Welcome to Classrooms of the Future!
Here, we take a deeper look at some of the key components that will define education in the 21st Century, moving forward. In order to fully immerse yourself in your visit, please ensure you stop to experience the following features:
- Visit – Explore our site, learn about future trends & see some of the most innovative schools around the world.
- Take our Poll – Tell us what you think will be the main hurdles facing classrooms of the future.
- Padlet – Share your ideas of what you envision for the future of education.
- Reflect – After your visit, post a reflection in the discussion board. Some questions to guide your reflection:
- What do you feel will be the biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms?
- Is there a component to future classrooms that we may have missed that you would like to share?
- How have you already implemented some of these features in your classrooms, today?
Enjoy your visit to the future – click here to begin
Liana & Raquel
Hi Raquel and Lana,
Thank you for such a great OER. I truly enjoyed it. The website banner successfully conveys ”classrooms of the future” vibes :). I would like to note that only the first slide of the Basic Map is in English. The rest is in another language. I would’ve loved to see other parts of the world included in the statistics as well. Mackenzie’s TEDx talk inspired me to focus more on problem-based learning and problem-solving skills in my practice both as an educator and a mom. I really like the mind map created by Liana as I think it sets out the most important areas or goals educators of the future need to focus their PD on. I think the most essential features of future classrooms are them being experience classrooms which take place in flexible and outside spaces that resemble real-life places and engage learners in real-life situations to enhance the 4Cs. the Smart School design took me on a time-travel trip into the future, and the innovative classrooms of the world video amazed me and also raised so many questions. I would like to dig deeper into how these schools design their curriculum, evaluate students’ performance, accept student’s application, handle bullying and behavioral issues, …etc. and would like to research more into the outcomes of their innovative environments and approaches.
I anticipate some of the hurdles will be cost, overworked and undertrained staff, and a resistance to change especially from ministries and school boards.
Thank you for such a valuable OER. It is already in my bookmarks!
Hi Safaa, Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your walk-through of the site. This was an interesting topic because it was super broad and forward-looking. There has been a boom of information about what learning will look like in the future, especially since the pandemic changed most of the world’s habits. It was hard to follow a single trend. Rather, the picture that emerged of the “classrooms of the future” was a convergence of many different trends changing in dramatic ways together, from spatial design to classroom dynamics to content delivery to human interactions. Schools can change one aspect at a time, but when a school commits to changing all aspects together, something new and remarkable emerges. My initial thoughts were that classrooms of the future recognized the school as a holistic system, where a student would get all necessary supports from proper nutrition to access to sports, arts and cultural facilities.
Thanks also for the note on the map. Liana introduced me to Genially during this project and I was super impressed with the product. That was my first attempt at trying a board! I was drawn to these statistics because one of the elements that determines what products will be embraced in the future is market size. By sheer numbers, Canada’s education market is a smaller player with just 4.9M students to the US’s 77 million. However, I was also struck by the idea that there can be great power in having a smaller educational system as well. It may allow for more independence, adaptability, or less susceptibility to volatility or passing trends. After all, the Finnish education system is recurrently recognized as one of the best in the world, and it serves just about 550,000 k-12 students.
This was definitively an interesting topic to explore and we really hope you find it a useful resource as you discover new practices and trends to try in your class or practice.
