A few weeks back I gave my first PechaKucha talk at an event held by Caltabiano and Seven Idiomas. I decided to share something I’ve been interested in for about 2 years now since meeting Jonathan Nalder, the founder and Director of FutureWe. This blog post based on his research and work along with input from Monica Smedback, Nick Burnett, Scott Millar and Amanda Rablin.

Hi there folks, if any of you follow me on social media and know my work today, you might be surprised to hear that I used to be a really traditional English teacher. In fact, you might have even heard me say something like…“give me a blob of blutak and a deck of flashcards and I can create you a course.”

And I wasn’t exaggerating! You see back then, I was all about teaching lexical lists and followed a rather rigid lesson plan framework that relied heavily on “What’s this? Listen and repeat!”. How times have changed!

Just like so many others, I have begun a journey of transformation and I’m fully aware that my role as an English teacher needs to be radically re-written if I am to remain relevant as we enter what is being called “the fourth industrial revolution.”

It has been predicted that 40–70% of today’s jobs will be impacted by AI. What you see in the image below is not an unrealistic prediction of what the future holds. This is relevant for us of course, but especially for the current generation of students in our classrooms.

(Image from http://futurewe.org/#how)

At a recent conference I attended about the future of ELT, many people were raising the question of whether or not the English Teacher will, in a not too distant future, be needed at all.

With the rapid advancements of simultaneous translation devices and platforms that offer self-guided learning for language students, is it so far fetched to imagine a world without language schools and without people having to invest all that time and money on English classes?

But it is not my intention to paint a bleak picture of the future. Quite the opposite! I don’t think for a second that I can be replaced by a machine and that is because I believe that humans have skills that AI can’t replace. These are what you’ve heard described as 21st Century skills or soft skills.

Now, it seems like we’ve been hearing about these for at least a century but has anyone seen anything really new in ELT. I’m talking about a concrete, large scale solution that will actually enable learners to engage with, improve and show their competence with these skills…all while learning the English language.

Well, I haven’t. But about 2-years ago, I met Jonathan Nalder and joined the launch team of FutureWe. I’m so excited about this and I am not alone. This international community has over 600 specialists from different areas contributing to build the Framework that you see below.

The idea that drives this project is simple. For students and workers to be ready to thrive in the future, educators and trainers need a shift in mindset. We need to stop forcing students to spend years learning content (like English) for these pre-set future tasks that they may never need to do.

Instead, let’s teach the skills that will allow people to be ready to invent new solutions, create their own jobs — no matter what the future brings.

The FutureWe Framework features five top-level domains, 20 ‘future literacies’ and over 45 key ‘best practice ideas’.

But this may still seem a little abstract. So I’d like to share 5 ways that I think teachers could practically apply this framework and transform how English is taught in Brazil.

1. As the backbone for planning projects.
   The 5 domains in this framework are actually a process: Get started by exploring, and playing ideas, getting creative. Then you need to listen to your team and your community and build supportive relationships. Next, it time to design, map and plan possibilities. So you can then start working to make your project real. Finally, you need to work out how you will communicate and share your results. If you are using PBL, this is a perfect way to structure a series of lessons.
2. Recognizing different skill sets within a group.
   Get your students to complete the Framework Mapping Survey online for FREE. With this information, they may discover strengths they didn’t know they had. Imagine how those students who struggle academically will benefit from knowing that they can contribute to group work in other areas.
3. Forming groups based on their strengths.
   I can also imagine how much more productive and effective group work will be when you can form teams that have this range of different skill sets. Each person will have an opportunity to shine at a different stage of the project.
4. Brand new approach to materials writing
   Despite all that has been said about 21st Century skills, priority continues to be given to traditional skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, by mapping traditional course book units to the framework, I see potential for materials writers like myself, to approach curriculum design from a whole new perspective.
5. Link curriculum back to real world purpose.
   Teaching lessons that link to the framework can help demotivated learners see real life relevance in what they are being asked to do. For example, the framework specifically calls out how learning a second language is a key method to boost lateral thinking and metacognition.

While these 5 ideas are yet to be tested in ELT, they are all based on the work of educators in the FutureWe community. If you feel like this is something that could benefit you and your students, visit the website and access the incredible free resources that are there or come talk to me. Don’t let a robot steal your job!

Learn more, find latest versions + join to help evolve the framework: FutureWe.org/framework

Join the Active English Teaching Community to get the link to the recording of this presentation and receive emails with other ideas, resources, and news: http://activeenglish.com.br/contato/

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Originally published: http://activeenglish.com.br/professional-development/enough-talk-about-21st-century-skills-applying-the-futurewe-framework-to-elt/?sfns=mo

Applying the FutureWe Framework to ELT was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Early May 2019 saw FutureWe founder and St Peters Lutheran College ICT Trainer Jonathan Nalder invited to present four sessions at California’s leading lesson design conference, ‘CUE BOLD’. BOLD is all about blended and online lesson design, and Jonathan was tasked to contribute ideas around both big picture planning, and practical lesson ideas centred around areas St Peters has been pioneering.

