IEEE Montreal Keynote Event: Towards New Personalized Education Involving Digital Twins

This talk deals with the need for a new educational system to match the exponential growth of new knowledge, as well as the disruptive change in the job market and the concept of a job itself.

We have been using the Prussian classroom since 1770 after the first industrial revolution. The revolution accelerated the demand for new replaceable workers on assembly lines and in maintenance. A body of knowledge (BoK) was first developed to fit all students in their education. This one-fits-all (1FA) model of education is still being used in our educational curricula.

Although this 1FA model has been improving due to successive industrial revolutions, continuous developments in computing, machine learning and automation have introduced new and even unexpected conditions. Jobs that require repetitious operations have already been taken over by robots. More complicated jobs like driving vehicles are being replaced by self-driving machines. Jobs dedicated to data analytics are being taken over by new classes of computing. As a result, one job for a lifetime is becoming more of a dream. In fact, many young professionals (YP) will have three to ten jobs in their lifetimes.

In the past, knowledge doubling occurred over several lifetimes, but is now doubling in few years or even months. Thus, teaching one curriculum to be used in a single lifetime is no longer appropriate.

How can the educational system change from the old one-fits-all to an agile one-fits-one (1F1) approach? The system will have to be personalized, adaptive predictive, and continuous in order to match the diversity of individual abilities, styles of learning, and the current gaps in knowledge. It should be implemented with new concepts and tools. We envisage that the new personalized system of education should be sufficiently agile and interactive so that it could be evolving in its symbiosis with humans. For that to happen, we must coexist with symbiotic autonomous cognitive systems, specifically involving digital twins [Kins019], [DKFK018]. Schools, colleges and universities will have to change fundamentally. Some of the changes are already happening, others are developing.

For example, the role of experience in education has been growing in importance. The final-year capstone projects have been in place for a number of years now. Experiential learning is being developed at different levels. However, the experience of seasoned professionals (SP) is not transferred to the educational system yet. This body of experience (BoX) should augment the BoK, and be used in closing the educational loop.

Another fundamental advancement must occur in the outreach to the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers, artists, and mathematicians (STEAM) in high-schools, primary schools and pre-schools. This outreach must also evolve from direct contacts with students to indirect impact through teachers.

This talk also presents one of such tools: teaching teachers how to develop, implement, and test a tiny smart robot. This example focuses on how to teach the concepts, while enjoying the experiential learning.

References
[Kins019] Witold Kinsner, “Towards evolving symbiotic education based on digital twins,” Mondo Digitale, vol. 80, Feb 2019, 14 pages.
http://mondodigitale.aicanet.net/2019-1/articoli/11_MD80_Towards_Evolving_Symbiotic_Education_Based_on_Digital_Twins%20.pdf
http://mondodigitale.aicanet.net/ultimo/index.xml

[DKFK018] S. Mason Dambrot, Derrick de Kerchove, Francesco Flammini, Witold Kinsner, Linda MacDonald Glenn, Roberto Saracco, Symbiotic Autonomous Systems White Paper II. IEEE Future Directions, October 2018, 227 pages.
https://symbiotic-autonomous-systems.ieee.org/white-paper/white-paper-ii

Speaker(s): KEYNOTE SPEAKER,

Agenda:

6:00-7:00 Refreshments and introductions

7:00-9:00 Prof. Kinsner talk and Q&A

Location:
Room: FGC080
Bldg: Faubourg Building
Concordia University
1250 Guy Street
Montreal, Quebec
H3H 2L3