Mike Cote: "The education system of the future will undergo a transition from a heavy emphasis on teaching to a heavy emphasis on learning," Frey wrote in "The Future of Education", a paper he presented last week during a talk co-sponsored by the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. "Experts will create the courseware and the students will learn anytime or anywhere at a pace that is comfortable for them, learning about topics that they are interested in."
Back in elementary school, I remember using the SRA reading cards, a do-it-yourself program that allowed students to study at their own pace. We would choose from readings filed in a box, each card color-coded to reflect its level of difficulty.
The structure was simple: Read the article on the card and then answer questions about it. Ambitious students would race through the easy colors so that they could get to the more challenging readings.
For the teacher, it was a chance to cut students loose for a while and let them work independently while carving off some time to spend with the kids who were struggling.
Ideally, that’s how the emerging world of online education could work, with coursework posted online but teachers available to help the students who need it. But that’s just one possible scenario from the explosion of information on the World Wide Web.
Thomas Frey, executive director of the Louisville-based think tank, the DaVinci Institute, has spent the last 18 months researching the future of education, focusing on how technology will change the way we learn. What he sees is an increasing shift toward independent study.
"The education system of the future will undergo a transition from a heavy emphasis on teaching to a heavy emphasis on learning," Frey wrote in "The Future of Education" (http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=170), a paper he presented last week during a talk co-sponsored by the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. "Experts will create the courseware and the students will learn anytime or anywhere at a pace that is comfortable for them, learning about topics that they are interested in."
Dressed in colorful Renaissance garb alluding to his group’s namesake, Frey placed emerging trends in context of systems that he argued are an impediment to advancement, such as the federal income tax code, our "half-implemented" metric system, the arrangement of computer keyboards and our vast number of laws.
"We have a lot of systems that are the equivalent of Roman numerals," Frey said. He questioned whether literacy would be the only way people learn in the future and suggested books might be "a technological equivalent of Roman numerals."
Noting the rise of the user-generated Wikipedia, Frey said he expects there will be a couple of hundred attempts over the next two years to create a massive universal online courseware system. He predicted the new system will prove to be 10 times more effective than our present reliance on classroom learning.
"I’m not necessarily an advocate of this," Frey told about 75 business people and educators gathered in the tennis pavilion of the Phipps Mansion in Denver. "I just think this is what is going to happen with or without our blessing."
Frey presented his talk before a panel discussion on his findings featuring James R. Davis, dean of University College, the continuing education unit of the University of Denver; Ellen Miller-Brown, director of K-8 and middle school leadership for the Boulder Valley School District; and Michael Cushman, senior fellow at the DaVinci Institute.
As you might expect, Cushman — Frey’s DaVinci Institute colleague — largely agreed with his outlook, saying people need not fear the emerging technology: "We talk about banning cell phones in schools. That’s like banning the automobile because it scares the horses." Cushman also predicted "classroom-style learning will be gone 30 years from now."
Education professionals Davis and Brown had a different take on the future. Education is an interactive process, Davis said, a system of learning in which teachers and students work together. Brown said students learn new concepts better in a group setting where they can share the joy of discovery.
Davis noted that, like many schools nationwide, the University of Denver has embraced online courseware. But "just putting courseware on the Internet does not make a course," he said. What’s needed is a system of education that cultivates the ability to manage and make sense of information and spurs creative and critical thinking, he said.
"I find change inevitable, but I don’t find the direction of change to be inevitable," he said.
Brown said the job she currently holds didn’t exist when she began teaching and that the teaching methods she was first taught have become outmoded. She said she expects change, but she wants to ensure all children have access to a good education, especially as the demographics of the student body changes.
"For every 1,000 students that enter Cherry Creek, 500 are students of color," she said.
She alluded to the film "Babel," which featured a series of interwoven stories, to illustrate the importance of education to society: "Education is what we need to make sense of the "Babel" in our world."
Whether that’s something an increasing number of students will do on their own will inevitably fuel many debates to come. Just as the explosion of social networking sites like MySpace have changed the way many people interact, the potential for collecting the world’s wealth of knowledge and teaching everyone how to make sense of it could change the way we learn and how we define education.
Frey believes a system will emerge that will price courseware at $1 each. But will my 18-year-old son choose to spend a buck for a one-hour math course rather than download the latest episode of "Scrubs" for his video iPod?
I don’t need an online course to know the answer to that question.
Mike Cote is editor of ColoradoBiz Magazine.