Future Student Needs
Education must prepare students for their lives, but as "life" changes, how can we do this?
The below information reviews what students "should" be learning according to employers, what students prioritize (versus what teachers prioritize), and the rise of some major shifts in ways of life and ways of teaching.
What do students "need to know"?
Changes in the Way We Work
As the world of work changes, students must be prepared. There has been exponential increase in workplace automation in the past decades which is projected to continue: meaning the repeated, predictable work of industry in the 20th century will become increasingly rare for human labour (fig. 1). With this new paradigm, critical/creative skillsets and social-emotional "soft skills" are becoming increasingly in-demand (fig. 2). Despite this requirement, most employers report short supply among recent graduates (Microsoft, 2019). The classroom must be preparing students for their future, and therefore, the classroom of the future must prioritize and enable development of these soft skills.
Figure 1: Predicted change in the 2030 workforce
Figure 2: Workforce skills & rising demand; Microsoft found 30-40% of in-demand jobs today require soft skills, but the majority of employers report these skills are lacking in recent graduates
- Microsoft and McKinsey & Company interviewed 2000 students and educators across Canada, Singapore, the UK and US and reviewed 150 prior studies to assess what the future of Education needs; these screenshots and those below are from that report
How can we align with these needs?
Changing The Focus
As life changes more and more rapidly, life for teachers and life for students looks quite different, in many cases students are learning antiquated information (or at least, what they consider to be antiquated!) The generational tech-overhauls of life from the past few generations (with the advent of computers, the internet, cellular devices, etc.) are apt to continue given the exponential growth of technology.
The chart below showcases teacher-student skill priority gaps. Despite known value-add from skills such as critical thinking, students prioritize other things such as digital skills, when asked. Knowing that proven-value skills (like literacy) are cornerstones of most learning, the impartment of these important skills to students must be a priority. As well, what students prioritize in their learning must not be ignored, not only to maintain engagement but also to ensure that students are learning relevant skills for their era.
Figure 3: Gap in perceived skill value from teachers and students
For any skill development, dedicated lesson sequences and time are necessary along with personalized feedback
A barrier to developing these skills has been a gap between perceptions of subject importance for teachers and students
63% of teachers are intentionally implementing social-emotional learning, but more needs to be done to encourage it
2 Strategies that have proven successful are explicit social-emotional curricular outcomes and increased personalization
Therefore, future classrooms must free teachers from predictable and repetitive duties (fig. 4) so they can focus more on the personal side of learning, and thankfully most educators are willing to do so! (fig. 5)
Figure 4: Advantages of increased technology integration for teachers
Figure 5: Teacher motivation to increase personalization of learning