Google recently conducted a research study on classrooms and educational perspectives from around the world. This study interviewed top educators, read the latest peer-reviewed educational research, and studied policy research and teacher surveys. While no report is ever going to be totally all-encompassing and complete, this report does offer up some interesting ideas on the emerging trends of K-12 education around the world. As a technology conference trying to assist teachers around Michigan to deal with the new technology and changing dynamics, we thought it would be great to share this research with you. While we are not going to dive too deeply into any topic, we do encourage you to review the study on your own. I think you will find it very digestible.
Google identifies the following eight emerging trends in education:
- Digital Responsibility – the need for teachers and parents to help students be safe and responsible with personal data on the internet
- Life Skills & Workforce Preparation – a long standing goal of education, the report finds that parents and teachers think that there is too much standardized testing and not enough preparation for the world beyond K-12 education
- Computational Thinking – the trend in education is to prepare our students to solve the complex problems that will be necessary for success in the future of our economy
- Student-Led Learning – the need to provide students with more voice and choice in their education to pursue passions within the classroom
- Collaborative Classrooms – as curriculum becomes more collaborative in nature, exploring ways to provide those same opportunities in classroom design and layout
- Connecting Guardians & Schools – the use of technology to connect parents and guardians to schools is increasing and of value!
- Innovative Pedagogy – decreasing administrative tasks for teachers and increasing the ability to construct and plan amazing experiences for students
- Emerging Technologies – with the creation of new technologies everyday, how do we bring some of these into our classrooms responsibly and safely
While many of us have experience with many of these topics, the Lake Michigan Tech Conference wanted to be sure to share these with you to help facilitate and drive discussions in your school. If you wish to read the full report, you may do so here.