The solution for this new envision is a formula that Le has come up with. The students need empowerment, they need to be self organized, and there needs to be emergence. If all of these things are powered by technology this formula will lead to transformation. In this model, students would be given very hard questions to answer, and they'd be given the tools to answer them with the support of the teacher. The teacher needs to take a step back and let the students do the work. The teacher is there to offer positive guidance and support. By changing the conversation from "how" to "why" teachers will get there students thinking more critically. If we give students the right tools (technology being very important) they can become interconnected with the world and use global resources to solve problems. Le feels that it is of utmost importance that students see the immensity and complexity of the world- but they need access to it. He describes a program at Stanford called the D school:Design for Change as a model of this type of teaching, thinking and learning. At the D school, students do not even receive any sort of credit or degree for completing the courses, but they are gaining invaluable life and business skills.
Le showed an image of what he believes the future of learning will look like. In this image we see several round tables pushed together. Students all with laptops and tablets in front of them. Students are leaning in, discussing, working together. It is a classroom setting unlike most- students are not facing a board and staring at a teacher all day. Instead they are faced toward one another, working together. This classroom looked busy and exciting. As an educator I'd love to see my own classroom morph into something that looks similar to this photo. I guess my big questions are when are kids too young to begin this model? How much of a foundation in math, reading and writing do we give our students before shifting them into a more free flowing learning environment? I feel that it's so important that they have this strong foundation in reading and writing if they are going to be positive participants in a global community. How do we begin these conversations in our schools? How do we get away from this model of standardized testing and putting students in boxes to building a global community that works together to solve problems?
-Albert Einstein