Hi Liana and Raquel, thank you for such an engaging OER! I learned a lot and was very impressed with the layout of the whole website and all the interactive elements. In your OER, you mentioned the Microsoft TEALS program. I was partnered with them during the 2019-2020 school year so I thought I would share my experience. The reason why I partnered with Microsoft TEALS was because I didn’t have a computer science background and I had to teach computer programming. The program gave me a curriculum and several community volunteers that assisted my class. This took a lot of the pressure off of me since I didn’t have to develop my own course contents and I had professionals who worked in the computer science field assisting my class. I found the collaboration between my teaching expertise and the volunteers’ computer programming expertise to be very successful. I was able to give them best teaching practices while they gave small lessons to the students on coding concepts. Having other “teachers” in the classroom was also helpful in troubleshooting the students’ programs as well. Microsoft TEALS allowed me to gain experience as a computer science teacher and gave the students real industry connections and insights. In response to the last reflection question, I currently teach game development and our class is heavily project based. Through making projects/ games the students care about, they are implicitly honing their 21st century skills mentioned in your OER. The students need to communicate and collaborate with each other to work on different elements of the game and to address any issues and roadblocks along the way. The students also need to critically think of the problems they are trying to overcome and come up with or to search for solutions to problem solve. Lastly with the creative nature of game development, the students are able to put in their personalities and their creative touches into their games.
Hi Jerry, Wow! Thank you for sharing your experience with one of the projects mentioned in the partnerships section. It is always interesting to hear how the first-hand experience compares to the company’s product or premise. I am thrilled to hear that you found the TEALS program to be useful to you and your students. Even though I have some reservations about these partnerships becoming mini-product placements, when the provider can genuinely bring value to the class and the learning experience, there is a really strong case to be made for using their content, tools, network or support. It is also really interesting to hear from an educator that teaches game development, which I consider very much a 21st century skill. The field of game development is so complex, spanning everything from storytelling to user experience to some programming. It is one of those career fields which I truly feel has an inter-disciplinary lens. These emerging fields and industries really are re-defining what “coursework” and “class” mean for newer generations.
What do you feel will be the biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms?
First of all, top-notch job. Well-researched. Great insights. I can see work that was put in to this. I think a huge hurdle around implementing future classrooms is teacher education, and alignment with curriculum and university admissions. It’s hard to personalize learning if a school is following AP, IB or A Level curriculums, especially when these curriculums and courses are favored by universities. I actually think much of what was discussed could be implemented today if all stakeholders were on the same page. As a business teacher, I wish I could start actual businesses with my students, but I am stuck with anaylzing case studies with the kids due to the demands of the curriculum. I would be interested in learning how I could implement some of these practices within a strict curriculum.
Thanks for your comments, Leon. You bring a great insight as a business teacher indicating the struggles that you face with curriculum limitations and training. Much of the research I did for this OER demonstrated a move towards business-approach to education, where students work in collaborative settings to develop products and ideas. I agree that teacher training at the university level definitely needs to align better with the goals of future education, and curriculums need to provide more open-ended learning opportunities. At my school, our 7th grade teacher runs an entrepreneur fair where students have to develop a product in a team and over time learn the process of developing a small business with a specified budget. Although it is a smaller scale model, the skills students learn throughout the engaging process are more meaningful and provide good insight into the skills required to be successful.
This was a great OER! I think you covered most of the main points, from what I have read about classrooms in the future. I think the biggest hurdle for future classrooms is definitely cost! As I mentioned in the padlet, my district is building new schools. These new schools are being built with flexible learning environments in mind. There are also outdoor education spaces. However, our older schools have not had any renovations to them in years! So, our new schools are moving forward with these futuristic learning changes, but the majority of the schools are built very traditional, and very little funding is provided to transform them to the spaces we need to have in schools.
That being said, teachers have the power to implement some of these changes in the classroom themselves. For instance, in my classroom, we spend a lot of time outside. I also have flexible seating in my classroom – I have a carpet corner where students can work. I also have portable lap desks that students can use to work anywhere in the classroom. I’ve seen classrooms with couches, stools, desks, tables, and beanie bag chairs. I think creating a flexible learning environment is the easiest way to start transforming your space into a 21st century classroom. However, this also requires money and this is definitely limited for teachers, so it can definitely be a challenge.
