“The skills that students need to learn in order to survive in the Augmented Age are very different from what are being taught in school today. We will need to teach students not just science, technology, engineering and maths (so-called STEM subjects), but agility, creative thinking, rapid learning and adaptation, too.” -via Augmented: Life In The Smart Lane
It is becoming more and more obvious that the exponential shifts that are being driven across our societal landscape from the acceleration of technology are and will continue to have dramatic ramifications on our future; from the economy and our workforce, to inevitably education and how we learn.
Awareness of these approaching shifts, connecting these varied dots, and understanding how these parts interact in the whole will be vital for preparing both our students and our educators for what is forecasted to be a very different future.
We are going to need to see how current misalignments (parts, processes) to these exponential shifts will require us to rethink, redesign and reimagine our wholes (structures, systems).
In many ways, the skill-sets, capacities and mindsets that were previously popular and efficient we are finding to be no longer relevant, effective or sufficient for the Exponential Age we find ourselves progressing into as individuals and organizations.
Which goes back to the opening quote from Augmented, in that “content” is truly no longer sufficient or adequate to prepare our students for a world and workforce that is putting a premium on “skills” (agility, creative thinking, rapid learning, adaptation). For a world and workforce that is beginning to rethink, redesign and reimagine the very idea of work.
Especially, when we consider a workforce that is in the midst of technological disruption being brought on by a growing determination towards and focus on automation, robots and artificial intelligence.
Whether Thomas Friedman in Average Is Over, Dan Pink in To Sell Is Human or Brian King in Augmented, the idea of working for one organization, corporation or institution for your entire professional career is no longer the norm that it once was for past generations. As King shares in Augmented, “Research suggests that today’s college graduates will have a dozen or more jobs by the time they hit their 30’s.”
Organizations, corporations, businesses, institutions that no longer want or feel that it is necessarily their duty to train those they hire. They are not only looking for individuals equipped with a competent level of learning, but the skill-sets, capacities and mindset to be effective from the outset. They are looking for individuals that are creative, innovative, agile, adaptive, and who can think critically, access information quickly and utilize it to make better decisions.
It is no longer an EITHER/OR game, as much as it is an AND world.
We have to understand these shifts if we are to better prepare our next generation of children with the learning AND skills that will be necessary to truly equip them to be “college and career” ready for a world that is shifting and changing at an exponential pace.
One without the other will be ineffective for the expectations of a very different future.
DCulberhouse 