How Future Schools Prepare Students for Society 3.0

Along with advancements in technology comes a greater need for students to develop new skills in order to be successful in this age of knowledge and innovation (Moravec, 2013). Questions arise about how to prepare students in the k-12 setting to meet future challenges within a rapidly evolving society. Being able to leverage information communication technology (ICT) is being seen as one of the integral skills that current and future students need to develop to be productive members of society (Beare, 2002; Moravec, 2013). Singapore enacted the “future school” initiative where ICT is closely integrated into select schools as a pilot model that may address these needs (Lee Yong, Nair, & Lim, 2013). In this paper, we will explore the question of how future schools are able to prepare K-12 students for the challenges of the future.

New Skills Needed in Society 3.0

As society becomes more technologically advanced, people will need new skills to cope with the ambiguous demands of the future (Cobo, 2013; Hartkamp, 2013). Many theorists have noted the disconnect between the needs for students to acquire skills pertinent to a knowledge innovation-based society and how K-12 educational systems are currently geared towards providing students with skills that are rapidly becoming irrelevant (Beare, 2002; Cobo, 2013; Hartkamp, 2013; Moravec, 2013). Moravec (2013) in particular frames his discussion in terms of an evolution of society based on the primary competencies needed for that era. The author describes "Society 1.0" as agriculture and industrial-based where the primary skills of importance were those that allowed the student to perform very narrow and specific functions within a mechanical and hierarchical system. It was during this time that many of the educational institutions and paradigms were created and put into place and were successful in creating a generation of workers ready for factory work. Contrast that with the 20th century "Society 2.0" where with the advent of the internet, an abundance of information and interconnection placed a greater emphasis on individualized knowledge sets and " knowledge management." This is the current era of society and many Society 1.0 skills of the past are devalued as they can be automated or eliminated through technological advancements. The advancements are occurring with such rapidity that Moravec and Cobo (2013) postulate that a new and drastically different set of skills that incorporate information communication technology (ICT) will be needed in the near future as "Society 3.0" approaches. Therefore, educational systems should be reimagined in order to produce students who have creativity, flexibility, and open-mindedness (Hartkamp, 3012).

Moravac (2013) describes “Knowmads” as knowledge and innovative workers who are characterized by their flexibility in being able to work in any organization, with any group, and not bound by the temporal and spatial limitations in these collaborations. These knowmads increase their value by building and sharing knowledge gained through personal experiences that can be leveraged to create new ideas and solutions to emerging challenges. Furthermore, as it pertains to education and technology, Moravec provides that knowmads will be life-long collaborative learners who will use technology purposively in order to solve problems, including the problem of acquiring and managing their own knowledge base. Beare (2002) puts forth that students will need to be responsible and entrepreneurial citizens with the skills of digital literacy to navigate information systems free of spatial and temporal constraints who can determine their own career paths as well as co-construct their own world views. These visions of what students should be able to do in the future run counter to the goals of the existing “production-line” educational paradigm (Beare, 2002). The challenge then becomes, how can current education systems transform to prepare students with the skills they will need in Society 3.0(Cobo, 2013)?

There is a need for educational systems to adapt in order to prepare the next generation for an unpredictable and ambiguous future (Moravec, 2013). However, as the current educational system is constrained by standards and timelines, it is difficult to create a learning environment that fosters freedom and creativity (Beare, 2002; Hartkamp, 2013). Hartkamp (2013) posits that different models should be considered such as democratic education. Democractic education is a learner-centered approach that places an emphasis on student-directed exploration and personal responsibility. This type of environment provides the conditions for students to feed their naturally creative impulses and develop as sense of what truly motivates them through joyful risk-taking and play. The author further provides that integral to the concept of democratic schools is the right for students to determine their own learning conditions and to have an equal say in the organization's decision making process. Students are empowered through these means which in turn fosters an entrepreneurial spirit and uncovers intrinsic motivation along with the sense that they have the ability to meet any challenge.

Beare (2002) discusses a possible direction for future curriculum that could help form a bridge between the current educational model and more unstructured educational models proposed that may foster creativity and open-mindedness. The author posits that the curriculum should not be segregated between subject matters and should instead incorporate diverse learning within as single unit of study. In Beare’s estimation future curriculum will introduce metaphor as a powerful thought tool and knowledge will be viewed as dynamic and not static. Learners will take stock of their knowledge through multidisciplinary concept maps and curriculum will emphasize group as well as individual learning. The construction of knowledge will be more important than the final understanding and innovation and creativity will be highly value across all curriculum. The author also notes that curriculum will emphasize self-reflection in the formation of world views and belief systems. However, schools have historically been slow to change in response to the new society conditions(Beare, 2002; Harris & Jones, 2017; Moravec, 2013).

