Alternative Design
We want to help designers of space think like futurists so we can become makers of a better future.
Alternative Design
Education in 2030: Learning Is Everywhere, All at Once
Welcome to Season 4 of the Alternative Design podcast! Join us as we envision a future where education seamlessly integrates into daily life. Explore the changes that will reshape how we live, work, and learn, from AI mentors guiding task prioritization to children testing different aspects of the corporate experience while still in school. In the year 2030, colleges and businesses come together to connect students to potential employers and mentors within their field of interest and ensure educational programs create job-ready graduates. Discover how popular campus spaces may be reimagined as libraries are transformed into immersive technology upskilling centers and outdated dormitories are reconfigured into hotels aimed at guests participating in “micro-sabbaticals”. Education will extend beyond classrooms and learning will take place in unlikely places. Listen in to witness the emergence of a new era of lifelong learning, where education is everywhere, all at once.
Read the blog, Education in 2030: Four Forecasts Shaping the Future of Learning.
Welcome to the Alternative Design podcast, where we explore the power of foresight and design to create future-ready spaces. In each episode, we talk to diverse voices to discover the ways our world is changing and uncover insights that will influence the built environment of tomorrow. I'm your host, kaelin Reed, an interior designer and certified futurist, and I want to help designers think like futurists so we can take actionable steps today to become makers of a better future. Education is at a pivotal point, with multiple trends driving change in teaching and learning methods. This season, we're focused on unpacking these trends and inviting innovators, thought leaders and futurists to help us understand what they mean for the future of learning environments. From the traditional classroom to the night school bar, to the metaverse, we'll explore how learning spaces are transforming to meet the needs of a new generation. But in this episode, we're taking you to the future, a potential version of one. That is, a future where education is simply part of the daily routine, whether you're a first grader or a senior citizen. The question is how would this change the design of learning environments? We'll share the four key predictions about the future of education you need to know, whether you're involved in education design or just interested in where these fields are headed. This episode promises some incredible insights for you. This is episode 24, education in 2030. Learning is everywhere all at once. To imagine the future of anything, you first need to understand what's happening in the present. The education industry has a lot of trends that are shaping it right now, like enrollment challenges, gamification of curriculum, experiential course offerings, hybrid learning and so much more. But we can't just look at the trends going on inside of the industry. And we can't just look at the trends going on inside of the industry. We need a more holistic picture, an alternative point of view. What do these education trends look like when combined with things going on outside of the learning environment, like housing shortages, cost of living, digital communities and even real estate downsizing? That is where things get really interesting and it's where we can start to make plausible predictions about what the future could hold, based on the data we're seeing across the board. If this sounds super complicated, don't worry, we've done the work for you. I'm going to tell you a story, a story that weaves what we're seeing with what could happen next. Then I'm going to share my four predictions about the future of learning environments and what it means for the projects you're working on right now, because what client doesn't want a more future-ready space this day and age? So sit back and let me take you to 2030. It's 2030.
Speaker 1:An education is as much a part of our daily routine as scrolling through Instagram. Gone are the days when being a student meant you were just in school. Now, whether you're 15 or 50, learning never stops. It's fascinating to see folks in their 50s taking online courses to switch careers, right alongside teenagers who are just starting out. Learning now builds careers through portfolios that show off not just what you know but what you've done, and both are now digitally verified by blockchain and recognized by the corporate world. And guess what? The lines between working and learning they've blurred into one.
Speaker 1:And this whole transformation. It's not just because technology keeps racing ahead. It's actually thanks to Gen Alpha. They wanted the same flexibility and education that their parents fought for in the workplace, especially after the world got turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Embracing a well-being first approach, people are blending life, work and learning in ways we've never seen before. Ai mentors are here, helping us decide what to focus on and when, and for young ones starting as early as 10, they're getting a jumpstart on their careers while still hitting the books. This early start is a game changer, saving valuable time, as their curriculum is personalized not only to their unique aptitude level but to the skills that will be most needed for the careers they're heading into. Immersive technologies even let students test drive certain corporate experiences, like delivering a sales pitch, demystifying the professional world and reducing anxiety. It's all about easing this leap from the classroom to the office, making the unknown a little less scary. And teachers they're getting a break from the admin grind thanks to AI, freeing them up to create evergreen content for web streaming. Yep, the instructor influencer economy is now booming on YouTube and TikTok, giving teachers a whole new earning potential that pays for their intellectual labor. Universities are now teaming up with businesses to help shape the work-learn-life model, giving them a new title Landlord. Some companies looking for office space after their lease has expired started leasing surplus classroom and admin space from universities who were looking to offload some of their real estate due to continued enrollment challenges and hybrid learning.
