Learning for the future

Over the past few months I've been reading a lot about where people consider the future of education to be heading. I find it interesting to delve into the various perspectives about what education might look like in the future and would like to share some of these.

The first is a summary of some key points from a webinar discussion between two key players in the world of education and learning, Ken Robinson and Peter Senge. Their discussion was entitled 'Learning for the Future' and offered the following snippets:
- Schools are still the answer. What we have to re-think is what a 'school' is.
- It's not that (some) students don't want to learn, its that they don't want to learn the way that we're teaching.
- Schools as communities of learners: We learn from each other - learning is a social act. It is deeply personal and inherently collective (I love this quote). Learning for the future involves learning what it means to think together, to act together.
- Schools are organised the way they are because of the technologies available at the time.
- Just as in an agricultural model of farming, too much emphasis on the yield, output and results will eventually destroy the soil and land beneath the surface. The same metaphor applies to learning. Too much focus on output, results and the yield will eventually destroy the 'story of learning' that exists as part of the culture.

I'm also currently reading through Future Wise: Educating our Children for Changing World by David Perkins. He offers the following six broad trends that are pushing the boundaries of what's taught and the way it's taught:

(1) Beyond basic skills - 21st Century skills and dispositions: There appears to be a global trend converging towards the cultivation of critical and creative thinking, collaborative skills and dispositions, leadership, entrepreneurship and the related skills and dispositions that speak strongly  to living and thriving in our era.

(2) Beyond the traditional disciplines - renewed, hybrid, and less familiar disciplines: Themes such as bioethics, ecology, recent ideas from psychology and sociology, and other areas that address opportunities and challenges of our times.

(3) Beyond discrete disciplines - interdisciplinary topics and problems: Many curricula introduce students to daunting, contemporary problems of an emphatically interdisciplinary character, such as the causes and possible cures of poverty or the trade-offs of different energy sources.

(4) Beyond regional perspectives - global perspectives, problems, and studies: Attention not just to local or national but also to global matters, for instance, world history or the global interactive economic system or the possible meanings of global citizenship.

(5) Beyond mastering content - learning to think about the world with the content: Educators are encouraging learners not just to master content academically but also to notice where content connects to life situations, yields insights, and prompts productive action.

(6) Beyond prescribed content - much more choice of what to learn: In some settings, educators are supporting and coaching learners in choices about what to study well beyond the typical use of electives.

I find it an interesting exercise to reflect on how many, and to what extent, my school is enacting these 'six beyonds'. For some schools, these have been a part of the conversation for many years, yet progress is limited. Others have been shaping the path for some time. It seems to me that more and more these sorts of attributes are becoming more common in school frameworks.

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Seeing is not believing

Over the past three days my school has hosted Mark Church, of Making Thinking Visible fame. He visited us to hold preliminary discussions about us developing a culture of thinking and hopefully the faculty will decide that this is something worthwhile continuing so we can begin to delve into some different perspectives on teaching and learning.

I was lucky enough to be involved with several of the breakout sessions and one idea that was raised was that the students we teach don't necessarily believe what they see. Instead they see that which they already believe. This refers to the notion that a teacher could deliver a lesson in which they think that something has been taught, yet the student still harbours preconceived ideas. The example that we discussed regarding this was of the ideas of two students explaining that in a completely dark room your eyes would adjust to be able to see an object. Despite prolonged questioning and a carefully arranged experiment that allowed the teacher and student to sit in a room with absolutely no light, the student still maintained that her eyes would adjust to be able to see the object. Her original prediction was 2-3 minutes, then 5-6 minutes, then an hour or two and in the end she still maintained that her eyes would adjust - but it might take a year or two! This example showed that, even though the student was willing to shift her perspective slightly, she still did not believe or understand that the eye cannot see anything unless there is a light source. The lesson here for teachers is to recognise that its not necessarily the evidence that is presented that will cause a shift in conceptual understanding, but the ideas and opinions that students have around it that matters. The power is in the hands of the learner.

The acknowledgment that students have ideas and opinions has significant implications for teachers. Discovery learning, project learning, problem-based learning and the variety of other pedagogies fall short of the mark if they are enacted in a way that doesn't listen to or value the voice of the student. They need to be embedded in inquiry. If the impetus for learning is coming solely from the teacher then they will only produce the same results as behaviourist approaches to teaching.

I'm currently reading a book by Marcia Behrenbruch called 'Dancing in the Light'. In this she identifies two approaches to planning in inquiry classrooms. The first she terms 'planning for purpose'. This refers to the teachers' role in planning. It leaves less room for student-initiated inquiries but answers questions such as: 'What are the significant, relevant, challenging and engaging conceptual ideas that should be addressed? What knowledge and skills could be developed through these ideas?' This sort of planning in progressive curricula is based on the 'Backwards by Design' framework. The second approach to planning is referred to as 'planning for possibilities' - a term that I was immediately drawn to. This process supports the development of student inquiries around the identified conceptual understandings. A variety of frameworks exist and all encourage student questioning at the classroom activity stage. When these two frameworks support each other, a teacher achieves what Behrenbruch refers to as an 'integrative inquiry approach'. This is student-centered yet also allows for state, national or school requirements to be met within the curriculum. The craft of the teacher is dedicated to managing the interplay between the two frameworks, guiding the development of knowledge and skills identified in their 'planning for purpose', whilst also reflecting on the direction that student inquiries are taking. This is managed by formative assessment and focused through the conceptual lens(es) for understanding.

Mark also highlighted three types of data typically gathered by schools. That which we can count, that which we can see, and that which we can hear. He talked about filling up data buckets and that a great number of schools have a very large 'counting data' bucket, but much smaller 'seeing' and 'hearing' buckets. He referred to the analogy of a 4 year old visiting the doctor. If the doctor weighs the child, measures their height and takes their temperature then they may easily conclude that there is nothing wrong and they're perfectly fine. However, a thorough doctor would also, for example,  listen to the child's breathing and heartbeat, look for any abnormalities in or outside of the body. These may point to something else and give reason to further exploration. The point is that all three types of data tell a part of the story but none tell the full story alone. Schools must ask themselves how they are filling and scrutinising their three buckets of data. If we acknowledge that students come to our classrooms with ideas, opinions and preconceptions then we must ask ourselves how we are finding out about these? How are we getting our students' thinking into our heads, instead of the other way around?

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The 10 most important skills in 2020

This caught my attention today - an interesting summary. I'm currently in the middle of a MOOC about the assessment of 21st century skills and there's a lot of cross-over. One that particularly interested me was transdisciplinary - the ability to recognise connections and understand concepts across multiple disciplines. Despite this skill being repeatedly raised there are still very little school curricula that teach in this way. The PYP is one (although this method changes in the MYP and DP programs) but even if a curriculum framework favours this style of teaching it still takes a highly skilled teacher to implement it effectively. There are many PYP classrooms that still teach in a very segregated, discipline-based structure.

Source: Top10OnlineColleges.org