CTE Project Director
Educators and neuroscientists recently met at the 28th Learning & the Brain conference. The topic for the conference was iGeneration: How the Digital Age is altering Student Brains, Learning & Teaching. “Whether we like it or not, our students’ time and attention is increasingly being consumed by what appears on a screen in front of them. For today’s students-an iGeneration of digital natives-as well as many adults, what unfolds on the screen is as gripping and as meaningful as anything that happens in one’s real life” (Kenneth, Kosik, MD, Co-Director, Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara).
The sessions at the conference were all focused on preparing the iGeneration for the global community of the future. One particularly pertinent session for those of us in Career and Technical Education was entitled Learning, Leading, and Teaching in the 21st Century. The speaker, Dr. Tony Wagner, is an Innovation Education Fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University. Dr. Wagner made the following points:
1. The global Achievement Gap is the gap between what even our best schools are teaching and testing versus the skills all students will need for careers, college, and citizenship in the 21st century.
2. The Seven Survival Skills for careers, college and citizenship will be:
a. Critical thinking and problem-solving
b. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
c. Agility and adaptability
d. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
e. Effective oral and written communication
f. Accessing and analyzing information
g. Curiosity and imagination.
In order to reach this next generation of students and fully prepare students for the future educators must move from an information-based learning system to a transformation-based learning system. The differences between these two systems is evident in the following:
Information-Based Learning System | Transformation-Based Learning System |
Focus on “timeless learning” (academic content that has stood the “test of time”) | Focus on using content to master the competencies of “just-in-time” learning |
Rigor is content mastery (getting more right answers) | Rigor is figuring out the right question/problem to be solved |
Studying existing content by disciplines | Exploring questions and new problems with and across disciplines |
Learners working alone and in competition Motivated mainly be extrinsic rewards (grades) | Learners working in teams Motivated more by intrinsic rewards (pride in mastery, contributing) |
Taught by isolated content experts through memorization/recall | Taught by teamed coaches through inquiry, exploration/discovery-hands on |
Accessed mainly by multiple choice, computer scored tests | Assessed through auditing strategies, digital portfolios, and exhibitions of mastery (merit badges) |
Prepares learners for a “world of the past” | Prepares learners for a “world of the future” |
For more information on this topic:
2. LearningAndTheBrain.com
3. The Global Achievement Gap (Tony Wagner)
4. Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools (Tony Wagner, Robert Kegan, Lisa Laskow Lahey and Richard Lemons)
No comments:
Post a Comment