New Perspectives in Teaching and Learning: Reforms or Educational Revolution?

Although all disciplines, including education, have experienced large-scale transformations during the last several decades owing to remarkable scientific development, in many instances, current practices in education still reflect the philosophy and standards of the mass production model which was a direct product of the Industrial Revolution. Namely, in order to educate as many children as possible in a short period of time, children were grouped into classes according to their age and not their abilities, needs, learning styles and social backgrounds; all learners in a particular class were exposed to the same curriculum and taught on a one subject-one lesson basis by teachers who usually specialized in one specific subject area. Today, many decades later, learners are basically still placed in classes according to age, are exposed to a curriculum that does not always successfully prepare them for the future workforce and are taught by teachers who often specialize in only one subject area, thus depriving learners of full exposure to the needs of the twenty-first century, that is, interdisciplinary, collaborative task-based project work. All things considered, education throughout the world is still characterized by artificial barriers to learning; for example, holding lessons within the four walls of classrooms, using a bell system to denote the end of one subject/class and the beginning of the next subject/class, utilizing content-driven curricula based on the philosophy of one-size-fits-all classroom instruction. With the explosion of information in the fields of science and technology, professionals in education recognize the dramatic changes that have occurred during the last few decades, and acknowledge that a new insight int