So I’m home from Seattle today with some mixed feelings about Microsoft’s School of the Future Summit, which was really excellent in some respects but left me wanting in others. The best part without question (and not that surprisingly) were the conversations with folks outside of the session rooms. With 250 or so people from 31 countries, it was probably the most diverse setting (geographically, at least) that I’ve found myself in. I had some interesting conversations with folks from Norway, Chile, Hong Kong, Sweden, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, the UK and others that no doubt gave me a much broader perspective of what the conversation feels like abroad. And it was diverse in ideas as well. My sense is that we’re all obviously feeling the pressure to think differently about schools and schooling, but depending on cultures and circumstances, there were a wide variety of approaches to the shift. I heard about models that ranged from kids doing one subject per full day throughout the week (as in math on Monday, science on Tuesday, etc.) to ones that made real use of mobile technologies, to others that were entirely online. (More about that in a second.) I talked to folks who taught in schools where every student had a computer and to others whose few classroom computers ran on dial up, some who were integrating social tools with depth, others who had never really considered them. It was, to put it mildly, a very eclectic and by and large passionate group.
But after a couple of days of listening to speakers like Michael Horn (“Disrupting Class“) and Tony Wagner (“The Global Achievement Gap“) I can’t say that I feel any greater clarity in the conversation around just what schools of the future are supposed to be about. Horn said that in 15 years almost 50% of all courses will be delivered online. Wagner said that we need to reinvent schools but didn’t give a very cohesive vision on how to do that. And while it was encouraging to hear Martin Bean of Microsoft talk about teachers and students learning in “media rich, socially connected” spaces as “content creators and knowledge starters,” it was less so when he seemed to define the idea of “nurturing powerful communities of learning” simply as creating portals to connect various constituencies. Admittedly, those snippets may not be totally fair to those speakers’ larger messages, but they were indicative of the general sense that I got, one that said “yes, we need to do something, but we’re not very close to having a cohesive vision around what exactly we should do.”
Or something like that.
All of which made Rob Paterson’s post that came through my Twitter feed in the middle of the conference yesterday so much more thought-provoking. In talking about the pressures facing universities from decreasing budgets and relevance, Rob says
It’s going to be interesting to see how this unfolds. The web offers a whole new way of restoring this way of learning directly from an expert rather than from an institution.
Rob offers up a vastly different “hang out a shingle” driven model for some seeking learning after high school, one which challenges the diploma driven status quo pretty compellingly. And it really got me wondering (once again) about the relevance of the pretty standard K-12 curriculum and assessments that are driving our systems. As I commented to Rob, I think I’m finally getting to the root of my continued frustration with my kids’ education which is the system’s inability to help them find and nurture the areas they truly have passion for. It would be nice if the institution were the place that connected my kids to the experts they desired and needed to support their learning, wouldn’t it? Again, I know it’s more complex than that, but you get the point.
As would be expected, much of the conversation was spent on the barriers to change, and at some point I found myself amazed at how deeply woven the reasons why not are ingrained in our conversations. At one conversation, someone said that many of her teachers didn’t feel like they needed to teach with technology at all since their students were doing just fine passing the tests without it. And I wanted to scream (but instead politely said) ‘then we gotta change the assessments.” Nothing in these conversations changed my view that to really change what we do in schools we have to first change our understanding of what it means to teach in this moment. That doesn’t mean than we throw out all of the good pedagogy that we’ve developed over the years and make everything about technology. But it does mean, I think, that technology has to be a part of the way we do our learning business these days.
Finally, I think the conversation that most blew me away was the one with Andy Ross, the VP of Florida Virtual High School. They’ve got almost 1,000 full time staff now and over 20,000 kids on their waiting list to take classes. They can’t hire teachers fast enough. Kids can take their entire high school curriculum online without ever meeting a teacher face to face, though there are plenty of phone calls and e-mails. Andy said that their research shows that those kids do better on the standardized assessments than kids in physical schools, primarily because of the deep alignment of the curriculum and the programmed delivery. Now I’m not saying that those are necessarily reasons to move everything online, but it was the one solid vision of a “School of the Future” that I got at the conference. Andy agreed to come on and do a UStream at some point in the near future, and I’ll be sure to be posting times and dates in case you’d be interested.
Anway, just some reflecting on an interesting couple of days…
(Photo “green tree core” by pbo31.)
