The Futures of Learning

We have been tasked by our government about what education in the future should be.  Cynthia Luna Scott, in The Futures of learning (2015) has pulled together a variety of research that discusses project and problem based education that encourages collaboration and communication.  A lot of what is mentioned in the research indicates where we have been heading since it was published.  The movement of change has begun, it is now waiting for school and nationwide systems to catch up with the change.  Learning should require ako to consider different points of view, walking in another's shoes and learning together, to be active, contributing members of society.  It should challenge what has been before, while learning lessons from the past to inform the future.  It should teach ako how to learn and how to challenge themselves, now and in their future as learners.  It should be recognised as being anytime, anywhere and with anyone being able to be their kaiako - young, old, at home, in the community.  The people to help could be endless, if society can think differently about their contribution to learning and work.  

Valerie Hannon, in 'What should education be for?' discusses that in the future there will be the need for work to be distributed in a different way, allowing for more leisure time. This could be used to share skills or to develop your own, through your community on a local or global scale as boarders are vanishing with the use of technologies and social media.

This will only happen if we are in a thriving society, where we have a sense of self and our identity, where we are empathetic and able to collaborate and communicate with each other to be creative, confident, curious and where we actively participate in building relationships.  The implications for how education should look, what education should be for and how it should feel will have to be different for each individual.  Having mentors and kaiako available to help ako to see their strengths, form their goals, notice what they need socially, emotionally and academically to challenge themselves but also to look after themselves will be the catalyst for a thriving society.  Our place on the planet should be inclusive to all with individuals combining forces with others for the best outcome to problem solve authentic issues.

Teachers are going to need to change their pedagogy.  Training programmes and professional development will need to change to influence the wave of change and be technically and pedagogically ready for learning spaces that do not operate as they did in the past.  Assessment of learning will need to involve a change in thinking and encompass many more facets of what we see as being important as learners.  The New Zealand Curriculum allows for a dispositional focus, through the Values and Key Competencies, underpinned by the Principles of High Expectations, Tiriti o Waitangi, Cultural Diversity, Inclusion, Learning to Learn, Community Engagement, Coherence, Future Focus.  Our curriculum document first implemented in 1992, with a reviewed document in 2007, has always had this at its heart.  The same themes are coming out of the government survey in 2018 but education previously has looked very traditional, even though the scope for something far more worthwhile for society has been sitting in plain view.

Parents will need to change their expectations.  As a group completing the governments survey they indicated that they want an overhaul of the system, reduced bullying and more learning support.  It would be revealing to know what they see as an overhaul of the system as we hear a lot of negative parent voice around Innovative Learning Spaces in the media.  39% of the group surveyed identified as being parents.  Of the people identified as parents in the survey, approximately 25% were also teachers which sways this data.

The title of my blog and eportfolio, On the edge of order and chaos, has relevance to where I see education at the moment unless we get a shared vision and pathway forward.  On the one hand we are fighting for greater equity with support for our learners with special needs, an increase in Te Reo and Māori history included into curriculum and teacher workload needing to be addressed.  On the other, we are in an exciting period of change, where flexibility, personalisation, interaction between learners, and project based enquiries into authentic place based and global contexts are making learners responsible for their learning pathways.  Mindfulness, empathy and a sense of knowing your own identity are part of a wider holistic approach that is coming back into education.  New Zealand needs to be aware of its statistics around mental health and suicide and thinking about ways to reduce that within education. 

The skills of collaboration and communication are seen as being the key and yet in my context there are 70% of our ako arriving at school not able to function in full sentences, involve themselves in an equal conversation and identify simple knowledge like knowing their basic body parts.  The equity of access to learning can be addressed with high quality kaiako, collaboration in our settings, valued partnerships with whanau and student agency providing choice, flexibility and different pathways to express learning and reducing stress around when a child starts their academic curriculum learning.  It has taken a change in pedagogy, ways of working and using our environment to see movement in our learners, to those that can now see themselves as learners who can articulate goals, offer and receive feedback and use our school values and dispositions to articulate their understandings of themselves and as citizens of our school.  

Engagement of ako has increased by involving their interests, their identity, taking time to notice their urges to scoot, turn and move throughout the day and by considering different ways of ako achieving their goals.  The cookie cutter activities have been replaced with hands on, practical tasks, that see our ako talking throughout their day, communicating with their peers, their kaiako and sharing their learning in tuakana teina relationships.  Deep learning and authentic real world problem solving is still something that requires development.  We have systems to follow for enquiry which although dispositional and process focused, still can feel like we haven't had the time to dig deep and follow through all the way to the end of a worthwhile project.  Ako are involving themselves in their own projects, for example building their own cars at the building zone and using these at the vehicle mat.  They are seeing themselves as learners and active producers to solve their own problem.  A next step is to include community involvement and involving whanau and parent experts from our school community is an ongoing goal, moving past just funding our wishes to improve our surroundings to a more balanced role of finding out and sharing our learning in a wider scale and impacting 'our place' especially when we are extending the ako through our wider enquiry areas.

Modelling confidence, openness, persistence and commitment to our ako and their whanau along with involving them, their identity and wishes for their tamariki is and will be increasingly important as we move into the future of education in a thriving society that requires communication and collaboration to solve local, national and global issues.