A New Spin on Education: Cognitive Capacity for an Uncertain Future

In their first installment of a series on Getting Smart, Betsy Hill and Roger Stark wrote that in these days of brain science, many long-standing assumptions about education are being called into question and the fact that the model of education that arose to address the industrial age has been asked to prepare students for the “ages” that have come in quick succession – the “information age,” the “digital age,” the “experience age” and whatever will come next.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that we don’t know what comes next. So rather than train learners with information that may or may not prove useful in their chosen field (especially if that field hasn’t been invented yet), we build learners’ cognitive abilities so they can master whatever comes next.

Imagine how much easier it would be for teachers if every student was just a wee bit smarter, and if learning came a wee bit easier.

Science fiction, you say? Well, you’d be half right.

It’s science.

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