Thanks for your comments, Justine. Yes, cost is something I feel will be the largest overall hurdle as well. Like you, I too am in a team undergoing the process of seismic upgrade/school re-build for my current school. Because it is an independent school, some of the challenges and benefits we face may be unique to our specific situation, however the focal point of all decision making is inevitably, cost. It’s great to hear that you are already implementing flexible learning spaces in your current classroom without necessarily adding cost. Like you, I agree that teachers have opportunities to develop these models by being creative with the physical spaces they currently have access to.
Hello Raquel & Liana, I would like to second all the comments made earlier about your work. The site looks great and very easy to navigate. Both tone and content match your topic very nicely. As a French immersion teacher, I am very much into immersive experience. I work in British Columbia, Canada. But I have in the past organized field trips to the city of Quebec, where students were able to have one week of authentic cultural experience in the French culture. These trips however can be too expensive for some parents. Thus, it is exciting to see that, with VR in the classroom, students can potentially have cultural experiences in many destinations without travelling cost!
I also noticed your segment about outdoor education. I am wondering what do you think physical education for the future will look like?
Thank you!
Hi Semi, thanks for your positive feedback. As you mention, I too believe that VR will allow students to access unique opportunities that they may not have due to cost or sheer limitation. As an educator with a Physical Education background, I actually have a lot of opinions about the need for Physical Education now and in the future. With the ever increasing use of screen time both at home and at school, I think teachers need better training about the implementation of digital tools and ensuring that they are not simply substituting traditional tools like paper and pen, but instead, are providing unique and engaging learning opportunities. I also believe there will be a shift into developing the overall well-being of students and staff, both mentally and physically. This would include a focus on both high intensity physical activity as well as active learning that would take students outside of their classroom to explore nature and their physical surroundings and making connections to their learning. We have yet to see the long-term implications of the pandemic in children, and I believe overall wellbeing should be at the forefront of the Physical Education component of future classrooms.
Liana, I get your point about having strong opinion in favor of PE in public school. I am 100% with you on that. I, myself, don’t have a PE background. However, when kids look sleepy in class, especially after lunch, I would do seven minutes of physical activity with them before teaching the lesson of day. That strategy always works. I can imagine how VR could be helpful in that regard. Thank you once again!
Hello Liana & Raquel, thank you for all of the great content this week on Classrooms of the Future. After reviewing your OER, I feel like I have a great visual of what the future of education may look like, some of the new technologies that may be at play, and some of the limitations we may encounter. I alluded to this in the Padlet, but one of things at top of mind for me is that although technological advances are making many things possible that we had never imagined (we have learned about AR, VR, MR, assistive technologies, and other emerging tools for the classroom in previous OERs), I fear the participation gap will continue to grow. As some schools, districts, or countries are able to keep up with the evolution, many jurisdictions that do not have adequate funding will be left in the dust. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think policy and changes at the government level will keep up? I also think blended learning and access for rural or remote areas is going to be super important, and as we create classrooms of the future, it will be neat to see how we ensure that open access is promoted for communities outside of large centers. I work in conservation, and I can see how Classrooms of the Future will transform the way we collect information and share it with students, mostly through AR/VR/MR opportunities, which is just so neat. I’m hopeful that new technologies like this will cultivate the next generation of passionate land stewards and conservationists, and also do wonders for climate change and environmental education. Thank you again for the great work!
Hi Kendal, thanks for your feedback. Yes, like with all things that go through public policy, I feel some school districts will be slow to adopt these new technologies. I often see policymakers as very rigid and lacking creativity when trying to find solutions to current problems. I believe that if districts really want to move forward with these future technologies, they will require some form of corporate sponsorship. This is where I believe we will see a continued rise in private sector education. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing school names underscored with – “A Google School” or “Powered by Apple” or “Microsoft Education”. This could be a near reality as school budget limitations will create challenges in accessing new technologies and technological support.
Thanks for your additional thoughts, Liana. I always have to remind myself that private sector education already exists in Canada, and no doubt will continue to grow – it was really neat reading about all of the innovative schools that you highlighted in your OER – so many neat concepts!
