Image credit: Future Learning Spaces by Kadima Mada - Educating
for Life
In March 2018,
John Moravec at Education Futures conducted a survey asking Does
the Future Need Schools? John reached
out to a select, diverse group of contacts from around the world to help bring
some insight to the subject, aiming to generate an ecology of ideas for future
research.
“As the future
of work seems to become increasingly uncertain, schools charged with creating future-ready
workers have changed very little over the past few centuries,” said Moravec. “A
school from 2018 looks and functions little different than a school in 1918
would have operated. As we look 10, 20, or 50 years into the future, will
‘school’ be relevant?”
Revisiting My
Personal Stand
Back in March
2018, I believed school settings would experience disruptive changes, similar
to the radical changes observed over the last three decades in creative
companies’ workspaces.
Image credit: Google Workspaces
Google has seen fit in a number of their high-profile offices
to include these types of workspaces. With mobile workers increasing and many
using spaces outside the office to get work done, Google has seen fit to create
spaces that mimic traditional third spaces within the confines of their office.
As an example, I referred to the SpaceTime concept developed by Chadwick- Space Strategy, Architecture + Design, who implemented the SpaceNet® configuration for Andersen Consulting Western Europe, hereinafter Accenture Western Europe, as the company changed its name.
In 1982, architect
and space planning consultant Andrew Chadwick won a competition to design the ‘Office
of the Future’ – the future being the year 2000. His winning proposal was
the ‘Office in a Briefcase’ which opened up to reveal a screen and
keyboard. You would be able to work from anywhere and the idea of the office
would be transformed.
Chadwick’s
solution predicted the advent of the laptop and led to a series of seminal
projects in which time and space enabled by technology became as one – the ‘space–time
office’, a radical idea for the future working environment.
‘The space you
need for the time you need it’ was the mantra – a notion Chadwick explored in his
work for Accenture offices in Western Europe and Boston Innovation Hubs.
Similarly, in
the future students shall only attend a school building part time, which is the
essence of the space-time concept – the space they need for the time they need
it.
As stated by Clark
Aldrich in his book Unschooling
Rules, "Today what a person learns in a
classroom is how to be a person in a classroom."
Our current
education system has its roots in the industrial age society. Today, however,
students are much more social and enjoy learning in a less structured way,
anytime, anywhere. Learning is no longer limited to the confines of a
traditional classroom (as proved during Covid-19 pandemic).
In the article
What
will schools of the future look like?, Dave Townsend, a former law and business teacher, predicted a school where students aren’t always on site. He thinks that students could
acquire better results by only attending a school building part time:
“Build schools half the size that they are now, for the
same number of pupils but half the size,” he suggested. “Build it to a high
standard – think something like a Google Campus. Have students come into the
school three days a week and then the other two they can work from home.
They’ll be able to access a teacher when they need one, but you won’t need such
a big building because you’ll be dealing with fewer students on site at one
time.”
Giving
Students More Agency Over Their Education
This change in
structure will emphasize the concept that the school student is at the core of
the learning experience, rather than the teacher. Educators will then focus on
what matters most: creating opportunities and environments in which students
learn and thrive, establishing the foundation of a learner-centric education or
student-led learning.
Image credit: Future
Learning Spaces concept by Kadima Mada –
Educating for Life
Changing
Classrooms Into Collaborative Research & Experimentation Workshop
Environments - @school or @home
VR and AR
could eventually recreate these Research & Experimentation workshop
environments, providing students with a full circle learning experience, while
enabling them to approach a topic from every angle, and giving students more agency
over their education.
Image credit: Stambol – A Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Canadian Studio. Its Educational VR products are ready to use at home and often come in the form of either games or interactive experiences
Image credit: VISIONxR™ - an immersive platform allowing
multiple users, in multiple locations, on multiple devices (VR, AR, desktop and
mobile) to collaborate, communicate and learn together.