Future Education: teaching becomes more learner-directed

By Dick Pelletier

      

    What will the classroom of the future look like? How will educational content be delivered? Who will be in those classrooms? Will there be "classrooms" at all?

    Those questions were posed recently by education consultant Jeffrey Stebar in his report, "Higher Education in 2030." Stebar predicts major changes in education over the next two decades, brought on by laptop computers and "smart" cell phones, which are providing students with greater options in their learning experience.

    Today's mostly teacher-directed education procedures are organized by class and age, and measures seat time or credit hours; then evaluates student performance with tests. This produces grades, degrees, and class rankings with teachers addressing students from a central point in the classroom.

    Future environments will be more dynamic. Students exert more control over their learning experiences, with competence measured mostly through skills achieved in real-life applications. In this setting, students are considered colleagues, members of a team led by a collaborative instructor that jointly uncovers knowledge. The teacher at the head of the class is replaced by a "guide by the side."

    Future educational content includes a variety of multi-media with easy-to-understand charts and statistics along with 'smart' videos. Technology creates the equivalent of a library on each laptop or hand-held device, and allows diverse environments to serve as classrooms. In addition, it expands learning schedules beyond the bounds of semesters and provides students with information from anywhere in the world, accessible anytime.

    Tomorrow's students want customized learning experiences tailored to their own careers and life goals. One size will definitely not fit all. Future learners will include a high percentage of ethnically and economically diverse non-residents. Universities will foster engagement with these students by focusing on common values: volunteerism, leadership, social responsibility and sustainability. Automatic electronic translating programs will erase most ethnic barriers.

    Lecture theaters will become obsolete, replaced by teamwork rooms supported by highly interactive IT infrastructure and software. U-tube-type videos will find their way into tomorrow's classrooms that demonstrate everything from latest speech-recognition technologies to radical life extension breakthroughs to how researchers are "humanizing" android-like robots.

    Future institutions will focus on providing experiences that extend beyond today's classrooms. Distance and location of learner and instructor will become irrelevant as accessing information from anywhere on the planet becomes the norm.

    As virtual reality technologies mature in the 2020s, many schools will adopt programs such as the one shown in TV's Star Trek Holodeck. Systems like this will give students a more impactful experience as they glimpse at what the past may have been like and what to expect in tomorrow's world.

    Experts ponder how other technologies might affect education. Enthusiasts at The World Future Society and Humanity Plus believe that science will one day provide humans with intelligence boosts that will eliminate the drudgery of "reading" each paragraph, sentence, or word.

    By mid-2030s, futurists predict we will be endowed with non-biological neurons that process information millions of times faster and more accurate than today's slow brains can. Students could scan a 400-page book in just seconds, and completely understand every detail.

    Granted, it is difficult to imagine such super-human abilities, but with exponentially-advancing technologies, this incredible education future will become reality.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.