This forecast previews five disruptions that will reshape learning over the next decade. Responding to them with creativity rather than fear will be critical to preparing all learners for an uncertain future. #Education #FutureofEducation
8. Unbounded Learning
Learning will no
longer be defined by
time and place –
unless a learner
wants to learn at a
particular time and in
a particular place.
9. Learning Playlists
Learners and their
families will create
individualized
learning playlists
reflecting their
particular interests,
goals, and values.
10. Radical Personalization
W
hatever the path,
radical personalization
will become the norm,
with learning
approaches and
supports tailored to
each learner.
12. New Learning Agent Roles
Educators’ jobs will
diversify as many
new learning agent
roles emerge to
support learning.
•Student Mentors
•Course Mentors
•Program Faculty
•Program Councils
•Program Managers
•Curriculum Developers
•Evaluators
•Success Coach
•Interdisciplinary
Learning Designer
•Teaching Assistant
13. Brokering and Curation
A wide variety of
digital networks,
platforms, and
content resources
will help learners
and learning agents
connect and learn.
14. Learning Analytics
Some of those
tools will use rich
data to provide
insight into
learning and
suggest strategies
for success.
16. New Learning Landscapes
At the same time,
geographic and
virtual communities
will take ownership
of learning in new
ways, blending it with
other kinds of
activity.
17. Shared Solutions
As more people take
it upon themselves to
find solutions, a new
wave of social
innovation will help
address resource
constraints and other
challenges.
18. DIY Credentialing
Diverse forms of
credentials, certificates,
and reputation markers
will reflect the many ways
in which people learn and
demonstrate mastery.
19. Ad Hoc Employment Networks
W
ork will evolve so
rapidly that
continuous career
readiness will
become the norm.
20. Key Skills for Future Employment
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Continuous learning
Multitasking
Managing disruptions
Ability to embrace change
Experimentation
Problem-solving
Quick analysis of information
Forecast history
IFTF research
Use the trends to create the future of learning that we want – the best possible expression
Tonight is about focusing on possibilities
Responding to future disruptions with creativity rather than fear will be critical to preparing all learners for an uncertain future.
What if we could create a future in which education served the needs of all children?
What if learning adapted to each child instead of each child trying to adapt to school?
Our latest forecast leads us to suggest that it’s possible.
Do really high-level big story
We have the opportunity to create more great learning experiences for kids.
To create some breakthroughs around some of the intractable problems that have plagued education despite many people’s best efforts.
School doesn’t have to look like it used to, or like it looks today.
In fact, it can’t.
The design of our public education system is outmoded. It was put in place to provide universal education at a time when the country was shifting from an agricultural to an industrial economy and needed workers to perform consistently in routine settings.
That’s not the world that we inhabit. That’s not what today’s jobs demand. We live in a post-industrial society and are moving toward what some have called a creative or molecular economy. Forecasts on the future of work suggest that the only constant over the next decade will be change.
It’s time to redesign learning for today’s needs while making best use of the tools available to us today.
It’s no one’s fault; it’s a systems design issue.
We face a tremendous opportunity design education for the future.
Sweden’s Newest School System Has No Classrooms
http://www.edudemic.com/2012/09/swedens-newest-school-system-has-no-classrooms/
There’s a whole new classroom model and it’s a sight to behold. The newest school system in Sweden look more like the hallways of Google or Pixar and less like a brick-and-mortar school you’d typically see.
There are collaboration zones, houses-within-houses, and a slew of other features that are designed to foster “curiosity and creativity.” That’s according to Vittra, which runs 30 schools in Sweden. Their most recent school, Telefonplan School (see photos below via Zilla Magazine) in Stockholm, could very well be the school of the future.
Architect Rosan Bosch designed the school to encourage both independent and collaborative work such as group projects and PBL. Even the furniture is meant to get students learning. Bosch says each piece is meant to “aid students in engaging” while working.
The un-schoolness doesn’t stop with the furniture and layout though. The school has no letter grades, students learn in groups based on their level and not age.
