Education Trends

Amplified Policymaking Brief

1 Oct 2009 18:26:51 GMT

Amplified Policymaking
By Katherine Prince, director of operations for the Institute for Creative Collaboration at KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Dr. Carolyn Woempner, McREL's senior researcher for Policy and Planning Services

McREL and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation have partnered to create a series of briefs and workshops based on The 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning, designed to engage leaders in co-creating the future of learning.

This brief examines the policy implications of two drivers of change presented in the 2020 Forecast—Pattern Recognition and Amplified Organization. These drivers describe a world in which we will increasingly collaborate, improvise, and work together to assemble meaning from vast arrays of data, while also creating new learning experiences combining physical and digital realities. These conditions form a policymaking environment that demands what we call “amplified policymaking.”

Click here to download the policy brief

Trend of the Month (November/December 2008): 20-20 Foresight - Part II

5 Dec 2008 18:51:45 -0700

Last month's Trend of the Month began an examination of trends in higher education that could be harbingers of change in K—12's own future with a focus on the development and rise of online learning opportunities in higher education. This month's Trend of the Month will explore K—12 lessons to be learned from the changing role of community colleges in the preparation of students for post-secondary life.

View/Download the PDF

Trend of the Month (October 2008): 20-20 Foresight

27 Oct 2008 19:30:41 -0700

Higher education is beginning to experience the influence of trends already making their way though the K–12 system, and if members of higher education will take a long, thoughtful look at these forces, they will get a 20-20 glimpse into their own futures. But can the same be said of K–12 education? Could it be that some trends in higher education are harbingers of change in K–12's own future? To answer these questions, we only have to look as far as the development and rise of online learning opportunities in higher education.

View/Download the PDF

Trend of the Month (September 2008): Fueling Change

4 Sep 2008 16:48:46 -0700

Anyone who has filled up at the gas station the past few months knows the price of fuel has increased significantly. Most people who have emptied their wallets for a tank of gas have also had to make decisions about where that gas money will not go. Schools and universities across the country are faced with similar decisions as they struggle to pay increased fuel costs. The entire education system is dependent on fuel to accomplish its fundamental activities of transporting students to school and temporarily housing them while they are taught. How will the system respond to the price pressures that may make these fundamental activities untenable?

View/Download the PDF

Trend of the Month (August 2008): How Chronic Illness Threatens Education

7 Aug 2008 21:47:15 -0700

August's Trend of the Month describes some of the health challenges we might face in the future. Pollution, population densities, and the quantity and type of available food supplies are among the factors that could lead to a future where chronic illness is more prevalent, and this prevalence could jeopardize our students' ability to learn, change the ways in which they learn, or even require new environments for learning.

View/Download the PDF

Trend of the Month (July 2008): Wagging the Dog: Leaning into the Future of State Assessment and Accountability

jconrad@mcrel.org (Jill K. Conrad, Sr. Consultant for Policy & Planning) — 7 Jul 2008 15:43:13 -0700

As leaders consider the new demands for 21st century learners—post-secondary readiness, workforce preparation, and skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving— new conversations concerning the role of state assessment and accountability systems are popping up. State leaders, mindful of the ways in which current standards and assessments may not adequately measure mastery of these thinking and learning skills, are looking at new possibilities for assessment. Should this conversation be about improving upon the current approach or completely transforming the approach all together?

View/Download the PDF

Trend of the Month (June 2008): Post-Secondary Preparation: Finding Common Ground

9 Jun 2008 18:51:34 -0700

By Carolyn Woempner, Ph.D., Sr. Researcher for Policy and Planning Services

Two different sides have emerged in the rhetorical slash-and-parry about preparing students for life after high school. Side A: All students should be prepared, encouraged, and expected to enter college; Side B: Students must have the skills to be successful in the workforce when they graduate from high school. On the face of it, these two sides appear to advocate for different approaches to post-secondary preparation. McREL proposes that, as we increase our awareness of the changing world for which our students must be prepared, perhaps post-secondary preparation in the 21st century is not a choice between work-readiness and college-readiness, but rather, a preparation of all students to participate in post-secondary options, whichever option they choose.

View/Download the PDF