This workshop was performed in three groups with participants representing the ed tech industry, governmental institutions, and business organizations. The first part of the workshop, that was on stock photos of the “future classroom”, generated similar discussions in all three groups where the participants identified them as very generic images, showing a traditional classroom including some digital elements, most of them already established part of the school environment, like the smart board. Based on this, all groups agreed that the dominant vision of the future classroom in these images were not very futuristic, but more of a polished representation of modern-day Estonia. As one participant puts it, “This is reality of today, it’s not the future. The only difference is that there should be more books and there should be a lot more bored and frustrated kids.” The images that did contain more futuristic elements were in turn not seen as plausible futures but rather as “retrofutures” as put by one of the groups, since “things will never happen in the way they are shown in these images”. This was exemplified with an image showing an old bulky laptop and a hologram in the same classroom which the participants found almost comical.
The participants further noted that most images were taken inside and that many images showed collaborative activities and ”tinkering”, such as students building things together. One participant however noted that the students appeared to be “together but alone”, physically in the same space but doing individual work and not really collaborating.
The dominance of indoor pictures was criticized by participants in all three groups who instead advocated for a plurality of learning environments and ways of teaching, including outdoor pedagogies, physical exercise, and aesthetic learning processes. In this way of thinking, technology becomes secondary and is used not as a goal in its own but to support specific learning environments ant teaching methods which is very far from the vision presented in the stock photos that one participant jokingly described as “in the future we won’t have trees and technologies only works indoors”.
Other groups were also critical against what they considered a “technology fetish” where digital devices are used more as symbols for connection and progress than to facilitate good education. “It’s not about the tech but the mindset” explains one participant.
In addition to having access to different and inspiring learning environments, the groups also highlighted students as active agents in their own learning and a “never being ready-mindset” as key aspects of future education. They also missed representation of civic and social skills in the mainstream representations of the future classroom, and put forth values such as social equity, human interaction, democracy and 21st century skills as important.
Below follows a description of how each group visualized these ambitions in a map of the future classroom.
A 21st century classroom
One of the groups based their prototype on the premise that education today is modeled after the society of the 1950s and needs to be remodelled to meet the needs of 21st century life. To begin with, they argued that the curriculum should be made more flexible and possible to adjust for each student. The reason for this is that motivation is a key factor for successful learning so if schools can support the interests and curiosity of students, they will get further in their learning. An interest-based curriculum also demands other kinds of teaching methods that are more student-led and participatory than the ones dominating today.
Another important difference between the 21st century classroom envisioned here, and today’s school is that the former is not thought of as being in one place but to be more of a network of connected spaces, both physical and digital. Online learning has the big advantage that it makes it possible to invite experts in different fields from all over the world, thus also supporting advanced students or those with very specific interests. The possibility to do parts of the schoolwork online is also desired by students explained one participant with reference to the Covid pandemic where and many students reported to enjoy distance teaching even though it was an effect of the sudden lockdown and to a large degree improvised. A more thought trough approach to distance teaching and the development of suitable methods thus holds a lot of potential when it comes to flexibility and student engagement, they argued.
The group also discussed the importance of combining online learning with physical interaction where students and experts can gather, discuss, and build things. This can happen on a regular basis, every week, or as unique events where students can meet up with experts for a few days and work together with them. This dispersed classroom can include farms where children can go to learn about food production and nature, as well as cultural institutions and work-place environments, visible in the map above. The same principle can be used to design school buildings that can be built to include different labs for different purposes such as natural science or arts, as well as the possibility to combine different subjects and topic by removing the walls between these labs. Both within and outside of the school building, the student can choose to visit different spaces depending on what he or she is interested in or working with at the moment. One participant exemplified: “If they want to build car engines they can go to the garage, if they want to do group work in a nice cozy environment and use books they can go to the library”.
They further discussed ways to proceed from the current organization of education to this model and suggested to start with using one day a week for project-based learning to begin with and then expand with more days to end up with a more flexible and interest-based school.
Community learning across age groups
The second group put an image of “a diverse group of learners” at the center of their map and stressed that this is the most important aspect to consider when it comes to the future of learning, to get away from age divisions in in schools and instead create groups of learners based on their interests. In line with the previous group, they held curiosity and motivation enhancement as key element of successful education because this guarantees that “everyone actually wants to learn things”. They further stressed that we are not only interested in different things but also learn differently which means the learning methods must also be individualized.