Hi Liana and Raquel,
Thanks for such a great OER! I think the biggest hurdle that the education industry will need to overcome to reach the classrooms of the future would be aspects of infrastructure. Without these changes in place, the technology that we would rely on in the classrooms of the future wouldn’t function in the way we need. I think we will need to find a way to provide all education buildings with proper networking to allow for the amount of internet traffic they’d need to function. Many schools have periods of slow internet even with today’s infrastructure, and the data required to be passed through the internet for the technologies of the future will only continue to increase. We will need newer wifi standards for buildings and even faster networking solutions for our communities. As many of the devices we will continue to use will rely on cloud computing, the need for a fast and reliable connection to the internet cannot be understated.
I also think we will need to solve some issues relating to power at a device level. Again as technology moves forward, it often requires more power. Devices in education need to be slim so that they are easy to carry around a school, yet if we keep shrinking these devices we will also continue to shrink their batteries. As an example, the new Meta Quest Pro headset only has a 1-2 hour battery life which would really only be enough for one or two lessons. It is especially important for this device to be light since the user is physically wearing it and then could become tired due to the weight. We will need to find a way to squeeze as much battery life as we can in these small devices, and I am a bit stumped how we could do so while still increasing the power of the device.
Hi Joseph, Thank you so much for sharing your feedback on the project. As we built up the content of the site, we did notice that a lot of the changes in future classroom trends involved re-imagining the physical spaces where learning takes place, which takes a lot of investment. However, I do think that it is possible to adapt learning to some of the inherent limitations of technology. A great example is movie-making. For many years before digital movie-making, cinema was limited to 35mm film cameras, which allow for shooting for just 3 to 10 minutes long, max. The entire early cinema had to be built around this limitation and yet we somehow we still made movies work, including some super long oldie features like Cleopatra, Ben Hur, Wizard of Oz, etc. By the same idea, if our current devices can only handle 1-2 hour battery life, then I guess one has no option but to design the lesson plan to fit those constraints. On the other hand, the issue may be tackled from a different angle, like by providing more versatile charging options for the device, like portable solar panels, so maybe it can be used twice a day. These small, cumulative incremental changes all take time to converge, but it appears many nations and schools within those nations are now more willing to try.
Hi Liana and Raquel,
What an inspiring OER, it left me feeling excited about what the potential classrooms of the future are going to be like! Honestly, working in a public school setting, some of these realities seem like a dream with concerns like building infrastructure, health and safety issues and inequitable access to technology plaguing the system. But not to sound like a pessimist, I can already see shifts in traditional thinking towards 21st century learning including student-centred, project based learning, sprinkled in with some digital literacy. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the innovative classrooms of the world, particularly the Green School in Bali, Indonesia with trends towards outdoor learning spaces. There are so many benefits to outdoor learning that promote inquiry, curiosity and critical thinking, if only we can take advantage of it here in Canada with four seasons. (Also a notable mention to the Ron Clark Academy which reminded me of the 90’s TV show Breaker High where students travelled abroad and learned on a cruise ship). Thank you for sharing all this wonderful information!
Hi Jocelyn, thank you for sharing that great review. It is hard not to feel a little pang when one sees the possibilities and how others are taking advantage of them. I must admit that even though these innovative schools were glowing examples, they are still very unique even in their own countries. Most schools in those countries are not like that, even in their own environment. However, these places and spaces are helping us to “develop new imaginaries,” helping us question what we should expect from learning and learning spaces. So, perhaps we can’t have a full green school, but maybe we can have a little class garden on a ledge. Maybe we start moving towards a model where we decide that we can’t exceed more than 50% “screen” time and the rest have to be hands-on activities like PE, play, theatre, gardening, or some hands-on workshop-type endeavour. I do think it will become increasingly important to consciously integrate “offline learning” into our teaching futures. Or at least, that’s what a lot of the trends would indicate!
