With the rise of machine learning, it’s critical that we also see a rise in team-based learning in our classrooms. Learning, working and connecting with others is going to be the lynchpin in helping learners develop critical skills such as teamwork, collaboration, trust, problem-solving and communication that will help them and others in life, learning and future careers.
To support this shift towards team-based learning, teachers will need support and guidance in building strong, thriving teams while avoiding common pitfalls that arise when groups of students come together. Taking an “Agile” approach can help.
Many of my sessions at the 2025 Future of Education Technology Conference will focus on this idea of “Agile” education, which promotes projects through authentic and community-based experiences. These experiences give students opportunities to solve real problems and provide solutions in various contexts.
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Participants can expect high-energy, immersive sessions and workshops that “practice what they preach.” Tools and resources will be readily available, including those from my book The Improvement Game: Exploring Education Through Passion, Agility, and Authentic Learning Experiences.
Agile approaches can help teachers and students make authentic learning a reality in the classroom by providing an “operating system” for teams to work together.
Business tactics come to the classroom with agile education
So what is capital “A” Agile education? Agile education looks at utilizing approaches from business and industry and incorporating them into the classroom. It’s a relatively newer way of looking at learning management to support 21st century pedagogy.
Examples of agility in the classroom may look like student teams using scrum boards to visualize and plan around the work of the team. Learning sprints may be utilized to take an iterative approach to learning and development providing built-in, consistent review and retrospective sessions.
Regular student stand-ups or check-ins can be used to inspire accountability and provide teachers time to address misconceptions, provide just in-time learning or identify learning gaps in real time. Incorporating agility in learning allows for clarity, transparency and a means to communicate and share around the work of the team. It also allows for regular inspection of “the learning” and “the learner,” creating a flywheel for personal growth and improvement.
Developing real problem-solvers
Another issue we see in today’s classrooms is the difficulty in knowing exactly where each learner is developmentally or which standards can be truly marked as “done”—and by “done,” I mean “proficiency.”
Instead of uncovering and discovering, we, as educators, tend to spend most of the time covering the curriculum, but this can limit opportunity for inquiry and personalized skill development. Personalizing the learning experience for deeper engagement can be a real challenge.
Agile approaches help position us to provide personalized learning experiences in a more manageable way, which is not only a goal we have as educators but will become even more important as new technologies allow us to better pinpoint where students are in their learning journey. As AI streamlines operations, it “may improve technology’s ability to meet students where they are, build on their strengths, and grow their knowledge and skills.” (U.S. Department of Education, 2023) I foresee agility allowing us to leverage these powerful insights.
If we can rally around technology, then we are better supported to help students connect with real community and business partners and engage in real meaningful work. And as a byproduct, these experiences promote learning and skill development.
This is a win for so many reasons. And I would argue that if we can prioritize connecting students to real problems and real partnerships then these skills are tested and built out of interest and necessity and not just for a grade or collecting points. If you want to develop real problem-solvers, you have to give students real problems to solve.
Potential is something we can teach
Concepts such as Agile learning management, team-based learning and authentic experiences are vehicles for deeper learning that moves beyond just knowledge acquisition. They intentionally include learning how to work with people because, at the end of the day it’s people’s work we do in education.
If the experiences we create or connect in school can inspire interest, passion and engagement in young people then we have won. We are operating within the most over-stimulated contexts to date and if we can inspire human connection and focused problem-solving within these contexts then the future will hold its brightness.
As the world transforms with new technology we can do bigger things. We can crush bigger impediments. We can think differently and be empowered to do things we otherwise might have written off as improbable.
But we have to have this awareness of the potential. And potential is something we can teach. Helping students see potential and think about the “what ifs” can change communities and improve lives. We get to create and inspire the next generation of contributors and because of that, we must be all in for innovation with open minds and of course pivot feet ready to adapt.