In particular, Jonathan presented about ways to use 3D design software CoSpaces. This software allows even primary schools students to create 3D, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) spaces to match subject content they are studying. This not only provides a more immersive medium for students to be working in, but also starts them on the track of developing next generation presentation skills that will help them stand out in the future workforce. Jonathan shared the work of St Peters teacher Belinda Byrnes’ extension English class who last term created VR and AR versions of the medieval stories they had been studying. He was also able to present the best practice protocols for VR headsets in schools that the Information Systems and eLearning teams have been developing together at St Peters, a topic that was very popular seeing as it’s such a new but potentially powerful area.

Jonathan was also able to up his own skills and make new contacts for a couple of areas that match to what teaches in Australia are exploring at the moment. The first of these focused on rooms with extended writeable surfaces. Of particular note was the work of Maths Teacher Ed Campos who also now works for Brown University and his idea of ‘360 Math’ where students learn how to sketch out their maths problems on whiteboard surfaces as a way to reduce the ‘maths anxiety’ that some students feel. The second area Jonathan got to experience was the way that BOLD conference ran teacher PD in general — with short, sharp PD sessions each of which was mapped to a common lesson planning framework. It’s a format that has seen the BOLD conference grow each year even though it runs across a Saturday and Sunday. Several of the presenters expressed interest in coming to Australia to share with and learn from Teachers here so the idea of a joint event may even be a future possibility.

Check out a twitter recap as well via Wakelet here: https://wke.lt/w/s/g-xKk8

Jonathan goes CUE BOLD 2019 was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Jonathan Nalder with input from Monica Smedback, Nick Burnett, Scott Millar, Amanda Rablin

As we enter the fourth industrial revolution where it’s no longer just human physical but also mental skills that technology can replace, a different approach is needed. It’s generally understood that the third industrial revolution era of steam engines and factories created huge social impacts as large sectors of the population shifted from rural to urban life — a situation that was in large part addressed by the development of mass formal education. In 2019 however, the speed of change as the sum total of human knowledge doubles in shorter and shorter time frames is rendering this solution ineffective. Adding more content in or years onto formal education has reached its natural capacity. In addition, research shows that the number of trained people required by manufacturing is falling, even though the amount of goods being made continues to rise. This is part of why a range of predictions are estimating that 14–70% of todays jobs that will be impacted by AI (1,2,3,4), and why it’s argued that such an unpredictable future means that training needs to refocus onto the skills that AI can’t replace.

As yet, no big-picture framework has emerged or been adopted to enable this pro-active refocus even though we are facing such an unpredictable transition that may affect billions of people. This is despite extensive research from Dr George Land (5,6) showing creative lateral thinking skills fall from 98% at the start of formal schooling to 12% by age 15.

As well, even though many people and organisations are now aware a new approach with more human-focused skills is needed, they don’t know how to engage with such intangible skills, nor how to help learners and workers understand, improve, and show their competence with them. The result is a disempowered society stuck between hoping someone, somewhere else will invent the new solutions, communities, jobs and futures we need, and the promise of what this new era can bring.

However, the last two and a half years has seen a community and framework arise to work on these problems. Founded by Jonathan Nalder, an awarded educator of 18 years, and now assisted by co-Director and ex-Principal Nick Burnett and a team of 10 volunteers, the FutureWe community of like-minded experts has grown beyond 430.

The first part of FutureWe’s solution to making the intangible skills needed tangible is a mindset change from ‘spend years training for pre-set future tasks’ to ‘be ready to invent new solutions no matter what the future brings’. Such a mindset naturally leads to asking ‘what skills and approaches can help learners and workers achieve this?’ a question that inspired Jonathan to draft the first version of a framework that spells this out as a compilation of the best ideas available. This framework has since evolved to version 10 via more than 120 discussions, workshops and peer-review sessions. Now called the FutureWe Readiness Framework, it features five top-level domains and twenty ‘future literacies’ which distil over 60 key ‘foundational ideas’ down into a map for thriving in a fully automated era — not just as a list like most other frameworks, but as a holistic and contextual journey.

The framework also has adult and student versions, and as of 2019 has become interactive via an online mapping tool that is already revealing answers as to what future literacies most people are both strong and weak at. In short, the framework has been designed to give individuals, teams, educators, and employers what they are crying out for in this area — a 4th industrial revolution-proof way to 1. make intangible soft skills tangible, 2. map progress, 3. guide improvement and 4. showcase or report on how ready we are.

