For many years now, we’ve been seeing a gradual, but important shift in the way that people are educated. Gone are the days of notepads, pens and paper notes. Today, students are creating the content on their tablets, they are sending it across intranets, and they are engaging with the class, 24/7 through social media. This is referred to as asynchronous learning.
Far from being the distraction they were originally intended to be, though, digital devices are helping to re-shape the traditional dynamics of education as we know it — they are actually amplifying it.
So, what latest trends and changes can we expect to make a compelling difference to the market in the years to come?
Smart Tech
One of the most obvious innovations we have seen in recent years comes from the rather wonderful Smart technology industry. For example, one tool we might see used in academic study soon is IBM’s Watson device. Watson offers a high-end education tool that addresses and improves the way that people study. This is going to be very important for the long-term growth of the industry, as Watson is known to change the way that people collate data from masses of unmanaged data using artificial intelligence and sophisticated means of analysis.
This is very useful for making sure that the next generations can use technology to find answers that they would have otherwise never received. Even in more limited education functions, new AI toys could be used to manage the growth of younger children and make them more aware of certain interactions.
From making children more aware of their actions and the way they portray themselves, to full on educational aids, smart tech will ensure that the next generation always has a helping hand waiting for them.
The IoT and IoE
A significant element of the web is going to be the Internet of Things. We’re already changing the way we all link together and operate as one today, and the IoT will ensure that this continues. For example, the IoT will enable the rapid growth of virtual classroom learning. IoT will ultimately be a defining factor in shaping the future of the industry. Device interaction will improve and before long it will be easy to take the information garnered in the classroom right to our PCs back at home. The future of learning will involve possessing the means to transmit data as freely and as accurately as possible across the whole group.
Education will benefit from an added layer of depth to the IoT, in which people will be able to make the most of a learning system that brings together various aspects of their day-to-day lives.
More recently, another somewhat synonymous to IoT concept, introduced by CISCO is the Internet of Everything, defined as "the intelligent connection of people, process, data and things." This philosophy can inform a globalized, expanded notion of internet connections beyond machines. The latter can be meaningful for developing tools such as Educational Management Systems (EMS), which refer to managing the massive data of school records and other administrative functions across the globe, perhaps in a unified way.
VR and AR
Virtual reality and Augmented Reality took a very important step in 2018, with the mainstream release of many headsets by the likes of Sony and HTC leading the way, as well as more research-driven industry applications. Indeed, another option — the Google Cardboard— is expected to deliver exciting new ways of learning. It’s going to change the way that students investigate future careers, which is vital to shaping dreams.
For instance, a profession might sound amazing, but the reality could be very different. VR will re-shape how we evaluate the suitability of a student to take up such a profession. with simulations to estimate the performance of the person under a specific role. It will also help students to determine how suitable they are just by trying it out. Was it everything they thought it was going to be?
Such possibilities are explored in pilot studies and research experiments across the world. This type of VR and AR applications, will help students to avoid making the wrong choice early in life and failing to come back from it. Many students wind up in major debt, just trying to get into a career path that, when they “make it” resembles the opposite of what they had intended in the first place.
3D Printing
Another major element of education that is likely to change heavily in the near future is the power of 3D Printing. As one of the most powerful industries out there at the moment, it’s beginning to become a very popular way to learn for kids. Nowadays, children can get their hands on the kind of objects and instruments that previously they could only look at in books and dream of holding for real.
From the crown of a king, to the layout of a medieval weapon (blunted, obviously!) children could get a much more authentic appreciation of the world that they read about on the pages of book. This is dangerous, though, as it prevents children from appreciating the true gravity of what they are reading about. The day that 3D printing stops being so prohibitively expensive, will be a good day as it should help people to finally become involved in the industry, thus empowering and educating the next generation.
In Summary...
Whilst understanding the various challenges that the Internet and similar devices present to the education industry, the trends are already here. People are becoming more appreciative of the integration of technology into various forms of education, as most believe it will quickly help to make people more comfortable with technology, as well as working and living in a multimodal and digitally mediated society.
All of the above technological outputs, have been working their way into education for some time — it’s just a matter of time before they are more systematically implemented in classrooms worldwide. Each will play their part in determining a new dawn for education, which can only be a good thing, ensuring that future generations, receive the best and most relevant learning possible.
One of the most poignant discussions in the museum world, has been on issues of inclusion and access. Prolific museum figures like Nina Simon presenting in the recent Museum Next Conference in London, shared the vision behind OFBYFOR ALL, a new global initiative to help civic and cultural organisations become OF, BY, and FOR their communities. However, what is it that can help take the next step in terms of inclusion and learning within and out of museum grounds?
This article draws on a doctoral research study to investigate museum’s democratic potential, through transformative approaches to pedagogy aimed at meaningful cultural participation.
