The Future of Learning in Schools

By Emma Mattesky

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It is no secret that our systems of formal learning are being confronted by technological advancements and social reinvention in our world. This rapid outer change has forced us to engage in our own change process, where we have begun to ask essential, institutional questions: How might we build capacities for our schools to be more resilient and viable as we move into the future? How might we be more innovative in our pedagogic approach even when the old ways of teaching work? How are we upholding our promise to our students and families to teach our students 21st century skills?

A defining feature of the future of ‘school’ is that learning experiences will more closely reflect a real-world context. Students will be asked to actively solve complex problems with real-world, human implications. They will not only gain content knowledge but will engage with it in meaningful, collaborative, and globally responsive ways. Design thinking makes complex problem-solving manageable by providing a clear path or system for discovery.

Although design thinking has been employed by architects and designers for many years, as a teaching method in the K-12 classroom, it is radically new. It holds many of the same structural features that work well in a classroom; it is explicit in nature, and it is process-based. At the same time, it provides opportunities for creative and imaginative problem-solving, student agency and voice, active perspective-taking, and building and making. It is naturally interdisciplinary, calling on multiple skills at the same time.

After a series of school-wide exercises, design sprints, and brainstorming sessions, teachers and administrators can craft, reflect, and ultimately vote on their very own design language. This milestone solidified our commitment to our historical roots and to 21st century innovative pedagogy – a shared understanding in honoring the past and designing for the future.

Woven into this work is a deep understanding that the institutional change process is ultimately a cultural one. It requires community dialogue, community design in the change itself, and a foundational belief in risk-taking as a learning opportunity. This combination–of our community as designers and as learners–is what will set us apart in a landscape of schools across the country who are trying to answer the same question: How might we build capacities for our schools to be more resilient and viable as we move into the future?

Emma Mattesky

Former Director of Innovation, Benchmark School

Founding Lead Integration Designer, New Eng. Innovation Academy