Τρίτη 6 Σεπτεμβρίου 2011

Τhe future of education

We all have the feeling that education in 20 years’ time will be different from education today. Education will possibly deal with a new set of skills and competences, new curricula or types of curricula, innovative ways of learning and assessment, different roles for teachers and educational institutions, different impacts of technology, to mention just a few of the possible differences. The following map illustrates, in clusters, the expected changes in the nature of education: learning will not be restricted to traditional educational institutions; teachers will become mediators between students, knowledge and technology; learning will be much more driven by Internet-based social networking; life-long learning will be the norm; class size will not matter; and learning methods will take into account cognitive structures and processes.



1. Technology in education: the title of this cluster reflects a wide-held belief in the potential of technology to continue providing new tools and learning environments in schools: practice will be captured through mobile devices and integrated with cloud-based portfolios; services on the Internet will serve as a study environment; augmented reality applications will be a major tool for learning.

2. Tools and services enhancing learning: includes references to the development of possible learning facilitators, in terms of tools, materials and services: the growing role of media for improving cognitive performance will support the learner with facts and simulation outcomes; systems and services will be developed to allow mutual peer group learning among groups of interested learners.

3. Open education and resources: gathers the possibilities surrounding open education, including its construction, as well as general access to free learning resources: open educational resources will become widely adopted; there will be Internet and access all around the globe, allowing learning to flow in all directions; text books will be replaced by electronic multimedia publications; lecture capture will be omnipresent.

4. Assessment, accreditation and qualifications: this title is also highly representative of its content: different types of certifications will emerge that are not related to formal learning institutions; ways will be found to align assessment with how people actually learn and to make it more meaningful; we will recognise people for what they do rather than what qualifications they have.

5. Globalisation of education: encompasses trends related to the internationalisation of education in a broad sense, looking at education from a global rather than local perspective: all educational systems in Europe will be connected in a central system to identify the best students in order to support them regardless of their country of origin; in Europe (EU), many students will learn with and from each other through international collaboration; we will cease to rely on experts as the source of knowledge and curricula and will move towards quality, based on use and endorsement through Internet systems.

6. Role of institutions: the main roles of educational institutions will be about providing learners with guidance on how to shape their personal learning trajectories, how to choose learning formats and resources needed, and how to assess their progress and outcomes; educational institutions will be reinvented as community knowledge centres serving both local communities and more widely dispersed learner groups; government-funded higher education will start to privatise.

7. Individual and profession-driven education: classmates will be matched on the basis of their knowledge, skills and preferred teaching and learning styles rather than their age; learners will choose their own learning paths; the responsibility for learning will be with an individual, not outsourced to an external
institution.

8. Role of teacher: the natural role of the teacher will be that of a mediator of learning; teachers will need to develop coaching/mentoring skills; teachers will be natural learners; the majority of teachers will work online from home, either freelance or for an online educational organisation.

9. Life-long learning: learning will be integrated and absorbed into everyday activities, and it will become common for people to move between occupations, with learning being key to supporting such moves; students will choose to learn with people from their own network; professional networks will be one of the main means of education; we will have to develop skills to pick up relevant learning resources from an overwhelming wealth and variety of material and build our own learning trajectories around them.

10. Formal education goes informal: addresses, as the title suggests, the shift of focus to, and the increasing role of, informal learning: education will leave the classroom; There will be a lowering of the school leaving age as it is recognised that other contexts for learning may be more effective and more motivating than school; secondary education will shift towards creative authenticity and social-mindedness.

11. Individual and social nature of learning: refers to cognitive and social aspects of learning: different learning styles and adapted teaching methods for the same courses will be available for individual and social learning; the learner will invest more in the cerebral aspects of learning: strategic, problem- oriented, situational and creative; learners will teach each other in the process of learning.

12. Epistemological and ontological bases of pedagogical methods: this cluster considers pedagogical methods and their theoretical and empirical foundations: social and cognitive processes and convergences will become part of the pedagogical methods; information will be manipulated [and] anchored in specific creativity techniques to facilitate synthesis and creativity; guided learning in a group will be complemented with learning in and from loosely knit networks; cross-curriculum (inter-disciplinary) project activities will dominate the course design; constructivism will still be there, but new paradigms will arise.
source:eltnews

Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:

Δημοσίευση σχολίου