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| Photo: Raya Bidshahri |
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Most students are not taught to be self-motivated lifelong learners, nor do they come out of the school system with the skills, mindsets, and values required to survive a world of accelerating change. Most students do not graduate to feeling inspired to contribute to human progress.
Traditional school curricula have mostly gone unchanged for centuries, and there is a lack of scientific basis in pedagogy. There continues to be an emphasis on short-term grades and individual achievement.
How can we effectively educate future generations? What do we need to change about mainstream education? The answer to these questions does not entail small incremental changes, but rather a complete overhaul of mainstream education as it exists today. It also requires changing how we define education to begin with.
Technology is already transforming the way we teach and learn. Digital classrooms, global online collaborations, and personalized learning are just the beginning. What will these technological trends in EdTech lead to? What will the word “education” even mean 30 years from now?
Ten years ago, the Millennium Project set out to to explore this radical future of education and released a groundbreaking report called Education 2030. Ever since, we have been seeing their predictions, concerns, and solutions begin to come to life. Here are just some of the highlights.
Integrated Lifelong Learning Systems
Education should not be something that you do at a specific institution for a specific period of time for a certification. Instead, it should be a lifelong journey of exploration, self-discovery, and liberation driven by intrinsic rewards. Effective education needs to be integrated into our everyday experiences, including entertainment. According to the Education 2030 report, future education will be tailored to users “across all age groups from pre-natal programs to programs for the elderly that provide knowledge, work, and leisure enjoyment.”
A lifelong learning mindset is essential in order to be employable in the future workforce. A report by the World Economic Forum revealed that almost 65 percent of the jobs elementary school students will be doing in the future do not even exist yet. New industries are consistently being born and dying out through disruption. Future workers need to be able to leverage online MOOCs and the vast array of educational resources available to them in order to gain on-demand skills...
Cognitive Enhancement: Improving Intelligence
Education is increasingly being treated like a science. We are seeing the rise of neuroeducation, wherein scientists are gaining a better understanding of the mind, brain, and the learning process. These developments in understanding how our minds operate can have powerful implications on our learning capacities. Many educators are being encouraged to use these findings to adapt how they teach.
Some experts even hope for a complete mapping of human synapses to discover how learning occurs and thereby develop biological strategies for improvement of learning. Understanding these mechanisms also paves the way for a wave of cognitive enhancement drugs, genetically-enhanced intelligence, and integration with AI devices through brain-machine interfaces.
It sounds like science fiction, but it’s already beginning to take effect.
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Source: Singularity Hub
