Istruzione 2025 (Educating in 2025). Four educators, from varying teaching backgrounds, Alicia Logsdon, Melissa Perkes, Tricia Rodriguez, and Katherine Schwebe have collaborated to form an international, educational technology, consulting firm. The firm’s primary goal is to design the ultimate learning environment for 2025 that integrates technology in a practical and meaningful way in P-16 classrooms.
This proposal displays a well developed design for the ideal school and its learning environment of 2025. The proposal has been outlined for your review in this Web 2.0 Wiki. The future of teaching and learning will be clearly expressed to all vital educational stakeholders concerning the future of education. To achieve success, we believe the ideal learning environment of the future will require the cooperation of all stakeholders in the areas of curriculum, learning spaces, and sustainability. We are committed to this open partnership between students, teachers, parents, community members and employers.
Background
For hundreds of years teaching and learning has developed, used, dismissed, and improved upon various educational strategies and technologies. As we look ahead to 2025, it is vital that history is reviewed. The future of education, including the areas of curricular design and pedagogy are dependent on the demands of the working world and can be predicted by past and current trends. Educational pedagogy must evolve to embrace the skills demanded by an ever evolving society. As the professional field continues to progress, demanding a modern skill base, so too, must the classroom.
According to the Program for International Student Assessment 2010 test results, a change is overdue with today's educational system. As a result of the lack of progression in today's classrooms, America's students are lagging behind ranking 15th in reading, 23rd in math, and 31st in science. The advancement in today's classrooms cannot occur in isolation. A clear transition must be formed throughout the various levels of education in order to adequately transition students from the educational training ground of the school building into the professional world dominated by life-long learners. It is evident a change is overdue when today's students are demanding an educational evolution as in the video clip below.
Vision of Education in 2025
The Istruzione 2025 firm recognizes the world is changing at a rapid pace and that learning must accommodate these changes. We are committed to answering student's outcry for an educational evolution. It is our commitment to prepare students for a world that is different than the one we live in. What exactly are we preparing them for? We cannot answer this question with 100% certainty, because as educators we are not even aware of some of the jobs that will be available in the year 2025. Ten years ago Facebook did not even exist, now it is a large corporation that serves millions.
There is an old and a new paradigm for learning. In the old way, the objective was rote memorization and writing spelling words out fifty times. Practice and repeat. We know now that learning needs to have a better objective. Memorizing alone does not ensure learning. The objective now is to completely understand one’s topic through interaction. It is not enough to read about driving or changing a tire. Reading an instruction manual is only a start. The student must practice driving or practicing changing a tire. A student needs to know the steps and physically interact with the situation, the equipment, the environment. The student must be able to produce the final result and know that he/she has obtained that result successfully. Not only must students be knowledgeable, they must also be knowledge-able. The learner of the future is different from the learner of the past.
Based on the research conducted by the Istruzione 2025 team, we have identified seven key areas that will be pertinent to the evolution of the modern, 2025 learners and teachers. It is vital that schools devote time in researching and planning curriculum and learning spaces that provide student led, student centered lessons that are skill based in nature providing active engagement, focus on higher order thinking, utilize formative assessments, and establish classrooms built around modular educational theory. In the end, the success of these key areas are dependent on the open-mindedness and flexibility of our school systems. Schools will need to more quickly adapt to the ever-growing and ever-changing demands of society while at the same time watching and planning for future technological and educational trends so that they may provide students the best personal learning environment possible.
Finding One's "Authentic Self" Through Education: We Must Rise WITH the Occasion
Within his TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson (2010) breaks down the current work force into two categories: those who truly enjoy their profession and those who merely work towards the weekend. While both types of individuals exist, Robinson finds that a great majority fall into the latter category Who's to blame?
So what are we doing wrong?"Education, in many ways, dislocates people from their natural talents." The current model of education, as Robinson finds it, has become hyperfocused on what and how "should" be done and has truly lost focus on how students learn and what they are passionate about. As opposed to forcing our curriculum on an outdated model, Robinson advices teachers to "create circumstances through which [natural talents] show themselves"
In order to push towards the ideal classroom of 2025, in place of the subpar reformation that classrooms are currently undergoing, Robinson advocates for a "revolution." In order to achieve this very lofty goal, educators must first overcome the "tyranny of common sense" by coming to the realization that things can be completed in different ways. For as Abraham Lincoln stated in 1782, "as our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." As educators move towards the classroom of the future, we can no longer allow ourselves to get caught up in how the way things used to be taught. For, those practices may have worked for the "circumstances of previous centuries."
A single notion pointed out within this lecture is the "linear" trend of education. At the end of the line: "college." Yet, as Robinson highlights, life tends not to be linear,instead organic.While college may be an immediate, post-secondary goal for a number of students, it is not the answer for ALL of them. Robinson stated, "we have sold ourselves to a fast food model of education" in which everything has become standardized. The standard notion is that the lives of all of our students fall on a pre-determined time-line. Any student that lands outside of that path is labeled as wasting their life.
In the end, "it's about passion." If one devotes time to something they love time begins to travel at a different pace. While we continue to work in the Fast Food model, education is not feed the soul. "Human flourishing is not a mechanical process but an organic one" The classroom of 2025 will need to represent a "personalizing education to people you are actually teaching" Long past will be the one size fits all, standard view of classroom curriculum. Instead, educators will have realized that each class represents a unique set of needs and mold their curriculum to meet those needs.
Robinson leaves his viewers with a beautifully, poignant line of poetry that we believe encompasses our vision, "everyday our children spread their dreams below our feat...we should tred softly."