That then is the big picture, or ‘overview effect’ (to borrow a term from Astronauts who have observed Earth from the distance of space) of the framework, wherein we get the widest possible view and perspective. But even such a community-informed and peer-reviewed framework alone can’t create an impact big enough to help society transition in time. So let’s now turn to five ways that show how teachers and professional trainers are taking the framework and practically applying it.

1. An action and project-focused scaffold to shape course planning

All teams and cohorts are trying to achieve something — be it completing a project or learning specific topics. Embedded across the framework is an explicit process of ‘start playful and divergent, understand the problem and your team, make sure thinking and planning is in place, manage getting to the goal, and share and communicate results’. This process can form a contextual backbone for any project or learning process with the added benefit of the soft skills or future literacies layer. It also serves as practice for later times when work or further learning requires these skills again.

2. Forming groups based on their strengths

Once students or teams have completed the Framework mapping survey (preferably by completing it for each other so responses can be compared to avoid the ‘self over-reporting’ syndrome), Digital Technologies teacher Amanda Rablin has found the data can immediately be used to form students or staff into teams with the right mix of strengths. This could mean ensuring each team has members who are divergent thinkers (creativity), team-focused (community), can manage projects (project delivery) or are good communicators (storytelling) for example.

3. Get to grips with intangible skills

Traditionally, education and training have had difficulty fully addressing skills like curiosity, agency or storytelling. One example is the Australian Curriculum which specifically mandates ‘General capabilities’ and ‘Cross-curriculum Priorities’ such as ‘Ethical Understanding’ and ‘Sustainability’. These sit outside traditional subjects and are designed to integrate within and across them — but as well-intentioned as this approach is, in practice the more standard subjects of the curriculum often tend to take up the most focus. Mapping a topic like sustainability to the framework however gives it the anchor points within that to illustrate why it is just as important by showing which exact parts of the ‘creativity to community to planning to project delivery to communicating process’ it belongs to (see the attached graphic.

4. Link curriculum back to real world purpose (prep for robot-proof)

In more recent years it has become widely acknowledged that students struggle when learning is isolated and disconnected from authentic, real world applications. The Australian Council for Education Leaders 2016 paper on this topic (7) puts ‘real life relevance’ at the top of its list of ways to ensure authentic learning occurs. With becoming ‘robot-proof’ an area of growing awareness for students and their parents, the framework provides an immediate way to link any subject back to how it helps one be future-ready. Teacher Monica Smedback of Solna Stad in Sweden is a Spanish language teacher, but her students are gaining an extra layer of connection for why this subject is important as Monica directs them to map what they learn. What the students themselves are finding is that their daily tasks are actually often strengthening their ‘Community’ skills (‘collective mindset’ as underpinned by concepts such as global understanding, benefit mindset and collaboration) and their ‘Thinking’ skills (as the framework specifically calls out how learning a second language is a key method to boost lateral thinking and metacognition). This same mapping can be done for other subjects as well to better show how and why they are connected to real world needs.

5. Refer back to the framework mapping for tracking professional development

With a tool for helping to map the intangible skills our future requires now available, it next becomes possible for all workers and learners to return to it over time to help track progress. This can be done via the freely available survey at www.bit.ly/future-mapping which provides a customised PDF report for each completion. Even better results can be attained by having colleagues complete the survey for each other as way of ensuring unbiased responses as well as providing the opportunity to engage with ‘Feedback’, itself one of the twenty literacies in the framework.

As more and more trainers and teachers begin to adapt and apply the framework, more and more use cases are being devised. This is an incredibly encouraging development as helping to put each learner’s quest for future meaning at the heart of curriculum, as the framework seeks to do, is one approach “most likely to generate the resilient communities needed to face a future of unimaginable challenge and change’ (Barnes and Shirly, 8).

Trainers, managers and leaders can get a head start on using the framework by accessing all the resources the www.FutureWe.org/framework. Those wanting to contribute ideas as well can join the community at www.FutureWe.org/contact.

Teachers can work directly with students via the ‘Student Starter Edition’ which has been developed from work at St Paul’s School and in BOP Industries workshops, also downloadable at www.FutureWe.org/framework . This student edition includes a suggested task where students begin adapting the framework to support their own learning project.

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(1) https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/automation-skills-use-and-training_2e2f4eea-en

(2) https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

(3) https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages

(4) http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1119786.shtml

(5) Dr George Land, TED talk https://youtu.be/ZfKMq-rYtnc?t=5m29

(6) ‘Breakpoint and Beyond’, Dr George Land, Beth Jarmon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887305474/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

(7) http://www.acel.org.au/acel/ACEL_docs/Publications/e-Teaching/2016/e-Teaching_2016_10.pdf

(8) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1365480207078580

How future-proof skills intersect with where workers and learners are today was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve had the opportunity to co-lead the ShapingEdu.asu.edu project’s ‘Connect Education and the Workforce of the Future’ neighbourhood recently. In our chats it’s only been natural that conversations have looked ahead — and the current neighbourhood challenge to brainstorm forward twenty years to 2039 has really got me thinking.

