#29 - On the future of education

A few weeks ago, I visited a school in Irving Park to experience the future of personalised learning. The school we visited was a charter school run by Distinctive Schools in a traditionally Hispanic area of Chicago. Our trip leader, Brian "the Malkinator" Malkin, had worked as a teacher in the school as well as the management of the charter school network.

What I saw at the school amazed me and made me excited for the future of education and learning.

Classrooms look completely different

In the new personalised learning model, classrooms are completely different from those of the past.

Classrooms have largely remain unchanged over the last few hundred years. The classrooms that my parents and grandparents sat in (rows of seats with a teacher and chalkboards at the front) were largely the same as those I attended, despite being in a different time and country.

However, the classrooms at CICS Irving Park were customised to the needs of students in this new learning model.

Classrooms were organised in many different formats. Students sat in small groups or individually, in different parts of the room, with each group working on different activities. The furniture that these students sat on also varied. Different furniture and layouts were used for different activities, including tables of varying heights, bouncy chairs, sofas, corner seats and tables with headphones. The idea behind this layout is that different students will learn in different ways, depending on what they are learning/doing. Creating an environment that adapts to students' needs will ideally help them learn better.

In the classroom of the future, the teacher did not occupy their traditional position at the front of the class. Instead, they moved around the class depending on where their help was needed.

The classrooms at CICS Irving Park felt more collaborative and were surprisingly not chaotic, despite what I expected.

A growing part of student’s learning is self-guided

In the new personalised learning model, students learned at their own pace.

Students used laptops and tablets to work through material by themselves and in small groups. Learning was aided by software such as the Summit Learning platform (developed by Facebook) to help students manage their own learning.

In the traditional teaching model, a teacher would cover material, test students to see what they knew, and then move on to the next topic. Instead, the personalised learning model helps students work through material themselves and achieve very specific learning outcomes and skills. The teacher acts as a floating resource who manages the classroom and helps the students work through the material. Better performing students can move on to more additional topics and even help other students. For less performing students, teachers get a daily report on student performance and can intervene in near real-time on helping these students overcome very specific issues in a targeted way.

When Brian told me that students were given the autonomy to learn themselves and in their own manner, I expected that classrooms would descend into anarchy. I expected that students left to their own devices, especially middle school students, would quickly abandon work and become disruptive. I was completely wrong. Students were mature enough to appreciate the autonomy they had been given and act accordingly.

Gamification is changing student mindsets to learning

In the new personalised learning model, gamification is used to guide student learning.

In one of the classes I visited, I was speaking to a second grade student about a reading/comprehension module that he was doing on his tablet. Suddenly one of his friends walked over and asked “What level are you on? I’m on level 15.”. When the first student replied “I’m on level 17.”, his friend immediately went back to his chair and intensely started working through the exercises.

The vice principal who was showing us around mentioned that many of the students (including her own daughter) regularly discuss their progress outside of class on weekends and playdates. Schools have even changed their language around progress to saying that students “achieved” a specific level instead of students “are at” that level, to turn this competitive spirit into a growth mindset.

It’s amazing to see how gamification (applying elements of playing games to other aspects of life) has been used so effectively in an academic context. In adult lives, companies such as Starbucks have used gamification to change individual consumer behaviour. To see it applied to children in an academic context is especially interesting and exciting.

However, change is not easy

Implementing the new personalised learning model requires overcoming a lot of opposition.

Parents are often concerned about the risk that a new model of learning could negatively impact their children's educational outcomes. I was sceptical that the model would not descend into anarchy and I am sure that many parents also shared my concerns.

Teachers can also be opposed to adopting a new model of teaching, especially for older teachers who may have used traditional teaching models for decades. I heard a story of an older teacher (not at CICS Irving Park) who had received free iPads for each student in their class, as part of an educational program from Apple. This teacher refused to use the iPads as they didn't believe they would be useful or valuable for the students. The iPads went from being a useful education tool to useless clutter in a corner of a classroom.

School networks can also restrict progress given the investment and organisational change required to implement personalised learning models. That Distinctive Education operates in a charter school network, outside the constrains of a government run school network, makes it much easier for them to implement changes.

The future of education is exciting

My visit made me incredibly excited for the future of education and the impact that technology and personalised learning will have on students. I can't wait to see this adopted everywhere.