The ‘meaningful’, stands for a degree of competence in reading, interpreting and constructing meaning from the existing multiple forms of language (Stapp, 1984: 112; Mitchell, 2007: 3). ‘Participation’ involves an ability to negotiate the complex dialogic relationship that exists between the written word, the spoken word, images, objects, time and space (Mathewson-Mitchell, 2007: 3).
Consideration of issues of access in relation to the significant literacy requirements of museums, suggests that increasing focus on the explicit teaching of museum-based literacies, could be the way through which to expand museum visiting opportunities for the less 'conventional' audience.
It is actually proposed that museum-based literacies could act as the means to the development of cultural competence in museum environments. This evolution in theory and practice of, and about museums, has been notably part of radical changes in the museum world since the 1970s, mostly known as new museology.
Museums as Agents of Change
The development of a “new museology” (Mayrand, 1985: 201), is a concept used to describe the focus on the potential of museums as a positive social force. Golding (2009) suggests the museums should act as frontiers, places where learning and identity are produced and developed for all, while new ‘bridges’ are raised between non-dominant communities and their own histories (Philip, 1992 in Golding 2009).
It became profound that if museums accept their educational role, “they must also accept their social responsibility to work towards supporting a participatory democratic society” (Hein, 2005: 50). We need to “take advantage of the current context, as ‘opening new educational and social possibilities’ (Cope and Kalantzis, 2000: 18), to promote democratic education and human needs...” (Early, 2007: 67).
Changing Times, Changing Literacy
Ever since the 1960s, the nature of literacy practice and needs is changing; Hall (1989) suggests this is thought of as a consequence of New Times. New Times is an era of internalization, characterised by the breaking down of borders between local and global contexts resulting from rapid change in communicative practices (Gee, 2000: 183; Luke and Elkins, 1998).
One common element that has changed is that literacy has become inherently plural; thus researchers have problematized the very notion of literacy as a discrete set of skills. Luke and Freebody (2000) provide one of the more recent and useful definitions of literacy:
"Literacy is the flexible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of traditional and new communications technologies via spoken, print, and multimedia".
(Luke and Freebody, 2000: 9)
In such a perspective of literacy, the literate person is one who develops capacity to respond to emerging and communicative needs, a literate person who is a sophisticated user of texts. The individual engages with literacy practices as a decoder of text, as a maker of meanings, as a purposeful user of information and as a text analyst who employs critical thinking skills in the literate work (Luke and Freebody, 2000; Liddicoat, 2007: 20).
Figure 1: Evolution of the concept of literacy over fifty decades
Although acknowledging contemporary, 21st century demands of ‘literacy’ and education, this definition does not incorporate the social context of literacy. Literacy is, as Gee (1996: 22) has aptly described, “a socially contested term”. To this respect, literacy is a social practice rather than merely a means to an end.
Such a consideration draws on the paradigm of New Literacy Studies (NLS) and recognises literacy as a set of socially and culturally constituted practices enacted across and within social and institutional spaces. It acknowledges literacy as a social and historical construction that evolves dynamically (Giampapa, 2010: 4; Potvin, 2009; Garcia, Bartlett and Kleifgen, 2006).
Literacy is seen as a social responsibility including a critical or transformative emphasis in which literacy is a tool to understanding social structure in which we live so we can transform it in meaningful ways (Gee, 1996: 58; Street, 1995). The social perspective of literacy, implies more than superficial contacts with print; it icorporates an understanding of how to manipulate words and concepts through complex daily social interactions in an accepted manner (Giampapa, 2010; Potvin, 2009; Reid, 1998; Kern, 2000) through cultural apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1990).
The ‘New’ in Literacies: Multiliteracies
Following the NLS paradigm, ‘multiliteracies’ have emerged. The term “Multiliteracies” immediately shifts us from the dominant written print text to acknowledge the complexities of practices, modes, technologies and languages with which literate people need to engage in the contemporary world.
The “New London Group” (a team of ten academics including James Gee and Allan Luke) came together in 1996 concerned about how literacy pedagogy might address the rapid change in literacy due to globalisation, technology and increasing cultural and social diversity. They employed the term ‘multiliteracies’ to address these issues (The New London Group, 1996).
Since then, The Ontario Ministry of Education has come up with a number of literacy initiatives, some of which are characterized by a critical and social view of literacy, where literacy is conceived of as "the ability to use language and images in rich and varied forms to read, write, listen, speak, view, represent, and think critically about ideas" (Expert Panel on Literacy Report, 2004: 5).
Figure 2: Multiliteracies and their design elements (Adapted from The New London Group, 2000)
Luke and Luke (2001: 92-94) echo this idea, and argue that new technologies have facilitated the emergence of new kinds of artefacts, such as digital storytelling, requiring new levels of engagement and development of higher and different mental faculties (i.e. new multiliteracies). Luke (2000) also talks about the critical multiliteracies - being able to understand, debate, and act upon the material, political, and social consequences of technological change.