The ‘Utopian’ idea I have come up with for this challenge is this:

I want to see a future where there is no longer a gap between the ‘education phase’ and ‘work phase’ of life. Of course in reality there is natural overlap, but to roll out mass education as societies have done in the last 2–300 years, we have had to make it seem as binary as possible, a ‘this then that’. BUT just as in 2019 we widely acknowledge now how learning is a life long activity, hopefully by 2039 we will ‘get’ that ‘work’ is also life-long. If learning can continue on forever, why shouldn’t what is considered ‘work’ extend back to younger than just say age 16?

Now by ‘work’ I’m not referring to the stereotypical drudgery of a fixed job — but rather of the satisfying, beneficial activity we yearn to do to — pursuits and ventures that help us be fulfilled and improve our lives and those of the people around us. (This work may include being paid — either by bartering, new businesses, self-invented jobs, time banks etc — or perhaps by 2039 Universal Basic Income or other changes to the social order may have arrived. However for 6–16 year olds, the freedom of pursuing fulfilling work without the need for monetary payment me actually be a huge advantage for them and the societies who trust them to contribute?)

The utopia I suggest then is one where the real-world ideas, projects, input and ‘work’ which all kids are capable of are recognised and respected — and supported — such that from an early age there is no distinction of age between good ideas and ‘kid’ ideas. Naturally all the scaffolding and wisdom of learning theory needs to be there — but I challenge my fellow humans for 2039 to be as open to what students are capable of at any age (certainly from about age 6) as we are now in 2019 with the idea of older people still being able to learn. Are you up to this challenge?

My 2039 utopia? > life-long ‘work’ AND life-long learning was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nikolas Winter-Simat has been a key member of the FutureWe Community since the very beginning in late 2016. Right now he is in the middle of writing an important series unpacking how the current dominant systems of our planet are misaligned with what’s needed to support life as we know it.

Dive right in at > https://wintersimat.wordpress.com.

Article 3 [of 12] is especially relevent for the FutureWe mission to help all learners know how to thrive in a fully digital and automated future, and Nik has been kind enough to let us reproduce it here in full:

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The global transitions needed to move from the current unsustainable systems towards more sustainable ones will require a concerted move across many disciplines and sectors. Central to this is the development of more integrated (individual and collective) ways of being in the world. The complexity of this undertaking is incredible and will require high levels of collaboration, creativity and adaptability within short timeframes. Methodologies from the field of design have emerged as capable of working with such ‘wicked’ problems. Commonly working with complex problems across disciplines, designers regularly work in a future-oriented way in iterative processes, with many unknowns and with diverse partners (Nelson & Stolterman, 2003).

Transition Design as a broad movement identifies the need for new visions of the future, diverse theories of how change occurs, personal interior development (including mindsets) and design methods that work together towards more sustainable futures(Irwin, Kossoff, & Tonkinwise, 2015). Transition design has been used in the development of transition towns, post-democracy governance systems, post-growth economics and social entrepreneurship. Transition design can be applied to education design so that changes in education contribute to the larger societal transitions needed in collaborating with disciplines outside of education. This contribution is primarily through students’ integrated ways of thinking acting and being that expand beyond the linear, mechanistic and anthropocentric.

Futures

A futures-oriented education design connects current human ways of being in the world with the emergence of future realities. The development of imagination, empathy and collaboration that include human and non-human participants is central to generating new visions of the future and more integrated lifestyles.

Change Theories

Theories that contribute to understanding and enacting change such as ontological design (see Article Ten), social constructivism and agential realism are central to taking a well-informed systems approach to education as holistic human development. These theories contribute to an understanding that diverse actors such as learning environments, ideas, tools, people, human actions, cultural norms, social traditions etc. all contribute to emerging futures.

Personal Development

The healthy continued interior development/maturing of an individual is a part of an expanding mindset and worldview that continually transcends and includes previous stages. This progression expands to include the needs and concerns of increasingly diverse ‘others’ and is thus crucial in the contribution to more sustainable futures.

Design Methods

Innovative ways of problem framing and solving are needed, in particular, those that are future-oriented, work well with change, and thrive on complexity. These emerging design methods must have the capacity to develop solutions that increasingly include the more-than-human world.

References

Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., & Tonkinwise, C. (2015). Transition design provocation. Design Philosophy Papers, 13(1), 3–11. doi:10.1080/14487136.2015.1085688

Nelson, H., & Stolterman, E. (2003). The design way. . New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications.

Transition Design & a Futures-Oriented Education was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why Shouldn’t Classrooms and Students get access to next-gen storytelling tools?

