Formal education originated around the time of the first industrial revolution, and our general approach to education has changed little since then. In classrooms and lecture halls around the world, students still mostly sit facing the front, listening to the teacher deliver content that they’re expected to memorize.
This isn’t to criticize teachers and lecturers, far from it. I’m an ex-teacher, now school leader, and I have immense respect for the work educators do. But to teach the skills that are necessary to thrive in the 21st century and create the leaders that our world needs, the way education is delivered must change: This means teachers becoming facilitators rather than content deliverers, relying more on:
- Digitized content and online learning.
- Personalized, self-paced, and self-directed learning.
- Collaborative, project-based and problem-based learning
- Bite-sized learning (given students’ attention span of around eight seconds)
- Immersive learning, harnessing AR/VR technologies.
Rethinking WHAT and HOW we teach is essential if our schools are to meet the needs of 21st-century students and to prepare young people for success in our rapidly changing world.
