Reimagining and Reconceptualising Education for the 21st Century

Innovation is tipped by many Educational Change Leaders and Business Leaders as the currency of the future.  If this is in fact true, then we need to prepare our students to have the best ideas in the global knowledge society of the future, in order for them to be successful.  This is challenging when students have become less curious even over my own short lifetime.  Grant Litchman suggests the ecosystem of learning needs to change.

We are currently preparing students for jobs that do not exist, to use technology that hasn’t been invented and to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.  Effective teaching and learning can not longer be focused on the transmission of pieces of information.  It must help students to learn how to learn, in powerful ways, so they can manage the demands of changing information, technology, work and social conditions. 

In a very short space of time we have transitioned from an economy where in order to do well financially, you needed to be skilled with your hands; to one where you now need to be intellectually skilled.  The skills for career enhancement, continuous learning and for active and informed citizenship have converged.  While educators are aware of this, the dilemma continued to lie in our lack of knowledge and experience to teach and assess these skills, and educational structures that continue to be anchored around concepts like time, space and subjects.

Educational reform will not provide a solution to these two problems.  Education needs to be reframed: We have to rethink, reimagine and reconceptualise education to dramatically reshape teaching and learning in the 21st century.

After visiting over 60 schools throughout the United States of America, Grant Lichtman suggests the following in his TED Talk titled "What 60 schools can tell us about Teaching 21st Century Skills":

Any job that can be turned into a routine is being either sent off shore, or automated.  Many of the top jobs in 2012 didn't exist in 2002.

So what are the skills our students will need?  What careers will be available to them in the future?

Laura Vitto suggests that by 2030 we will see careers such as Nostaligsts, Telesurgeons, Gamification Designers and even Robot Counsellors.  Milla Inkila from The MindLab has even gone as far as to suggest that there may be a place for Robot Lawyers or Dinosaur Breeders.

Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, suggests that students need 7 skills to be successful in the future:

1. Critical thinking and problem solving skills
2. Collaboration across networks and leading between networks
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialship
5. Effective oral and written communication skills
6. The ability to access and analyse information
7. Curiosity and imagination

There is already evidence to show that employers are looking for a very different skill set to the traditional skills people of our generation were asked to provide:

Today's students are motivated to learn in a completely different way.  So how do we motivate these students to achieve excellence at an even higher level that previously required?  Students must learn how take responsibility for their own learning.  To do this, they need time and a myriad of opportunities to practice, and wicked problems to solve.  Content is important but it is not enough.  We need to use content to teach Key Competencies, and we need to be assessing our students abilities to meet those Key Competencies. 

In the last 5 years the digital universe has grown by 1,000%.  This generation has grown up wired to high speed internet.  They use the internet to extend friendships; they are engaging in self-directed, exploratory learning; and they are using it as a tool of self expression.  Outside of school, these students are constantly connected.  They are collaborating and multi-tasking.  The difference between how these students are choosing to learn in their own time and how they are learning within school is increasing exponentially.  Carolyn Stuart, the Education Sector Lead at Network for Learning, warns that if we do not address this gap, the trust our school communities have in us to cater for the needs of their children as an institution will plummet.

The relationship we have with our students is also changing.  Today's students have less fear and respect for adults - possibly because they are learning more from their peers.  Yet they still really crave coaching and mentoring from the teachers they respect.  They want and need to make a difference, and they believe they can.  This causes them to be intolerant of 'busy work' ... They might do it to get by, but they will not do it in a way that is meaningful or really engages them.

We need to hold ourselves accountable to what matters most.

We need to talk to our students; collect, analyse and really listen to their voice.

We need to learn from each other, and problem solve together to transform teaching and learning.

We need to do new work, in new ways.