What Future
for Education?
By
Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Tuesday,
October 7, 2014
Twitter:
@jonacuso
Post
154
Based
on my experience as a learner and as a faculty member at Universidad Latina in
Costa Rica, the future for education is quite intriguing but fascinating. The
puzzle starts when one looks back in time and you see how education has –little
by little- changed from the moment you first stepped into a classroom as a very
young kid (probably in Kindergarten) and now that you may even be part of the
education of different age groups (in my case at the university level). This
though-provoking guiding “star” brought me to Coursera to help me mull over the
future for education, at least in a Latin American country like mine, Costa
Rica.
When
asked “what ideas do you already have about the future of education?,” I must
confess that I have several. On the one hand, education is harmonizing with the
new trends that technology is bringing along. As an educator interested in
“deep learning,” I have been working with several types of educational
movements aligned with the use of technology. It has been now five years since
I started working with blended learning along with Project-Based Learning (PBL)
and Internet-Based Learning (IBL), which have proven good allies of learners
surrounded by social media, Google, and gaming. Notwithstanding, none of these
trends prompt “deep learning” and deep processing of information that can last
beyond the ringing of the bell at the end of the class per se. If deep learners are meant to “organize new ideas and
concept into a coherent whole based on principles,” to use “learning strategies
that emphasize understanding, application, and critical thinking,” and to
“build on and connect knowledge from one subject to the next and one course to
the next” (Laureate Education, 2010), blended learners can benefit from
education and its actual evolution and direction, but what will happen to
surface learners?
The
Internet has become a great associate for any student, but is it an ally for
deep, hierarchical thinking? What kind of impact is the Internet really having
on education? I am afraid that it is not really provoking the desired effect in
education, which is to help students learn. And that learning, which can be labeled
as mere knowledge, is not exactly creating any kind of skill development in the
learner, nor any type of competence that can be actually utilized in a working
environment (Crespo, R. M.,
Najjar, J., Derntl, M., Leony, D., Neumann, S., Oberhuemer, P....& Delgado
Kloos, C. 2010). On the other hand, it has helped many
autonomous learners achieve their desired learning and expand their horizons
through social media, educational videos in various websites, eBooks that can
now be downloaded for free just because there are authors who are also willing
to share their insights and know-how. Is this another element for the future
for education, in which more and more people can have access to quality
education? I really hope so. And what about the dichotomy that somehow traps us
all: “Task-conscious or
acquisition learning” vs. “Learning-conscious or formalized learning” (Smith,
M. 2003); which of the two types of education can be more profitable for
students? Perhaps both?
To
sum up, globalization is indeed having a great impact on how technology is used
in education, but how is it affecting learning? This is indeed the puzzling
question that brought me to Coursera. Perhaps, after reading all contributions
by participants and what
Laureate
Education Inc. (2010). Learner Approaches to Learning. Retrieved on October 7,
2014 from https://www.dropbox.com/s/886cactgktmt2is/Doc%201%20-%20Learner%20Approaches%20to%20Learning.pdf?dl=0
Crespo,
R. M., Najjar, J., Derntl, M., Leony, D., Neumann, S., Oberhuemer, P....&
Delgado Kloos, C. (2010). Aligning
assessment with learning outcomes in outcome-based education. IEEE
Education Engineering 2010, 1239-1246. Retrieved from http://dbis.rwth-aachen.de/~derntl/papers/preprints/educon2010-icoper-preprint.pdf
Smith,
M. (2003). Learning Theory: models, product and process. Retrieved on October
1, 2014 from the Infed.Org webpage at http://infed.org/mobi/learning-theory-models-product-and-process/
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Interesting Blog- lots of information about the new path of education in the XXI century
ReplyDeletethanks tiziana angiolini