DOWNLOAD free mini-book www.MakeXR.net

Most of the worlds population will only ever get to travel to small areas of the globe, or experience just a fraction of the possibilities that life offers. Similarly, it used to be that access to advanced tools like Virtual and Augmented Reality, 3D objects, 360 degree videos and Holograms was only available in high-end technology labs. However, recent developments now mean that not only are these tools widely available, but that the extra immersion they bring marks out a new era for learning.

“Our research shows virtual simulation is as good or better than traditional teaching methods” — William Sheehan, Director Medstar Training Lab

Across many industries such as Medicine, VR and AR are already being used to increase the impact of learning. While the conscious mind may know what it is interacting with is not real, the effect on memory and understanding of experiencing and emphasising with new environments in digital form still leaves a lasting effect on the brain that is comparable to real life. Edgar Dale’s ‘The Cone of Experience’ is widely asserted to underscore this with his idea that generally, people remember 10% of what they read, but closer to 90% of what they design, do and experience. Add in the fact that VR and AR experiences can extend out into space or back in time, and the possibilities to enhance learning via such XR ‘extended reality’ tools are numerous.

“To move beyond pure novelty in education, virtual reality needs to shift from a platform of purely consumption, to one of creation and immersive storytelling” — Greg Kulowiec, EdTech Leader

However, as noted by leading Education and Technology teacher Greg Kulowiec, just consuming virtual content is not enough. The real breakthrough beyond how well XR can stimulate understanding is for students and teachers to move up the hierarchy of learning or SAMR ladder to redefine learning by creating and sharing their own content. Gaining such next-gen storytelling abilities not only sets them up to be future ready no matter what effect AI and robotics have on society and work, it empowers them to confidently share their own ideas and voice in a way that showcases competence and mastery in ways never before possible. These storytelling skills are considered on of the most vital ‘human intelligences’ as mapped by the FutureWe Readiness Framework’s future-proof literacies that will set todays learners apart.

The version 1 of this mini-book aims to share how such tools can be embraced in any classroom with tips, best-practice ideas and sample lesson workflows pitched at playful beginners ready to ride the 4th wave of the technological revolution and at the same time, become the leaders who other educators and students will look to.

Many thanks to the IT team and teachers at St Peters Lutheran College for their support, to the CoSpaces Edu and FutureWe communities, and to the foundational models it draws on — Cone of Experience, SAMR and FutureWe Readiness Framework. Look for more soon — and download the mini-book for free at www.MakeXR.com. Feedback and more ideas always welcome!

• Jonathan Nalder

Free ‘Make XR’ mini-book — AR, VR, 3D + more for Education was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have we entered an eternal twilight where, before each new technological day sets, another is already rising? And if so, what does this mean for society and the role of learning?

25 years after the invention of the internet, it is fair to say that ‘surfing the web’ is now a well understood thing. Approximately 4.2 billion people are ‘online’ and society as a whole has adjusted to what having near-constant access to every piece of information ever written means.

Except it hasn’t. While ‘using a web browser’ has now mostly joined last century’s dialling telephones and typing on keyboards as a standard skill, there is a wider challenge that comes with moving from the limited points of view available in the print-only era, to 2018’s situation of billions of pages of ideas spread across almost infinite topics. Added to the angst this can cause is the fact that not only can most of humanity access so much information (which doubles now every two years according to EMC *1), but it can also publish and add to it via blogs, comments and social media.

As has happened in previous eras however, the sheer cultural shock of these developments will hopefully be sorted out over time. Imagine for instance living in say 3000 B.C. as societies worldwide adjusted to growing food rather than hunting it — a switch that meant basic survival could for the first time consume less than basically 100% of a group’s energies. I mean how did those societies cope with suddenly having maybe 2 to 5 hours a day of spare time?

Except the agricultural revolution took thousands of years (10,000 and 2000 B.C.) to slowly spread around the world, meaning there was plenty of time to adjust. The Industrial revolution of around 1750–1850 also brought well-documented massive change to societies such as urbanisation and the technology that allowed for two world wars. There may still be some tribal groups who have not been impacted by this era, but by and large across 100 years, nations of the world acclimatised to what, for example, steam and later electric power meant for their lives.

In comparison then, twenty-five years of the internet is a very short time for the world to have adjusted. We are collectively probably doing very well. Except since the internet, we’ve also seen a few additional waves come faster and faster. Mass smartphone adoption (that means the internet, cameras and digital versions of most things are in our pocket) has happened in about 10 years; social media and what it means for privacy in a little less. One sign of these developments not having been adjusted to yet is the current (2018) debates around ‘fake news’ and manipulation of elections via social media posts. (Not to mention the impact of mobile phones on mental health and social cohesion). These are huge and very important issues and the fact that massive data breaches and polarising political outcomes have now brought these to the forefront of most people’s minds is a sign historically that global society is at least aware and can now begin to process such new cultural and social norms.