An alternative view of literacy calls for a reconceptualization of literacy as reading and writing the world (Freire, 1970). This conceptualization foregrounds critical thinking in both teachers and students, and looks beyond functional literacy (reading and writing skills), to the knowledge and power relations in literacy discourses.
Agnello (2001) refers to this approach as postmodern literacy, and argues that through this approach “reading and writing become enhanced methods for exploring the democratic self and its formation through ideological exposure to knowledge and power relations formulated by educational policy texts. Through such exploration, literacy becomes a tool for self-, student, and social advocacy rather than commodity to determine whether one measures up satisfactorily on test scores” (Agnello, 2001: 24-25).
Museum Learning as a Multiliteracy Practice
Museum-based literacies or museum literacy, refers to the competence in drawing upon the museum, its space and collections using certain skills and practices. In 1984, Carol B. Stapp observed that “museum literacy” was then a newly emerging phrase that articulated the older idea of a philosophy of museum accessibility.
Museum literacy goes beyond ‘reading’ objects; which may be understood as visual literacy; it requires a deeper level of process and understanding of the multiple and interacting languages and modes of communication found in the museum.
By broadening the view of museum literacy, it is acknowledged that the language that is involved in the museum is diverse and incorporates multimodal literacies including: linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, spatial patterns, technological and print-based (see for instance, Cope and Kalantzis, 2000: 160,203; Giroux, 1992; Hooper-Greenhill, 1999).
Figure 3: The multimodal literacies in museum-based pedagogy (Savva, 2016)
This view of museum learning redefines the goals and strategies of educators and the museum curricula. The idea of education in museums is seen as exploratory, broad, experiential, complex and multi-layered; museum strategies are now audience driven (Russo et al., 2007, Hein, 1998; Falk and Dierking, 2000).
To this discussion fits the incorporation of museum learning into the multiliteracies concept; this is facilitated by the realization that a display of material culture conveys messages about the people who created them and the times in which they were used (Pearce, 2003).
The act of creating an exhibit is parallel to the act of producing knowledge. Exhibits are not simply displays, but systems of signs that express messages about culture. Museums and their exhibits reflect the ideology of those who create them.
In the same vein that “There is no such thing as ‘reading’ or ‘writing,’ only reading or writing something . . .” (Gee, 1999: 93), the same would hold true for creating exhibits. There is no such thing as displaying an artifact without displaying something about that artefact. Also, the interpretation of messages is similar to the deciphering of text, using the signs, symbols, objects, etc., of a museum exhibit as part of the process of creating meaning (Roberts, 1997).
Griffin (1999: 8) identifies the unique learning opportunities offered by museums as: opportunities to closely examine objects or specimens; opportunities for comparison that allow trends and patterns to be deciphered; natural learning processes that incorporate the sharing and communication of ideas and the raising of questions; and opportunities to develop perceptual skills that teach how to gather information from objects and experiences.
Because museum exhibits make meaning through multiple media, multiple modes, and multiple symbol systems, the literacy practice of museum visiting is a multiliteracy.
An interesting project exploring the latter, is the ‘Museum Literacy Project’ in 2008-2010, involving nine different museums, administrations and training institutions based in five European countries, supported by the EU programme Lifelong Learning - Grundtvig Learning Partnerships, 2008. The project focus was on museums and audiences with low schooling level, and how museum literacy can be reached and maximize the museum experience for these audience.
Dimensions of a Pedagogy of Multiliteracies for Museum Learning - The Research Framework
Taking into consideration the unique characteristics of the museum environment, I undertook an empirically-based doctoral study involving the design, enactment and evaluation of the Living Museum Partnership (LMP), a museum-school partnership that unfolded in 13 weeks for the construction of a student-generated virtual museum to support environmental education curriculum (Savva, 2016).
Specific focus was on developing virtual learning environments and applying augmented reality to enhance culturally and linguistically diverse students' repertoires of literacy practices. This design-based research, draws from the field of New Literacy Studies, the proposed Museum Multiliteracies Practice (MMP) framework derived from the multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group, the Learning by Design Model adapted from Cope and Kalantzis and Schwartz’s museum based pedagogy.
Figure 4: The pedagogies interacting in the Museum Multiliteracies Practice framework (Savva, 2016)
It is proposed that museum educators and learning professionals undertake an approach for teaching and learning in the museum setting which incorporates multiliteracies pedagogy. Identification of museum literacies requires thorough examination into the interaction of modes that are evident, the incorporation of multiliteracies implicated, the various sign systems that are employed, and the unique nature of the museum learning environment (Mathewson-Mitchell, 2007: 7-8).
