Click to enlarge the infographic from KnowledgeWorks’ forecast on the future of learning.
In the future of learning…
“School” will take many forms. Sometimes it will be self-organized. Learning will no longer be defined by time and place—unless a learner wants to learn at a particular time and in a particular place.
Learners and their families will create individualized “learning playlists” reflecting their particular interests, goals, and values. Those learning playlists might include public schools but could also include a wide variety of digitally-mediated or place-based learning experiences.
Whatever the path, radical personalization will become the norm, with learning approaches and supports tailored to each learner. A wide variety of digital networks, platforms, and content resources will help learners and learning agents connect and learn. Some tools will use rich data to provide insight into learning and suggest strategies for success.
Educators’ jobs will diversify as many new learning agent roles emerge to support learning. At the same time, geographic and virtual communities will take ownership of learning in new ways, blending it with other kinds of activity.
As more people take it upon themselves to find solutions, a new wave of social innovation will help address resource constraints and other challenges. Diverse forms of credentials, certificates, and reputation markers will reflect the many ways in which people learn and demonstrate mastery.
The authors of KnowledgeWorks’ forecast on the future of learning wrote in 2022:
“The pull of the status quo is strong. Whatever forms and approaches end up being right for the emerging era, we need to continue to encourage adaptation and informed risk-taking in education systems. We have not done enough to eliminate the persistent inequities that continue to lead to all-too-predictable outcomes for learners from historically marginalized yet resilient sub-groups. Let’s make a renewed effort to ensure that the world of learning described by the forecast becomes a reality for each learner.”
President Donald Trump has made significant efforts to reduce the size and influence of the U.S. Department of Education. It has not been fully dismantled, as fully abolishing the Department of Education would require congressional approval. But the President signed an executive order in March 2025 to shift responsibilities, such as student loans and special education programs, to other agencies. This move has sparked debates about its potential impact on federal oversight and funding for education, especially for vulnerable groups like low-income families and students with disabilities.
However, as noted by the KnowledgeWorks authors, the educational opportunities of these “historically marginalized students” have not improved over the last decade. Obviously, the Department of Education hasn’t helped them in all this time, so what makes people think they will ever be helped?
Rita Mae Brown wrote in her 1983 book Sudden Death, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (That quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein, but he said something similar: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”)
It’s time to do something different! It’s time to overhaul the education system.
“I think so much of the journey for us has been unlearning everything we ever learned about education up to this point in our lives,” says Samantha Barnes. “In my heart, I believe that there will be a dramatic shift in education in our country in the next 20 years, and we are just at the beginning of it.”
Advanced technologies allowing independent learning could very well doom public education as we know it. High-tech homeschooling will be a modern convenience for accessing a personalized education that fits the needs of each student. The pandemic has already proven that computers can turn into desktop classrooms. Through video conferencing, professional tutors can come into the student’s home, and since modern technology enables the tutor to be in many homes at once, his wages need not come from one family alone. Homeschoolers can now enjoy the best of both worlds – economy of scale (the virtual schoolhouse) and home-based expert instruction (the private tutor).
These changes point the way toward a diverse learning ecosystem in which learning adapts to each child instead of each child trying to adapt to school.
In the future, online learning may even totally replace public schools which could then be turned into multi-purpose community centers with enrichment activities including athletics, music, art, theater groups, STEM clubs, job training, and other types of experiential learning and unstructured socialization opportunities. This will give students everything they need to succeed.