Most of all, admission to the school is free as long as one of the child’s parents pays taxes in Sweden and the child has a ‘personal number’ which is like a social security number to our U.S. readers.
From specialized place-based schools to online schools to blended learning to homeschooling to everything in between.
Quest to Learn
Quest is the first school in the country to organize its entire curriculum to be “game-like.” It’s a 6-12 public school in New York City. No grades, gaming levels.
This picture is from their Emotion Motion Wellness Game, in which 6th Grade students worked in groups to act out and draw various emotions. The game is a mix of charades, taboo and Pictionary that asks students to identify various emotions. - See more at: http://q2l.org/gallery/emotion-motion-wellness-game#sthash.R7V3tpWR.dpuf
The Homeschool Conference
Online worldwide unconference on homeshooling , unschooling, free schools, democratic schools, and other forms of alternative education organized by educator Steve Hargadon on August 23 – 24 of this year. (first time) Hosted and proposal managed on a social networking site.
Other Examples
Homeschooling, unschooling movements (e.g upcoming conference)
Saying that every twelve year old has to study a certain topic during a certain week of sixth grade is an arbitrary and unnecessary constraint. It’s very possible to have clear shared outcomes and have multiple pathways toward achieving them.
Boston Day and Evening Academy – competency for dropout recovery – structured and in cohorts, but meeting learners where they are
NGA Report: 36 states have policies breaking the direct connection between awarding credit and seat time
This is a close-to-all-encompassing report on state seat time waiver policies. States are waiving seat time many different ways (based credits on mastery, allowing for individual seat time waivers, basing credit on performance-based assessments, etc.) and for many different reasons (students who have fallen behind, students who excel, students who don't do well in traditional academic environments, etc.)
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2012/02/shift_to_virtual_ed_away_from_seat_time_on_display_in_states.html
New Hampshire has taken what is probably the farthest-reaching steps away from seat time. The state requires all public high schools to base credit attainment on student mastery, rather than seat time, NGA explains. That means students can earn credits through expanded-learning opportunities, community service, and other means, including online options.
Competency and multiple pathways is a focal point in our policy and advocacy work. Jesse will be sharing more about these approaches later this morning.
The Google Glass – augmented reality – take learning with you
Educational Uses for Google Glasses
In education, Google Glasses users are noting the potential for streamlining processes and improving communication between teachers and students. This infographic from InformEd captures many of the potential uses in one quick snapshot.
“The hype around Google Glass continues to grow, with more videos proliferating about the tool’s different uses and views. In education, users are noting the potential for streamlining processes and improving communication between teachers and students. This infographic from InformEd captures many of the potential uses in one quick snapshot.”
Examples:
“Use the AR feature of Google Glass on class trips/excursions or historic tours to display facts and figures about relvant buildings or landmarks instantly.”
“Teachers can create real time connections with home-schooled and remote students taking education beyond the classroom.”
“Research and study teams could stay visually connected, despite splitting up into lab, library, and field teams.”
Those learning playlists might include public schools but could also include a wide variety of digitally-mediated or place-based learning experiences.
Increasingly customized value propositions to attract specific students for all or part of their learning journey.
Schools have an opportunity to take the lead in helping students find the right approaches
To collaborate with other kinds of learning providers and with others who support learners’ overall health and ability to learn
Mentor Mob
Noodle
Began in 2010, first education-specific search engine to help navigate the expanding learning economy
Also mention
Summit Denali – concept coming into these public schools – beginning and of each day reserved for pursuit of individual playlist-related activities
So we have an opportunity and a challenge for public schools to articulate clearly what they offer and why a family would send their children there instead of somewhere else.
We all know the value of public education, but can we state it?
Multiple ways of achieving radical personalization – some appropriate to some learners, some of the time.
We have to get away from a one size fits all system.