Then along comes AI. While Artificial Intelligence is limited to ‘narrow’ use cases for now (phone assistants, highway autopilot functions), ‘general’ AI that can combine functions and operate at a human level of thinking is reportedly very near at a time when we haven’t finished adjusting to the previous big waves of tech yet. Voice assistants have spread to a majority of digital devices in less than 5 years — and as the numbers I use in this piece decrease, you can begin to discern the point it is raising — this constant squeezing of time available for society to adjust has reached an event horizon predicted by futurists such as Alvin Toffler (in Future Shock) where the arrival and dissemination of technology happens at a speed that is indistinguishable from ‘now’.

One of the innovations which the Industrial Revolution is acknowledged to have brought (as a response to the speed of change of that era) was the mass education system. This system has proved a method of aiding and supporting the social and economic changes generated by that time. At the beginning, the goal was to occupy the majority of the population for 6–12 years with memorising everything needed for life in modern society. Except the sum total of what might be needed to survive and thrive through modern life has picked up a few extra things since 1850. Right now there are educators planning how to teach about ‘fake news’ and online privacy on top of the two hundred years plus of other topics that fill up the curriculum. ‘Crowded’ is the term perhaps most often used politely to describe where this process is up to. Certainly humans are relentlessly capable of adapting and assimilating as history has shown — however it is no wonder that as the time to adoption of society-shaking new technologies shrinks, many are turning to AI and its capacity to augment human abilities as being one solution.

So what to do? Clearly as apps now write their own code, and developments like quantum computing, bio-tech and space colonisation advance towards reality, a mindset change for Education at least is needed. So here is what this student of history, scifi, theatre and learning proposes: Instead of trying to cram in everything a student needs to be future-ready into 10–16 years — let’s change focus:

Education should be about giving learners the skills to invent their own solutions and futures no matter what tomorrow holds.

This idea represents a shift from the teacher and curriculum focused mass-schooling that the world has always known. Instead of the system having all the answers and transmitting that to learners, this shift puts the responsibility for learning onto learners. Imagine if everyone was their own teacher? Except we already are. The buck has always ultimately stopped with ourselves, and the life choices we make after schooling, as well as during the 17 or so hours of each day when not in formal school. The challenge for Education then is how to transform and acknowledge this while still being there for students in all the other ways they need. How this might happen will form the basis of the next post…

*1 https://www.emc.com/leadership/digital-universe/2014iview/executive-summary.htm

When the Horizon Collapses — Exponential Technological change and what an exceptional new mindset… was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If I told you we might improve cognition in classrooms by up to 101%, you’d want to know how, yes?

UPDATE: For new info on testing across Australian schools and organisations with the Learnometer production device from Gratnells UK through 2020, follow @jnxyz and #learnometer tag

By 2019, thanks to a range of research projects into office and classroom environtment conditions and student-ownership of their spaces (led in particular in Education by the Learnometer.com project from Professor Stephen Heppell), it was obvious these factors could be improved to boost student leanring. In fact, research has now reached the point where the evidence for harm being caused to students in sub-optimal classrooms is ready to inspire an industry-changing transformation in how learners are supported to achieve.

One of the most well known of these research projects in regards to physical environment was published in 2015 by Harvard researchers with the detailed title of ‘Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Exposures in Office Workers’ (1). The general findings of this paper were that cognitive functions were 61% higher in rooms with low concentrations of VOC’s (such as formaldehyde), and 101% higher in those that also had ventilation to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels.

Other research has confirmed similar impacts. A 2010 University of Technology Sydney study (2) found that improved air quality resulted in a 10–14% improvement in spelling and mathematics results. A Yale School of Public Health study (3) conducted 2010–2014 with 20,000 people in China showed that some children lose the equivalent of a whole year of progress across their school lives due to high levels of urban air pollution.

In addition to air quality, enhancing other environmental conditions has also been shown to positively enhance classrooms. A 2015 study by Salford University (4) demonstrated that good lighting significantly influences reading, vocabulary and Science test scores. In regards to temperature, the USA-based National Bureau of Economic Research (5) found that “math performance declines linearly above 21C (70F), with the effect statistically significant beyond 26C (79F)”. Lead researcher Joshua Graff Zivin of the University of California concluded that “if you move from roughly 70F to roughly 87 ½ F, a child’s mathematics score decreases by 1.6 percentile points … when you see a test score change of this magnitude, it’s pretty notable.”

These factors of air quality, light levels and temperature, as well as the levels of visual complexity and student-ownership, have been visualised together in a 2018 article from Edutopia (6) in terms of what percentage of academic performance they represent. The conclusion was that together they are responsible for 49% of all academic progress attributed to classroom design.

Qualifying classroom environmental data and what constitutes optimal learning conditions has been the pioneering goal of the Learnometer project (7) begun by Professor Stephen Heppell, who has worked with a team of experts since 2015 to develop a classroom environmental sensor unit as a result. The resulting units have been operated in schools world-wide, further adding to the data about how classrooms can be enhanced. Prof Heppell has also collated information on what conditions are optimal for learning as part of the Learnometer.com site at http://rubble.heppell.net/learnometer/remedy.html, and is preparing an enhanced Learnometer device for 2019 .

