With terrible force, 2017 ended with a series of once-in-a-century storms heralding a new era of urbanization, globalization, and automation, human systems colliding with natural systems in unpredictable ways.

We’re one year into this new age, an era of novelty and complexity. We live and work with smart machines and are influenced by algorithms we don’t understand. Most jobs have been or will be augmented, and then many will be automated. Displacement will vary by sector and geography, but it will be significant and it will begin before today’s middle school students graduate and join the workforce.

How do we help young people prepare for lives full of novelty and complexity? After a two-year study of the influence of artificial intelligence(and exponential change more broadly) and a dozen community conversations, my team concluded there are four new learning priorities:

  • Innovation mindset: a combination of growth mindset, maker mindset, and team mindset--young people should learn to recognize the value of effort, initiative, and collaboration.
  • Social-emotional learning: managing yourself and social interactions, making good decisions.
  • Design thinking: attacking complex problems with empathy and iteration — using a repetitive process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target, or result.
  • Self-directed learning: staying curious, building deep subject expertise — repeatedly — and creating lifelong learning habits.

Read the full article about learning priorities by Tom Vander Ark at Getting Smart.