Hi Jocelyn…
My devil’s advocate to that is that with all these experimental schools, what ‘kind/quality’ of students are they receiving: the most aspiring and ambitious, or those who may lack a good educational foundation. We (as teachers) always try to assume the best of our students… but not all of our students want to be Lisa Simpson. Some of them are Bart… or Ralph Wigum.
… is my analogy too dated?
Hello Liana and Raquel. Very inspiring this OER. Amazing how come schools can be diverse, abstract, and concrete at the same time. Schools in the jungle, outdoor, open spaces, and connecting people to the environment. Lately, I have been reading about Harm Reduction for many situations in Healthcare. Moreover, Classroom of the Future has an interface with Harm Reduction theory and practice because we need to accept and understand students’ characteristics and disabilities to involve them in the more adjusted learning and development process. I noticed your examples of the future schools’ tailored knowledge and embrace of the planet with concepts of sustainability, coexistence with Nature, and a clean forward movement, reducing damage from interpersonal relationships to ecosystems, drawing attention to professions and jobs that still don’t exist. However, they will be essential in the future. Your OER racked my brain and opened my mind to beautiful possibilities.
Hi Alexei, thank you for sharing your reply. I think one of the most surprising aspects of this project was finding out how much evidence there is that incorporating green education and spaces improves students’ well-being and performance. There were articles about how studying in an environmentally-friendly environment enhances students environmental awareness and knowledge. The benefits ranged from increased physical activity (gardening, harvesting, making foods) to enhanced performance in tests and better class behaviour. I think as countries re-imagine the idea of the traditional classroom (square room, seats, blackboard at front), they are imbuing aspects of their own unique cultures into the space and pedagogy. I am excited at what will happen as educators learn about and exchange these ideas.
https://treecanada.ca/blog/the-benefits-of-green-school-grounds/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160224151400.htm
What do you feel will be the biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms?
I think Jim McKenzie actually highlights it quite poignantly: the biggest hurdle to the evolution of future classrooms is established classrooms and established practices. So many times in my own personal experience at university (as an instructor) have I seen options and opportunities to do things in a better way, when they are summarily quashed down with the idea of “ that is not in the curriculum” or “ that is not how we educate people at this institution.” Many opportunities exist for these institutions to modernize (both technologically and pedagogically), yet they refuse to do so for a number of reasons. And some of them actually have a degree of sense behind them. One of them involves the idea of a certification process. For things to have been taught in a traditional way, and to be certifiably validated by an external organization, creates a check and balance, but also hurdle. In this case, you have to change the minds of at least two organizations: the educational institution, and the external certifying organization. The next major hurdle, maybe ‘us’: and by us I mean teachers born in 80s (or earlier) and educated through the 90s and 2000’s who generally form the bulk of their lives and education sans internet. We are not digital natives, it takes us longer to adapt, and we stick with what we have known to work. Also, you/technology are asking educators to be more than just educators. Even with the introduction of the various Learning Management Systems and Zoom and a host of other technologies that came about and were imposed on teachers during the pandemic, you have asked these instructors to evolve from being teachers, to also taking on roles such as technical experts, video editors, database managers, and online instructors. It takes a small army to make a quality YouTube video (Okay, maybe that’s hyperbole, but it does take a group of people with a decent array of skills and hardware). Why do you think an instructor or teacher would be able to gather all these skills under his or her arms and then deploy them? Shouldn’t we as instructors have that kind of support or technical expertise a content creator has also made available to us? Yeah…. Talk to the budget committee. … But we don’t ask Hollywood actors to be directors, screenwriters, cameramen and video producers. Are we asking too much of educators? Perhaps it is simply a fact that the evolution of technology is simply outstripping the evolution of people… Maybe we must come to accept that the generation(s) that occupy the role of educators are always, from this point onward in time, going to be behind what new technology is doing..
Hi Trevor. Thank you for your powerful reflection. You hit the nail on the head with the difficult conundrum of what is possible vs. what is practiced. I work in a postsecondary environment as well (as support staff, not teaching) and I can say that the slowness and resistance to change are prevalent in my institution as well.