Speaker 1:Aside from the new corporate presence, the on-campus experience has changed in a few other notable ways. Many libraries, once quiet havens of books and study, are now AR VR upskilling centers where lifelong learners can check out tech equipment to do educational programming from their living room. Others have become eSports Tournament Centers, hosting the Global Climate Conquest League, where millions of students leverage STEM skills to solve for complex real-world problems like global warming, food scarcity and even housing shortages. Student centers now look a lot more like venue spaces than common spaces, and many of them use transformable furnishings to shift the design of large areas to cater to a variety of groups. Online fraternities and sororities recently renamed to the Digital Panhellenic Society use student centers to host their biannual meetups, and corporate teams have found similar value in using them as quarterly in-person gatherings for the distributed workforce teams.
Speaker 1:With campuses transitioning into destinations by design, there's been an emerging need for some place for these groups to stay. This led to the reimagining of outdated dormitories into edgy stay suites that offer a variety of stay accommodations, whether you're looking for lodging close to the campus or to engage in a micro-sebatical With more young learners living at home. Some universities have began to pilot this modern take on a gap year, but with a regenerative tourism twist. Micro-sebaticals offer an experiential stay that prioritizes meaningful rest, where lifelong learners engage in hands-on volunteer opportunities within the local community while being immersed in the local culture and history. The two or four-week stay option gives you full access to state-of-the-art wellness amenities and telebehavioral health offerings. Recently, companies began to sponsor these micro-sebaticals as part of a learner's education portfolio, as a form of an experiential credit.
Speaker 1:While you might think some of the biggest changes in where we learn are happening on university campuses, there's an even more surprising change happening off campus. Imagine learning new skills in places you'd least expect, like bars and coffee shops Pictures sitting with your favorite drink, chatting with experts or sharing skills right there. These places now have really cool tech like augmented reality built into the tables and walls. This means you can dive into an interactive lesson or join in on lectures without ever leaving your seat. And it's not just bars and coffee shops. Stores, where we usually shop, are now places where we learn too. For example, h&m is running workshops on fashion design, showing people how to use sustainable materials. This idea was, of course, inspired by Apple, who started offering coding classes right in their storefronts. These workshops let you get hands-on with what you're learning, helping you to understand how things are made or how the technology behind them works. Even outdoor spaces like parks and city squares are turning into classrooms, with temporary pop-ups, you can have short, fun learning experiences. Using games and interactive tech, you can learn about protecting the environment, important events in history or even just basic health information. It's all about making learning part of your everyday life in the places you'd never expect.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to the present. Taylor is still with Travis. We're all good there, but I want to turn this vision of the future into the so-whats. I'm going to share four forecasts that could influence the design of future education spaces, and, instead of making you wait all season long, we're serving them up to you first. Are you ready? The first one is probably the biggest forecast we can extract from the scenario I just shared.
Speaker 1:The live work-learn concept refers to the new value that will be placed on education as an important part of our daily lives, and not just for the traditional students we think of today. Lifelong learning will unlock more than just degrees, with it acting almost like a type of currency. This will redefine what is seen as a learned skill, capability or experience. This is perhaps some of the biggest implications for the workplace, who will need to plan for a variety of learning environments on-site, as there will likely need to be more nuanced solutions to facilitate different learning styles. For the 80% collaborative spaces that we're currently designing right now, one of the enablers of lifelong learning will be the technology advances are making it possible to craft unique, personalized learning journeys that are tailored to the students' individual learning style and aptitude. We could even start seeing them customized to the students' unique personality.
