2020 Forecast
Over the next decade, the most vibrant innovations in education will take place outside traditional institutions. The 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning presents a critical dilemma facing these institutions: how to reconcile bottom-up developments in education with the traditional top-down hierarchy that is currently in place. Such peripheral innovation will redefine how learning is organized, who comprises the broad “school community,” and what the actual experiences of learners will be like in the future.
We believe that as society transforms in unprecedented ways, public schools must embrace the task of creating their own future, or risk being marginalized by these forces of change. In order to do this, we need to understand future trends as well as we can, and use our insights to inform our present-day decisions.
The 2020 Forecast is a tool for thinking about, preparing for, and shaping the future. It outlines key forces of change that will shape the landscape of learning over the next decade. The forecast does not predict what will happen, but rather serves as a guide to the as-yet-unwritten future. It is designed to help you see connections among things that once seemed unrelated and to help you consider the changes and challenges that you are facing today within the context of wider patterns of change.