In Australia, Learnometer units have been trialled at three schools — most recently from 2018 at a Lutheran College in Brisbane by educator, ICT Coach and founder of FutureWe.org Jonathan Nalder. This informal trial showed that many classrooms could be enhanced by regular data collection and analysis to optimise learning conditions, most notably around air quality even in air-conditioned rooms. Not only is this an issue for students, but for the teachers who spend their days in such rooms and can also greatly benefit from knowledge about air quality, light levels and temperature.

Based on the potential of Professor Heppell’s work, and his own trial, as well as the research showing the additional impact that flexible classrooms, visuals and student-ownership can have, Jonathan was inspired to join the efforts of those working to bring the benefits of such a ‘classroom climate’ enhancement project to more schools. This has involved him sharing the research so far as well as learnings from IOT (Internet of things) professionals and the ‘future readiness’ program he founded called ‘First Kids on Mars’ (where environment sensors like the Learnometer stand in for spaceship and Mars-base sensors).

Next for Jonathan and the community of interested Australian educators also keen to learn more, is the development of a three stage program to introduce environmental testing devices into schools in ways that benefit their learners. (In beginning to create such a program, Jonathan plans to draw on the SAMR model of technology integration and the 5 domains of the Be Future Ready Framework).

Step 1 could be a Classroom-level, student-led project that bundles basic environmental sensors with a flexible inquiry-based unit developed to be classroom-proof, with room for students as experts and problem-solvers, and the ability to match it to curriculum. This step would see individual classrooms develop their own solutions to sound, light or air quality issues.
Step 2 could be a School-level solution where 4–10 environmental multi-sensors are paired with staff training, and student experts from step 1 to support it. This step plans to draw on future releases of devices such as the production Learnometer from Gratnells.
Step 3 could be a combination of step 1 and 2 that also includes ongoing support, use of official next-gen Learnometer units, updates and links to solutions for participating classrooms, schools and partners.

The goal of all these ideas is to empower students and schools with how data can be used to enhance learning conditions, for all of the tangible reasons found in the research cited above. Doing so also presents the opportunity to link curriculum with skills collated in the Be Future Ready Framework (FutureWe.org/framework), a collation of best practice that sets out five big picture ‘literacies’ which can enable students to adapt no matter what their future in a more digital and automated era brings. Specifically the ‘Thinking and Planning’ literacy covers critical thinking and problem-solving skills, both of which can be boosted for students who participate in the project-based steps Jonathan is developing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — -

To find out more or collaborate on a program for your school or organisation, please email Jonathan via contact@futurewe.org, and don’t forget to follow the original Learnometer twitter account https://twitter.com/learnometer as well.

References:

1. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037
2. http://www.wolvertonenvironmental.com/Plants-Classroom.pdf
3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-pollution-causes-huge-reduction-in-intelligence-study-reveals
4. http://www.salford.ac.uk/cleverclassrooms/1503-Salford-Uni-Report-DIGITAL.pdf
5. http://www.nber.org/papers/w21157
6. https://www.edutopia.org/article/flexible-classrooms-research-scarce-promising
7. http://learnometer.com

‘Classroom Climate-Change’ — Enhancing classroom learning with real-world data and student… was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It seems that everywhere I look these days there’s a gender inclusion policy, a drive to remove gendered barriers, a focus on girls in STEM… and while most of me is cheering the initiatives, there’s another part of me that wonders if we’re not applying labels that risk excluding those who don’t identify as female, in addition to devaluing the “traditional female” job roles.

I’m just going to come right out and say this: I don’t know the answer. What I know is, I’ve got a whole lot of questions and if I’ve got them, there’s a pretty good chance that students do too.

The biggest question is: what do we even mean by “gender”? The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, Gender Equality, is to Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This seems to somewhat negate any social constructionist arguments about the nature of gender, its fluidity or lack thereof, whether or not it’s a binary, to what degree it is influenced by culture and tradition, and even if there are such things as gender-biased tendencies toward certain skill sets or ambitions. It is undeniable that there is a disproportionate number of women and girls around the world whose existence is wretched: unpaid labour, physical and sexual slavery, child marriage and other horrific forms of disempowerment and dehumanisation. It appalls me that the freedom to make decisions about the fundamentals of life is, in some parts of the world, limited by whether or not your body has the potential to incubate a child.

Yet even as these liberties are delineated by sex, so too do we apply less obvious limitations even to those of us who are fortunate enough not to be born into those authoritatively patriarchal societies. And we often do it with good intentions.

“How do we get more girls into STEM?”

