Page 207 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Section 3:
Summary and Questions
The six cornerstone competencies addressed in this section create the backdrop for the successful implementation of the Learning Process, building on the foundation of how the brain learns and understanding our mindset via our sense of personal identity.
Education agencies need to look past standardised testing dogma and investigate what is truly best practice, while simultaneously ensuring that schools are addressing the fast-changing needs of society. If the purpose of school is to prepare young people for the communities that they will enter and take on greater global responsibilities, then we need to consider the fact that the capabilities young people require today have dramatically changed compared to 20 years ago.
Our ability to reflect on our own practice underpins all professional associations. If the medical profession stopped looking for best practice, then the role of technologies and the realignment of how hospitals meet their purpose in the 21st century would not have resulted in the transformation of hospital services over the last 20 years. Education has just begun this process, and it will take the same passionate determination to ensure that every school is developing each learner’s competencies, enabling their ability to learn – anything, anywhere, with anyone, at any time.
The revised purpose of schooling systems, as outlined in this resource, is now:
As educators, we will ensure that our learning institutions empower learners with the capability to learn efficiently and effectively via the acquisition of the competencies and the ability to creatively apply the Learning Process. The outcome of this should be the capacity to innovatively and ingeniously solve the challenges and leverage the opportunities we face individually and collectively. As the dominant species on Earth, we promote equity in all aspects of our lives and acknowledge our responsibility to protect all species and their environments.
No learner should leave school without having the fundamental capability to become an independent lifelong learner. This requires educators to provide appropriate learning conditions that facilitate the implementation of a conceptually orientated curriculum, providing a much more efficient and effective stage for improving and expanding learning opportunities. With the efficiency gains created via the application of the conceptually base learning domains, there is time to develop the competencies and the Learning Process, as well as allow young learners to pursue their own areas of inquiry and passion.
Our notion of intelligence is changing. We are no longer presuming that intelligence is something that only some people can display. We now know, without doubt, that everyone is capable of being and acting intelligently. The huge range of domains that intelligence can be expressed through must be recognised equitably rather than highlighting some domains as being more ‘intellectual’ and important than others.
The learning domains such as mathematics, science, English and history (particularly at years 0- 10) have been traditionally viewed as hard for learners because they focussed on significant amounts of rote-learned processes and knowledge. Because of the significant rote learning and minimal conceptual development component, far too many learners avoid these learning domains, in an era when we need people who can develop the deep understanding that underpins these domains, more than ever. We desperately need to work collaboratively to review how we, as educators, can improve the learning in these specific learning domains, by introducing knowledge Just-In-Time and emphasising the building of ideas and conceptual frameworks of understanding.
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