Inquiry I Topic

 Define your question: 

In understanding the long term effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Education System, is the shift in how students value work habits and acquisition of knowledge reparable after the lockdown? 

Concept A: 

What were the foci and values of education before the pandemic?

Concept B: 

How has the development of learning technologies impacted our need for *long-term or deep* knowledge? 

Concept C: 

Given the growing anxieties about uncertain futures (and more pandemics), what kind of value do students associate with learning skills required for *meaningful* careers or passion projects?

Why I chose this topic: 

I've had so many questions about this topic. From anxieties and motivations, to evolution, math classrooms, life, even work habits, and AI vs. human-ness. 

Driving forces have always been a topic of interest to myself. Our lives are all about direction, which is perhaps why we place so much emphasis on remembering our pasts and paving the ways to our future. Everyone wants to have a successful future, and it takes very specific work habits to get there and stay there. It doesn't matter if someone is inherently "artsy" or "sciency." If you're not willing to put in effort, you can't go anywhere; and if you give up, then where do you end up? The pandemic brought many of these questions to light because it dramatized socio-economic gaps, destroyed what many people needed to thrive mentally and physically, altered the workforce, and boomed in learning technologies. For some, they gained access to learning short cuts that opened up their time for other activities. Others found escape from learning in social media. A number lost hope in the system that was not designed to help them.

In a math classroom, work habits are incredibly important for students to do well. These same work habits are the ones that can also carry students through life, and are written about in books on academic success. In terms of evolution however, species let go of survival tactics that are no longer crucial for success; in the same way students are no longer able to recall certain formulae or math facts simply because of calculators and formula sheets, then how long will it be until teaching math does a full 180 from the way we know it now?