At 1:53 of this video, the BC Ministry of Education shares a need to give more flexibility into the current system for how, when, and where they learn, but they’ve forgotten an important option: what they learn.
In a world where total knowledge is increasing at an exponential rate, it is impossible to determine what the best subset of knowledge should be that everyone learns. Further, true personalization of learning comes when one has choice over what one learns; when one is the director and producer of one’s life, and not just an actor in it.
A couple of ideas I like for addressing this need are the Learning in Depth project, and something akin to Google’s 20% time. Students could use the time to learn more about their own culture, get involved in mentorship in a workplace, improve their free-style skateboarding, or anything other learning that they would be willing to document for their school and community.
Noble Kelly says:
In our, Education Beyond Borders, peer-led teacher development programme we work with colleagues in developing regions to leapfrog the rote, curriculum-heavy process of teaching to focus on student-centred authentic, cultural and organic learning with an emphasis on reflection. You may also be interested in a learning environment shift a colleague of mine, Monika Hardy, is doing:
via slideshare/post: http://labconnections.blogspot.com/p/what-is-detox.html
and this is the stand alone site: http://redefineschool.wordpress.com/
October 28, 2011 — 7:04 pm
monika hardy says:
thanks for the mention Noble – David is a friend and colleague on the Cooperative Catalyst.
spot on David.. what is huge.
via Illich…
let’s question that publicly prescribed curriculum rather than continuing to focus on the delivery of it.
October 28, 2011 — 9:48 pm
Chris says:
I do believe it is mentioned at 1:20 in the video that we must “Redesign what and how we teach to reflect important skills and knowledge…Does this involve flexibility, I am not sure, but it does address that what is to be learned needs to be changed.
October 29, 2011 — 2:06 am
David Wees says:
Yeah, I missed that. It does seem to address my concern of examining the "what" we should teach question. I just want to make sure that this isn’t ignored.
October 29, 2011 — 6:45 pm