Think more in terms of adaptive learning
School of One
20% Time
Gives kids time to find out what they’re interested in, modeled after Google’s 20% unallocated time; they call their time Genius Hour. It’s a global network of teachers taking this approach with the learners in their classrooms.
“students who are consistently being "prepared" for the next test, assessment, or grade level . . . only to find out after graduation that they don't really know what they are passionate about. These are the same students who are never allowed to learn what they want in school.”
“What 20% time allows students to do is pick their own project and learning outcomes, while still hitting all the standards and skills for their grade level. In fact, these students often go "above and beyond" their standards by reaching for a greater depth of knowledge than most curriculum tends to allow. The idea for 20% time (3) in schools comes from Google's own 20% policy, where employees are given twenty percent of their time to work and innovate on something else besides their current project. It's been very successful (4) in business practice, and now we can say that it has been wildly successful (5) in education practice.”
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-percent-time-a-j-juliani
As we think possibilities for how and when learning takes place, it follows that we’ll need to rethink what roles support it.
Educators of the future = learning agents
Teacherpreneurs
Teacherpreneurs are classroom experts who lead but don’t leave their classrooms completely behind.
Teacherpreneurs spend part of their day or week teaching students and the other part working to change policies and practices beyond their schools and districts.
“Teachers will develop specialized skills and work in flexible roles that contribute to the education enterprise. We imagine a profession built on the concept of hybridization, with many expert teacher leaders who are specially prepared and paid as change agents, both working closely with students and playing other roles that advance the learning of their colleagues.”
Teaching will become an adaptive profession that empowers and rewards members who develop their pedagogical talent, spread and “sell” their expertise, and find innovative solutions to challenges facing their students.
Western Governor’s University (from my blog post)
In defining the competencies around which the curriculum is based, its program faculty of academic experts works with industry experts to ensure that its degrees open doors to employment. This collaboration takes place through program councils. Members of the program faculty also serve as:
Program managers “responsible for the overall quality and relevance of their college’s degree programs”
Curriculum developers who develop and continuously improve learning resources and assessments and “measure product excellence through feedback, employer acceptance, and graduate success.”
New faculty roles aside, this degree of market awareness stands out in a sector that has traditionally resisted thinking of its degrees as products and its students as customers who purchase them.
Since 2007, WGU has used student and course mentors to support students in navigating the program and engaging with the curriculum designed by the program faculty. Every student has a student mentor who stays with the individual throughout his or her learning journey, providing coaching, direction, and practical advice via weekly academic progress conversations. Course mentors provide individual and group instructional support for specific sections of the WGU curriculum.
Lastly, WGU separates assessment from coaching and instruction by employing evaluators, whom it describes as “subject matter experts tasked with reviewing assessment submissions in a fair and unbiased manner to determine if competency has been demonstrated.”
All told, these roles add up to over 1,100 full-time and 200 part-time faculty members, many of whom work from home from locations all around the U.S.
Danville Districts of Innovation Teacher Roles
Success Coach
Build relationships with students and families
Advise on post secondary opportunities
Interdisciplinary Learning Designer
Develop challenging, engaging courses across content areas
Create learning experiences designed to utilize and build higher-order thinking skills
Become a resource for understanding using technology as a tool to improve student achievement
Teaching Assistant
Supervising computer labs and classrooms during testing
Group and individual tutoring
Grading tests
LINK: http://education.ky.gov/school/innov/Documents/Danville%20Independent.pdf
Here’s what the Board of Education did with this specific waiver the district requested:
Waiver of traditional certified and classified job classifications:
Waiver to allow creation and hiring of a classified employee to perform the duties of a certified position (guidance counselor). The district cited KRS 161.180 (supervision of pupil conduct) in this waiver request but this is a request for the district to create and hire a classified employee for what appears to be the traditional roles and duties of currently employed guidance counselors. The district stated in its application that they want a “success coach” to “build relationships with students and families”; “create stronger connections between school and postsecondary success”; and “help schools add value for families by advising on postsecondary opportunities.”
