Future of Education

The key results of a survey by WISE regarding the future of education include:

• Innovation in education is highly-valued – almost all of respondents favor schools that implement innovative methods based on new teaching approaches and creative processes.

• Almost half of the respondents ranked online content provided by private individuals and/or institutions as the most important source of knowledge.

• Academic knowledge will not be the most valuable type of knowledge anymore.

• School diplomas assessing academic skills will be challenged by company certifications, with both becoming equally important.

• Teaching and learning will undergo fundamental changes.

• Education will become a lifelong endeavor.

World Innovation Summit for Education (2014). 2014 WISE survey: “School in 2030”. Doha, Qatar: World Innovation Summit for Education. https://www.wise-qatar.org/sites/default/files/wise-survey-school-in-2030.pdf

Educational Innovation Through the ESSA

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, school leaders must take a deliberate approach to innovation. This report highlights examples of innovation and outlines how to use more innovative methods in schools. Under ESSA, leaders a set of frameworks and theories to understand how best to manage, encourage, and measure innovation in K–12 education. These theories do not merely provide a universal checklist of programs for states to push under the new federal law. Rather, they help states understand the circumstances and organizational dynamics that affect any school system’s ability to innovate and then offer recommendations tailored to varying circumstances. Armed with the right theories of innovation to match opportunities under ESSA, states will be able to push past mere trial-and-error innovations. Instead, they can find themselves better equipped to set up schools for success with sustaining and disruptive innovations from the start. 

Freeland, J., & Arnett, T. (2017). The State Innovator’s Toolkit: A guide to successfully managing innovation under ESSA. The Christensen Institute. https://www.christenseninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ESSA_Christensen.pdf 

This article describes a study conducted by a research team at Syracuse University’s Center for

Digital Literacy, in collaboration with the Connecticut Invention Convention, investigating the

attitudes toward innovation activities, motivational supports, and information needs of young

innovators in grade 4–8 as they progressed through the innovation process. Implications of this

initial research are that school librarians have an opportunity to (1) provide “innovation

spaces” that foster curiosity and exploration within their libraries and (2) become role models

or “innovation mentors” to all students, supporting their motivational and information needs

throughout the innovation process.Small, Ruth V. (2014).  The Motivational and Information Needs of Young Innovators: Stimulating Student Creativity and Inventive Thinking.School Library Research.
http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol17/SLR_MotivationalNeeds_V17.pdf