The Future of Education

[Kfamily]

I've been seeing some very new and interesting programs being considered or started in schools lately. Of course, they all involve a great deal of project, cooperative-style learning with a huge emphasis on technology. Since I value the ideas and opinions of everyone here so much, I thought I'd ask this question for your responses. :)

 

What does the future of education look like to you? In 10 years? In 20? In 30?

 

I'm having one of those panic moments...I try not to have those... :) but, I'm really concerned that I've not prepared my children properly for the future. I do believe, long term, that children who are imaginative, well-read, curious and who also have a sense of good, justice and beauty will be greatly needed. I have always believed so strongly that a well-balanced curriculum was important. But now I'm concerned that I should have pushed math, science and technology more than I did. I look ahead at where our future seems to be going and it just seems inevitable that it will include a great deal of STEM. Please assure me... :) Thank you!

 

 

[JustEm]

I think in the future there will be a healthy mixture of industries. STEM jobs will be important and will continue to grow but I don't believe they will overwhelmingly take over

[JustEm]

Also, if you are teaching your children to be self educators they will be able to teach themselves the skills needed to compete in a changing economy

[momacacia]

Lawyers still get paid awfully well! And while they have to know their way around the research software, the most advanced technology they tend to use is the internet and MS Word. Just sayin'. ;)

[thebacabunch]

Don't panic!  Educational trends are changing all the time.  The tried and the true have been churning out excellent scholars in all fields forever.

[8filltheheart]

Those who know how to think independently and find the real answers on their own will always be better off as individuals than those who can't. (I'm not talking financially, either. I'm talking about being fully human.)

[duckens]

I predict:

1) Cursive will be gone.  :(

 

2) The expected level of digital literacy will be much higher.  Graduates will be expected to be comfortable with communicating via several and varied types of software including (the modern versions of):
--powerpoint

--excel

--word

--email communication

--website communication (setting up/maintaining a website)
--video software
--animation and/or movie making

 

3 ) As the monolith of the high school experience changes due to:

--homeschooling

--magnet schools

--charter schools

--school vouchers

--online schools

--honors classes vs. alternative schools (for children who cannot participate in high school due to behavioral issues like truancy)

 

a high school diploma will become suspect as the "all purpose indicator of earning acceptance as readiness for college."  Instead, the standardized ACT and SAT will rise in value for college acceptance.

4) 2+ years of high school Spanish will become required of all students, with the expectation of a third language for those that are pre-college.

------------------------------------------------

The best thing we can teach our children is the confidence to say, "I can learn that!" and couple it with the ability (of the child) to have a plan for HOW to learn that. 

I believe that the ability to find resources (and to know whether to use a Google search, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia, or a Chilton Manual) will prove the true success of our children.  History is littered with brilliant thinkers who were close to solving a problem; then they spoke to one. more. person....possibly not even in the given field....and they got the information or point-of-view to make a major breakthrough.

[RoundAbout]

Not sure, but I have to say I am not impressed by most of the project based, cooperative style learning that I have seen. Especially at the elementary level. Just seems like lots of busy work with parents or a few strong students carrying the load. I think learning to work with others is definitely important but probably better learned in extracurriculars until a certain maturity is achieved.

[duckens]

 

RoundAbout says:

I am not impressed by most of the project based, cooperative style learning that I have seen. Especially at the elementary level. Just seems like lots of busy work with parents or a few strong students carrying the load.

:iagree:

 

The problem with "Cooperative Learning" is that there is no clear leader.  Supposedly Cooperative Learning helps students to learn to work together in the adult workplace; but I have yet to see an adult workplace where there isn't a boss to divvy out work assignments, reassign projects as needed, and say, "Give Jane assistance on this project if she needs it." 

 

The boss also has power to discipline or fire you if he/she sees you are not carrying your weight.  The teacher cannot micromanage this group learning, and the peers have no power to tell you to shape up and quit screwing around.

 

An educational nightmare from elementary through college.