I wonder, having looked at the Florida online school, if my kids will attend the ‘school of the future’ through the network of amazing educators around the world that I know right now. Given my 7 year old is also an Aspi kid, who hasn’t got special needs, but special interests – just how my connections will play out in his schooling. He’s already anxious about school, but feels at home with technology. His teacher is neither using technology nor appears to have any empathy with him (ironic huh).
Will his learning mentors in fact be people I know, who can teach him math or science? – Do I realistically think that by the time he reaches high school that he won’t be faced with artificial learning experiences and drill and practice teachers? Right now I can see him learning from people we know far more than the person he is has legal tenure with.
What happens when ‘home schooling’ becomes meshed with educators who understand the power of connected learning?
I guess it is great that there are conversations and as you say international gatherings, but there is a danger that orbiting the ‘what if’, simply sustains the ‘yeah buts’.
Powerful teaching happens when teachers find ways to reach our kids – and technology makes that more possible than not.
Do I care if my kid learns from a math teacher in Montana, I met in Second Life, or becomes media literate because I know Judy O’Connell and not HIS teacher. Absolutely not.
Educators (systemic) can afford to orbit the ‘possible future’, kids are experiencing the day to day reality. And that is an ever widening gap. As a parent I struggle to see systemic change, and the vested political and cultural capital is no where near being ‘realistic’. Our systems have been static for decades, so I’m not sure about the date they are seeing as the beginning of the ‘future’.
That is the issue, when does the future begin and systems stand up and say ‘sorry about the delay’, your kids will be engaged shortly.
Dean and Will,
Yesterday, a colleague sent me a link to this video by Wendy Drexler. I think it envisions what learning could look like now and in the future and gets at a lot of what you both are saying above. Drexler envisions educators as becoming “Learning Architect’s”, modelers, synthesizers, Connected Learning Incubators, Change Agents, and my personal favorites,”Network Sherpas”, “a Learning Concierge”!
Cool!
On a personal note, Dean, I have a 10 year old Aspie son, who loves learning, but isn’t too crazy about school right now.
Time to start PD to help make this happen!!
Michael, I am MORE than happy to get hands on with Aspi2.0! Let me know, education for them sucks way more than for nuro-normals.! Next steps?
Thanks for that perspective Dean. What I hear coming through that comment is a much more active role for parents in their kids’ education and to that end, and end to the baby sitter role of schools. Another reason why change will be slow to happen…
Are there examples of fast change in education? – Isn’t the exponential growth of distributed social networks going to make this possible?
Dean,
I am intrigued with the question you posed above: “What happens when ‘home schooling’ becomes meshed with educators who understand the power of connected learning?”
I hope you will follow up on this fascinating invention – no doubt “mothered by necessity.” 😉
I wonder what will happen with identity (“I’m a Syracuse Alum” , “I played football at…”)? Most of us identify with the school we went to and remember band concerts, football games, crazy teachers, lunch menus, etc..
What will the student of the future identify with? Is identity something that is valuable?
Great question…and an interesting exercise in out of the box thinking…
Hi Will,
I find it interesting that we tend to think about the FUTURE of school rather than the FUTURES of school. Were I to make a prediction, I am guessing greater diversity in learning opportunities will be the only certainty. What an amazing time to be working in the field!
All the best,
Doug
I think your future/futures point explains very well why it’s hard to get a unified idea of the future of education.
Usually, when an expert is teaching a skill, they can observe what you’re doing, offer the most important improvements, let you learn those improvements, and repeat. For example, a photography expert might tell a novice to practice holding the camera very steady and to spend a few moments setting up the frame of each shot. There are lots of improvements the novice could make, but you focus on a few of the most important ones, then move onto some more.
School improvement and reform probably happens the same way, but each school and school district is going to have different problems and address shared problems in a different order. The one thing we can emphasize across the board is the importance of continually improving education and the process of making effective and efficient improvements.
This future of school sounds a lot like what we do now, just delivered in different ways. All this tinkering around the edges will do nothing. If the curriculum is not serving students now, if it isn’t worth collaborating with your neighbor, or if a lesson isn’t engaging enough even when the teacher is right in front of you, it’s not going to suddenly become more engaging or collaborative just because it’s networked.
Saying we have to “reinvent” something or claiming that we will have “rich, socially constructed” spaces is meaningless unless you talk about what it is the kids will learn and do that is different. The fancy language falls apart when you get specific.
Online schools are flourishing because parents and students are so desperate to get out of a system that is failing their kids that they’ll take anything. It’s not a validation of “online” — it’s an indictment of the current system.
