Predictions for 2020 and Implications for High School Science
After reading Barry's post from last week, "No Social Justice...No Peace", I cannot stop thinking about how to infuse technology in the curriculum in order to ensure that our students are technology fluent so that the U.S. remains economically competitive with other countries. I asked Barry what he thought "technology fluent" really means.
As a secondary science teacher, I tend to view technology fluent in terms of scientifically literacy: that students are able to critically examine what they read and evaluate such reading for accuracy, bias, and media hype; that students are able to collaborate to solve problems that are not readily apparent; that students attain the skills necessary to ensure that they are able to choose a career in the sciences if that is their field of interest.
I began wondering about what predictions have been made about what technology may look like 10, 20, even 30 years down the road and what this would imply for the way in which we educate our students. After doing a quick search, I found an intriguing site, Batelle Technology Forecasts, which includes a group of scientists and engineers who have made a "list of the ten most strategic technological trends that will shape business and our world over the next 20 years." The list includes:
- Genetic-based Medical and Health Care
- High-power energy packages
- Green Integrated Technology
- Omnipresent Computing
- Nanomachines
- Personalized Public Transportation
- Designer Foods and Crops
- Intelligent Goods and Appliances
- Worldwide Inexpensive and Safe Water
- Super Senses
I know that my classroom, my school and most high schools are not structured so that students are experiencing education in a way that will prepare them for this predicted future. I know that differentiated instruction is one small piece that can play a significant role in how students "do school" in a way that is different from the norm. I also know that students must be immersed in the kinds of tasks that will prepare them for the dilemmas that they will face 10, 20 and 30 years into their future. Schools are not designed in this way; school is not done in this way.
Just conceptualizing what a school might look like that addresses learning in a way that allows students to be immersed in learning that is meaningful, preparing them for future dilemmas, is nearly out of the realm of my thinking. Yet, our school is contemplating this very idea as we plan for a new school where schooling is done differently, which has a science, math and technology focus, and that is a place where community involvement is the norm. The requirements of such a school will require that the planners have a strong technology and science background as well as a vision that will guide the design process. The ideas of what the future holds for our students is critical as designing takes place. Thinking about what my classroom needs to look like, not only physically but also what typical instructional periods will look like are extremely important for the design.
As my director said at our last faculty meeting, we are making this up. We need to conceptualize school in a totally different way than any of us have ever experienced and we need to do this together. Any ideas?
Labels: differentiated instruction, schools of the future, science literacy
posted by Mickey MacDonald @ 4:38 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
When I think about the schools of tomorrow, I have to put it in concepts that I’m familiar with. I work in a technical field. When I started working at my current plant, we had 13 full time employees, now we have 8. At the time I started we were broadcasting 1 television channel 18 hours a day. Today we broadcast 5 channels 24 hours a day. This increase in efficiency is directly related to advances in technology. But, the big thing to be aware of from a teaching and learning standpoint is that the jobs skills have changed. Twenty years ago, the master control operator would cue a tape machine and press the play button with a 5 second pre roll which allowed them time to take the output of the machine on the air by pressing another button on a switcher at the end of the 5 seconds. Think about the skill set it took to run a break between shows; lots of button pressing and clock watching. Today, a computer based automation system chooses which source to “take” to air. The operator must be able to input shows into a video server and use the data base software that runs the automation. Today the mouse click, with its associated macros has replaced many button presses. So, what do we teach the children of the revolution? My needs in an operator or technician are familiarity with the current popular operating systems and flexibility in using a variety of software applications. The person must be adaptable. They may not know what programs we are using, but they must be able to learn how to use them quickly. This also puts, to some extent, a burden on software designers to create interfaces that act and look similar, so that the learning curve for an unfamiliar user is shortened. Maybe these concepts are a part of the definition of “technology fluent”; familiarity and adaptability.
In trying to concieve of what education will be like in 20 or 30 years I'm left without many concrete ideas. Years ago, I remember reading predictions of life in the year 2000 that were made in the 1970's and 1980's. If memory serves, most of those predictions didn't come close to describing the way things really were in 2000.
In thinking about the future of education (and how technolgy fits in), I'm left wondering what the role of today's high-stakes, standardized test will be. Because education and an individual's knowledge is so much more than can be demonstrated in tests like the FCAT, I can imagine that as technology transforms the teaching and learning process and the content of education changes, these tests will become even less relevant than they are today.
I know that classroom practices change as educational theories come and go. Some of the good, effective changes stick around, and the others are abandonded for betters ideas. I remember an example of this from my undergrad days at Mercer University. In the 1980's Mercer instituted what they called "wonderful wednesdays" where the students had no classes. The idea was that students would study, collaborate, participate in out of classroom learning experiences, or service learning oppertunities on Wednesday and be better focues for classes on Thursday. Well, that was the goal, but you can imagine what students actually did on Wednesdays. I don't recall the theory behind the move to "wonderful wednesdays", but I do know that they lasted only a few years.
Given that ideas about teaching and learning and education are evoloving, I'm not sure I can wrap my head around what a 2020 or beyond classroom will look like.
I'm going to quote Karl Fisch, whose "Did you Know" and "Vision 2020" videos have gone viral on the net. (Check out his blog at fischbowl.com to view them. Fantastic!)
He says that we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist yet and to solve problems that aren;t problems yet.
How does that translate into skills? We are working on this very question in our district in terms of developing our technology matrix.
My initial thoughts are that nuber one it deals with media fluency and media literacy. With information coming at us and multiplying in exponential fashion, students and teachers need to be able to effective access information, find information, check validity, use it ethically and legally, evaluate criteria, compare/contrast, and prioritize. As teachers I believe we will become less and less content specialists and more facilitators and models for ethical information use and processing. That is the number one skills kids need.
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