The pragmatic difficulty of integrating these types of educational model in the current paradigm is that it learning that occurs in demmocratic schools can not be measured by rigid standardized assessments. Moravec (2013) discusses the need to transform education from industrial-era pedagogies that emphasize summative assessment of rote memorization toward a system that allows students to co-create knowledge that is personally and communal relevant and, as such, defies, measurement by rigid testing protocols. Moravec and Cobo (2013) content that their learning by doing and therefore not be measured uniformly leading to what Cobo and Moravec (2011) call “invisible learning.” However, there are long standing institutions steeped in the traditions of the education-industrial complex that provide barriers to moving in this direction. Working within this system educational reform moves at a far slower pace then does the societies of which they are a part. Therefore, Moravec calls for revolution instead of reform.

As part of this new educational system Morevac (2013) calls for an approach of using technology in a pragmatic and purposeful way to make meaningful positive change for both local and global communities. Moravec puts forth five stipulations for ICT integrating into educational systems: 1) Technology use must be well defined and purposeful. 2) Technology should promote metacognitive awareness and development. 3) Technology use must be a social experience. 4) Technology use should embrace an experimental approach were students "learn by doing" and failure is seen as formative experiences. 5) The use of technology should continually evolve along with the technology itself. Sala (2006) discusses the benefit of integrating ICT into the constructivist instructional strategy of cooperative learning (CL). According to Sala, the benefits of CL are numerous and include improved communication and social skills, higher retention and academic achievement, and a deeper sense of satisfaction. Cl also emphasizes "learning by doing" which can be facilitated by ICT integration and can help develop "Cognitive Flexibility.” Cognitive flexibility (Spiro & Jehng, 1990) refers to the flexible nature of how knowledge is constructed and retrieved and emphasizes providing opportunities for learners to do so in a personal way. Furthermore, due to this flexibility, instructional strategies based on this theory are particularly suited to using the internet and other ICT to discover information and connections between ideas. The remainder of this paper will discuss the educational model of future Schools which incorporates ICT in a collaborative environment and how suitable it may be for providing meaningful steps towards preparing students for the challenges of the future.

Future Schools of Singapore

In 2008, a small group of 8 schools in Singapore were designated future schools through a joint venture by Singapore's Ministry of Education and Infocomm Development Authority (Tay, Melwani, Ong, & Ng, 2017). The core concept of these future schools was to integrate information communication technology (ICT) to improve learning outcomes (Lim, M. H., 2015). The exact steps to integrate technology within each of these schools were intentionally left vague in order to promote exploration and experimentation. These future schools maintain the structure of traditional school settings with separate classes for different subjects to which students rotate on a bell schedule, but a necessary component for all future schools was that every student had access to a computer on a one-to-on basis starting in third grade (Lee Yong et al., 2013). Lim (2015) conducted a study about how teachers integrate ICT into their classrooms. The author found that teachers in these future schools are encouraged to research and incorporate new technologies in their classes and share experiences with their colleagues in a collaborative learning process. They are given the autonomy to choose and incorporate ICT as they see fit to attain learning objectives, but teachers were still responsible for preparing students to pass standardized assessments in grades 6, 10 and 12. The teachers at these schools integrated technology primarily in the major content areas of English, Math, Science. For all subjects, teachers have the responsibility of not only providing instruction on the subject area content, but also in the use of the technology chosen for a given assignment, which many teachers reported was and additional challenge that informed their choice of technology (Lim, M. H., 2015). A study conducted by (Lee Yong et al., 2013) explored the ICT integration efforts in a future school focusing on the types of technology being used. They found that for the major content areas of Math, Science, and English, the most often used technology were blogs, online games, and communication platforms like email and instant messaging.

Tay, Melwani, Ong, and Ng (2017) conducted a study that narrowed in on the specific ICT used for different content areas in one future school. The authors found that in English, teachers selected technology based on two major competencies, reading comprehension and writing skills. For reading, students were guided on the use of Razkids, an online reading comprehension program. The teachers taught students how to find suitable content and to work through the program to make learning gains. This involved a self-reflective, metacognitive component whereby students were assessing their own learning gains and choosing their own lessons to achieve goals. To develop writing skills, teachers assigned students with the task of creating digital stories using applications Padlet and the Google slides that were then shared with the class for constructive feedback. In the area of math, teachers used technology to facilitate computational and conceptual mathematics mastery through online games, screencasts, and interactive platforms such as Plickers and Koobits and Moocs. For math technology was primarily used to reinforce skills and concepts that were taught in through traditional teacher centered approaches. In the content area of science, ICT was used to teach students to gather and record information, provide engaging multimedia experiences to learn about specific scientific concepts, and to provide an online discussion and collaboration platform for students to discuss learned scientific concepts and to co-create meaning. Lim and Tay (2013) explain that teachers are provided flexibility to choose the most relevant technology to achieve a particular learning goal, but there was a push in 2010 to promote more consistency in the ICT used. The fundamental change was to adopt low cost and easily available applications such as Wordpress Blogs, Moodle LMSs and the Google Suite for communication and collaboration. The authors conclude that it is important to provide low-cost technology and network infrastructure to maintain long-term sustainability. This study also relayed the importance of having teacher involvement and buy in with the ICT effort.

