A Vision for the Future of Learning

• In Event: AERA 2022 Presidential Address

Abstract

This is a challenging time for education: a time of extreme social and racial inequity; a time when educators and systems are weary from navigating the complexities and fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and national political polarization; and a time in which it is undeniable that learning is a political act, intertwined with processes of cognition, identity, belonging, and social-emotional well-being. This is also a time of possibility. Education systems are more aware than ever of the need for fundamental change. It is a time for our field to engage new ways of thinking about the goals and means of education and to create the educational systems we need, informed by expansive scholarship in the learning sciences. In this talk, AERA President Na’ilah Suad Nasir will (1) craft a vision for the future of learning, offering a definition of the kind of learning we need for the 21st century; (2) consider how our education systems need to be organized to create the spaces for that kind of learning; and (3) reflect on the role of research in supporting this new vision for learning, and how research training and structures in the academy must also evolve.

Author

• Na'ilah Suad Nasir, Spencer Foundation