KDE RECOMMENDS APPROVAL IN PART AND DENIAL IN PART - KRS 156.108 and KRS 160.107 do not grant the Kentucky Board of Education waiver authority over EPSB statutes and regulations. KDE will assist the district in communicating with EPSB regarding currently available alternative certification options to accomplish this goal. In the alternative, this waiver is approved to the extent that the proposal, pursuant to KRS 160.107, is to “hire persons for classified positions in nontraditional school and district assignments who have bachelor’s and advanced degrees from postsecondary education institutions accredited by a regional accrediting association as defined in KRS 164.740” (emphasis added).
LINK: http://education.ky.gov/school/innov/Documents/DOI%20Final%20Recommendations%20and%20Summary.docx
Brokering, resource hubs, blockbuster quality learning experiences, etc.
Thinking across boundaries, new ways of thinking about quality, new ways of thinking about how learners understand and identify options
Coursera and other MOOCs
Coursera – world-class learning experiences, high production value
Signature Track is a new option that offers you the chance to earn a Verified Certificate for completing an eligible course like this one. Signature Track securely links your coursework to your real identity, allowing you to confidently show the world what you have achieved on Coursera.
MITx (EdX) allows you to donate “to support your favorite course or faculty member” – new financial models?
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mitx-related-courseware/
Use in for-credit contexts; for example, Reynoldsburg, OH high school, San Jose State University
Learning Jar – Helps users understand the skills needed for specific roles and careers, learn informally, and then prove mastery
Not just academic performance; holistic understanding of student’s social and emotional well-being too.
ExitTicket
Leadership Public Schools, a network of four high-poverty high schools in the Bay area of California, is piloting a classroom assessment called ExitTicket that enables students to take short assessments at the end of each school day to measure the student’s level of understanding of the day’s objectives. Educators can use this information to customize lesson plans for the following day. ExitTicket currently operates as an application that students can download on their mobile phones.
“ExitTicket's power lies in its tight integration between real time student response technologies and impactful instructional strategies.” It is free to download.
Persistence Plus
“An early example of this technology is being introduced by a social enterprise called
Persistence Plus. Founded by Jill Frankfort and Kenneth Salim, who previously worked
at the Kaufman Foundation’s Education Ventures Program, Persistence Plus uses smart
software in mobile platforms such as cell phones and iPads to engage and motivate students
to complete college. Think of Persistence Plus as the “Weight Watchers of college
completion.” In the same way the Weight Watchers helps transform lifestyles around
nutrition, Persistence Plus fosters student behaviors and mindsets that lead to college
persistence, completion, and success.
Persistence Plus uses technology tools to build a student success profile and then uses
adaptive software to “nudge” students to action. This process includes:
• Interventions targeting common college obstacles. Software tools help students learn
how to prepare for and deal with academic setbacks and external obstacles, organize
time and responsibilities, and make progress towards short- and long-term goals.
• Social network levers. Tools facilitate positive peer academic pressure by enabling
students to easily share academic goals and their progress toward them with friends,
and compare their own academic habits to aggregate norms.
• An automated channel of communication and care. Through engaging messages that
call for a response, Persistence Plus collects data on the well-being of students, and
uses this information to identify and reach out to students who need additional support
before official early alerts.
Rapid research and development. Persistence Plus evaluates and assesses the
efficacy of each motivational intervention at promoting successful college-going
behaviors in real-time and uses the data collected to refine its approach for different
student populations and contexts.
By tracking their own performance or connecting to the performance of others, students
are able to keep up with which behaviors work to help them complete college
and which need to be modified.”
The ‘Personalization’ of Higher Education: Using Technology to Enhance the College Experience, Louis Soares, Center for American Progress
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/10/pdf/personalized_higher_education.pdf
Another opportunity to span and blur boundaries – new way of looking at learning as part of a seamless community infrastructure
You’re doing that here with your learning networks….
Data, wisely used, can help communities understand what the needs and resources are and how to match them up.
And learning experiences can extend beyond school walls to interact with and add value to the community.
