Future of Learning Top Reads for week of June 22 2020
This week features two reads from British edu-provacateur Graham Brown-Martin.
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“Why don’t you design a school?” by Graham Brown-Martin, on Medium
“I’m reminded of something the late, AI pioneer and learning theorist Seymour Papert said when asked what 3 things he would change about schooling in the age of the personal computer. He replied,
“Do away with curriculum. Do away with segregation by age. And do away with the idea that there should be uniformity of all schools and of what people learn. […]
“Online or not, if we apply 21st century technologies to 20th century paradigms we end up with a system where learners, after reading a book and watching YouTube, could pass a written test about swimming without ever getting wet. Excuse the metaphor but with rising sea levels this probably isn’t a good strategy. […]
“It’s in this area of doing, creating and making, getting outside and experiencing the world where our technologies for learning often disappoint. Generative learning, expressed by making useful new things and solving real challenges together, shows the weakness of learning management systems that reduce learning to consumption of content and instruction.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
Spring 2020 was less “online school” (ie, using the medium to do things that are not possible in school) and more “remote learning” (ie, send “schoolwork” over the internet to be done remotely).
Papert’s suggestion may be too radical for some, but it is hard to argue with Brown-Martin’s argument about “generative learning”: great learning, whether online or offline, starts with assessments that enable students to apply their learning to problems they have never seen before.
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“University as a Service (UaaS),” by Graham Brown-Martin, on Medium
“Prof Noam Chomsky said, ‘you don’t win the Nobel Prize by reading the most books’. Education then, isn’t just content. Learning requires that we do something with it and apply it in the form of practice otherwise how do we know if it is useful or even true? […]
“University as a Service (UaaS), where higher education course and degree modules are unbundled and accessed via a monthly subscription, could be a landing spot for the future of higher education and lifelong learners. This comes with some caveats however. Even assuming that the social aspect of learning between students engaging remotely can be solved; from the performing arts to engineering and medicine there comes a point where practice must occur. Learning can’t simply be ‘Platonic’ as my friend and colleague William Rankin has described it. An unbundling of theory and praxis might provide some foresight as to how university buildings and facilities may be repurposed in the future after the great transformation for which the pandemic has been a catalyst. Perhaps the facilities of universities are made open to their communities. Might then the role of such places be for civil society to come together to explore the future. […]
“When the music industry was disrupted at the turn of the century those who did most of the complaining weren’t the artists or their audiences. It was those who missed the limo’s, expense accounts and the accoutrements that came from being a music industry executive. It turned out that they had little to do with the music. They just got in the way.”
Why does this matter to the future of learning?
Three important ideas here:
To repeat the point from the previous entry, great learning involves students applying learning to new situations.
Given that, content can live online while campus can become a place to bring together civil society for “applications of learning.”
This model will naturally threaten those who benefit from the current status quo. It takes more than good ideas to create change.
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