The focus should be not only on literacies as communication (meaning for others, as supports for social interaction). My doctoral research for instance also emphasized on literacies as a form of representation (or meanings for ourselves, as supports for thinking).
Cope and Kalatzis (1996, refined 2000, 2009) elaborate on the potentials of a ‘Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’ in fulfilling these aspirations. Two important ideas brought in a multiliteracies pedagogy are Learning by Design and Multimodality.
Learning by Design, is building into curriculum the idea that not every learner will bring the same lifeworld experiences and interests to learning, as well as acknowledging that every learner is not on the same page at the same time; pedagogies of learning are re-configured to construct learning as “a dialogue of difference” (Cope and Kalantzis, 2005: 31). The idea of Multimodality discusses learners’ movement between written, oral, visual, audio, tactile, gestural and spatial modes of meaning-making (Cope and Kalantzis 2005, 2009).
On this basis, the New London Group (1996) has proposed a multiliteracies pedagogy consisting of situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice.
•Situated practice includes learners’ prior and present experiences in a community of learners (composed of experts and novices).
•Overt instruction involves the teacher’s or expert’s interventions to scaffold (Bruner, 1983) or support learning and increase the learner’s consciousness about learning. Scaffolding is a metaphorical concept that refers to the visible or audible assistance that a more expert member of a culture can give to an apprentice (Bruner, 1983, 1986). You might also note Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), that relates to Bruner’s notion of the scaffold here.
•Critical framing refers to learners interpreting the historical, cultural, political and ideological contexts of learning.
•Transformed practice includes implementing new understandings through reflective practice in other contexts.
Figure 5: The Multiliteracies Model and Learning by Design (Adapted from Kalantzis and Cope, 2000)
Also identified within the Learning by Design Model are four knowledge processes (See Figure 5 above). The knowledge processes identified are:
(a) Experiencing the known and the new
(b) Conceptualising by naming concepts and theorising
(c) Analysing functions and interests
(d) Applying appropriately and creatively.
Findings and Implications for Museum Learning Practice
Stapp (1984) had argued that schools do not address the knowledge, skills and attitudes for museum literacy. Recent observations of the characteristic use of museums by school-based teachers suggest that a relatively passive, idealist approach to museum experiences, as identified by Stapp, has continued, with teachers lacking confidence and competence in the museum setting (Mathewson-Mitchell, 2006).
Based on the findings of my doctoral research, it is suggested that addressing museum-based multiliteracies leads to effective museum-school partnerships and meaningful museum learning practice. Research data suggested that students’ repertoires of literacy were enhanced as they engaged in the learning process as active designers and multimodal learners (Savva, 2016). It was found that students gained opportunities to:
Figure 6: Findings of Museum Multiliteracies Practice research (Savva, 2016)
It is proposed that any museum education programme or museum-school partnership or collaboration pays attention to the following key principles:
1. Teaching children, especially digital natives of our time, to be literate in any setting is not just a set of skills that can be transferred. Rather, education needs to enable them to participate in social situations using the required literacy practices.
2. Museum visiting is seen as multiliteracy practice; as such it requires specific museum-based literacies that are rarely identified or explicitly taught by museums or schools.
Conclusion
Ultimately, this brief review and presentation of the proposed empirically based, research framework for museum learning practice, forms a pathway to follow for inclusive cultural participation at any level and age. The London New Group’s (1996) ideas further developed by Cope and Kalatzis (2000; 2005; 2006) for a Pedagogy of Multiliteracies, could inform the development of the specific literacy requirements of museums, in a way that could lead to full museum literacy and a transformative cultural engagement and participation for diverse audiences.
For many people, the term ‘digital native’ might sound a little strange. It’s not literally someone who lives on the internet, as that might be a little bit impossible. What it does offer, though, is a term which has become increasingly popular in the last decade and a half. Coined by the excellent Marc Prensky in 2001, this term – the digital native – describes the inability to help the next generation, namely the digital natives who were born in the millenia learn in and through technology. Teachers and educators are increasingly finding it more difficult to relate and understand the needs of the generations that preceded them.
Today, as the infographic below shows, people like digital natives tend to get their information through the web and have a different means of learning and then processing information. Therefore, academics are often confronted with the challenges that traditional methods of education that they once employed with such success no longer hold the same ideals.
So, what are some other ways can ‘digital natives’ be taught?
1. Multiliteracies and Multimodal Learning
Supporting meaningful teaching and learning for the 21st century requires to adhere to an expanded view of literacy, which reflects the multimodal meaning making of digital natives and not alone. It has been proposed to promote a pedagogy of multiliteracies involving learning using not only spoken and written words, but also images and symbols of all kinds, sounds and music, bodily gestures and movement, and physical and virtual objects. Educators therefore have a new charge in the new era, to teach these competencies and multimodal literacy practices that students need to acquire and utilize in various contexts in order to succeed in the postmodern world.
2. Collaborative Learning
Probably the most striking way in which we can help the next generation learn to change and grow academically is through collaborative learning. Instead of expecting everyone to dig their noses into academic books and read from the same select sources, we should prepare for digital natives to have more diverse sources and opinions on certain subjects.
It’s important that it is realized how collaborative learning is probably the major secret to making the digital natives out there more comfortable to learn. There are lots to consider about the value of learning as a member of a group and by actually taking part in the learning process through up taking different roles. No longer do people get the same enjoyment from just reading from a book and taking cues from there. To add another bow to the way that the next generation will be learning, we have to appreciate that their means of education differs.
3. Avoid Pretension
One of the major flaws in digital native learning is when a ‘digital immigrant’ (those of an older generation without the same comfort and thought process in digital learning) tries to pretend they are from a more modernized background. It comes across as false and cannot be a valid source of helping to stimulate and improve the level of learning that students can do in general.
This is a major issue and one that has to be addressed. A teacher must find a way of working as the core organizer of the subject, and the person who helps the students to learn. What they no longer have to be, though, is the font of all knowledge and fact. Teaching has moved beyond the head of the classroom being the holder of all the facts. Digital natives find it easy to topple the academics and the experts, so it’s important that schools take this into account as it will majorly determine the next steps in the industry.
A teacher must find a way of using the knowledge they do have to offer the information in a way that can be used a supplement, not as the only fact available.
4. Keep Teaching Human
However, whilst it’s important that teachers avoid going down the route of trying to become false in their educational style, they also need to find a way of making sure that they can keep the human interaction side of things burning as bright as it possibly can.
The human element of learning from a teacher is never going to be going away anytime soon. Teachers have to accept that now students can learn from them even if they are not face-to-face. The rapid growth of distance education means that the education process has to be respected as having changed so dramatically.
Keeping the human element – acting as the person to throw logic into arguments and debates – is a key of being good at teaching the digital natives. They need to know they can learn from multiple sources, but also that their teacher does hold information that they can learn from.
5. Provide a Purpose
Nobody wants to learn from you, no matter how humanized you can be and how far away from the authoritarian image of a teacher you can be, if you do not have a purpose to the learning. Students struggle to just listen to you talking on for an hour and a half – if they want to read a massive wall of text or listen to an interview they do not participate in; they will find it.
The days of memorization (thankfully) are gone in the classroom – it’s now madness to expect that students will just put up and let you make your point these days. Students now read into topics that engage them and interest them, rather than always constantly looking to the power of the teacher to help them learn in the first place.
Give a native control, though, in other words encouraging self-directed learning and they will make the most of that. Let them dictate the learning path in the room and they can find their own way there. Students want to know what they are doing, and why they want to know that in the first place. Act as a facilitator, make your ideas interesting, and students are more likely to want to listen and make that a lesson worth hearing.
Try and just narrate from a book and expect them to learn though? You’ll be shocked.
6. Square Pegs, Square Holes
Many teachers fear that learning through hybrid – typical teaching and eLearning – is the wrong way to go. However, this comes from experience personally as they never had this extra side to their education. As such it’s probably something worth avoiding. That’s the train of thought that many teachers go with – and it’s also why many teachers fail to excite or adapt.
Provide a research-based approach to your learning together. In class, use supplementary content from the web that backs up your point but is put in a more “interesting” tone. Digital natives care not for just your take on things, but back it up with some cool content online they can review themselves? They’ll be far more likely to actually listen. In this sense, different approaches have been employed, for instance, using WebQuests to excite and motivate students through extensive use of online resources.
With so many of the digital native generation in need of technology to feel stimulated now, it’s important that teaching does not fall behind long-term. Sticking with the old ideas and refusing to adapt the way that students are asked to learn, though, will create a chasm that cannot be bridged.
Within a field of fast changing nature of technological progress and the emergence of new pedagogical theories such as design thinking, maker-spaces, flipped learning and blended learning among others, it is extremely important for learning spaces to evolve along with time. Here we sum up ways in which to re-design your school or classroom in a way that is meaningful to nurture 21st century learning.
At the moment, millions of dollars are being invested on constructing new school buildings. Are they really worth the investment? These schools can be considered as monuments to obsolescence. It is common practice that a lot of money are spent to build a 21st century school without really going deep into how and why the school should look like. Instead, people go ahead with the construction that they always wanted to have.
Nevertheless, it is necessary that a substantial theoretical background exists before providing the learning environment that kids need. In fact, it is considered that an appropriate learning space is one of the most convenient practical methods available to enhance the effectiveness of the education system. This redesigned space has the potential to create a better environment that meets the needs and requirements of 21st century learners.
