Icdk outlook No. 04, May 2019 The Future of Education

 
 
Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education 
17 
It is thus interesting to consider the new alternatives as not only a new shape of 
education but also to gain inspiration in new ways of creating and delivering 
educational content. However, as mentioned in the previous chapter, the 
alternatives face a lot of barriers, such as accreditation and student motivation. 
Summing up, industry calls for soft skills in the future workforce. In Silicon Valley, 
a driver for ensuring that the institutions are up to date, is close collaboration 
between universities and industry partners, and signals of this change is already 
showing, as universities’ business departments and the new educational 
alternatives seem to incorporate the skills the businesses believe are necessary for 
Minerva Schools at KGI – applying technology to build a new university 
A 4-year undergraduate degree with no classrooms, no lectures and with 
students travelling to seven cities across the world during the program, while at 
the same time developing the skills needed for the future of work. Sounds 
utopian? In short, this is a description of 
The Minerva Schools at KGI
, an 
accredited university founded in 2014 with headquarters in San Francisco. By 
using an online platform called Active Learning Forum
TM
, the Minerva schools 
apply modern, research-backed pedagogy and educational science to create a 
university of the future. The platform enables students and teachers to interact 
in real-time on their PC’s, while at the same time utilizing modern technology to 
let teachers apply the pedagogical tools needed to ensure active learning. For 
example, teachers are able to activate students based on actual talk-times 
during a class or simply put forward a student’s picture on the screen. 
A snapshot from Minerva’s online platform: The Active Learning Forum 
Minerva is not only student- but also outcome-centric, meaning that the 
curriculum is based on skills for the future of work, such as critical thinking and 
creativity. Furthermore, a mandatory internship is part of the program, and 
students have so far been interning companies like Uber and Amazon. With 
only a 2% admission rate, Minerva is highly selective on its students and since 
each course is capped at 19 students, Minerva is far from a MOOC as it is 
neither Massive nor Open. The Minerva schools at KGI thus represent an 
innovative model of delivering education, and maybe even a contemporary 
example of how the future of higher education might look like? 

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