However, I think that the last two years have shown me that things can also change quite rapidly. The teaching profession, like all other professions, is going to face a shortage of talent in the next decades. Its a macro population trend driven by many factors (demographics, covid deaths, retirements, etc. ) that is affecting many fields. I think that these labour shortages are going to disrupt all institutions more than anyone can predict. The education field as a market is absolutely mercenary out there right now. If an instructor doesn’t gel with the institutional environment, maybe they go solo and decide to sell their courses on a private platform. Individuals with 6-month tech certificate may have the same or higher starting salary than someone like a social worker with a 4-year degree plus local certification. There is such a disconnect between what education costs and their promised outcomes. And students are becoming very savvy about assessing their own time and financial investment in education. Why do 4 years when you can do something in 2? Why specialize in a field when you can only practice in one place? Each arbitrary limitation imposed by groups and organizations may become their own competitive disadvantage. I have faith in the next generation, and they will be a lot more self-serving than we were.
I’d also like to offer you a word of encouragement as a GenXr. I do not feel obsolete at all. On the contrary. I think “offline” skills will be needed more than ever over the coming decade. I’d invite you to read the books by Nicholas Carr (The Shallows), and he argues that any and all skills we automate, we may dull. There is something to embodied practice. There is something to paper reading. There is something to doing math with no calculators. There is something about pre-tech learning that is precious and worth keeping. I did not have a computer in my classroom until I was in university, and I think I never knew how precious that would be.
Thank you for this paper. Indeed, we need more “Teaching Green” schools and green building literacy. I found a Green School with six-week course immersion in Brazil, and, in the end, students will have developed their idea into a project for implementation in their communities. Besides, they have trips and the Araucaria project.
https://greenschoolbrazil.com/
Thanks for sharing this Alexei. I believe that we will see a lot more green initiatives in schools around the world. Ironically, as much as we are moving towards more technology in education, we are simultaneously moving towards a stronger connection to the outside environment.
The biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms is funding and user research. In order for this evolution to take place, user research and usability testing must be conducted at scale, to ensure that students and teachers alike can see the value and buy-into the changes. I loved seeing the outdoor learning spaces and the change in the architecture of schools and classrooms. Something I have seen is the change in seating, the wobble seats that allow students to move while learning. I have one in my own office, and I find it very helpful for long calls. I do not teach in a classroom, my learners are software users, however, the tools we use to reach our learners have drastically changed in recent years. With new tools, we have been able to target specific learning to specific users on specific pages of our product. We are able to give them personalized, context-sensitive resources that allow them to learn and succeed on the job.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Emma. I think adopting changing learning spaces and architecture will help foster less sedentary learning. As with your teaching experience, you must recognize the amount of sedentary screen time that is placed upon both learners and teachers. The data on the negative effects of excessive screen time in our youth is frightening, and it up to us as educators to implement healthy screen time habits by balancing it with active, less sedentary learning.
Hi Liana and Raquel, thanks for flying over of the classroom of the future through this amazing OER. It was informative and provoking! I was especially captivated by the Smart School proposal by CEBRA. It has totally demonstrated the potential and opportunities of what a smart classroom could bring to future generations. Firstly, it was aesthetically soothing to imagine the future of the classroom could be evolved and adapted to be efficient for students. The flexible classroom arrangements, such as allowing different locations and methods of learning that make education for adaptable and more. These are just first steps to support a more effective learning process. Secondly, interactive technology tools and softwares are another good incentive the use of different learning styles and they have more benefits with using the tech in class for assisting their journey. This is undoubtedly supporting students of different learning styles and encourage them to be more creative with their tools. I think some struggles will be from the community’s pressure. Coming from an Asian background, jokingly speaking, nothing is more important than academic performances and education qualities. Too much freedom/no fixed curriculum could sound unreliable to some parents. If we could emphasize the potential and pros of how the VR and AR technologies, for instance how these technologies trigger all senses by using 3D images, video, sound and interaction, and how they will help students accept information much more effectively than traditional methods, this could ease their concerns and becoming more encouraging to the future classroom in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience, Michelle. You mention the importance of academic performance and quality of education in your cultural background. It’s interesting that while I was conducting research about future trends for this OER, I came across a trend in China that had parents seeking schools that had a focus on developing more well-rounded children. This change came after the country adopted a series of guidelines in July 2021 known as the “double reduction” policy. The purpose of these guidelines was to reduce the excessive burden on primary and middle school students from excessive homework and after-school tutoring and help to develop healthy, more balanced children. I think this is a really positive step forward to reduce the amount of pressure and stress put on children.
