What is Education 4.0?
The Digital Transformation of Schools in Education 4.0
I just came across this paper: Digital Transformation in education: A systematic review of education 4.0
It provided some useful frameworks that helped me zoom out of all my day to day technology adoption efforts at School. It made me think about how swiftly we need to shift. And gave me some useful frames for thinking (much of which resonates with this Google Future of Education report)
Here are my 2 big takeaways:
1. Key Features of the Future of Education/ Education 4.0
What it is:
Based on the literature review the paper determined the following as the main characteristics of Education 4.0 as follows:
Time and place independent education
Personalised Learning
Learning Flexibility
Project-based Learning/ Application-based learning
Data Interpretation
Assessment approach not examination
Curriculum with student participation
Guidance-based
These essentially lay out what Education should be like for today’s world i.e. Learner-Centred, Real-world, Continuously Evolving, Collaborative learning.
Below is a visual of how I have chunked this in my head:
Why it is useful:
Education is certainly on the cusp of an essential digital transformation and these features serve as useful guidelines as we navigate this important change.
I aim to use this as a framework to guide our organisation's strategy as we think about
What students need to learn
What and how we teach
What teachers should learn
What we should invest time and resources on
2. The Evolution of Education from 1.0 to 4.0
What it is:
This paper also painted a wonderful picture of how education has transformed over the years in a changing world. You can look at the detailed table in the paper, but here is my simplified version of the evolution:
Why it useful:
It allows you to zoom out and take a big-picture look at the evolution of education. It may even help you identify where your school is in its journey.
This perspective can help you think long-term and make better decisions for your school keeping the future in mind.
I also found that this evolution can help me plan my schools digital transformation better. For example, in some areas we might need to move to Edu 3.0 first. In other areas we might find ways to leapfrog straight into Education 4.0!
Top 4 things that I am going to be prioritising in the next few years:
Empowering Teachers to promote Learner-Centred, Guidance-Based instruction
Leveraging AI and related Ed tools to make learning more personalised at scale
Leveraging Data to make learning more personalised at scale
Empowering the team to design and facilitate Project-based Learning
The future of education is exciting!