The following paragraphs address some of the critical elements which are essential when taking up the re-design of a learning space:
1. Instruction Should Be the Driving Force of Design
It has been a common belief until recently that it is important to have classrooms that are separated into subject-area departments. This was an old fashioned trend and it has changed during the past couple of years with reference to the benefits of cross-disciplinary work. Usually designers of modern world schools are not aware about the instructional and learning models of the 21st Century or the actual curriculum. However, it is appropriate to create awareness among designers, architects and practitioners in order to design the learning spaces in an appropriate manner to cater the requirements of 21st century learning. Otherwise, we would be trying to fit the learning of 21st century into the industrial age learning spaces that existed in 20th century.
2. Learn to Question Everything
None of the preconceived notions about learning spaces and instructions are sacred. Just question yourself some important questions:
- Is it important to have a classroom where the teachers are in front or in the center? Can learning take place only within classrooms?
- Is it essential for a learning space to have a capacity of about 30 students?
- Can there be smaller or larger groups or can we have both?
- Is it essential to stick to a 9 month school calendar?
You need to question everything when designing 21st century learning spaces. Questioning all of our preconceived notions would help us to get a better understanding on how 21st century learning spaces should look like. It will also help to organize these learning spaces in a proper manner.
3. Incorporate Technology to the Learning Spaces
Technology has gone through rapid development over the last two decades which have not left the educational world untouched. The use of educational technology and technology enhanced learning in general has been associated with a variety of benefits. These benefits maximize significantly by redesigning the learning spaces in order to meet 21st century needs.
Trying to incorporate the use of technology to existing learning spaces will not be effective since it will prevent from gaining the maximum benefits out of the investment. The entire learning space needs to be redesigned in order to capitalize the strengths of the technology. The school, classroom or library, should be re-designed from scratch in a way that will fit the use of advanced technology.
Towards this end, it could be meaningful to design a conference room within the school, which would be equipped with the latest video-conferencing capabilities. Such a facility would potentially allow international collaborations and global networking projects for the students to be engaged in. Therefore, redesigning the learning spaces by incorporating technology can simply be defined as rethinking the spaces to meaningfully capitalize on technology.
4. Design Collaborative Learning Spaces to Suit the Needs of 21st Century Learners
Redesigning learning spaces for the 21st century is all about accommodating the specific needs and requirements of the 21st century learners, both students and teachers. It is evident through empirical research that digital natives learn through use of technology within carefully designed learning instruction. To do so, they must be engaged in modern world school designs that facilitate collaborative learning, and in this sense it is useless to build classrooms or lecture halls row after row.
Instead, the conceptualization when constructing contemporary learning spaces should focus on how to enable room for students to engage with each other in collaborative projects. The learning spaces should assist students to learn things independently from teachers, with facilities to explore new things on their own in groups and conduct research without much guidance. Hence, special attention should be given towards making room for research work and brainstorming when re-designing learning spaces. We don’t need to be designers in order to engage with this process. All that is needed is to have the capability to conduct a preliminary research and figure out the essential changes that need to be introduced to the classroom, school or library. For example, as a teacher, you can retrieve different information on tips to create a more collaborative space within the classroom. The teacher could then use the space as a resource through which to facilitate an effective learning experience for the students.
It is imperative also to consider ways in which the learning space designed will facilitate classroom flow. Towards this direction, it would be meaningful to ask the students' feedback in order to get some useful inputs about how the classroom should look like. In fact, you can ask how the student will intend to move around in the classroom. To make things simple for this sort of discussion, you can print a diagram of the classroom and ask the student or students to sketch where they will move. It would be better if you can trace the movements of the teacher in the same diagram with a different color. This sheet of paper can be useful when determining the heavily used areas of the classroom. Then the inputs can be used to support fluid movement within the classroom.
It becomes obvious that there are a lot of factors which should be considered when redesigning a learning space to suit 21st century education standards. If you have a proper plan and a solid theoretical framework in mind, you will not find it difficult to deal with the entire process of redesigning classrooms in order to respond to the needs of 21st century learning environments. Once you are done, the next step would be to obtain required support and supplies so as to make your space rise to the occasion!
It is apparent that delivering a re-designed learning space requires a lot of money to be invested on. However, the investment is totally worth the money because it has the potential to deliver excellent student learning and aesthetic outcomes in the long run.
Think about all of the ways that technology has influenced and infiltrated nearly every aspect of your life. Paying by check? You can do that online or just with your phone. Making a reservation at a restaurant? No need to call - an app will do it for you. Want to turn off the lights and lock your door? Your smart devices can help connect you.
That technological influence extends to our learning environments, too. Classrooms have undergone a centuries-long change that’s only been speed up with the advent of technology. What used to be one-room schoolhouses in the late 1800s are now redesigned spaces which invite students and teachers to engage in learning using tablets, whiteboards, and more.