This question implies two things that concern me: the first is that girls aren’t naturally interested in or drawn to science, technology, engineering or mathematics subjects. As a girl who grew up with a great love for these subjects, surrounded by friends who also loved these subjects, many of whom grew up to pursue these areas in their careers, I find this patronising and patently false. And the second thing may be even worse: not only are girls not naturally interested in STEM, but they need the omnipotent, benevolent “we” to shift them into that track whether they like it or not. What about the girls for whom STEM subjects hold little interest? What about the boys for whom STEM subjects hold little interest? Why are we holding STEM up as the answer to all our hopes and prayers, when it represents only part of our predicted future — a future that will require many different intelligences? How do we get more girls into STEM? Maybe by not talking about them as if they’re not already there.

The FutureWe Framework recognises that STEM concepts and practice are vital to the future, but as one set of literacies among many. It is beyond time to stop separating, even unconsciously, “soft and hard” skills — and it is imperative that we stop equating job roles with gender. Gender is a fluid, dynamic construct that alters not only from culture to culture, but from person to person — and has little to no bearing on whether or not a person is suitable for a particular job or industry. The sooner this is not only recognised, but so accepted that it is no longer an issue, the better for our collective future. It should make no difference to the way we teach and talk about the world of work. Our thinking should be agile and responsive to the needs of the individual and the wider community. We should constantly challenge our own biases and preconceptions.

I want to live in a future where the exceptions are no longer held up to prove the rule. A woman who is successful in a “male-dominated” field is not a freak or a headline — she is a success, just as her male colleagues are successes, or her gender-fluid, non-binary colleagues are successes. The sooner we stop acting as if someone stepping out of a “traditional” role is noteworthy and build a new tradition of rewarding merit, determination, flexibility and creativity instead of conformity to perception, the sooner we can get on with the job of moving forward as a united humanity.

Are we over-gendering our educational futures? was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We were given the privilege of delivering a keynote at the 2018 Combined QLD Principals Associations’ State Conference last week.

The purpose of our keynote was to be both provocative and also to share some opportunities and reasons for optimism.

In this post we are going to share just a couple of the activities we undertook with participants and also reflect on what emerged from one of them.

Activity 1: Education in 2030

(Huge respect and thanks to Holoniq (https://www.holoniq.com/) for providing the scenarios and also the data from the feedback from conference participants.)

We just want to draw attention to the text to the right-hand-side of the photo below:

“Global Education Market to reach $10 Trillion by 2030”

Participants were then informed of five possible scenarios about the state of education in 2030 and asked as table groups to decide which they thought was most likely:

Education As Usual — Scenario 1
Traditional education institutions remain the trusted source of learning and the most effective vehicle for jobs and prosperity. Higher Education consolidates, global talent platforms emerge and government remains the core source of funding around the world.

Regional Rising — Scenario 2
Regional alliances dominate the competitive education landscape, supported by strategic and political cooperation. Cooperative blended delivery and regional talent hubs cross-load labor supply and demand to strengthen regions.

Global Giants — Scenario 3
This global free market environment has fostered the emergence of ‘mega-organisations’ with ubiquitous brand recognition and the scale to achieve significant efficiencies and industry power.

Peer to Peer — Scenario 4
Learning online through rich, personalized human to human experiences dominates the post-secondary and skills training sectors. Blockchain technology fundamentally reconfigures credentialing and unlocks the collective creativity and IP of teachers.

Robo Revolution — Scenario 5
AI drives a complete reversal in ‘who leads learning’, with virtual tutors and mentors structuring learning paths, providing assessment tasks, giving feedback, adjusting according to progress and organizing human tutoring when needed.

The Results

Many thanks to Patrick Brothers, HolonIQ Co-Founder and Managing Director who provided links to all the relevant information. His brief feedback (there are results from across the world on the HolonIQ website) was:

“Really interesting results, Robo Revolution in last place is not so common but Peer to Peer as #1 is on trend for sure.”

For those who want to look at the detail, here are the live results.

Activity 2: How can we think big enough to be future ready?

After being deliberately provocative with Activity 1 we also then wanted to share our optimism and opportunity to work together to not only survive but to actually thrive in a largely automated future.

So we then spent some time sharing the FutureWe Framework developed by Jonathan with input from the FutureWe Community and we would encourage you to visit http://futurewe.org/framework for more information of the framework shown below and to see who’s been involved in its development.

We’d encourage you to check both yours and your school/organisation future-readiness here: http://bit.ly/futureassess and feel free to share with others.

We are happy to share a copy of our slides here: http://bit.ly/futurewe_qassp_slides always keen to work with settings and organisations keen to become future ready.

We’d also like to take the opportunity to share more news on our ongoing partnership and conversation with QASSP through the start of a series of Meetup’s: http://bit.ly/shapingedu information below:

This was originally published on LinkedIn

Are you curious about the future of learning? was originally published in FutureWe on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.