Back to our learning roots

Back to our learning roots. (Image: Supplied)

Things are changing faster than ever before. Most industries are experiencing rapid and substantial disruptions. Education is no different. In most parts of the world, the traditional view of education in a classroom with a teacher and 25 to 35 children is becoming outdated. Parents and employers are demanding more from the learners who emerge from our education system. Gone are the days when we produced wave upon wave of school leavers who were expected to fit into a highly standardised world. The new buzzword is individualisation, a strong post-modern shift in society and one of the most important challenges for 21st century education.

The ancient Greeks understood how to individualise the learning journey and develop learners’ full potential. They employed tutors to guide individuals or small groups, covering a broad set of skills and topics. Learning was often based on the Socratic Method, a way of questioning learners to help them arrive at new insights. Similar examples of individualised learning techniques can be found in most ancient civilisations, from India and China in the East to Africa and the Islamic world, Europe and the Americas. Since then, children of wealthy parents have often been schooled by a highly skilled (and often very expensive) private tutor. Even children from less wealthy families could become apprentices under a master, receiving personal instruction in their craft. This level of focus on the abilities and needs of individual learners typically results in superior-quality learning outcomes.

Unfortunately, most people cannot afford a private teacher. The introduction of formal schooling over the past 200 years aimed to create a system in which most of the population could be schooled to an acceptable standard at an affordable cost. Affordability and consistency meant that we had to compromise on quality: larger groups of learners were assigned to teachers (with less individual focus), and learning topics were standardised into a curriculum.

This carbon-copy learning approach is becoming obsolete and is being challenged in the modern economy. Most people agree that the future will require adaptable and multi-skilled individuals to contribute to society. We must transform the education system to match this requirement; however, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. We will do well to incorporate the wisdom of ancient civilisations when building education for the future. They understood that the focus should be on truly individualised learning across multiple topics, competencies and character qualities, at the learner’s optimal pace to reach their full potential.

How will this happen? Technology will play a critical role in the individualised learning environment. Technology can effectively customise the ongoing guidance of each learner. It can transform the content learners engage with and effortlessly link learners to each other and the wider global community, irrespective of location. It can also continuously gather information about a learner, using this to customise the learning journey. This means that the traditional role of the teacher can change from having to control the highly complex combination of learning journeys for everyone in their classroom to that of a facilitator for individuals or smaller groups when they need specific assistance. Our traditional narrow focus on subjects must also be re-evaluated to ensure that learners can apply knowledge and skills across a broader set of modern encounters.

At Optimi, we keep challenging ourselves to develop the future of learning. We are building an ecosystem to support GuidED Learning™, a term we use to describe the individualised learning journey of a child or adult to achieve a specific outcome. We believe that individualised learning can be solved at costs that are affordable to every person in the world. Our focus in changing learning should be to emulate the highly individualised and successful learning environment that was created by tutors or masters with individual learners or smaller groups throughout ancient history. A big challenge, but we are up for the task! 

For more information, visit www.optimi.co.za or send the company an e-mail at [email protected].