The Future Of Education

The future of education is this: kids learning loads of content – the right content at the right time. They will learn in the best way – some of it they will read from narrative, some will be abstract interactive media/charts/games. All of it will be engaging, brilliantly produced, age/culture appropriate.
The future will be collaborative, project-based learning – but you will still have to learn core content. Collaborative means partnering with anyone. My peers, my teacher, my community and outside my community. Old people, young people. Learning because they love it. Learning is an end in itself, but academic achievement is not.
But this isn’t that radical. The future of teaching is really different – and this is very hard to swallow.

An aside:
The moment when eLearning clicked for me as a teacher was the day that I realised that I was spending MORE time talking with my students – not less. I would construct an online task and I would spend the whole lesson talking to individuals and small groups. They were getting more human contact, not less. I hope the word ‘teacher’ becomes as out of date as ‘scribe.’

A long time ago, the most educated among us were copyists (scribes). They would simply copy ancient texts. Now, that idea is crazy. Even idiotic.

Soon, the idea of someone who stands up and tells groups of 30 how to do stuff will be a crazy idea. We will have learning coaches – who set tasks, interpret assessments, encourage, empower and manage.

Teachers: for the sake of our children, do not stand in their way.

2 Comments to “The Future Of Education”

  1. Kathy Parker 23 January 2012 at 5:28 pm #

    It’s exciting when you see students exploring and using the web meaningfully but there is still a place to talk to whole classes before you start. You have to be careful that wandering doesn’t become unfocused and turn into trivia. We have been exploring self-access learning for the last ten years in the ESOL area at Howick College and it has taken that long for teachers to work out what facilitates students learning in this environment.I did a thesis on CALL to try and work out where the web worked for students in language learning and even after two years research and speaking to lots of professionals and students I was still surprised to find out how important having accessibility to a teacher or mentor was in the whole process.

  2. Fleur Coleman 27 January 2012 at 7:27 am #

    Hey Steve and fellow bloggers,

    As a former primary school person, I’m taking some time to look into Te Whariki ECE in line with my family needs – emergent learning is so much more gripping for children because it is what they are passionate about on any given day, instant motivation.

    I am also a fan of the work of Discovery 1 in CHCH for this reason, learning seems transparent children know what they are there to achieve and can check their goals at any given time against the curriculum whilst maintaining the freedom to choose and be involved in their next steps. Yet core curriculum is not neglected.

    We are no longer limited by hardcopy resources as we have the internet as a starting point to reach out and find the knowledge or the leaders we need. That is extremely exciting and powerful.

    Students that are switched on to e-learning don’t become introverted they want to share their ideas and still require the thinking tools provided by a facilitator or to work within a peer group to extend their learning outcomes.

    What I need in my next primary position is a time frame, the resources, support and the type of infrastructure at management level to make this happen. I know that school exists out there and I’m really excited about finding it when the time comes!

    As an aside my eldest child who has just finished Yr 13 and his level 3 exams, mentioned on the topic of digital technologies that he feels the basics of reading and writing have been the most important aspects of education for him – he says teach them how to write before plugging them into an ipad. I think there is room for both.


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