Today, education is beset by many changes pertaining to its practice. These changes will severely impact education as it exists today. While change is welcome, it comes with associated costs and issues. Educators must identify the potential problems that will occur in the education sector in the next half-decade. From the perspective of an education leader, some of these challenges are particularly concerning as will be highlighted in this essay.
By challenging the adequacy of the conventional educational model, new-collar jobs present a problem of practice for educators. Boisvert (2018) points out that manufacturers are increasingly seeking individuals with “middle skills” or expertise that utilizes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in conjunction with manual skills. As an educational leader, the shift to new collar jobs is going to radically affect how content is delivered (Cox, 2020). It is concerning as it necessitates a total overhaul of the current curricula.
Additionally, the heightened call for personalized learning is another problem of practice today. Personalized learning utilizes the already present smart learning environment to provide teaching that responds in real-time to learner characteristics (Peng et al., 2019). From the perspective of an educational leader, personalized learning presents a costly need for teachers to reorient themselves to a new model of delivering content (de Jong, 2020). Such a change may have significant teething problems at the expense of teacher, and learner motivation.
Lastly, social-emotional learning (SEL) is likely to be adversely affected by the increased utilization of the smart learning environment. Notably, the smart learning environment is facilitative of remote learning. It reduces the need for classroom-based learning as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic (de Jong, 2020). From the perspective a leader in education, this will affect the social and emotional learning of students. Notably, young learners need to learn interpersonal skills in the school environment from a young age.
In conclusion, education is likely to see far-reaching changes in the next five years. Personalized learning, new collar jobs and the loss of SEL are possible realities that educators will face in the near future. These changes have the potential to derail learner and teacher outcomes if not well managed. As such, there is a need for effective management of these changes across the board. Nevertheless, there is reason to expect a more positive educational space in the next five years.
References
Boisvert, S. (2018). The new collar workforce: An insider’s guide to making impactful changes to manufacturing and training. Laurin Publishing.
Cox, C. M. (2020). Augmenting autonomy: “New Collar” labor and the future of tech work. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 26(4), 824–840. Web.
‌ de Jong, P. G. (2020). Impact of moving to online learning on the way educators teach. Medical Science Educator, 30(3), 1003–1004. Web.
Peng, H., Ma, S., & Spector, J. M. (2019). Personalized adaptive learning: An emerging pedagogical approach enabled by a smart learning environment. Smart Learning Environments, 6(1). Web.