What’s Next in Learning?

I participated in a Getting Smart webinar this week titled “What’s Next in Learning?” The participants were a collection of learner-centered leaders across the country discussing what 2024 and beyond could look like when it comes to young learners and their learning plans. Here are the topics we discussed:

AI in Learning

This group of educators was much more enthusiastic about the future of AI in learning than what today’s media is reporting. If you read most of the posts and articles these days, then you realize that many traditional schools are suspicious of what the advent of artificial intelligence might mean to our public schools. Traditional leadership is concerned about artificial intelligence aiding in student cheating. Traditional leadership is concerned about students not learning how to read, write, and problem-solve on their own, since they now have artificial intelligence to rely on.

But if you pay attention to the news, these traditional school leaders are the same ones that are still trying to keep cellphones out of their schools. They have convinced themselves that modern technology is wrong for their teachers and students. They want to keep things the same as it ever was.

The traditionalists are wrong.

Today’s learners will learn about and use artificial intelligence, just like they have learned about and use cellphones, whether traditional school leadership embraces these technologies or not.

It would behoove the traditionalists, whether they be principals, teachers, or other staff, to embrace AI (and cellphones for that matter) and commit to figuring out how these technologies can be used for the betterment of young learners and their learning plans. If not, traditionalists need to be prepared for more young learners voting with their feet and walking out of their public schools.

Portraits that Inspire and Align

I wrote an article not too long ago highlighting Getting Smart’s portfolio work. Getting Smart has focused on five portraits to help schools categorize their work: the Portrait of a Learner, the Portrait of a System, the Portrait of a Leader, the Portrait of an Educator and a Self-Portrait. It’s a nice way to compartmentalize the work ahead of a traditional school district, if they have any interest in jumping into the 21^st century and changing their outdated practices.

But like I said in the earlier article, very few traditional districts will be able to commit to this type of “portrait” work. Some will try it but fail due to all sorts of roadblocks – critical parents, non-supportive supervisors, the daily grind. Most won’t even try to change, and instead just keep on keeping on with the same old, used-up strategies that didn’t work for kids 20 years ago and still don’t work for them today.

Work That Matters

The world of school and the world of work and the way they work together has always been problematic, and my experience tells me that much of the disconnect is due to the school world. Whether schools want to make placement decisions about where and when their students can work – if they are going to receive “credit” for that work – or employers feeling they don’t have enough supervisory authority toward the young person during their work time, the relationship between educators and businesses has always seems strained.

Very few schools seem ready to cede the right amount of decision-making to their employment partners. Until that happens, I’m afraid “work that matters” won’t matter to the young learners who desperately need employment training and experience.

Growing Talent

It’s clear that our most of our current learning leaders inside traditional schools are not properly trained to do what many of our young learners need moving forward – things like building learning plans, resourcing materials and experts to assist in a young person’s learning, providing feedback to young learners beyond what those young learners score on pencil to paper exams.

We need to stop focusing on “teaching” when it comes to growing new talent, and start emphasizing the importance of “learning,” and how “learning” happens (including defining, planning, executing, and evaluating that learning.)

And most of our current institutes of higher education are poorly prepared to provide the type of training necessary for us to begin focusing on “learning” and not “teaching.”

New Models in Networks

Getting Smart does a good job of identifying groups that are practicing good work and providing models to the rest of us throughout the country. Many of those groups have started to form networks to support their work.

The problem here is that these new models, and their new networks, are just too small to make a substantial difference in supporting young people becoming smarter and stronger, compared to the traditional public school system.

We need to find a way to create more and more new models while building networks that can challenge the current learning market share, a market currently dominated by the traditional public school system. The sad part of this situation is that black, brown, and poor kids, currently trapped in our traditional public school system, are forced to attend bad schools, too many of which are part of the traditional market.

As a school friend used to say “We’ve got work to do.”

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB