What will educational institutions of tomorrow look like?

This post is about the book: Future Proof Your College by Michael Heppel. The post is written by Stefan Pålsson, a Swedish analyst within the area pedagogic, digital learning och technology. If you know Swedish visit the blog Omvärldsbloggen. If you want to get in contact with Stefan: hyperfinder@gmail.com This is his post:

What will the educational institutions of tomorrow look like? Of course, nobody knows for sure. Nevertheless, it’s crucial that we start to discuss and think about it. Last week The Independent published an article about the learning of the future, centered around Michael Heppel’s new book Future Proof Your College, that is being released today. His book is focused on higher education, but the essential conclusions are also valid for primary and secondary education.

The purpose is to envision the opportunities and challenges for the educational world, and the content is based on interviews with students, principals, employers and futurists.

According to Heppel, it is evident that globalisation and technological innovation will have a crucial effect on the nuts and bolts of the system. The demands of the “digital natives”, born and raised in a digital environment, is another powerful force in this respect.

Flexibility, individualization and digital educational resources are some of the ongoing trends that will have a large impact on our conceptions of education and learning. Classrooms, blackboards, and even interactive whiteboards, are soon to become things of the past.

The shape and content of education will eventually be determined by the demands of the prospective students. This means that institutions must be able to let students develop the knowledge and skills they need and request.

Informal peer-to-peer teaching will probably be one of the key characteristics. Teachers and students will learn together in heterarchical environments, both physical and virtual, where they make creative use of each others’ differing knowledge and expertise. International collaboration ovet the Internet will also become a necessity.

This means that teachers need a whole new set of competencies, and that their professional role will be profoundly changed. In addition to this, schools need to adapt their rooms and buildings to the new prerequisites.

Efficiency and speed are two decisive keywords, says Michael Heppel. The students will expect value for their money, and the schools, colleges and universities must live up to this in order to survive.

 

How do we move to the next stage?

The challenge for the Knowledge Foundation in Sweden is to understand how to plan for future ventures within technology supported learning & training. In which areas do we need more knowledge and who should participate in this work? How can research within cognition, neurology and pedagogics contribute? And is development moving toward game-based learning, wiki methods or 3D worlds?

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