Page 20 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

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We are already questioning the usefulness of cursive writing or any writing by hand, so how long will it be before we extend that argument to the usefulness of all learners needing to read and/or write? This is a difficult world to imagine but imagining the devices we now have twenty-five years ago would have sounded like science fiction and would have been dismissed as ludicrous. Talking to and watching videos of each other anywhere in the world at no cost? Really? How believable would that have been twenty-five years ago?
This century’s communities and societies require a new set of capabilities, but we also need to manage our virtual and online worlds far better than we do now so that we are not overwhelmed by trivia; with ‘likes’ replacing actual friendship and knowledge being confused with understanding. This adaptation will require discipline and a lot of practice.
The graphic below16 summarises some of the emerging changes in how all of us are feeling as we adapt to this emerging new world of learning. We urgently need to get our heads around this fifth paradigm shift, otherwise we will turn out yet another generation of misfits (literally). We need to start ensuring our learners are competent and building the enterprise skills that this century demands of us all. These are the underlying capabilities that enable us to learn and have the experience of being learner-educators, as there is no better way to learn than by having learners facilitating the education of their peers. This considerable challenge is addressed later in this resource.
Resource 3: Meet the modern learner
As educators, we need to metamorphose into ‘educator-learners’. Our current roles and practices are changing significantly, and unless we apply these transitions, those roles will become redundant and the learners in our classrooms will learn without and/or despite us. The transition of teachers to becoming educator-learners has begun and now needs to accelerate if we are to remain relevant.
The educator’s role is to coach, question and enable students to become independent lifelong learner-educators that can contribute to their communities in an efficient and profitable manner.
16 Bersin by Deloitte; (2014). Meet the Modern Learner. https://www.bersin.com/Lib/Rs/ShowDocument.aspx?docid=18071