Welcome to my blog… looking into the future of schools
With schools mostly reopened in countries around the world after the global COVID-19 lockdown in spring, we are now foreseeing a challenging academic year which will demand a lot of flexibility from teachers, students and parents.
Whenever a positive COVID-19 case is detected in a class, individual students or the whole class will be forced into quarantine; whenever a higher number of cases happen in a given school, the entire school might be temporarily closed. Luckily, by now, most schools are much better prepared and organised than in March.
Video calls, digital learning resources and distance learning are now part of teacher’s repertoire and, in some schools, students who have to stay at home can even follow their class through live video streaming. Who would have imagined this just six months ago?
Education experts claim that, triggered by the school closures, we have jumped five years ahead in the adoption of technology in Education in just six months. I would claim that the underlying change we are currently witnessing is even more profound. The world after COVID-19 will be very different from the world before… we will live, shop, travel, work and learn differently. Many of the changes in habits we are currently applying in our daily lives (online, digital, remote, reduced touch) will stay forever.
And the Education space will follow this trend. During lockdown, teachers and students fast-forwarded and updated their digital skills; they discovered new tools and new ways of teaching and learning. Obviously, not all experiences were positive, mainly because many decisions on what (digital) resources to use were ad-hoc, and often teachers would choose either the first resource they came across or one that was offered for free during lockdown. Nevertheless, many schools, teachers and students used digital learning tools for the first time, and in many cases, they realised that learning can happen in many different ways and that digital resources can support the teaching-learning process meaningfully, e.g. through personalised learning paths and instant feedback.
The question of whether schools will be fundamentally different post-COVID-19 will depend on teachers, school leaders and policymakers. Will they be brave enough and willing to embrace the opportunities that the current crisis is offering?
Already two decades into the 21st century, most schools are still teaching in a 20th-century style. But the school lockdown showed us that we need more flexibility and more inclusive schools. We need a more personalised approach to teaching to consider individual students' needs. We have to make sure that students have access to connectivity and devices, and we have to teach them 21st-century skills.
This is not optional and cannot be a luxury reserved for private schools. We have to make sure that all students, regardless of their parents' economic situation, learn the skills needed in the future. The competitiveness and wealth of our society and countries are completely dependent on having a highly educated youth.
Although schools are still struggling with the short-term challenges imposed by the pandemic, we need to shift our attention quickly to what I call "phase 3 of the COVID-19 disruption in Education".
Phase 1 was the initial phase of shock and unplanned school closures in most European countries between March and June. The vast majority of schools had no plan for such a scenario and, as a result, most students lost pretty much a whole term of learning.
We are now in phase 2, with schools reopened and most schools prepared to act short-term with class or school closures if required by the health situation. Some kind of hybrid model is in place to make sure that students who have to stay at home temporarily can advance with the curriculum.
While in phase 2, the focus is very much on the short-term: being alert to how the pandemic is impacting today, tomorrow, or next week. However, school leaders and policymakers need to shift their attention quickly to phase 3, to benefit from a more strategic analysis of the lessons learnt in the last six months, posing more long-term questions.
Which skills do our students lack to succeed in today's (and tomorrow's) digital world?
Have we used new teaching approaches in recent months, which are worth bringing into the classroom and incorporating in daily teaching?
Are we measuring and assessing the relevant learning dimensions for 21st-century learning?
Can and should learning take place (sometimes) outside the classroom? How can technology help make learning more interactive, more diverse, more global?
Can we improve communication and interaction with parents and families? (Many teachers mention closer relationships and better communication with families as one of the positive side effects of the lockdown.)
How can we improve teacher training and collaboration between teachers? Ultimately, only highly motivated and trained teachers will be able to bring the necessary changes to our classrooms.
These questions might only be a starting point, but every journey starts with a first step. The world has changed so fundamentally, learning and Education have to change as well. Urgently.
I am starting this blog to regularly share interesting news about Education, innovative education initiatives, and my learnings and point of view as co-founder and CEO of Fiction Express and RE.SCHOOL.
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