Sunday, April 19, 2015

Food for Thought: What leading Educational researchers and commentators are saying about the future of education.

Dear all,

It was good to get back to school on Thursday. I had been away at two conferences, the first was the World Educational Leadership Summit, where speakers were discussing future schools, and the second was the Regional Cognita Annual Heads conference. Now this might surprise you, but there was a great deal of synergy between the two conferences and certainly how education at ISHCMC is viewed by the regional management.

This will be the first in a series of posts that will focus on the INTASE Leadership in Singapore. Although its title was Lead and Redefine Future Schools, I felt it would have been more appropriately entitled redefining education, leading schools in to the future.

This post will give you some feedback about two of the educators featured Dr Tony Wagner and Dr Stephen Murgatroyd, so that you can reflect upon their ideas and follow them or delve further into their research by going to their websites or reading their books.

When you read what these educational thinkers are encouraging, you will recognize many of the things we are building at ISHCMC. There are so many interesting ideas that we need to reflect upon. Probably the two most used words in the conference also aligned perfectly with our mission, engaged and empowered.

Have a good evening,

Adrian

Dr. Tony Wagner. Designing Education To Create Innovators That Will Change The World

 


Dr. Tony Wagner, expert in residence at Harvard innovation lab, talked about designing education to create innovators that will change the world. In his talks he provided a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. When information is ubiquitous and free, and when basic education is available to billions of people worldwide, only one set of skills can ensure this generation’s economic future: the capacity for innovation. He asked the question what must parents, teacher, mentors, and employers do to develop the capacities of many more young people to be the innovators that they want to be? – And that we need them to become. What do the best schools and colleges do to teach the skills of innovation? His research has been recorded in his latest books, ‘The Global Achievement Gap’ and ‘Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who will Change the World.’


                                                                               
His key points were:

Fundamental changes in society make it imperative the education changes. Between  1950 – 1970 we had a knowledge based economy, today it is no longer knowledge based, the world no longer cares what children know, it cares about what they can do with knowledge. INNOVATION is for today, we need to be educating students away from questioners to correct answers to questions that can only be answered by creating new knowledge. This will be achieved by asking new questions that encourage creative problem solvers.

Teacher who make a difference are still often outliers because they are teaching  differently from their peers and come from the perspective, ‘it’s not what you know, it’s what you can do with it that matters.’

Dr. Wagner described FIVE key issues for schools and education:
1.       Collaboration is essential for a culture of innovation to thrive
2.       Compartmentalized knowledge and specialization is from the past and needs to change innovation doesn’t happen within individual disciplines. The future is interdisciplinary courses.
3.       A major challenge for education is the idea of compliance versus engagement. We need to be empowering  students through coaching and guidance to achieve a higher standard of thinking
4.       Risk avoidance needs to be replaced with a culture that encourages trial and error. Innovation demands trial and error. Research is showing that there is no creative learning without trial and error. It has been shown that students learn more from failures than successes if they are taught to fail well.
5.       Extrinsic v intrinsic motivation. Students do best when they feel the work is worth doing. This links with the importance of play, passion, purpose. Interests that develop passion have been shown to also develop grit and determination.

Suggestion:
·         Allow students greater freedom to identify and follow their passions in our schools. Students should be given a chunk of free time each week ( Google time), in which they identify a passion they want to explore. They should set learning goals and objectives, keep records/ portfolio of their learning and be able at the end of a year to present their learning to an audience. Research shows that this allows students to mature to a deeper sense of purpose and that they create a desire to make a difference. This was illustrated by a new documentary, ‘ Most likely to Succeed.’
·         Students need to be given more opportunities to apply their learning through problem solving. Dr Wagner believes that problem solving shouldn’t be part of the curriculum it should be the curriculum. We should start be asking the question what do we want students to remember not at the end of a lesson or unit but for their life time. If we approach education from this perspective it is felt that the motivation of students to learn will be higher.
·         Schools should stop using the excuse of high stakes testing and university admissions as an excuse for not changing. He stressed that 25% of colleges in the US are moving away from test and Grade orientated admission procedures towards portfolios that demonstrate what students have been doing. Parents should not be scared about this affecting their children’s future as more and more of the leading corporations are changing their recruitment strategies to attract more creative individuals. 15% of those recruited by Google last year did NOT have degrees. Deloittes stresses the need for collaborative problem solvers above academic qualifications and transcripts.
·         Schools need to set up research and development budgets that can be spent on increasing teacher innovation in pedagogy and for supporting student innovation in turning good ideas into real projects.

 Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd: Six challenges for the future of education



Dr Murgatroyd looked at six specific challenges for educators that they will be facing in the coming twenty years and the appropriate ways of responding to them.
The challenges are:
(a) Economic challenge. Global economy – nature of the economy is changing – one has to change with the pace of change. There is a changing meaning of work. There is a clear move toward Portfolio workers. Employers are more and more looking for workers with a range of skills and experiences. The day of big firm is disappearing.
affording great schools for all
(b) Demographic challenges – the new mobility of learners. Developing countries are dependent on immigration to maintain their economic growth.
(c) The technological challenge – finding the balance between use and non-use of technology
(d) The institutional challenge – what is an appropriate form for a school and school system when all other organizations are changing quickly
(e) Leadership challenge – what is the appropriate kind of leadership for a school and where will we find these leaders?
 (f) The equity challenge – how do we ensure that schools are great places for all students, not just some?  Equity as policy:
-          Broad based curriculum…STEAM
-          Formative assessment  leading to summative
-          Strengthening teacher’s collaborative autonomy
-          Appropriate tech at appropriate time
-          Differentiated instruction
-          Teach less, learn more, and keep play

Dr Murgatroyd described 7 actions that he felt schools needed to take to have a successful future.
1.       Work towards a shared vision
2.       See collaborative as the DNA  of the school
3.       Share leadership. Ensure that there are opportunities for teacher leadership, student leaders  and community engagement
4.       Work to build a common language that describes the educational values of the school
5.       Work in innovative and adaptive ways
6.       Make work of teaching and learning simple, transparent and most of all make it fun – keep teachers empowered and engaged.
7.       Keep work rigorous, focused and mindful. Schools should be looking at more and more project work because it is rigorous and leads to innovation and creativity. We must always remember the 1st rule of project work: always set a project that you don’t know the answer to!
      
      It was clear that Dr Murgatroyd didn’t think much of OFSTED as he described it as an old system that destroys schools systematically. He followed his first presentation by looking at the five big challenges for leading change and learning in future schools. The FIVE were; ensuring readiness to learn, enhancing collaborative professional teachers’ skills, developing and supporting mindful school leadership, optimizing the conditions of learning for students and enable parents and the public to have assured quality.

1.       Practical personal mastery.  A quest to know who I am. Need to have followers and work isn’t about them, they are not the most important, connectic between … + heart/ passion, balanced, look after themselves

People who engage in teaching and learning are inner confidence
2.       Apply a global mindset
o   Things going on outside own school – understand the world of education
o   Globally minded that can be applied locally
o   Adopting + then adapting accounts for 95% of change

3.       Accelerate cross boundary learning
o   Shouldn’t reject  great ideas from other sectors – learning from different sectors of society is becoming increasingly important. Education is no longer a standalone.
o   We should be actively seeking our learning from other disciplines
o   Understand role of other adults in school

4.       Think back from the future
Don’t guess where school is going
Can communicate vision, strategy direction
Don’t guess, make evidence based decisions

5.       Lead systematic change
o   Learn how to inspire
o   Connect to current activities
o   Engagement is better than demanding
o   Inspire confidence in change. Teachers should be encouraged to own change. Teachers need to develop the courage to change.

6.       Drive performance with passion
o   Evidence of progress inspire and engage
o   Take risks
o   Can lead across and deliver within

The evidence has shown that “Teachers have little impact on standardized test results but have much more on lives of students”

School should be the hub for learning in the community – hub for community bared problem solving. This will help the school develop its adaptive capacity as a school

Most important take-a ways from Dr Murgatroyd discussion for school leaders were:

·         Listen and then engage, don’t tell and enable
·         Imagine a different and better future. A great future
·         Deliver within and be passionate about learning and teaching
·         Work is supposed to be fun. Never forget to laugh at one’s self.


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