My Predictions of the Future of Education
After reading Facer & Sandford (2010)'s article on the future of education, one scenario which I think is most likely to realize is personalized education. As the authors mention in "World 1: trust yourself":
In the future, because of the advocation of personalized education, I believe students will have more space and freedom to develop their own interests and specialized skills. Thus, society will not utilize a single standard to evaluate the ability of students. For some important evaluation part such as the college enrollment, there will be more diverse standards. With the establishment of the personal database, the admission committee can have a more comprehensive understanding of a student's ability.
The development of the Internet and communication technology gives rise to closer connections among different countries in the world. And there will be more international commercial, political or cultural communications. In the future, students should learn to study and work in an international environment. Learning English or other foreign languages well is not enough. In particular, when facing cultural and political differences, students should be open to the differences and be able to adapt to cultural diversity.
I think future courses in K-12 education will also include the cultural, political and geography knowledge of the world. It can help students learn about the current world and develop cross-cultural understanding.
I also want to mention one of my concerns about future education. I wonder whether education equity will be improved due to the development of communication technology in the future. On the one hand, the Internet and communication technology can bring educational resources to underprivileged groups, which can improve the educational conditions. On the other hand, the uneven distribution of technological resources may aggravate the gap in education. Besides, technology is not the panacea in solving education inequity. Teachers and the education system also play an important role in the learning process.
References:
Facer, K., & Sandford, R. (2010). The next 25 years?: Future scenarios and future directions for education and technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 74–93.
https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/ai-in-education-or-what-advantages-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education-you-can-gain-
"‘Informed Choice’–a highly personalized education system structured around the individual collaborating lifelong with paid mentors and structuring education provision from diverse sources around their needs (p. 83)."
The reason why I believe personalized education will become popular in the future is the booming of economy and technology provides the opportunity for caring for the development of each individual. More families have the capacity to afford personal mentors for children. Schools will have an advanced digital system to manage students and teachers, which can observe and facilitate the personal learning progress of students. With the aid of big data and AI technology, it is possible to record the personal learning data and give learners matched instructions.
Example of the combination of AI and education:
Resource: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/ai-in-education-or-what-advantages-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education-you-can-gain-
Besides the scenarios raised in the article, I would like to make two predictions of the future of education:
1. There will be diverse but more convincing standards of evaluation in the education system, such as the college enrollment and qualifying exams.
In the future, because of the advocation of personalized education, I believe students will have more space and freedom to develop their own interests and specialized skills. Thus, society will not utilize a single standard to evaluate the ability of students. For some important evaluation part such as the college enrollment, there will be more diverse standards. With the establishment of the personal database, the admission committee can have a more comprehensive understanding of a student's ability.
2. Adapting to the globalized world will be a required skill for students.
The development of the Internet and communication technology gives rise to closer connections among different countries in the world. And there will be more international commercial, political or cultural communications. In the future, students should learn to study and work in an international environment. Learning English or other foreign languages well is not enough. In particular, when facing cultural and political differences, students should be open to the differences and be able to adapt to cultural diversity.
I think future courses in K-12 education will also include the cultural, political and geography knowledge of the world. It can help students learn about the current world and develop cross-cultural understanding.
I also want to mention one of my concerns about future education. I wonder whether education equity will be improved due to the development of communication technology in the future. On the one hand, the Internet and communication technology can bring educational resources to underprivileged groups, which can improve the educational conditions. On the other hand, the uneven distribution of technological resources may aggravate the gap in education. Besides, technology is not the panacea in solving education inequity. Teachers and the education system also play an important role in the learning process.
References:
Facer, K., & Sandford, R. (2010). The next 25 years?: Future scenarios and future directions for education and technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 74–93.
https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/ai-in-education-or-what-advantages-of-artificial-intelligence-in-education-you-can-gain-
Hi Ming, I really like your predictions on the development of education in the future and I enjoy reading your thought on how the ability to get involved in the globalized world can be necessary for all the students in 25 years. As the authors mentioned in the reading, the distance will matter less in the future and more work will be completed remotely by people from all over the world. How most students in non-English countries today are required to take English classes already show the importance to get prepared in the globalized world since English is the most commonly used language. I can definitely see the possibilities that the school will provide more options for students to be more competitive and better prepared to work in a more connected world. They may accomplish this by providing more language classes, adding more cases studies about how companies from different countries work together for different industries in their instructional design, or by admitting a more diverse group of students. However, as educators, we should also think about the possibility that some students may still want to work in a traditional industry with a position which doesn't require any skill to connect with the bigger world. Although we can still encourage them to explore their interests, they still have their rights to choose not to be competitive and adapted to the globalized world. Thus, is it a "required skill" for them to get adapted to the globalized world? What will be the evaluation and assessments on it? These are still questions that educators need to figure out.
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