One of the most prominent ways in which technology is changing classrooms is through impact on what we think of as the traditional learning environment. One classroom with one teacher standing in front of multiple students as an authoritative figure has given way to a concept known as blended learning. The latter is an instructional approach that capitalizes on the best of both worlds - education and tech.
Blended learning, is a learning trend driving education which in some form, is currently available in nearly every state. In a nutshell, this strategy or approach to teaching and learning involves the student learning through at least partial online delivery of content. In this sense, it offers both traditional instruction - a teacher in front of students - and digital or online content that’s accessible at any time.
The conceptualizations behind blended learning adhere to the notion that students are not uniform, and learning shouldn’t be either. Based on learning theories such as Gardner’s on multiple intelligences, and multiliteracies pedagogy, it is considered that students have different learning styles and come for culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds which should be taken into consideration when planning a lesson. In this respect, it is suggested that enhancing students’ learning through digital content can be a personalized response to students’ needs and desires, allowing them to learn at their own pace through means that are relevant to their lives.
In relation to the different strategies for undertaking a blended learning approach, six models have been proposed for its implementation: Face-to-Face Driver Model, Rotation Model, Flex Model, Online Lab Model, Self-Blend Model and Online Driver Model. More recently, other alternative blended learning models have been brought to the surface of educational cycles:
a) The traditional brick-and-mortar blended learning model:
An approach where the instructor uses online platforms to add resources, assign and gather homework, as well as encourage online discussions and other asynchronous learning activities beyond classroom hours
b) The hybrid learning model:
Students attend live events physically or online (for example webinars) while also work in virtual online environments. There could be an arranged schedule where some days students attend the class and others are optional however students must attend online.
c) The flipped learning model:
Teachers and other instructors record their online lectures and students are obliged to watch them before class. During the lesson, they can work on different tasks and in this sense the teacher has more time to work with challenging topics and addresses students’ difficulties.
Regardless of which type of blended learning model one chooses to adopt, there are certain misconceptions and considerations needed to be addressed. For instance, people often assume that blended learning equals all education online, but that isn’t true. It might be that the focus is on a technology rich environment, nevertheless, there is ‘hands on’ learning. In addition, unlike it is commonly believed, in blended learning students do not work individually only. The can undertake projects in groups with their peers to produce collaborative work online.
Furthermore, blended learning in contrast to the myth that it requires less work than traditional face to face instruction, doesn’t cut down on the amount of work that needs to be done by either students or educators. In fact, both sides may need to work at a more systematic basis. Instructors still need to prepare and students still need to do the work. But blended learning allows those learners to engage with information more frequently in order to fully grasp concepts that may have been more difficult with just one go-round.
Based on these characteristics of blended learning, in summary, the advantages from engaging in such practice have been identified as being:
- The meaningful combination of interactive face to face instruction and digital content through a differentiated personalized based teaching approach
- The use of digitally mediated content such as digital storytelling that has been found to motivate students’ interest and increase students’ learning and affective outcomes
- Access to the instruction such as an online session many times, with stops and pauses to the discretion of the learner.
- Researchers and practitioners suggest that blended learning can encourage students to continue learning outside the classroom. It can expand beyond the traditional school walls to connect with students’ lives.
- Blended learning can maximize the potential for acquiring 21st century skills.
Despite the promising features of this approach, the excitement about the possibilities of blended learning and the ways that technology can better prepare our students and assist our educators needs to be tempered with some serious questions about the process. It’s not a match for every person or every situation. Students need to know what the physical, in-class requirements are, and instructors need to be upfront and proactive about their availability and roles through digital means.
For instance, the technology that’s a given in a traditional classroom may not be available in each student’s home, which can impact learning and pacing. Students and instructors must have a shared understanding about assignments and work - what files are usable and which are not. And there should be practice and testing so that everyone understands the accessibility and usability of that particular online environment.
Whilst there is no fixed recipe for meaningful teaching and learning instruction, it appears that technology enhanced learning is the present and future of 21st century education. Blended learning could be a flexible and dynamic approach through the meaningful engagement with technology.
Whatever the end result, it’s important to understand how blended learning cannot guarantee success. It requires commitment on behalf of the educator and careful use of digital means. And therefore it is important to be aware of its different aspects. This graphic is a good place to start.
Conclusively, it appears that exciting times lay ahead for educators and students all together. Now, more than ever, we are in a position to offer the most engaging form of education that will empower students as dynamic and active learners. Blended learning, as it is proposed in this article, is one powerful approach which could change the education game and will be around for many years to come.
Following the surge of the Covid19 pandemic around the globe and with the new school year kicking off in September, the talk around the current and future educational landscape globally is resurfacing once more. Here we have compiled the top 6 learning trends driving education in a post-pandemic scenario and beyond.
