I found it difficult to separate several of the trends and issues described from the evidence I see and experience in my practice. I believe school is such a different place from the environment students live and will work in for several reasons:
- Are the learning experiences we provide giving students the opportunity to develop the skills identified as 21st Century skills?
- Are students able to use digital technologies as part of their learning experiences to the degree they will be required to outside school?
- Are we acknowledging how easy it is to access knowledge and altering our practices. Across all OECD countries average percentage of Internet users as a share of national populations increased from 61% 2006 to 79% 2013 (OECD 2016). We now have the means to get an immediate answer to any online question (OECD 2016).
Dagget (2014) sums up these issues by saying that for students, “The traditional classroom is, for many of them, an anachronistic model that’s different from the world in which they live”.
The trend I see as working towards solving all these issues is application based learning such as Project Based Learning.
There are challenges to providing relevant and application based experiences. The biggest being that our current and traditional system does not always lend itself to this style.
This is recognised by the Ministry Of Education:
New Zealand research shows that teachers and students can experience significant learning benefits by changing their roles and working in more knowledge-building ways. However, long-term, system-wide change is extremely difficult. It requires a culture shift in which the majority of teachers think in new ways, develop new skills, and embrace new understandings of themselves as professionals (MOE 2012).
The frightening part for many of us I suspect is that when we allow students to lead learning experiences they begin to use technology we are unfamiliar with and feel totally inadequate. I have experienced this myself with year 8 students and have very quickly become the learner. There is a valuable role for us, however, in guiding students to critically approach the massive availability of information and technological tools.
I teach mathematics and am consistently searching for contextually relevant ways to teach mathematical skills and knowledge. It frustrates me when I have students quoting adults comments such as “I’ve never used algebra since school”, and yet are probably using simple algebra daily.
Project Based and application based models have been used and written about extensively World Wide. We are fortunate to have others learning to use. Our students are also a valuable resource of ideas and knowledge for us to extend. For me I am starting small, in my mathematics classes, developing contextually relevant tasks and learning from my students as they come up with tech savvy ways to carry out these tasks.
References:
Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014 MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf
OECD (2016), Trends Shaping Education 2016, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/trends_edu-2016-en
Hi Claire,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these thoughts. I think that you're on the money with the whole culture shift that's necessary for the move to application based, project based learning. Pretty much as Daggett says and as I think we've probably both experienced in our careers, until there's enough momentum for a culture shift across the school, it's hard work. Well done you for taking those first steps - it's hard to be a trail blazer, and I hope that you're getting the support that you need within your school to help you keep going. It's fantastic that you're working with Maths - perhaps you'll be able to collaborate with your colleagues and look at a STEM or STEAM project? Good luck with it all.