Totally agree about online schools. Just a different way of doing the same old thing without the wasted time. All of the FVHS courses are self-paced, and after listening to Tess complain last night about how much time was taken up during her day by teachers trying to quell distractions, I started wondering once again at how long it would take a focused student to cover on his own the curriculum we impart in a six-hour day. Probably about a third of the time, time that could be spent pursuing their passions.
Sure. The time wasting in school is well-documented (I’d include links, but your blog hates them)
However, finishing the same old stuff quicker is hardly progress!
Depends on what you do with the time you save, wouldn’t you agree?
My thoughts exactly Sylvia, especially when I heard this, “Horn said that in 15 years almost 50% of all courses will be delivered online.” Everyone is going Web 2.0 and online, but I’m not sure everyone knows why.
“Nothing in these conversations changed my view that to really change what we do in schools we have to first change our understanding of what it means to teach in this moment.”
Shouldn’t the real question be, “what it means to LEARN in this moment.”? Technology should be about providing a different way of learning, not teaching.
My guess as to why the Florida Virtual High School is successful is that the kids online can quickly learn what they need to for the test,and then have time to learn what they want to.
Greg,
My concern is that “kids might have time to learn what they want to” without the risk of meeting a great band director or art teacher or drama director or poet or scientist or all sorts of expert who could open a kid’s eyes and mind to a world of possibilities and pursuit of mastery in a real discipline (in the best sense of the word).
I think the future is difficult to predict. I do not know what tomorrow’s schools will look like but getting to the future will involve a journey through what is available today, or at least I hope so. Change the clothes in those school pictures from the 1920’s and they look very much like school pictures today. I hope the same is not still true in 2108.
I also have problems with the “feelings” driven (or so it seems) characterizations of the schools of the future. I think passion is important but so is thought. I think of technology as a tool and that there is a direct correlation between the skill of the person using the tool and the quality of what is produced using that tool. I do not know many teachers that are skilled with technology and I have doubts about the quality of what they would produce if there were a mad exodus to technology. They are all smart people and could learn the technology but no one is teaching them and it isn’t a priority in many schools today.
I also think there is value to much of the curriculum that is taught. The issue for me is not so much migrating to technology but teaching the students the content of our various disciplines using today’s tools. When I was in high school we used slide rules in some of our math classes, that would be silly today. Teach the skills that required the use of a slide rule but teach them using the tools of the 21st century.
It seems that often there is too much of a bath water mentality that forgets there might be a baby under the soap suds.
Cordially,
J. D.
Sylivia, that is absolutely right. How to ensure ‘quality’ in education (online). I also take in the point about ‘community’, where school helps form (part) of your identity – but then Will’s point is that we are trying to create ‘time’ in which kids can explore themselves. School right now is strung out from bell to bell. Perhaps there is some hybird. Some sort of ‘centre’ that students attend to meet tutors for the ‘learning to hold a camera stuff’, a place for kids to connect (if they want to) or to use fast PCs/connections if they need to as well.
The point to me as a parent is that I am not sure locking my kids up to get talked at for x hours a day is much more than day-care. We might have to move to this, as kids get more frustrated, more disconnected – leading to worse behaviour and attendance – will we have enough teachers (on poor pay/conditions) who will want to continue the pantomime that buildings and bells, discipline and routine will lead to a productive, sustainable society.
Will,
Are you going to exercise your right as a parent and withdraw your children from standardized testing this spring?
Ok…links on parental rights to do this? I think it’s time.
Will,
I’ve asked the smart people I know about NJ-specific testing info. I’ll share with you what I learn.
In my experience, there are a few years (like 3rd, 8th, 10th) where you don’t have much leeway, but every other year, you do.
Will,
I’ve been teaching online since the President Clinton’s first term and have written peer-reviewed papers on high-quality online learning. Few people have as much experience as me teaching online.
When will you invite me to speak with your audience?
Gary
PS: Here are two articles I wrote in 2000 and 2005 about online learning. The Florida Virtual High School might profit from considering some of the ideas shared in the following links:
Distance Education?
http://www.stager.org/articles/distanceeducation.html (2000)
Gary Stager on High-Quality Online Education
http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=383 (2005)
What I’m worried about is the downfall of social interaction. Sure, Twitter/Facebook/Flavor-of-the-Month Networking Site is great for connecting people, but ultimately, in the end, it’s all about the interpersonal, in-person interactions.
