Curricula for the 21st century: the student and the problem

For quite some time, future analysts and popular social commentators have given us vivid accounts of the expected influence of technology on employment patterns and educational needs. In industry, many of the changes they foretold are occurring now or have taken place; in education they are only just beginning.

For education it is really much easier when the body of knowledge for a given discipline was relatively fixed and stable, and thus could be conveniently handed on to students. However, teaching practices which rely on this model, where the teacher or lecturer acts as a conduit in conveying information to passively receptive students, are no longer adequate as a means of coping with the information explosion.

This particular aspect of the technological age has clear implications for education. In the first instance, students need to acquire, through method, practice and example, skills and learning which will not only enable them to cope with the demands of a course, but will also equip them to cater for some of their education needs after they complete the course. Because of the obsolescence of current knowledge and the added difficulty of predicting the knowledge and skills needed in the future, the most important facility that students can acquire is the ability to learn on their own.

For quite some time, future analysts and popular social commentators have given us vivid accounts of the expected influence of technology on employment patterns and educational needs. In industry, many of the changes they foretold are occurring now or have taken place; in education they are only just beginning.

For education it is really much easier when the body of knowledge for a given discipline was relatively fixed and stable, and thus could be conveniently handed on to students. However, teaching practices which rely on this model, where the teacher or lecturer acts as a ...  [+] Show more