The education of the future as a Complex Adaptive System
The education of the
future as a
Complex Adaptive
System
By: Alejandro Ospina Torres - Felipe Sánchez Garzón
How does the stunted educational model
of higher education today works?
Here is an example.
Camilla is studying electrical engineering
third semester at a prestigious university in his city. However, so far she
does not recognize whether she learns at this moment really is useful in her
professional life. And he
knows, from her boyfriend Stephen, most courses do not really apply to his
profession and in return, his employer is pulling him to do many training
courses on the subject that the company is interested.
He has not graduated, he is over 95% of
the subjects of their curriculum, however at this time of his life, he uses all
his time working on the company and following the courses that the company
dictates. He
currently does not have time to finish the few materials that are missing, and
to complete his thesis and have the title of engineer. While he was not holding
a certificate, the company will employ him as a student paying much less than
he deserves by his study.
Within the current
educational model in
which people study for degrees within
rigid systems, guided by an industrial paradigm (The University
as a factory to make professional), is not articulated in the labor market in a
flexible way. Even
if the people choose to be a Researcher.
John is studying sciences to crave a good
job with a good wages, he must perform master's, doctoral and postdoctoral
degree whether is possible. All
this can take anywhere from age 17 to age 30. It is the same
case of Ana, a medical student who wants to specialize in pediatrics; there are
6-year career and two more of specialty. For them, the next
years of their life will study without enjoying the benefits of their study
until the distant future, and the line that
divides the study life from the not studying life is a title. They are studying for titles that elevate their status and give them
more prestige, and only whether it is articulated to the market, earn higher
income.
Building a new model for higher
education
The situation of these students will
change dramatically under new models consistent with the paradigm of the Third
Wave suggested by Alvin Toffler. Each student can achieve academically, as Modular titles. Also linked to
the workplace quickly and be learning from it and from college simultaneously,
in a flexible way. And, each student will
give its own course according
to their preferences, needs and trends in his life at the time.
How is this possible? Look for Camilla,
she has a good training in mathematics, is a creative problem solving person
and she likes engineering. Initially she is not sure what engineering is best
for her, so instead of released and "marry" a profession, she have
the option to take courses that are useful for any engineering. These courses
will build
her professional profile in modules.
She will go thought courses in different
lines organized by skills. Every
three full courses she gets a diploma. For example,
Linear Algebra, Differential Calculus and Integral Calculus give the diploma of
basic math. Other different courses such as algorithmic thinking, Computer Programming
and Object-Oriented Programming give her a diploma in basic programming. And
three other related courses give a third diploma. Upon completion
of three diplomas, she obtains the title of
technician. With
this technical title whether she chose the right combination, she can choose to
start in the work-world. And in
hers workplace she will find what the market requires at that time.
Then she finds that your employer requires
Web designers, therefore the next set of courses that will look into will be a
technical in basic design (Three diplomas: advanced math, web programming and
graphic design). So,
with these two titles she already is working and applying directly to what she knows.
After a year and a half in a job, Google
opens search algorithms jobs, so she can take different courses and complete
another technician, and so within the three technicians that have achieved, she
qualify as a technologist in Design of Web search algorithms. At this point she
finds a better job and she has studied what it is necessary to get there. She has a technologist degree because
she had
completed three technicians (9 diplomas and
27 curses).
In his new job, she finds
that the knowledge gained in professional practice is so high that if she uses
the appropriate academic knowledge she can create her own businesses successfully. So she decides to
take a technician in discrete mathematics, one in business management and other
Java programming. So she
gets other business systems technologist with algorithms of discrete
mathematics. Like her throughout their academic training has completed two full technologists, is now a professional. And for their
academic and professional life she has developed his career and his project of
life.
She can continue studying Advertising studies
to give more power to her company, and having a diploma in graphic design she
can obtain other two congeners given a technical degree in advertising. (These new
studies would be postgraduate without being necessarily a expertise). Now her rigid
engineer profile has become more flexible, she knows
mathematics, programming, management and advertising. She has
multidisciplinary knowledge and applies it in the service of the company that
has created parallel with this academic exercise, and moreover, she has a professional
title and a technical one that she will be able to continue growing throughout
her live. In her training she get what she need from academia and what she need
in the workplace to potentiate their skills and succeed.
When her business has grown enough she
will need innovation to be at the forefront of technology, therefore should
point to the investigation. Within hers dynamic profile she can make further
studies, she can complete
two technicians after be professional (in
areas that complement under investigation) to gets the title
of Master. And complete four
other technicians, which complement her research, making a total of six technicians
and a doctoral thesis. She
may be Doctorate (PhD). It is important
to note that these studies are based on advanced modular courses, which should
be integer to a research project to graduate from each of the six graduate
technicians. And this model allows Camilla to study and does not retain to dedicate
100% to academic life. She can continue works on her company and complete the
PhD in 3, 6 or more years if it is needed. She will Advance gradually
and grow in her academic, economic and personal live simultaneously.
Thus, each student will be able to build his
profile according to their abilities, their talents and academic profile
environment. Each
academic profile will be unique and directed by who is making it. However, these
profiles are due to market trends, when the market requires more Java
programming, the more people take these courses, but only achieved these
technicians to compete successfully in employment who have other courses where
skills are obtained that make them the
fittest .
