The Future of Learning: Preparing for Change

This report aims to identify, understand and visualise major changes to learning in the future. It developed a descriptive vision of the future, based on existing trends and drivers, and a normative vision outlining how future learning opportunities should be developed to contribute to social cohesion, socio-economic inclusion and economic growth. The overall vision is that personalisation, collaboration and informalisation (informal learning) are at the core of learning in the future. These terms are not new in education and training but will have to become the central guiding principle for organising learning and teaching in the future. The central learning paradigm is thereby characterised by lifelong and life-wide learning, shaped by the ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). To reach the goals of personalised, collaborative and informalised learning, holistic changes need to be made (curricula, pedagogies, assessment, leadership, teacher training, etc.) and mechanisms need to be put in place which make flexible and targeted lifelong learning a reality and support the recognition of informally acquired skills.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

The future of learning: preparing for change

To contribute to this vision-building process, JRC-IPTS on behalf of DG Education and Culture launched a foresight study on “The Future of Learning: New Ways to Learn New Skills for Future Jobs”, in 2009. This study continues and extends IPTS work done in 2006-2008 on “Future Learning Spaces” (Punie et al., 2006, Punie & Ala-Mutka, 2007, Miller et al., 2008). It is made up of different vision building exercises, involving different stakeholder groups ranging from policy makers, and scientists to educators and learners. The majority of these stakeholder consultations were implemented on behalf of by a consortium led by TNO of the Netherlands with partners at the Open University of the Netherlands and Atticmedia, UK. The detailed results of these stakeholder discussions have been published in dedicated reports (cf. Ala-Mutka et al., 2010; Stoyanov et al., 2010; Redecker et al., 2010a). This report synthesizes and discusses the insights collected. It identifies key factors for change that emerge at the interface of the visions painted by different stakeholder groups and arranges them into a descriptive vision of the future of learning in 2020-2030. In a second step, the report discusses future solutions to pending challenges for European Education and Training systems and outlines policy options. Based on the descriptive vision presented in the first part, a normative vision is developed of an ideal learning future, in which all citizens are enabled to develop their talents to the best and to foster their own wellbeing and prosperity as well as that of the society they live in as active citizens. Strategies fostering such a vision and the policy implications supporting it are presented and discussed