The age mixed learning environment envisioned by this group is not a separate institution like the schools of today, but an integrated part of society that involves possibilities for online learning as well as workplace training and other hands-on learning. This kind of blended learning can facilitate learning-by-doing as well as challenge-based learning in groups, preferably addressing challenges in the local community. They participants stressed that learning could happen anywhere but also recognized the need for an infrastructure that can facilitate interaction between learners, such as co-learning spaces. Their suggestion was that the government should be responsible for providing such infrastructure and that it could be financed through private-public partnerships.
The government should however not but not be responsible for the content of learning. This should instead come from the learners themselves and be based on the needs of the job market and the surrounding society. This led to a discussion with the other participants about the role of teachers in this future vision. The group explained that “everyone is a teacher in this model” and described a more fluent role where everyone can be teachers or mentors but that “the teacher as a provider of knowledge will end up in history books”. Instead, the groups hoped that in the future, everyone will have their own AI assistant to support them in their learning process. They also discussed the potential of digital footprints to create a granular understanding of a student’s capabilities that can be used to constitute learner groups as well all as helping individual students to develop further.
In the longer perspective, the group saw the possibility to upload information directly to the brain but also stressed that as information becomes more accessible, the role of schools as social institutions also becomes increasingly important: “Already now, with the development of mobile phones everyone has a calculator in their pocket and internet access but with AI and similar big data models we can access all human knowledge, but the question is – what do we do with that information? Where do we come together?”
A diversified space with the student in the center
The third groups in this workshop session presented a map with the student in the center, surrounded by peers/co-learners and adults to assist them on their learning journey. They agreed with the two other groups on the need for different learning spaces and for a more flexible curriculum that contains a base of things that everyone should know but also have opportunities for specializations. In one sense, they argue, this kind of curriculum is already in place in the Estonian school system, but the possibilities are only used by a handful of the more innovative schools, so the challenge in the future is to make sure that all learners get the same possibilities.
The different learning spaces are marked with green pencil in the map and include outdoor environments, hobby schools, art and culture facilities, urban spaces, libraries, museums, and workplaces but also a more traditional school building that can function like “a safe space for children and teenagers” where they can meet and discuss. The need for such a “home base” became evident during the pandemic when the schools shut down and many children missed school as a place for social interaction, explains one of the participants. They also emphasized the role of nature, which was completely absent from the stock photos discussed in the previous phases.
Each space enables different forms of learning activities, such as job shadowing, challenge based learning or outdoor activities, which can be read in blue in-between these spaces. Peer learning and collaboration are also important aspects in this future vision, but in contrast to the other two groups, these participants also stressed the importance of teachers to guide students in their learning process and to provide structure. The group meant that it was too stressful for young children to manage their own learning and that we need consider the cognitive development of children and help them develop into independent learners, step by step. Both the teacher and the home classroom are vital parts of this process, they explain: “To be able to be an agent that is learning, you cannot be responsible for everything as a full-guided person. As a child, you need space to focus”.
The groups also identified some important focus areas that needs to be addressed for these visions to become reality. To begin with, they discussed the challenges of changing established practices within a school and the importance of school leadership to facilitate this, by for example initiating a program of co-teaching and professional development. A second important area is teacher education that they suggested needs to focus more on cooperation and less on individual assessments. Teacher training should also include a systematic training of communication since this is the basis of teaching and knowledge production. Successful teaching methods can also be developed by the analysis of digital learning footprints.
Summary and insights
- Motivation and curiosity are key factors for successful learning and the curriculum needs to become more flexible and possible to adjust to interests of learners.
- Learning can take place anywhere and future education should practice blended learning to combine different kinds of learning environments and learning activities, including nature, cultural facilities and workspaces.
- Social interaction and collaborative skills are important and needs to be facilitated through access to co-learning spaces.
- The teacher role needs to change and become more diversified. Some teachers might be experts in a certain field, others in teaching methods.
- Teacher training needs to include a systematic training of communication skills since this is the basis of teaching and knowledge production.
- Peer-learning and student-led learning should be encouraged by supporting children as agents of their own learning and grouping them according to interests and capacities rather than age.
- AI and digital learning footprints can be used to support individual students on in their learning journey.