The future of education is now. For many districts, COVID-19 reaffirmed what they already knew about the limitations of traditional learning models; for others, the pandemic revealed new opportunities to meet the needs of all students using more flexible structures and systems.
The Future of Learning Council is committed to leveraging research and recent lessons from the pandemic to institute a longterm, systemic shift in teaching and learning.
The McKinsey Global Institute recently defined the skills citizens will need to thrive in the future world of work, no matter their occupation. They highlighted three significant areas of development. Citizens will need the ability to:
- add value beyond what can be done by automated systems and intelligent machines
- operate in digital environments
- continually adapt to new ways of working and new conditions
To prepare students for a future where they can add value, succeed in digital environments, and seamlessly adapt to new conditions, educators need to develop the conditions for learners to practice and master cognitive, interpersonal, digital, and self-leadership competencies now.
Therefore, the future of education requires us to substitute traditional time-based structures for models that are designed by and for students—models that embrace flexibility in location, time, modality, and assessment—and models that nurture social and emotional development.
COVID Recovery: Five Strategies for Advancing Student-Centered Innovation