Y-Plan -- High school students work with college mentors and UC Berkeley faculty members to design and implement real changes in their communities.
Permeable classroom walls/opportunity to blend community-based with “formal” learning experiences
Providence After School Alliance
PASA is a public/private partnership with the City of Providence and the Providence Public School District. Through this partnership, the district is granting in school credit for badges earned through PASA for out-of-school, hands-on, inquiry-based learning experiences.
LINK: http://www.mypasa.org/
Mission
PASA's mission is to expand and improve quality after-school, summer, and other expanded learning opportunities for the youth of Providence by organizing a sustainable, public/private system that contributes to student success and serves as a national model.
PASA has two initiatives that it collaborates with the City of Providence and the local community to build, operate, and support: the AfterZone for middle school youth, and the Hub for high school youth. The AfterZone and Hub are citywide systems — networks — of hands-on, community-based after-school and expanded learning programs that reach over 1,600 young people.
DIY culture, governments can’t do everything, rise of social production and sharing ethos/economy
Code for America – fellowships to improve cities
Where’s My School Bus Project (2012)
Last Winter [2011], in the midst of one of Boston’s severe snowstorms, Boston Public School received more than 3,000 calls in just one week from concerned parents wondering about the status of their kids’ school bus. Where’s My School Bus allows parents to access real-time bus information for Boston Public Schools. Each school bus is displayed on a detailed map allowing parents up-to-date information on their phone or computer. Waiting at the stop for a late bus? Blizzard got traffic moving at a crawl? Tracking a student’s bus has never been easier, faster, or more accurate. Find the yellow bus, schoolbus.bostonpublicschools.org - See more at: http://codeforamerica.org/?cfa_project=wheres-my-school-bus#sthash.qpG5FORf.dpuf
4.0 Schools
4.0 Schools is a community of curious people - educators, entrepreneurs, techies, designers, and others - who are driving innovation in education. Today, we have both the capability and necessity to redesign education in a way that prepares kids as problem-solvers, and sets up schools to be flexible, evolving structures that can respond to the rapidly change world. Getting there will require innovative people taking risks and trying new ways of supporting teachers, delivering content, and designing new schools. At 4.0, we develop and support people to be great problem finders and then help them test the solutions they envision with real users. Eventually, we support validated solutions to become new businesses and non-profits.
We host Essentials about once a month with 15-20 participants joining us from New Orleans and around the country. Have more advanced levels of involvement for people who want to develop ideas further.
Degreed
University of Wisconsin Flexible Option
NYTimes article on GA University and MOOCs – credentialing a degree based on them
Fundamental assumption that learning and credentialing are linked. If credentialing no longer depends on school, what would that mean for education?
Two shifts:
Decline in full-time employment
Increasingly ad hoc employment via a global talent cloud – skilled workers
More and more automation of routine tasks
E.g., restaurant in China with no human workers, dishwashing robot
Autonomous vehicles
Such shifts will radically change the skills that today’s learners need to succeed in a globally networked world
Skills in networking itself, across multiple media and platforms
Also personal brand management
And continuous career readiness to roll with ongoing changes in the employment landscape
A coming crisis of how we work
A recent Aspen convening on the future of work highlighted these skills as being consistent with success in the world of ad hoc, networked work.
They focus on some skills, but also on dispositions that make people prone to deal successfully with change.
Reiterate question – hopeful message
The trends I’ve been describing point in this direction.
With many others, we can help find the many right solutions that will create a vibrant and resilient learning ecosystem that can keep evolving as the world continues to change.
This strategic planning process is driving toward this question by asking how we might incubate innovations in order to move toward personalized learning for all learners.
We won’t answer it completely today.
But our conversation over the next hour and 15 minutes or so will help us develop a clearer shared understanding of where we see levers for moving education toward personalized learning for all.
Afterward, Heather will start crossing our insights into the learning ecosystem generally with KW’s strengths in order to help you begin to identify potential areas of opportunity for KW.