Back to school - how should we change?
Sunday 7 June 2020
Enforced remote learning has shocked the educational system. There have been many gains, but it has also highlighted weaknesses in our education systems.
This blog looks at lessons we need to learn as we glimpse a new educational world just over the horizon. This blog is based on papers by Lance King - I am very grateful for his ideas.
This is how Lance King pictures the future:
“How long do you think it will be before we have full Virtual and Augmented Reality operating in the educational field? How long will it be before your children, wherever they are, will be able to use haptic feedback gloves and 3D goggles, not for a game, but in order to be fully immersed in an educational experience? Imagine learning Chemistry by being able to manipulate atoms of different elements in your hands and watch as atoms split apart and reform in chemical reactions, or learn a language by full VR immersion in the culture and activities of a different culture or learn History by being there when Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun’s tomb, or Armstrong walked on the moon. Imagine being able to have a real time conversation with Lao Tsu or Socrates, Archimedes or Confucius. Imagine what that would be like.
It might be powerful enough to generate understanding and learning instantly, much quicker and at a deeper level than any classroom experience could possibly do. At that point what do we need teachers, classrooms, and schools for? That is the redundancy point that every forward-looking educational institution and school system, is planning right now how to deal with.”
Are we maximizing the use of technology to help students learn?
Remote learning was forced on both students and teachers at the beginning of school lockdown. Whilst many schools acknowledge significant progress in using educational technology tools, this does not detract from the fact that many students 
were poorly prepared to fully manage their own learning – remotely. As one parent commented:
“Even in lockdown they still seem to have almost 24/7 connection with their friends on their devices, but the idea of using that connection to work together on schoolwork just doesn’t seem to occur to them. They don’t seem to have been taught how to form teams remotely, how to collaborate and work together in the digital environment independent of teachers.”
“Now that the pandemic is behind us and children are back at school, the biggest change in their schooling needs to be a major reorientation towards the self-management of learning as a prioritised goal. We need to shift the focus of school-based learning from teacher as ‘all knowing expert’ to teacher as ‘designer of engaging, remote-learning opportunities’ that can be completed either in a classroom setting or remotely.” (Lance King)
Reflect:
“Corvid19 has done all of us a huge favour in showing us the huge breadth and depth of digital resources for learning that exist on-line and at the same time revealing how unprepared teachers and students were to access and utilise them. To prepare our children to take full advantage of this post-Covid19 age, right now we need to be teaching them all the thinking and learning skills they need to become effective, self-managed, remote learners.” (Lance King)
Are teachers prioritizing their professional development?
Reflect: What skills have we learned from remote teaching? Which tools, spaces and resources (human, natural, built, virtual) could enhance learning and teaching opportunities? Which tools, spaces and resources (human, natural, built, virtual) were used to connect with students? Which were most meaningful for students, families, and teachers? How were barriers to learning removed?
- Know every website that teachers your material – free and paid. Take out subscriptions to all the best sites. Know them so well that you can design learning around the content they find there. (See Ed Tech Subject Sites)
Learn how to design engaging, independent learning lessons using the best online resources. (See COVID-19: Online lesson plan | Distance Learning Solutions: systems, platforms, self-directed content)
Teach students the thinking and learning skills they need to manage their own learning.(See IB Approaches to Learning)
Prioritise what it means to be a self-managed learner.(See Agency)
Abandon 'transmission teaching' and adopt skills-based, inquiry led learning.
Reflect:
“We cannot teach our kids to compete with machines. Teachers must stop teaching knowledge. We have to teach something unique, so a machine can never catch up with us. Education is a big challenge now. If we don’t change the way we teach, we will be in big trouble in 30 years from now. Because the way we teach, the things we teach our kids, are the things from the past 200 years – its knowledge based. We need to be teaching our children values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others...these are the soft parts. The knowledge will not teach you that.” (Jack Ma, speaking at the World Economic Forum)
“This teaching method involves students utilising web-capable devices, working in small groups, accessing subject-based websites, and practising effective learning and thinking skills – often called 21st C skills. To have an advantage in their future lives they need to be practicing now, at school, cognitive skills like searching, selecting, verifying, validating and corroborating information, social skills of collaboration, communication, team work and affective skills like perseverance and persistence. What this new type of teaching is not about is teachers using the internet as just one more textbook.” (Lance King)
“Improving virtual learning experiences for students will mean solving new problems of student learning, not least how to authentically engage students in the learning at hand. This will mean working on routines to ensure student ownership and engagement. Teaching practice that previously was obscured behind school walls is now on full display in homes, increasing the vulnerability that teachers may be feeling. Improvement is possible when there is a vision for student learning.” (The Surprising Possibilities of Virtual Team Collaboration, Max Silverman, CEL, 4 June 2020)
Dr. Jennifer Chang Wathall has produced this helpful graphic to suggest how educators could incorporate new learnings as they return to school. It can be found in her paper How have we Redefined Blended Learning? April 2020
Turnaround USA have produced this helpful reminder:
IB Director General says education must change post-Covid (Tes International Podcast). In an interview with the Tes International Podcast Siva Kumari discusses the IB's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to shift focus away from end-of-programme exams.
“Students have world of information in front of them, they are going to be entering a world where there is a bunch of information at their fingertips, and so the kind of skills needed in the future…we know are really different to what we have now. The ability of students to ask really good questions, to synthesise information to present it in different ways, to really understand the global competitive landscape but also the global opportunities…I think those are things we really need to focus on rather than thinking about just about getting a grade or something like that...The world is just going to be between lockdowns for at least the foreseeable future, so I think it is very incumbent on us to think, 'what is good learning and what do we as an IB want to espouse and stand behind', and I think we are going to have to deliver that sooner rather than later.”
One area in particular where she said this new focus could have a major impact – both in education in general but also within the IB Diploma programme – was to shift away from focusing too strongly on exams at the end of students’ learning and instead bring in more ongoing assessments.
“Before Covid, we were already designing our strategy for the next 10 years and as part of that we have been having these conversations about the end programme…where this heavy-duty summative experience does not reflect the real world anymore. It’s not where the world is going. None of us does that in our lives and it's unlikely that the world is going to demand that kind of learning." As such, she says the IB Diploma will seek to evolve to incorporate more of this in the future: “We have always focused on what we are preparing this student for and it’s definitely going to be our future where we want to think more about the two-year experience rather than the end of course.”
Tags: covid 19, lessons for students and teachers, independent learning