Smart learning for the future

A round table discussion on the strategies and tools required for education to effectively deliver for the future. Organised by the New Statesman.

The discussions range over what type of schools do we need, what technologies should we employ. What motivates people to learn. The importance of the context and meaning of application vs. abstract.

The last one resonates with me, as I failed math 3 times, because I just could not see the practical applications of so much of the cirrculum.

Where as in the US some kids are teaching themselves Japanese so that they can read Manga comics authentically. Espcially since they distrust the translation quality of some American publishers who publish manga.

Lets imagine - Jimmy comes home from school aged 10. "hi Jimmy how was your day?" asks mum. "Yeah cool - you know I was thinking to doing japanese this fall." as he does a a few tricks on his skateboard, whilst texting from his pocket.

And indeed this point is picked up in the discussion by Keri Facer

When you look at children's learning outside school, it is driven by what they are interested in, which is the direct opposite of school-based learning. For example, in the United States a group of students were interested in Manga, the Japanese animated cartoons. In order to get hold of them before they were due to arrive on the market, this group got together, taught themselves Japanese, subtitling and web streaming, because they were motivated to.

What is the relationship with this idea that education is handing down a general base of knowledge? I think that is one of the tensions.

When you look at learning in the home you see knowledge-building communities. Children can act as teachers, they are allowed to adopt different identities and they are not just learners. They have control over the time of their learning and how long it will take. The school system needs to know a lot more about what is happening outside school in terms of children's passions, interests and abilities than it does at the moment.

We need a shift towards an education system that is about listening to what the learners are bringing into the school situation, as well as thinking about an education system that is pushing things out.

Knowledge building communities - I like the sound of that. Also I think that once kids get a handle on learning they pull really hard on information. As it is all about self esteem and a desire to grow. Water the flower and it will flourish.

Also the key notion of attraction, why should I want to be part of this!!!! Listen and dont preach from the pulpit.

And there is much debate about the future direction of education read also here about the need for the return to creativity in schools and good for schools good for business

Karen evans @ the round table said

I think that one of the problems we have with our policies in the UK at the moment is that there has been too much emphasis on fairly narrow forms of skills and too little on developing educated attributes in young people, such as the ability to question assumptions. Technology enables a glut of information, images and messages. Young people really need to be able to have a very questioning approach to what they are receiving. They need to question assumptions and have a critical take on what is valuable and what is not.

And key skills for the future? Andrew Adonis says

In terms of the skills agenda, I am very struck, when I talk to employers, that the skills at the top of their list are core skills: literacy and numeracy. What almost invariably comes second, though, is what we would traditionally describe as soft skills: creativity, leadership, team building and presentation skills

And as we know the skill sets we need for the 21st Century are different to the ones we needed 150 years ago. Children benefit from exposure to digital culture || Young disengage with politics || Class rooms without walls || Leveraging the Knowledge of Our Peers: Online Communities Hold the Promise to Enhance Scientific Research || The education podcast network || 20th Century education no match for the needs of a 21st Century world

And why do we need to move so quickly to prepare our young guns for the world they are about to step into? Because we are Rewriting the rules of the business as we also witness an economic regime change at a scale and speed that is unprecedented

I would like to return to the discussion between Barry Sheerman and Stephen Uden

As I listen to experts, I want to ask: who is the repository of knowledge here?

Stephen Urden says

It's certainly not us. When I go into schools, I see that some schools and some individual teachers have cracked this understanding. I see children creating individual learning plans and creating fantastic classroom environments, innovating and so on.

One of the perennial frustrations is that there does not seem to be a system to enable that good practice to be shared with others, to disseminate.

This last point is important because it is the key to moving forward at speed. Organisational structures are the friction that drag innovation down, that stop free flows of learning. Companies and organisartions are as often opaque to an internal audience as it is to its external audience.

Schools should be about the excitement and joy of learning . The thrill of understanding and then wanting to personally push that further. Think – as a child you wake up expectant and optimistic of the day ahead.

As a "worker" you are often mired in the drudge of it all. Education has to promise and deliver something better for us all - especially in the 21st Century.

Comments

[Rob'O]

cool beans -excitement and joy of learning

[comparador de apuestas]

Pero hay más compañías que observan como una oportunidad los pasos que se están dando cerca de la privatización.