A couple of articles I read about this:
https://www.bjreview.com/China/202205/t20220529_800295457.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10833-022-09470-6
Hey Liana and Raquel! Thoroughly enjoyed your OER on classrooms of the future. I loved looking at the examples of how some schools have moved forward in transforming the class into a more collaborative and intuitive space!
1. What do you feel will be the biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms?
As an Administrator in charge of Technological Growth at our school, I find the hurdle that I am always most cognizant about is the digital divide between students who can afford to participate in such a technologically advanced space and those who can not. I’m a firm believer in access for all, but it is hard to attain that on a public school budget. It would be interesting to see if their were some private Tech companies interested in a private/public partnership to aid in closing the divide as these future classrooms roll out.
3. How have you already implemented some of these features in your classrooms, today?
The pandemic definitely made teachers sit back and reflect on just what a classroom is and how is it best adapted to serve the student population best. I have worked with a number of teachers that have kept a hybrid model of delivery going in their classrooms. Also, we have a few teachers who are delivering lessons and tutorials online for the benefit of their students. Science has been at the forefront of moving forward; they have attempted virtual experiments followed by actual ones so students can compare and contrast. All in all, classes are evolving into unique learning spaces that are more individualized for the student; it will just be a slow, costly process that needs to have both teacher and student on board.
Thanks for your insight, Greg. I agree that public school budgets are not prepared to create Classrooms of the Future. I have worked in both the public school system and private school system, and the difference in speed of implementation, equal access and quality of tech tools is very noticeable between the two systems. The Federal and Provincial governments need to re-evaluate the importance of tech tools in the classroom and rather than simply adjusting the curriculums with buzz words, they need to financially support the growth of these programs and invest in the future.
Wow, thank you Liana and Raquel! I thoroughly enjoyed looking through your OER and imagining a vibrant future of education! I thought I better come in on question 1: “What do you feel will be the biggest opportunities and/or hurdles in the evolution of future classrooms?”. Personally, I feel most excited for the elements of future education models that are learner centred – and mostly in the area of a mental health lens. I think a lot of the trends we saw in your OER could have an incredible impact on the emotional and social well-being of the younger generation. There are a lot of things that I am sure we could all point to that could improve the design of education for the benefit of learners’ well-being, but I wanted to come in on the architecture front: and specifically of one example in your OER of “Me Zones” in the Artemis project at Melbourne Girls Grammar School. As an anxious kid growing up, I can say that this small feature could have made a big impact on me and my learning. Oftentimes, as a learner, you can feel overstimulated and be forced to concentrate on learning no matter what the cost to your mental health. This simple addition tells the student: “It is okay if you need a minute to yourself. You have choice and agency in your own learning.”
Thanks for sharing your personal experience, Sage. Like you, I was very inspired by the “Me Zones” at the Melbourne Girls School. I think we really need to consider the importance of mental wellness in developing the whole child. With the rise of children with ASD, anxiety and depression, we cannot wait to implement such strategies in our schools, especially coming off of a pandemic which has taken a toll on the well being of both students and teachers. It is up to schools to become creative with ways they can support their students and staff to help self-regulate and create a positive learning environment where they feel supported.