Melissa Perkes, Tricia Rodriguez, and Katherine Schwebe have collaborated to form an international, educational technology, consulting firm. The firm’s primary goal is to design the ultimate learning environment for 2025 that integrates technology in a practical and meaningful way in P-16 classrooms.
This proposal displays a well developed design for the ideal school and its learning environment of 2025. The proposal has been outlined for your review in this Web 2.0 Wiki. The future of teaching and learning will be clearly expressed to all vital educational stakeholders concerning the future of education. To achieve success, we believe the ideal learning environment of the future will require the cooperation of all stakeholders in the areas of curriculum, learning spaces, and sustainability. We are committed to this open partnership between students, teachers, parents, community members and employers.
Background
For hundreds of years teaching and learning has developed, used, dismissed, and improved upon various educational strategies and technologies. As we look ahead to 2025, it is vital that history is reviewed. The future of education, including the areas of curricular design and pedagogy are dependent on the demands of the working world and can be predicted by past and current trends. Educational pedagogy must evolve to embrace the skills demanded by an ever evolving society. As the professional field continues to progress, demanding a modern skill base, so too, must the classroom.
According to the Program for International Student Assessment 2010 test results, a change is overdue with today's educational system. As a result of the lack of progression in today's classrooms, America's students are lagging behind ranking 15th in reading, 23rd in math, and 31st in science. The advancement in today's classrooms cannot occur in isolation. A clear transition must be formed throughout the various levels of education in order to adequately transition students from the educational training ground of the school building into the professional world dominated by life-long learners. It is evident a change is overdue when today's students are demanding an educational evolution as in the video clip below.
Vision of Education in 2025
The Istruzione 2025 firm recognizes the world is changing at a rapid pace and that learning must accommodate these changes. We are committed to answering student's outcry for an educational evolution. It is our commitment to prepare students for a world that is different than the one we live in. What exactly are we preparing them for? We cannot answer this question with 100% certainty, because as educators we are not even aware of some of the jobs that will be available in the year 2025. Ten years ago Facebook did not even exist, now it is a large corporation that serves millions.
There is an old and a new paradigm for learning. In the old way, the objective was rote memorization and writing spelling words out fifty times. Practice and repeat. We know now that learning needs to have a better objective. Memorizing alone does not ensure learning. The objective now is to completely understand one’s topic through interaction. It is not enough to read about driving or changing a tire. Reading an instruction manual is only a start. The student must practice driving or practicing changing a tire. A student needs to know the steps and physically interact with the situation, the equipment, the environment. The student must be able to produce the final result and know that he/she has obtained that result successfully. Not only must students be knowledgeable, they must also be knowledge-able. The learner of the future is different from the learner of the past.
Based on the research conducted by the Istruzione 2025 team, we have identified seven key areas that will be pertinent to the evolution of the modern, 2025 learners and teachers. It is vital that schools devote time in researching and planning curriculum and learning spaces that provide student led, student centered lessons that are skill based in nature providing active engagement, focus on higher order thinking, utilize formative assessments, and establish classrooms built around modular educational theory. In the end, the success of these key areas are dependent on the open-mindedness and flexibility of our school systems. Schools will need to more quickly adapt to the ever-growing and ever-changing demands of society while at the same time watching and planning for future technological and educational trends so that they may provide students the best personal learning environment possible.
Finding One's "Authentic Self" Through Education: We Must Rise WITH the Occasion
Within his TED Talk, Sir Ken Robinson (2010) breaks down the current work force into two categories: those who truly enjoy their profession and those who merely work towards the weekend. While both types of individuals exist, Robinson finds that a great majority fall into the latter category Who's to blame?
So what are we doing wrong?"Education, in many ways, dislocates people from their natural talents." The current model of education, as Robinson finds it, has become hyperfocused on what and how "should" be done and has truly lost focus on how students learn and what they are passionate about. As opposed to forcing our curriculum on an outdated model, Robinson advices teachers to "create circumstances through which [natural talents] show themselves"
In order to push towards the ideal classroom of 2025, in place of the subpar reformation that classrooms are currently undergoing, Robinson advocates for a "revolution." In order to achieve this very lofty goal, educators must first overcome the "tyranny of common sense" by coming to the realization that things can be completed in different ways. For as Abraham Lincoln stated in 1782, "as our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." As educators move towards the classroom of the future, we can no longer allow ourselves to get caught up in how the way things used to be taught. For, those practices may have worked for the "circumstances of previous centuries."
A single notion pointed out within this lecture is the "linear" trend of education. At the end of the line: "college." Yet, as Robinson highlights, life tends not to be linear,instead organic.While college may be an immediate, post-secondary goal for a number of students, it is not the answer for ALL of them. Robinson stated, "we have sold ourselves to a fast food model of education" in which everything has become standardized. The standard notion is that the lives of all of our students fall on a pre-determined time-line. Any student that lands outside of that path is labeled as wasting their life.
In the end, "it's about passion." If one devotes time to something they love time begins to travel at a different pace. While we continue to work in the Fast Food model, education is not feed the soul. "Human flourishing is not a mechanical process but an organic one" The classroom of 2025 will need to represent a "personalizing education to people you are actually teaching" Long past will be the one size fits all, standard view of classroom curriculum. Instead, educators will have realized that each class represents a unique set of needs and mold their curriculum to meet those needs.
Robinson leaves his viewers with a beautifully, poignant line of poetry that we believe encompasses our vision, "everyday our children spread their dreams below our feat...we should tred softly."
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