 

I hope that Cooperative Learning dies a quick, painful, and complete death, with no resurrection possible before the next decade ends.

[Hunter]

I think there will be a gaping chasm between what people want graduates to know vs what they do know.

 

If you base you homeschool curriculum on what people WISH graduates would know, you will overextend yourself and your children.

 

Triage. Be real about your resources and abilities. Educate and nurture the mind, body and soul, rather than just the mind. And above all else LIVE your life NOW, because none of us is promised a tomorrow.

[Violet Crown]

Prediction: The future will increasingly feature on-line mass education, in K-12 classrooms, colleges/universities, and continuing education. This is already showing up: large numbers of high schoolers and undergraduates being "taught" by a screen, with human teachers acting only as monitors. Only a small percent of fortunate students will get actual teaching from a person. When the current euphoria over the educational wonders of the "flipped classroom," Khan Academy and its progeny, and the supposed benefits of on-line learning starts to give way to disillusionment, new catchy explanations as to why this is The Best Thing Ever will be invented.

[RoundAbout]

:iagree:

 

The problem with "Cooperative Learning" is that there is no clear leader. Supposedly Cooperative Learning helps students to learn to work together in the adult workplace; but I have yet to see an adult workplace where there isn't a boss to divvy out work assignments, reassign projects as needed, and say, "Give Jane assistance on this project if she needs it."

 

The boss also has power to discipline or fire you if he/she sees you are not carrying your weight. The teacher cannot micromanage this group learning, and the peers have no power to tell you to shape up and quit screwing around.

 

An educational nightmare from elementary through college.

 

I hope that Cooperative Learning dies a quick, painful, and complete death, with no resurrection possible before the next decade ends.

All great points. I have never been in a work place that wasn't hierarchical. I worked on plenty of teams in my previous life as an engineer at a government research lab and there was always a big boss, project lead, etc. down to the 17 year old intern. In addition, everyone had their own skill set that made it easy to divide up assignments.

 

Interesting, but thinking back to the days of upper elementary where I attended a highly innovative full time gifted program - there was almost no group work. Mostly it was individual, with some projects done with self chosen partners (these 2 person team projects often turned out spectacular), but very little done in bigger groups aside from extracurricular work like school play, newspaper, etc. From what I know, none are struggling in the workplace.

[Violet Crown]

"The life of the mind is essentially solitary."

--Richard Mitchell

[momofgmd]

Prediction: The future will increasingly feature on-line mass education, in K-12 classrooms, colleges/universities, and continuing education. This is already showing up: large numbers of high schoolers and undergraduates being "taught" by a screen, with human teachers acting only as monitors. Only a small percent of fortunate students will get actual teaching from a person. When the current euphoria over the educational wonders of the "flipped classroom," Khan Academy and its progeny, and the supposed benefits of on-line learning starts to give way to disillusionment, new catchy explanations as to why this is The Best Thing Ever will be invented.

 

I actually like and appreciate online opportunities. I think it is a great way for kids to learn without having to deal with a teacher with a large classroom of students, a lot of whom don't even want to be there in the first place. The people I know who take classes online still have interaction with teachers. They are able to get help in the areas that they specifically need help in while not having to wait while the teacher deals with others and their behavioral issues. It seems like a good solution for rural areas like mine where there is only one school or homeschool.

 

[Violet Crown]

I actually like and appreciate online opportunities. I think it is a great way for kids to learn without having to deal with a teacher with a large classroom of students, a lot of whom don't even want to be there in the first place. The people I know who take classes online still have interaction with teachers. They are able to get help in the areas that they specifically need help in while not having to wait while the teacher deals with others and their behavioral issues. It seems like a good solution for rural areas like mine where there is only one school or homeschool.

 

Sure. But I'm not talking about it being a useful option, but rather about its misuse as the primary method of mass education, replacing actual teaching.