Speaker 1:What could this mean for the classroom? In K-12 environments, this could mean that spaces are no longer divided by age groups. Instead, they might be organized based on students' skill level or specific technology requirements. Future of work strategist Heather McGowan, who will be in our next episode, will share what she's seeing in this space. Like at Khan Lab School in Silicon Valley, who organizes children by independence and competency level, will most likely see the need for better technology infrastructure and better furniture solutions, the change in real time to support various modes of learning, whether virtual, physical or augmented. Now the reality is, when campus facilities folks hear the phrase moveable furniture, I think they have a bit of a heart rate spike, because we currently don't have great ways to make reconfiguring rooms an easy task. I recently heard a university campus designer tell me how the furniture she specifies has to be moveable but can't walk away. This could be an opportunity for designers and manufacturers to partner up to solve for this challenge moving forward.
Speaker 1:The second forecast is new university and business partnerships. A recent study by Springboard for Business found that 70% of corporate leaders report a critical skills gap in their organization. We're already seeing some of these partnerships in action in the form of research parks, but I think we're going to see these partnerships start to influence the built environment by way of space sharing. You've got 900 million square feet of leased office spaces expiring by 2025 and an ongoing talent shortage, with a growing desire for these offices to be located in more mixed use up and coming areas. We've also got universities who are facing enrollment challenges and the potential for surplus campus space because of hybrid learning. We could see businesses begin leasing space from universities, not only to gain proximity to the workforce talent, but to the new live, work, learn ecosystems that are beginning to form on campuses. Designers could see a more workplace inspired design of future campus spaces as they adopt to these lifelong learners.
Speaker 1:Which leads me to my third forecast. The purpose of campus spaces will be reimagined. Some universities might embrace the chance to offer extensive training and education to a wide range of people covering various ages. Currently, university spaces are somewhat open to the public already, but we're starting to see a shift in how these spaces are used as more employees return to school as lifelong learners, needing spaces for onboarding, skill enhancement and gathering. Hospitals might start to resemble the mixed use neighborhoods that companies are eager to join. This broadens the college experience to include a wider community and it suggests that traditional campus spots like student centers, libraries and dormitories could be transformed to meet other community needs, similar to how the Chicago Public Library has repurposed its space for affordable housing. While not every university will turn dorms into hotels for micro sabbaticals as much as I'd love one there's a real opportunity to rethink how some of these spaces may shift in the future, where appropriate.
Speaker 1:The fourth and final forecast is the third place learning lab. The demand for learning could make room for other accessible, perhaps even unconventional forms of learning that could be recognized by corporations. At least 16 states now no longer require a formal degree, but it's unlikely that they don't require specific skills. We could see third places like bars, cafes, hotels, coffee shops need to have available spaces for more grassroots forms of learning. That could be for microcredentials or other smaller, acceptable forms of learning.
Speaker 1:The implications to design could be the kinds of furniture we see in these spaces Right now. Many of these hospitality-centric environments are focused on aesthetics, but they may or may not offer choice in ergonomic posture or comfort for people who will be using these spaces for more than just a transitory cup of coffee. Could we see more workplace and education commercial furniture start to migrate into more of these spaces as an appropriate solution as consumer demands start to change? What a great opportunity for a potential new client base. These are the four forecasts I want you to keep in mind this season as we dive a bit deeper into what the future of education could look like in 2030 and what it could mean for designers.
Speaker 1:If you want to read our more in-depth version of the scenario Learning is Everywhere all at once, check out the inside section of the Kimball International website, where we have a blog post that goes into more detail and reviews our forecasts we've covered in the episode today. While the future isn't certain and any number of variables could influence it directly, we have the opportunity to actively explore potential outcomes so that we can better prepare for them by knowing what we can take action on. That, my friends, is the value of what we're doing here. You, as a designer, have a superpower to shape these environments for tomorrow with functional and aesthetic decisions that you make today. So join us as we continue to look for the insights that will help guide those decisions so that you can be a maker of a better future.
Speaker 1:That's it for this episode. If you're loving our content, we would be so grateful if you head to Apple Podcasts or Spotify so that you can rate us and leave a review. We'd love to hear your thoughts on where you think education and design are headed. A big thank you to Mark Bryan at Future Today Institute for helping us learn and adapt their signal collection, trend development and scenario frameworks as we develop the content for these episodes. This episode was produced by myself, andrew Reed and Brandy Small. Audio production and scoring also done by Andrew Reed. Alternative Design Podcast is brought to you by Kimball International. Thanks for listening.