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Classroom of the future

Submitted by Jonathan on 17 September 2004 - 9:58pm

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I've just finished writing an article about our visions on the Classroom of the Future for the JMPC Education newsletter which is sent to 10,000 teachers around the UK.

I searched the Internet to read what other people's vision for the Classroom of the Future....I stumbled across this page (Visions for the Classroom of the Future) on the Becta site. Sadly, Becta have done a poor job of date stamping their pages, but I estimate these to have been posted in 2001.

Significant leaders in education have posted their thoughts, including a vision from


Sadly, these visions aren't quite so radical as I would have hoped. David Blunkett used phrases like
"None of this, of course, is a substitute for traditional teaching, but is a complement to it."

Luckily, Ultralab's visions for the Classroom of the Future are far more radical. However, whether they are exciting, radical, innovative or not, they all need to be researched and explored. There is very little being done currently to move this country out of the Victoria era of traditional, teacher-led delivery model.

Comments

visitor

19 September 2004 - 8:46pm

We are trying to develop classrooms of the future see my Blog for details of the project so far http://slartibartfast.ultralab.net/~leshereward/blog/. To the best of my knowledge my Year 4 class is unique in the UK.
However I think a significant problem is that any really radical change in our teaching would reflect in changed exam results: changed in the sense that they would be lower. Whilst there are a few examples of schools swimming against this tide (e.g. Michael Hall School http://www.michaelhall.co.uk/) they are very few in number. Traditional teaching needs to take place because the imperative of the examination system demands this: a real constraint. I think it was Stephen Heppell who said it is like teaching students to drive a Formula One Car and then giving them their driving test in a horse and cart. There may or may not be a political will for change I wonder if this will is strong enough to abandon previous 'standards' and adopt new ones in their place??

Jonathan

19 September 2004 - 9:56pm

Hi Les, thanks for your comments..... I agree with you that it would be a brave Prime Minister or Secretary of State to abandon the current examination system and transform the education system to focus more on the process than the product. Remember that the examination system has a political agenda too. I don't need to say that National results are a measure of the Government's success. The present focus on accountability is of most serious concern in my opinion - if this is addressed, I think teachers, headteachers, ministers would have more freedom to take risks and explore more radical approaches. Would you agree?

Took a look at your blog, thanks for pointing my attention to it. I have been reading some of your articles - the new classroom for instance! Wow.....there must be more kids somehwere surely?

...sometimes I wish I was still teaching.... but I'll get back to it one day I'm sure.

visitor

25 September 2004 - 1:02pm

we ( idea-see above) will run a workshop on classrooms of the future at navcon 2004 ( sep 28-oct1 - christchurch, nz) - most of us work in non-traditional ( partly or fully government funded) classrooms in new zealand ( i also worked in australian ones)- certainly no teachers standing before 30 hourglasses waiting to be filled - welcome anyone to join our workshops or contact us to visit our schools - my email benjamaxa@xtra.co.nz

testing issues are being addressed by unlimited high school - also taking part in navcon conference

learning environments of the future will bear little resemblance to the notion of a classroom as we know it today; all the givens we accept will be challenged - age, number of students, power relationship between adults and children, who is a learner (student or teacher or both or neither??), lack of acceptance of emotional intelligence ( in terms other than token gestures)

visitor

19 February 2006 - 10:25pm

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