education in the year 2025 -- from nsba's 2014 conference

Katherine Prince • April 5, 2014

Looking Ahead

The future is not a fixed point.

It is ours to create.

What if…

Reinventing Education

An Expanded Learning Ecosystem

What if...

We could we could reinvent learning for today’s needs?

Learning Organization(s)

“School” will take many forms. Sometimes it will be self-organized.

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.

Learning Playlists

Learners and their families will create individualized learning playlists reflecting their particular interests, goals, and values.

Diverse Learning Platforms

Those learning playlists might include public schools but could also include a wide variety of digitally-mediated or place-based learning experiences.

Radical Personalization

Whatever the path, radical personalization will become the norm, with learning approaches and supports tailored to each learner.

Questions for Reflection

• How might your district facilitate an expanded range of learning opportunities for students?

• How might you position your district to be a vibrant node in the expanding learning ecosystem?

• How might your district begin brokering learning resources and experiences across traditional boundaries?

• What supports might administrators need in managing more networked combinations of learning resources and experiences?

What if...

We had new ways of supporting learning?

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

Brokering and Curation

A wide variety of digital networks, platforms, and content resources will help learners and learning agents connect and learn.

Learning Analytics

Some of those tools will use rich data to provide insight into learning and suggest strategies for success.

Questions for Reflection

• As learning experiences diversify, what new services will learners need?

• How might your district create new learning agent roles that support personalized learning for all students and increase job satisfaction for educators?

• What new types of infrastructure might we need to make the expanding learning ecosystem vibrant for all learners?

What if...

The contexts surrounding learning changed dramatically?

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.

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.

DIY Credentialing

Diverse forms of credentials, certificates, and reputation markers will reflect the many ways in which people learn and demonstrate mastery.

Ad Hoc Employment Networks

Work will evolve so rapidly that continuous career readiness will become the norm.

Key Skills for Future Employment

• Continuous learning

• Multitasking

• Managing disruptions

• Ability to embrace change

• Experimentation

• Problem-solving

• Quick analysis of information

Questions for Reflection

• What will it mean to be college and career ready as work and organizations change?

• How might your district help learners move seamlessly among community-based and school-based learning experiences?

• Where could new kinds of partnerships lead to new solutions?

What if…

Exploring Opportunities

What might the emergence of a vibrant and adaptive learning ecosystem mean for:

• The ways you operate schools?

• How teachers teach?

• How school leaders interact with their communities?

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Contact Katherine Prince

princek@knowledgeworks.org