[Hunter]

I actually like and appreciate online opportunities. I think it is a great way for kids to learn without having to deal with a teacher with a large classroom of students, a lot of whom don't even want to be there in the first place. The people I know who take classes online still have interaction with teachers. They are able to get help in the areas that they specifically need help in while not having to wait while the teacher deals with others and their behavioral issues. It seems like a good solution for rural areas like mine where there is only one school or homeschool.

 

 

 

Sure. But I'm not talking about it being a useful option, but rather about its misuse as the primary method of mass education, replacing actual teaching.

 

Yup, I think this is an accurate prediction. I think the online opportunities will be a wonderful resource to some, but more often will be badly misused with some of our most vulnerable students.

[Targhee]

2) The expected level of digital literacy will be much higher. Graduates will be expected to be comfortable with communicating via several and varied types of software including (the modern versions of):

--powerpoint

--excel

--word

--email communication

--website communication (setting up/maintaining a website)

--video software

--animation and/or movie making

.

Funny, because I already think several of these are dated (PowerPoint, Word) because so many people use free cloud based computing, and there will continue to be innovations.

 

And that's leads into what I think education will look like - thousands of attempts to build a better mouse trap. Even though CCSS is a thing right now, I am sure within 5 years it will be on the decline (or gone), and there will be a a flurry of experimental and creative new ideas. That's not necessarily good.

 

Whatever form education takes, I do believe that just as in days of old you could easily be controlled and oppressed by those with an education in artful letters, in the future the same can be said of an education of technology and web-based information. Those who do not know how technology works, how communication/information is controlled and disseminated (BTW the worldwide web is NOT the free exchange of ideas it attempted to become 15 years ago) will be the plebs - citizens without power or a voice in the community.

 

But that doesn't, in my opinion, mean our educational framework should shift whole-hog to project-based learning and technology. Of upmost importance is still the thinking man - someone who can think and reason and communicate thoughts of value, refute those which have none, and be not tied to the all knowing oracle of Google. This thinking, reasoning man should have skill in technology as they should in operating a car. You need both the ability to drive and know how to get there to reach a destination, as you need both the technological skill and thinking and reasoning ability to be a productive and free individual.

[Rosie_0801]

I think the future will still require people who know how to use their own brains and have some insight into the workings of other people's.

[Pen]

I do not know. The rate of change is accelerating. I expect a lot of what there is now may go the way of the slide rule or working a computer using DOS commands, or manual transmission cars--still helpful to know how to use all these, but fewer and fewer people will need to. STEM area learning is likely to change more quickly than liberal arts areas, because technology changes particularly quickly. It reminds me of someone I once heard about--may or may not be accurate, doesn't really matter--who became a journalist despite parental admonitions that being a type setter would have more job security. He was still working as a journalist, and was reporting on typesetters who lost their jobs when the typesetting was computerized.

[Kfamily]

Here was one program that I saw recently:

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/california-school-integrates-play-learning/

 

Here is another interesting article:

 

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/imagining-future-higher-education

[duckens]

I think that the amount of technology learning (computer-as-teacher) will  increase.  In the older grades, it will have limited success depending upon the type of student.  Students who:

1) are self-motivated

2) learn well from a computer model, and

3) are able to find independent information on their own

will do well with and beyond this system.

But, especially for young children (elementary), there is no substitute for a quality adult spending time with your child.

[kiwik]

I have never come across a team outside school that didn't have a pre-determined heirachy. Sometimes in clubs the positions are elected but people still agree to defer to them. In real teams every member is expected to pull their weight (and are selected to complement each other). Ds7 does maths in mixed ability groups - in my experience this means the most able do the work, the middle learn something and the bottom don't contribute at all and are completely lost. I just don't see this as a good use of time. I'm not against some group work but not in core subjects. When ds said they had maths groups I naively assumed that meant ability grouping since until last year they had tracking for maths in years 3 and 4.

 

Anyway in NZ I see the public system becoming only for people who can't private or home school. I see bigger classes, more computer/video instruction and more standardising of students.