Redesign of Education System to Allow Adaptation to Global Disruptions, Individual Life Circumstances, and Integration of Learners Into a Community Where They Can Contribute

Alan M. Lesgold (2019) described his goal in light of the disruptions of our day and suggested that “our society needs to do a major redesign of our education system to assure that all people grow up prepared to pursue a path through life that permits them to adapt to disruptive changes” (p. 3). I want to assist in this overhaul of the education system.

A recent UN report said that the world is witnessing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. According to the UN, 80 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes due to famine, natural disasters and war by mid-2020. The agency estimates that around 30 to 34 million of the world’s forcibly displaced, are children (UNHCR, 2020). How are these children getting access to education? 

The World Bank, in a report at the start of the twenty-first century said that “learners should be able to come in and go out of the system at different points in time. The learning system needs to bring in a multitude of players, including the individual learner, the family, the employer, the provider, and the state” (WorldBank, 2002). I want to help facilitate this flexibility with the use of AI technologies, and to take into consideration “learning and learners’ needs” (WorldBank, 2002).

With my master’s thesis, I studied the works of Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), who was concerned about making “human interplay productive.” Follett (1918) said, “Education, therefore is not chiefly to teach children a mass of things which have been true up to the present moment; moreover it is not to teach them to learn about life as fast as it is made, not even to interpret life, but above and beyond everything, to create life for themselves. Hence education should be largely the training in making choices” (p. 19).

One of the chapters in Gagné’s (1987) book is dedicated to “Artificial Intelligence and Computer Based Learning” (p. 319). At the time of the writing of the chapter, AI was being developed with “the promotion of learning rather than the improvement of teaching,” and the authors predicted that AI would continue to deal more with learning rather than teaching (Tennyson & Park, 1987, p. 340). Previously, computer technology was primarily used to augment teaching (p. 319). Now, more than 30 years later since the prediction for AI, I know that AI incorporates both teaching and learning possibilities. My focus will be mostly on the learning aspects of AI to aid learners as suggested by Follett. I’d like to learn ways in which the instructional designer can create curriculum where the integration of the learner into a community is a vital part of the learner experience (Follett, 1924).

I’m interested in the contribution of every individual can make with the support of learning. I have a 3×5 card on my desk that sums up what I want to help facilitate as an instructional designer—education that takes into account the lifestyle and circumstances of people around the world, whether through formal education or lifelong learning. And I think using AI technology, we can do this. 


Follett, M. P. (1918). The new state. Longmans, Green and Co.

Follett, M. P. (1924). Creative experience. Longmans, Green and Co.

Gagné, R. M. (1987). Introduction. In R. M. Gagné (Ed.), Instructional technology: Foundations (pp. 1-9). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Lesgold, A. M. (2019). Learning for the age of artificial intelligence:
Eight education competencies.
Routledge.

Tennyson, R. D. & Park, O. C (1987). Artificial intelligence and computer-based learning.
In R. M. Gagné (Ed.), Instructional technology: Foundations (pp. 319-342). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

UNHCR. (2020). Welcome to UNHCR’s Refugee Population Statistics Database.

The UN Refugee Agency. https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/

World Bank. (2002). 


Current topics of interest

• Creative Experience
• Lifelong Learning
• Open Education
• Artificial Intelligence in Education

About

Personal Teaching and Learning Explorations

As editor of the seminal volume Instructional Technology: Foundations, Robert M. Gagné (1987) collected research to define the then new and expanding field of instructional technology, and to provide indicators of where it may go in the future. He attributed “two sets of events” that brought about the development of the discipline. The first event was the continuing advancements in technology. The second, and to Gagné—“equally essential”—was the growing number of individuals with “a dedication to the promise of human learning, and a vision of how to promote the spread of human knowledge” (p. 1).

According to Gagné, these individuals would research, investigate and verify “the features of communications to human learners that optimize learning, and…discover how these features may best be planned and executed with the use of the various communication media and their combinations” (p.7). I feel I’m one of those individuals described by Gagné, who is devoted to the “promise of human learning” and am seeking a “vision of how to promote” exceptional teaching and lifelong learning. With my return to the university, I intend to explore all of the avenues of AI technologies that have and will enhance teaching and learning.

I’m interested in finding a way that the design and delivery of curriculum can better take into account the lifestyle and circumstances of the individual, especially when national and international instability have caused many of this generation to grow up in a world without structure. We have a post-911 world, a post-truth world, and a current COVID-19 world. It’s difficult for many learners to be integrated into a learning community because structural frameworks are changing and disappearing, and millions of individuals live outside of the formal educational system either because of lack of opportunity or poverty.

Gagné, R. M. (1987). Introduction. In R. M. Gagné (Ed.), Instructional technology: Foundations (pp. 1-9). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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yvette.arts [at] gmail.com