Creativity plays a crucial
role in assembling your professional profile. You are free to choose subjects of
engineering, arts, sociology and advertising at your will. But the ones who
better articulate their own knowledge and give
that a better place in the market, creating or working a company,
will be the ones who success. And if a line is
successful other people tend to repeat that line until it is overpopulated,
then will be born new lines of fields of study.
There will be favorite lines, best
combinations depending on the historical moment, place and people. Then the lines
disappear and new ones will appear because the environment changes. And each person
will change with the environment and this will shift to
where people leaders (those who have chosen best combinations) ride. Therefore this is
a new wave where the initiative has a key role.
At the macro level, the University and the
company will be articulated, the company hired technicians, technologists,
professionals and multiprofessionals (people with higher level than
professionals) and achieve its objectives. People will grow
in knowledge and use at their own pace and they will experience what suits
them, but not limited to a single profile.
In employment will govern the law of
the fittest prevails and
the least able disappears (The person with a profile that is not working, must
be routed to the best profile to match, or innovate and create a new trend). So this education
system mimics nature in its function as complex
adaptive systems. Regularities are being created (basic lines)
that follow the winners. These basic lines are guided by the actors (students) and
the environment. And they would join academic and workplace trends in a complex way to
build new lines, new patterns
(basic lines) that new students will continue, predict and constantly
changing.
The new education model ensures that the
people always will learner what is required to work. Ensures that innovators were
successful and that society follows them, so in the social macro-level there is
a movement
toward what works better. The best profiles
and the best business ideas will carry the banner and move the rest to follow
their lines. The
rest must adapt, but always with the possibility of rearticulated to be
competitive.
The SAC and competitiveness
Complex adaptive systems can create
fertile scenarios for competitiveness. By generating large numbers of
specialized elements at the micro level (individuals), promotes the formation
of a highly diversified (macro).
Different products (or profile) will
activate sectors of the economy for its production, marketing, use and
recycling.
A simple product (or profile) wills active
few sectors of the economy, because it will need few innovation and specialization.
A complex product (or profile) wills
activates multiple sectors of the economy, involving multiple skills, highly
developed skills and inputs.
The complexity can articulate the
expertise of diversification, generating wealth and knowledge.
Recognize other ancestral knowledge in
the university education system.
Indigenous and native communities of Latin
American countries have a vast knowledge and wisdom that has proven vital to
various topics such as health, ecology, agriculture, genetics, biodiversity and
even their understanding of reality. The modularity and autonomy in create
their own careers; will validate the personal, organizational and social
conditions for the reality that we live in different regions. Recognizing the
diversity territorial, social, cultural, philosophical and environmental, it is
essential to unleash the education system. The more self
empowerment will break the psychological, mental, cultural and bureaucratic
bonds that run our world in linear thinking. Complex Adaptive
Systems will also articulate the traditional knowledge to create value and
wealth in different regions. (Within
the model a course taken with native will be valid, for example natural
medicine, spiritual healing, organization, anthropology. This diversity
provides extra-academic education to the person)
The resistance to change and the vested
interests.
It is normal for those who have invested
years and bet a fortune on traditional educational system, to have resistance with
new generations come to compete with new rules, better prepared, better skills,
happier and more consistent life projects.
After all, many teachers and
administrators will generate resistance; they have developed skills to work in
the traditional educational system. But it is also true
that thousands of teachers, principals and parents dissatisfied with the
system, they see the enormous potential of their students and children, growing
with the same linear paradigms of education 40 years ago, trapped in an
obsolete system, inefficient, and downright decadent. The thousands of
initiatives that seek to generate a better education system collide in
synchronization with the old bureaucratic systems of mass education.
This does not mean that universities lose
their status or importance. Means that
they must assume new roles in the process of training and adapted to be more
competitive because, among other things, cease to be the unique backdrop to
grant degrees. The
interesting thing is that there were no written formulas, it is necessary to
reinvent it.
The education system needs to adapt to the
new reality. It's
simple, but requires a tremendous effort. Complexity is a
reality that we face. Study and apply, will give us new and wonderful ways to
be more just societies, happier, healthier and with better quality of life.
Study nature from complex
adaptive systems provides us with
tools to create models such as educational model and to move towards success
and prosperity to improve social development. The link
work-study will be as efficient as the nature and begin to be dynamic and
constantly evolving. From
this point we can let the system operate freely and itself will find the best
settings for each moment and each place. This will make
the students, businesses and society succeed. Surely it is not
necessary that groups of experts try to determine what is the best profile that
each career should has; but successful
collective experience will
tell us what the best profiles are. The
new role of former experts in determining career and educational curriculum is
become agents of change, understanding, facilitating and implementing
institutions in complex adaptive systems.
Invitation to participate in this open
source model.
We invite those who want to build better
educational systems to contribute in the construction of a new educational
model. This
is a proposal based on complex adaptive systems, and is open, is just the
beginning. We
invite you to apply the model, improve it, modify it, and transform it as best
as possible in your opinion and experience. By this way
complex adaptive systems work. It is
related to share information, apply it to thousands of possibilities, so that
the best one succeeds. Complex
Adaptive Systems is a collective construction. It is not flee from complexity,
but understand and accept in a simple way. The
opportunity is unique, your contribution is valuable.