Lim (2015) researched the way Singapore teachers in "Future Schools" dealt with the ICT integration efforts. This grounded theory's findings showed that teachers largely maintained their overall teaching practices integrating ICT through a process of what the author calls the theory of "deliberative adaptation." This theory consists of four main categories of processes that teachers underwent when determining what ICT to incorporate in the classroom: acknowledging, adapting, appraising and keeping pace. In the first place, teachers acknowledge the need for ICT integration and the usefulness it will have for their students. They reconcile the idea of ICT integration with their current teaching practices and then they rationalize their use of ICT within the classroom based on personal stances on technology and its place in the wider world. The teachers would deliberate how and when to incorporate ICT within their lessons while maintaining an emphasis on achieving lesson objects above all else. In selecting ICT, teachers were moved by first-hand experience with technology and selected only those that they could envision being useful for a specific educational purpose. They reacted to the outcome of their ICT integration efforts with the help of peer observations and made adjustments to improve learning outcomes with technology based on this feedback and reflection. Teachers evaluated the impact of ICT on often pre-stated goals such as increased collaboration, interactivity or engagement and would adjust their integration practices to achieve more meaningful integration outcomes. “Future School” teachers would also preemptively strategize to utilize ICT to enhance learning through authentic learning and collaborative learning communities with peers. The final category of "keeping pace" involves the notion that technology advances more quickly then curriculum and the deluge of new technology can be overwhelming. Teachers deal with this fact through three processes: equipping, networking, and collaborating. Equipping refers to the teachers' attempts to find and learn various programs to be included in their classrooms. The sheer volume of information directly or peripherally related to this was overwhelming for some teachers. By networking with colleagues, teachers were more easily able to learn about new useful technology. Mentoring and observation was another powerful way of networking. Finally, collaborating with other teachers and vendors enabled teachers to keep up with the relentless pace of evolving technology while building confidence and mastery. Lim and Tay (2013) studied the role of professional development in regards to ICT integration efforts. They determined that an important element of these future schools is the in-house research department that provides formal data-based evaluation of teacher performance and encourages teachers to be practitioner-researchers in order to self-reflect with the aim of enhancing their own teaching practices. In addition, the authors comment that it is critical for teachers to be motivated to adopt ICT into their teaching strategies and to continue to learn and evolve their ICT integration efforts.

Lee et al. (2017) further explored the elements and challenges facing teachers who are integrating ICT. They found that based on the teacher interviews, four themes for facilitating ICT integration emerged: 1) school administration commitment 2) technological infrastructure 3) school culture and professional development efforts and 4) support from related external institutions. Some of the difficulty of incorporating ICT reported through this study were: 1) the amount of time upfront needed to teach students how to use all the various forms of technology 2) the availability of devices and dependability of wireless internet and 3) ensuring the appropriate use of ICT by students. Lim and Tay (2013) conducted a study on the scalability, sustainability, and transferability of the “Future School” Model. This research focuses on two major conditions necessary for ICT integration: technological infrastructure and professional development. The authors provide that of the technological infrastructure initiatives, the most important considerations are the one-to-one computer initiative and the initiative to provide internet connection to said devices. The initiative to have all students have a computer device was based on the need to equip students with skills to be digital natives as well as promote self-directed lifelong learning by teaching students how to use technology to navigate various information systems in order to enhance meaningful and engaged learning. This initiative took place in stages where students in grades 1-3 where provided computers for use in schools on a 1:1 or 1:2 basis. In grades 4 and above, students were tasked with bringing their own devices to school. Subsidies to purchase devices and to pay for ongoing internet services were provided for families with financial limitations. The internet infrastructure was also a significant consideration with this initiative and was integrated into phases. The initial phase involved having students use a separate network to connect their personal devices due to security concerns. These practical considerations were addressed in a select few Schools in Singapore and has provided a roadmap with which it can be reproduced in other contexts. The following section will explore the implications of adopting this model on a wider scale in k-12 schools in America as it relates to preparing students for the future.

