Horizon Report Reflection

        In education, there are many new shifts that push the evolution from short-term "emergency" or "reactive" modes of offering education to long-term “normal” modes of education (Pelletier et al., 2022). COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our lives around more online and remote modes for living, working, playing, and learning.  During the COVID -19 pandemic, extraordinary circumstances were taken to create strategic and sustainable investments in education. As in prior year's, teaching and learning went from the classroom to virtual classroom, it is easy to reflect on current trends and the future of education. As for the classroom, if a student was absent, they were able to listen-in on the classroom lesson via MSFT Teams or Google or Zoom depending on the district. Then the politicians stated there is no need for any virtual learning and all students must go back to school; however, remnants of the digital push stayed. In the realm of home instruction, the parent(s)/guardian(s) and/or student have a choice of virtual or physical presence. The discussions in the Horizon Report suggests that change may be here to stay and that there will be no return to "normal" for many educational institutions and for that matter, places of work that have also followed the new digital wave.

        What I found fascinating was the “trends'' section of the Horizon Report. What was once a “trend” has now become commonplace in the world of education.  The Horizon Report gives an expansive view of the larger trends serving as context for institutions of education. The Horizon Report provided input across five trend categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political: (Pelletier et al., 2022)

Social ·  Hybrid and Online Learning ·  Skills-Based Learning ·  Remote Work	Environmental ·  Physical Campus Structures ·  Increase in Sustainable Development Goals ·  Planetary Health
Technological ·  Learning Analytics and Big Data ·  (Re)Defining Instructional Modalities ·  Cybersecurity	Political ·  Political Instability Driving Uncertainty in Higher Education ·  Political Ideology Impacting Pedagogy ·  Decrease in Public Funding
Economic ·  Cost and Value of College Degrees ·  Digital Economy ·  Financial Deficits

 

    These concerns all point at the drive-in education and the lack of drive in education. Unfortunately, many went from the great drive of technology and the push for a unique learning experience back to the old-fashioned way of teaching coined the “cemetery effect”. The cemetery effect is that of one-size-fits-all, sit-and-get instructional model, and the ability to regurgitate information (Sheninger & Murray, 2017). That world of learning no longer exists in education, so why did everyone go in reverse? I feel that reverting to the “old ways” is due to the people in education not having proper training nor a desire to learn the new way of teaching and learning as many witnessed first-hand. On the other hand, some students like the new way of learning and want education to move forward (Pelletier et al., 2022; Sheninger & Murray, 2017).

 

Links:

Horion Report

References:

Pelletier, K., McCormack, M., Reeves, J., Robert, J., & Arbino, N. (2022). 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Edition. EDUCAUSE. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2022/4/2022-educause-horizon-report-teaching-and-learning-edition

Sheninger, E. C., & Murray, T. C. (2017). Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow’s Schools, Today. ASCD. https://www.ascd.org/books/learning-transformed?variant=117034