3 Predictions About the Future of Education

I consider myself an educational futurist. I attempt to employ the same tactics that futurists do

when they forecast. I had the wonderful opportunity to be a member of the World Future Society

for many years and the experience was second to none. When the WFS forecasts, they typically

do not look to the immediate future. Rather, they consider 25-100 years out or even more. Using

that experience and what I have learned, here are three forecasts or predictions for the future of

education.

Lesson Design and implementation

I feel that the daily lesson is what will be impacted the most in the next several years. Consider

the news in regards to technology in the past 5-10 years. We started with the buzz of

augmented reality. You can now find AR in just about every home improvement app and design

apps. You can see the furniture in your home before you purchase it. You can see what the eye

glass frames look like before you buy them. After AR came virtual reality (VR). The craze was

the head gear. Playstation got involved and Apple has a VR headset. We had Google glasses

and cardboard. Oculus was the pioneer of these headsets. Nowadays you can not watch the

news without hearing about artificial intelligence or AI. Students are already having AI write

papers and the music and arts industry are concerned about AI copying them and mimicking

their voices and images. But what about education and how will this impact those daily lessons?

If you consider a lesson as an expert teaching the students about a topic, using their hands and

brains to create and discover, learning from the past experiences of others, you can start to

catch a glimpse of what a lesson might look like in the future. Let’s take a look at science class.

You first put on your headset and are transported to a chemist lab. You are seated in the chairs

around the lab and your teacher is there as well. But this isn’t just a virtual lab, this is Thomas

Edison’s virtual lab--complete with Thomas Edison himself. Mr. Edison starts to share with the

students his history as well as his science. He teaches them about chemical reactions and

combining chemicals. Then he gets the students involved. Each student now finds themselves

in their own personal virtual chemical lab (this actually exists today in the VR world). The

students begin to work on their projects. They can mix the chemicals and get the virtual reaction

that they would have received had they actually mixed the chemicals in the real world.

Virtual Reality allows students to be transported to all locations, past and present, around the

globe. Artificial Intelligence will allow you to speak to the experts of every field on every subject

and learn from them. Augmented Reality will allow you to take those artifacts that are gone to

time or too dangerous to actually handle and be able to investigate them right in the classroom.

Can you imagine Social Studies class being held in Independence Hall during the signing of the

Declaration of Independence? How about piano lessons from Mozart?

The powerful combination of these three new technologies will revolutionize the students' daily

lessons. They will be more engaging, more interesting and steeped in best practices.

The Teacher

When technologies are embraced, the typical concern arises from teachers about being

replaced. I have said for years now that if a computer can replace you, then you probably

deserve to be replaced. In the future, I believe that statement will continue to hold true. The

teacher’s job, in the future, will be different, but no less critical. The teacher will still be in charge

of the lessons, being the facilitator of the lesson. They will still deal with behaviors and the

human side of education. Teachers will still bring empathy, love, concern, excitement, joy, and

other emotions to the classroom. We are too far out to even contemplate artificial intelligence

having emotions. The teacher brings the human element to the classroom and, most

importantly, to the students.

The Classroom

The classroom of the future will be as simple as the headgear to as complex as a campus

setting. Students will be able to do certain lessons asynchronously. Remember being taught by

Thomas Edison? That lesson structure can happen anytime. That portion of the students'

learning will happen on their own time. Then there will be the lessons that require human

interactions, while it can still happen “alone” there will be structured times when students will be

required to log into their VR classroom with the teacher and other students. These lessons

would be those that may require group projects, debates, discussions on current events and

other human to human opportunities. Then finally there will be larger campus structures where

students will have to physically attend classes for certain lessons that require face to face time

in a brick and mortar building. These lessons would be opportunities for humans to interact with

other humans in that formal setting. Team sports and bands would be conducted during these

times. Physical education would play a role during the campus times (Yes, you can do P.E.

virtually, but human to human interaction is important and team sports and activities are perfect

for that type of opportunity). This would not necessarily be a daily commute. Possibly once or

twice a month. These campuses would also be more structured as a county or multi-town

setting where one campus would be shared by students from about a 25 mile radius.

Can you see it now? Change happens and it should happen. If not, then classrooms would still

be in a one room schoolhouse and lectures would still be the primary means of teaching. Don’t

be concerned about the changes. It’s an exciting time to be in education. Embrace the change

and be a part of the educational revolution.