This short video shows how Singapore's future schools work in practice: https://youtu.be/M_pIK7ghGw4

How Future Schools Prepare Students for Society 3.0

Cobo (2013) describes trends that can be used to frame thinking about how to create an educational system that will prepare students for the challenges inherent in Society 3.0. This provides a useful framework with which to discuss the relevance of the Singapore future school model to preparing students for the future. The first trend is the disconnect between the skills that are being gained in the current educational system and the skills needed in a knowledge and innovation society. Cobo lists these skills as: “problem-solving, reflection, creativity, critical thinking, learning to learn, risk-taking, collaboration, and entrepreneurship” (p. 61). If the future school model was implemented in K-12 schools on a wider scale, then many of these skills could be developed for students. This can be seen in ICT projects incorporated in future schools such as digital stories that activate creativity and problem-solving, student blogs that encourage critical thinking and reflection, and science projects that involve collaboration and risk-taking. Teachers also come to develop these skills more fully as they engage in exploration and professional development with peers. Teachers have to engage in collaborative design thinking to optimize instructional practices. These teachers can carry those same principles over to their students who they can then guide through intimate first hand knowledge of applying these skills in the context of teaching. However, these future schools are still bound by the established standardized testing paradigm which poses challenges to any educational reform(Harris & Jones, 2017). If these schools are to truly prepare students for the “increasingly complex and ambiguous future” (Moravec, 2013) the limiting framework of standardized testing must be phased out.

Furthermore, Cobo (2013) describes the need to shift towards a more metacognitive approach to learning in pursuit of instilling values of life-long learning. A key component of future schools that encourages life-long learning is the use of personal ICT as a portal to knowledge and learning. An example is the use of RAZKids in the reading program at future schools. Students are taught how to determine their level of progress and to make adjustments to learning programs to better suit their needs. If this strategy was extended further, students could conceivably choose ICT that would best meet their individual needs and thereby critically assessing how and why they learn best. Based on this analysis students could then be assigned the task of developing their own individual learning program from low cost and readily available ICT applications and sharing their plans with peers. In this way, students would be prepared for taking learning into their own hands. Therefore, more than producing students who have mastered a particular body of knowledge, future schools can produce students who know how to use ICT to master any body of knowledge in a personally relevant way.

In addition, Cobo (2013) describes the need for students to contend with and integrate new technologies as needed to obtain various educational objectives. This is a particularly salient point that is met well through the future school model. Students are provided access to technology from the very start of their educational career and are therefore exposed to a wide range of technology used for educational purposes. This structure provides students with the experience needed to explore future technology and accept relevant components into personally meaningful educational initiatives. With technology developing so rapidly as evidenced by the advancement in artificial intelligence and virtual reality, there is no way to predict what type of technology will be available in the future. Therefore, it is more important for students to be adept at understanding the possible benefits of new technology and how to become proficient in said technology to achieve goals. Future schools have at their very foundation the goal of integrating ICT to achieve learning objectives (Lim, 2015) and if this concept alone was adopted into the wider K-12 educational system, students could be better prepared for the “technological singularity” (Vinge, 1993) that may be on the horizon.

Cobo (2013) also describes the need for educational systems to change the conception that learning takes place during a particular time (school hours) and a particular place (the school itself). In this regard, the model of future schools falls short. future schools still adhere to the brick and mortar model where students come to a particular place at a particular time. In addition, subjects are still segregated with separate periods per subject even if interdisciplinary elements are encouraged (Lim, 2015). It would be conceivable for future schools to adopt some elements of democratic schools such as providing choice in where, when, and how to engage in learning activities (Harkamp, 2013). ICT can be used to bind the “democratic future school” through communication and collaboration applications and mobile technology. In this way, students would be more prepared to meet a future where learning can take place in any environment or situation and to recognize these learning opportunities. If students will need the “knowmadic” skill of flexibility irrespective of spatial and temporal constraints (Moravec, 2013), then they should receive an education in an environment that reflects this dynamic in order to transfer these skills from school to work.

Conclusion

The skills that will be useful in the future include flexibility, creativity, open-mindedness, ingenuity, and proficiency with ICT to achieve goals. (Beare, 2002; Cobo, 2013; Moravec, 2013). Future schools of Singapore offer a possible way to use ICT to grow these skills in k-12 students. The future school model does well in providing exposure to ICT and first hand experience in integrating it to achieve learning objectives. However, these future schools are still bound by the constraints of the traditional industrial-era educational paradigm. The way ICT is used in professional and personal settings should be reflected in how they are used in schools. Future schools have moved in this direction, but can stand to emphasize a more flexible, open format to the learning environment moving away from bell schedules and emphasis on one-size-fit all standards based assessments. In this way, students can be better prepared to leverage technology to meet the challenges of the future.

References

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