Topic: Advances in the fields of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and robotics will fundamentally change the concept of “work” in our society. Humans will only be needed to perform work that technology cannot. These tasks require higher-order critical thinking, innovation, emotional engagement, and manual dexterity along with real-time problem-solving. The present state of education wholly fails to prepare students for this and promotes success for only a small subset -- only those who can master “one size fits all” academic standards. While not a cure-all for education’s ills, I advocate instead for replacing the current compliance model of schooling with an agency model of human life, one that leverages the natural curiosity and risk-taking of youth to inspire the next generation. This process can be dubbed “student-driven learning” (SDL) in which we absolve traditional role schema to place students in the driver’s seat of their education. I will describe the work I performed through my non-profit, ReinventED Lab to serve as a model for this movement.
Aditya Narayan of Fairfax, is a 2018 Chemistry and Biology graduate of the University of Virginia is an ETA at the Medical University of Łódź. As an undergraduate, he co-founded ReinventED Lab, an education innovation non-profit focused on incorporating student-driven learning frameworks. In the future, he aims to work in the academic medicine space to design interventions and conduct translational research on addiction, as well as innovate in medical education to better prepare the next generation of physicians to address the changing landscape of medical design, public health and health care delivery.
Open lecture