Are we Nearly There Yet?

In order to understand what the future of Learning will look like, we must first revisit the beginnings of formal education to spark a major shift in thinking.  As we saw in the first of our ‘Origins of Education’ blog: From Emperors to Kings, the Romans developed a system of education based on the Trivium, ie: the three basic subjects of grammar, rhetoric and logic.  Some predictions of the Future of Education suggest that we may be returning to a form of Trivium at the elementary stage involving Reading, Writing and Critical Thinking Skills, more aligned to the classical trivium used in 6th Century Britain.

With the advent of adaptive software, smart apps and algorithms developed to personalise our experiences, learners can now study at a pace to suit them rather than be forced to keep up with the overall age of the class.

As popularity and accessibility become more important to our social interactions, it is vital that we view these new values through a lens which will allow our young network-savvy students to develop a new kind of society based on self-reflection and problem-solving.  In the old system, each student was judged on their academic standards and how many facts and figures they could retain.  This system is now largely viewed as defunct in our new world by leading thinkers in education and will be replaced with technology driven perspectives which allow for the merging of subjects in real-world situations. Maths and Science will no longer be treated as separate courses on which to be examined but blended with creative subjects which have direct relevance to the future of society and the planet.  The future of education will have its focus on How to Learn rather than What to Learn.  This will allow creativity to bloom across all areas, as media literacy becomes more important than proficiency in any one subject.

It is expected that online communities will grow as hubs to meet, interact, study and provide services.  These communities are the future classrooms and office spaces, as evolving technology allows us the ability to share goals, with ever more agency given to learners of all ages who will help to develop their own learning patterns alongside their teachers, peers, and parents.

Learning will be discovery-based, embedded with encouragement to solve real-world problems which will in turn, teach the concept of global responsibility to all students who will fully understand the importance of their relationship to the world around them. They will be directly involved in the future of their planet and society through a continuously evolving framework of learning with well-being at its core.  Physical and mental health will be considered as important as data and digital leaning with the emphasis on self-improvement and growth as a human being as well as a student.

This new Future of Learning will no longer be static serving generations with the same curriculum of facts, but a work in progress which will shape the world through global connections creating equality of learning throughout all societies while taking into consideration cultural and personal limitations.

The Future is indeed, nearly here.

References:

https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/