The constantly evolving learning demands and needs of a globalized new millennium challenge the teaching practices and strategies for researchers, policy makers and educators; the mission is to reinvent schools for the 21st century. Working within these realizations, several learning trends for education have emerged in the past few years in an attempt to re-conceptualize education.
Most of these trends are based in the belief that schooling in the 21st century should be connected to real life experiences, becoming meaningful and relevant for students. In this perspective, students as learners are actively engaged in collaborative project-based learning processes integrated in a curriculum that derives from students’ interests, experiences, talents and diverse skills. The learning trends identified below address these understandings and lead the wind of change in education for the years to come.
1. Blended Learning
One of the buzzwords in the educational community worldwide now is blended learning. The term refers to an instructional strategy where the student learns through at least partly online delivery of instruction and content. Teaching within a blended learning environment implies that there are elements of student control over time, place, path and/or pace. There have been six models identified as characteristic of blended learning: Face-to-Face Driver Model, Rotation Model, Flex Model, Online Lab Model, Self-Blend Model and Online Driver Model. The beneficial attributes of any of these models of blended learning are found in the potential to address students’ needs and variant learning styles through differentiated instruction. Such an approach to teaching allows for teachers to make decisions regarding their teaching strategies that will result in better student performance.
2. Game Based Learning
Another trend in education nowadays is game based learning (GBL), which has been cited as a revolutionized way of utilizing games for learning purposes. In particular, GBL is a teaching approach where students undertake work in a game based learning context often in a virtual environment designed by teachers. The intention is for teachers and students to be immersed in the game, collaborate and take action towards a particular learning goal. The aim is to make learning fun, liven up the classroom by engaging and motivating the students. As this is a growing field with increasing interest, the video game industry should consider pairing with researchers to create games that could be employed by formal learning institutions and align with goals of the curriculum. Theorists stress that there is still a need for developing new technology that supports specific pedagogical functions (e.g. group regulation or project management) for schooling in the postmodern era. What we should be aware however is to find a balance between technological or technical aspects and teaching/learning processes.
3. Maker Education
Student work has been taken to a whole new level with the introduction and gradual implementation of maker education or maker movement in schools, a trend starting from the US. An evolution of experiential learning and hands on learning which has been around for more than half a century, the maker education is an approach that adopts a culture of learning by doing which utilizes current and emerging technological tools such as 3D printing, wearable computing, robotics, and coding tools to drive creativity. The intention is to create makerspaces in classrooms where students are given the expressive freedom and digital tools to invent, build and share their work during the learning process allowing for their talents to nourish.
4. Deeper Learning
Deeper learning is part of a developing movement in the US for education that emphasizes on the knowledge that students need to successfully engage in 21st century jobs and civic life. The term refers to a set of student educational outcomes that stem from a set of core competencies, which allow for students to develop higher order skills and metacognitive understandings. Such an example of a teaching and learning approach to schooling acknowledges students’ multiple and diverse identities, experiences and capabilities while also equipping them to become the flexible and critical learners required in our contemporary societies. Even these students, who have been characterized as multimodally literate (Davies 2006) or digital natives (Prensky 2001), are not ‘per se’ capable to critical reflect and make advanced cognitive processes in their everyday activities. Using the deeper learning theory could empower students’ critical awareness of and uptake of learning tasks.
5. Design Thinking
Design thinking is an emerging trend for education that seems promising in relation to other approaches such as the maker education movement. Stemming from product design processes, design thinking refers to a creative process where you employ problem solving to reach to meaningful solutions in the classroom, school or community. Environments such as schools that implement design thinking use it as a basis for teaching different subjects through workshops where students become design thinkers by engaging in problem solving, brainstorming and other activities that aim to bring solution to real life situations. At the core of this learning approach is the intention to empower students to feel confident to create for solving realistic problems.
6. Technology Enhanced Learning
Technology has taken the education world by storm in recent years. Technology enhanced learning is an umbrella term used to describe the use and implementation of technological tools such as smartphones and mobile devices including touchscreen and tablet computers for learning, also known as educational technology. The impact of using mobile digital technologies for example through adoption of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement has altered the learning experience for students. Regardless of their background and interests, students nowadays seem to engage in learning more easily when interacting with these devices while they seem relevant to their daily lives where exposure to technology is constant. The interest in educational technology through technology enhanced learning will continue to grow in the coming years. This is driven by the calls for personalized learning and how to encourage a technologically and digitally diverse learning experience which empowers our students.
The learning trends mentioned in this article are gradually implemented in mainstream education worldwide. The premise is that a more systematic implementation of the above learning theories and practices could transform education for the 21st century.
Hope you found this article interesting, please feel free to let us know your suggestions and what more you would like to see from us. Have a great day!
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