I disagree with the “school as babysitter” argument. Sure, some parents may view that as the purpose of school, but even if that’s the case, at least their child is learning how to exist, and work in an environment that contains people who are vastly different than them. That’s a skill you can’t learn by home-schooling. That’s a skill you can’t learn at most private schools. And, that’s certainly a skill you can’t learn at the School of the Future.
I’m completely on board with the networking capabilities our students now have to meet others. But, the whole point of meeting people who are different than you — or the same as you, yet in other parts of the world — is that you take that experience and infuse it into your daily life. I would just hate to think that the first time we ask a child to interact with those different than them is the first day on their first job.
RE: FVS– Based on documented research colleagues of mine have conducted, FVS is no panacea for our current industrialized model of education. It has replaced the efficiencies of the conventional classroom with efficiencies of the digital age. In other words it’s more akin to a steam-powered locomotive being replaced by a diesel one.
—
As usual, I like the way you’re thinking works here. Your skepticism is always refreshing. I have found myself reading up on anti-teaching literature and am about to reopen Teaching as a Subversive Activity for the third time.
The answers to our current struggles are not about technology or moving the same old thing online. The future is going to be about developing new ways to think about teaching–that is, teaching students to ask questions rather than provide answers. The future is about teachers and students working together to solve local/global (glocal?) issues together. It’s about re-engineering/re-wiring our learning environments to focus on new narratives of what it means to be educated, what it means to think global/act local.
We need to teach kids more than anything to learn how to ask good questions, questions that force students to challenge their taken-for-granted assumptions, questions that reveal their underlying biases. A good question is an insight in and of itself, right? Ultimately these good questions lead to more good questions sending students on meaningful, lifelong quests–just like the one you’re on!
You are all over the inevitable solution, Chris. You said, “…sending students on meaningful, lifelong quests–just like the one you’re on!” That says it all.
All the *buzz* words become *authentic* when education is modeled on LEARNING rather than TEACHING. In the future, I see *student-centered* environments in which learners pursue their *passion-based* areas of interest by *constructing* knowledge needed to solve *relevant* problems. Learners will be nurtured locally and virtually by *teams* of technology proficient content experts. Learners will be *guided* in *collaborative* learning activities by information-savvy *facilitators* that coordinate with school, community and global experts to identify *social learning networks*, *authentic projects*, and *active learning* resources. *Mastery* learning will be demonstrated by the learners’s *performance* and measured by successful demonstration of the knowledge, skills and *expertise* needed to *create* and *innovate* in an academic discipline.
What does this mean for teaching? It means far fewer teachers. Those content experts who survive competitive performance-based internships will be highly compensated for strong interpersonal skills, content expertise, and ability to transfer their expertise to the practice of learning.
You are correct, Chris, learners will begin a “life-long” quest for knowledge that is based on a disciplined, informed and *self-directed* love of learning.
Will said,…”the system’s inability to help them find and nurture the areas they truly have passion for.”
I can’t agree more. We touched on this during your Skype webinar in Ontario a while back.
There is nothing more exciting to hear our children/students talk about the subjects they have passion for. Quite frankly the grades [higher in subjects they like] don’t strike me as much as the conversation around the dinner table. The comments are, “it is interesting, active and fun”….”I really like this course”…”I don’t want it to end when I have this class”.
Sir Ken Robinson speaks about finding your passion. Any one of Sir Ken’s most recent talks [either RSA or Edutopia] contains his insightful comments about finding one’s passion.
His latest book entitled, “The Element” [Jan. 2009] will be on my new year reading list. He interviewed folks from all walks of life about what their passion and talents are.
Thank you for the discussion…
@stager – Asking Will anything about his family in a public space as you did – kind of negates your ‘look how smart I am’ comments and self promotion really. If you are asking that online, I am not sure you get it at all. Be an asset not a drain there fella.
Mr. Partridge:
I’m not sure how to respond:
a) If you’re going to call me “fella,” you have to at least buy me a drink.
b) It’s Dr. Fella to you.
I find it both interesting and terribly frustrating that “future schools” has been a topic for so long. When I first went to grad school I researched/wrote about future schools. Here we are in that future and nothing has changed. Are our schools stuck in that much cement? I think a full implosion of the k20 system is the only thing that will really change things. And yet, I hope I’m wrong…………
We have been talking about “future schools” for a long time. When I first went to grad school I researched/wrote about future schools and here we are in that future. Nothing has changed the big education picture. Will only full implosion of the entire system make it possible for “future schools” to fill a slot? There will then be one to fill.