Hello Liana and Raquel. Thank you for your great OER! To answer “How have you already implemented some of these features in your classrooms, today?”, I would say that I have started implementing educational learning technologies in my lessons, and I create lessons that are constructivist led. A constructivist perspective is when students take initiative in their own learning, and the teacher is there to guide students. When students learn in my ESL classroom, I do not use worksheets. I try and make students apply what they have learned through collaborative tasks, or through Ed.Tech game such as Kahoot. My elementary/high-school experience as a student revolved around worksheets, general topics, and textbooks. As Fosnot mentions, “worksheets, canned teacher-proof lessons, assigned topics, and language arts textbooks, have no place in these classrooms.” (Fosnot,2013,p.99)”. I have/continue to implement from your OER the fact that the teacher is a facilitator in the classroom, students are provided with roles and responsibilities in my classroom, and the lessons I create are based on their connections to their community and interests.
References
Fosnot, C. T. (2013). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. Teachers College Press.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Petros. A constructivist classroom definitely provides students with more meaningful and engaging learning opportunities. The collaborative tasks and gamified learning you use in your classroom experiences are sure to motivate students in learning. My one hesitation when it comes to these high energy tasks is ensuring educators provide a balance for their students. My biggest issue when running group learning stations or Kahoots is always classroom management. We are a highly stimulated society and I feel that with the increase in screen time and constant engagement, we also need to ensure we teach our youngest learners how to balance their minds through quiet, independent, off-screen tasks, which just might include the use of the dying worksheet. This, in the hopes of allowing young people to appreciate the art of ‘being bored’, as it has been said that through boredom, creativity is born.
I think that one of the biggest hurdles in creating the classrooms of the future will be navigating the balance of innovation and best practice, with the idea of teacher autonomy. That in combination with affordability of technology provide the most barriers to the adoption of new technologies. Schoolwide approaches need to be decided upon and implemented to create schools of the future, with less focus on individual classrooms and more focus on allowing students to use technology and inquiry-based approaches to learning. I am actively using technology in my classroom to change the role of students and teachers by providing them with more independence in their learning. From what I have seen in my school, technologies are rolled out and supported by the district for a couple of years with little subsequent follow up. This leads to small groups of teachers implementing each new system as it emerges and switching to the next thing when new products are purchased, or teachers not bothering to try new technologies as they have been through this cycle of little follow-up support and continuity in the past. The issue is that new technology is thrown into schools as the solution with everything else staying the same.
One example from my school is the rollout of MyBlueprint, a portfolio building website that students can post artifacts of their learning on and that can be viewed by parents. I find this particularly useful for helping students articulate the relevance of their own learning to share with their caregivers. Teachers were asked to stop using alternatives to this software that they had used for years and to switch to MyBlueprint exclusively. Our school of 400 students was also gifted 6 iPads to solve the issue of the technology needed to implement this. Some teachers adopted it enthusiastically, while others struggled with the relevance of the program for younger students or lack of access to technology. Four years in and I can count on one hand the number of teachers who still use the product that the schoolboard is paying a substantial amount of money for. To make the rollout of this kind of technology effective there needs to be consultation with teachers at a school level. While priorities for classrooms of the future can be set by the district they need to allow schools and the teaching staff to decide what implementation and products work best for their learning context. Without buy-in by teachers, there is little hope of sweeping school-wide change led by the implementation of educational technology.
Thanks for sharing your experience with technology tools in the classroom, Katie. I strongly believe the need for a Technology specialist in every school is the only way to reduce many of the frustrations and barriers to access that you’ve indicated. At my current school, we had many reluctant teachers who were not confident with new tools, especially as technologies are so quick to update and change. Having a support network through network admin specializing in education as well as in school tech specialists have allowed our hesitant teachers to feel confident to apply new technologies in their classrooms. If there is little support both in schools and without more funding to the school boards to support these areas, it will be very challenging for schools to successfully enter into true 21st Century learning.