouraged to spend more time at school observing and participating in their child’s journey through school.
I think if other teachers agree with some of these opinions, there’s no reason that they can’t be implemented to make the future of education more useful to our future students and society.