Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

Extrapolating today’s classroom use of laptops and tablet computers for puzzle- and game-driven self-learning suggests the future of education is for in-person instruction to be further supplemented, if not replaced, by some mode of AI–assisted self-learning. Online teaching used technology to combine self-learning with virtual “in-person” teaching, supporting the mindset that more (technology-driven) self-learning and less (high-cost) in-person instruction was the future of education. Hybrid learning and blended learning assume a combination of self-learning and in-person instruction was optimal for most subjects in most classrooms. This presentation uses two examples of past teaching methods to remind us of other ways self-learning and in-person instruction can be combined. The first is the Australian School of the Air that combined self-learning, correspondence homework and virtual “in-person” teaching via radio to primary and secondary schoolchildren in remote locations. The second is the early 20th century Austrian system of education for master carpenters. This combined practical workshop experience in summer and essential theory and drawing classes in winter when outdoor construction work was not possible. Both systems were fit-for-purpose and characterized by an optimized division between the two modes of teaching and learning and, in the case of the latter, a division over time as well. Both systems involved supervision and guidance. The question for our extrapolated future is who or what is going to be doing the supervision and guidance and for what parts of the curriculum? This is not the new territory we are being led to believe it is.