21st Century Skills

Grant Lichtman - Denver TED Talk

We want to disrupt the industrial mindset of education to create lots of little workers. Teachers who want to develop students who can solve problems and answer questions rather than follow lots of routine activities.

Bad news:

Schools are not very good at innovation.

 - competing intersets

 - risk adverse

- they struggle with change and innovation

Good News:

Schools down the road have some of the answers but we need to make connections with them and share our progress.
Institutional change is uncomfortable, complicated and messy but not hard in comparison to other things in life!

Schools are becoming dynamic, messy and chaotic as a result of student ownership of learning, permeable, adaptive, self correcting - authentic reflection.

7 Skills for the Future

Dr Tony Wagner

Crisis in education: Stuck between a rock and a hard place!
The rock - economy based on using your hands has moved to one where we make our money by using our 'skilled' brain.
 - successful career
- ongoing learning
- life of active and informed citizenship

How do we teach and assess these skills?

The hard place - this generation is differently motivated to learn.
How do we motivate this generation to achieve excellence?

The previous educational reform of adapting the testing and a bit more PD is not going to do it! We must rethink teaching and learning for the 21st century.

The World is Flat   - Thomas Friedman

Any job that is based on a routine is being 'off-shored' or automated.

What skills will our kids need to get and keep a job in this new global economy? Are they the same skills people need to be continuous learners and informed citizens?


What do effective companies look for in their employees?



Seven survival skills:
1. Critical thinking and problem solving - continuous improvement - Toyota car builders: build cars, ideas for better building, future cars.

2. Collaboration across networks and leaning by influence - IBM - team work across the globe. As part of a team you need to understand and respect cultural, religious, ethnic etc differences. Lead by influence - the most effective leader is a worker who engages others and ask the right questions.

3. Agility and adaptability - jobs change continuously and we all need to learn new skills as companies are constantly re-structuring. Microsoft & Xerox - require workers to be agile and adaptable.

4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism - CISCO - set goals that challenge you rather than playing it safe. They are looking at how to create a working environment that encourages taking initiative and being adventurous.

5. Effective oral and written communication - they can't write because they fail to analyse and reason. They need to write with 'voice'  by clearly articulating their point of view - persuasive writing!

6. Accessing and analysing information -  effective web search, sort into value of information  - important or trivial.

7. Curiosity and imagination - we are searching for products that show imagination - they stand out from the crowd.

A whole New Mind - Daniel Pink

Economy at the moment:
Our community is based on consuming things they don't need and going into dept. Rather than compulsive consumption - we need to be the country the comes up with more innovative and sustainable ideas.

How do we educate for innovation?
Where does curiosity go as kids get older?

What do we see as we walk through our classes?  (USA)
What evidence is there of critical thinking, problem solving and student independence of learning? The problem is that the leadership is asking them to 'teach to the test'. This does not allow for critical thinking and independence.

Global gap between the skills our kids need to learn and the things that we are testing.
Global Learning Gap - connective, collaborative multi-tasking is happening out of school hours. Kids are waiting to get out of school to continue with the great learning they manage themselves. They are craving coaching and mentoring with teachers that engage them on a mutual ground rather than talking down to them.

What this means to us in class:
1. Hold ourselves accountable for what matters most - attitudes, strategies, characteristics and competencies not numbers! How can we test what matters?

2. Looking for new ways - avoid isolation as this encourages repeating the same thing. Collaboration creates 'peer-based' accountability and change.

Personal Response:

• I believe in students developing independence in learning so they can talk about their own targets, success and next steps.  Reflect ion is the key to excellence.
• I work hard to develop with students the strategies that will help them get out of the 'Learning Pit' and be resilient when faced with learning challenges.
• I believe that daily experiences should be about group work, being creative and finding innovative ways to solve a difficult problem.

The question is - what do you see as you walk through my classroom? What are my kids doing? Are these skills and attitudes being developed or is it something quite different?

My Challenge:

• Continue to collaborate and be active in Twitter and other communities so I an constantly reflecting on my teaching and looking for better ways to do things.
• Make a list with the kids of what matters most and put it up in class.
• Reflect with the kids about where we saw aspects on the list each day.
• Ask colleagues to visit and look for these things in our class learning.

DLC: Future Focussed Learning Report 2014

The world is changing and our kids need to be digitally competent if they are to participate successfully in a modern economy and society. A strategy needs to be in place from kindergarten to secondary school so a digital divide does not develop.

Digital technologies should:
Transform teaching and learning.
Make learning anytime, anywhere...
Motivate and connect learners.

10 Priorities:
1.  Meet needs 21st Century learners

• Learners need to be designers, innovators and creators - not just consumers. 
• This development will rely on the three concepts of ubiquity, agency and connectedness.
  Ubiquity: digital technologies are everywhere, involved in everything.
  Agency: learners have the skills and opportunity to make choices.
  Connectedness: being part of something bigger - e.g. planting with Kakariki Greening Project  
• Safe, legal and ethical behaviour on-line
• Programming skills are required to make technology do what you want it to!

2.  Equitable access to devices

• access to devices - BYOD, business sponsorship or leased devices
• quality internet connections & speed
• quality teaching - needs the teachers to be confident with technologies

3.  Invest in people and innovation

• develop thinking skills, collaboration, problem solving, 
• cross-curricular challenges to make develop knowledge
• teacher collaboration to support peers
• teacher PD to develop skills and new teaching methods - initial teacher training, further PD
• common vision within school culture
• regional hubs and support networks

4.  Future-focussed learning environments

• rely on fast Broadband
• Network for Learning N4L
• Link in other resources like KAREN & REANNZ

5.  High quality digital content

• Creative Commons Licensing so all created content can be shared
• Free up collaborative creation of resources

6.  Regional collaboration

• Government to support regional school networks so they can share in ideas, collective conferences and initiatives - like the Lincoln Cluster
• Mobilise expert 'future focussed teachers' to go out and support others
• Expectation of 'Teaching as Inquiry' approach 

7.  Robust evidence base

• Develop a co-ordinated education research approach
• Decision making based on empirical evidence, evidence best practice both local and international - in curriculum, policy and within schools
• Teacher research supported by post-grad study support

8.  Align curriculum, technologies, funding, infrastructure

• Develop a systematic plan
• Consultation with the sector

9.  Funding structure

• 
  

10. 5 year plan

• Long term goal with agreed goals and measurement set in place

Personal Response:
Well, I guess as part of the UNITEC - Post-grad Certificate in Applied Practise that I am helping make this happen as my skills, teaching methods and leadership are being developed to me the 21st Century Learner's needs.

Our school has a wide range of devices for students to use in class and are implementing BOYD from Year 4-8 so that the apps, learning and skills can be used at home or school so learning can take place anywhere or anytime.

Our Lincoln Cluster has collective conferences, TecFest where students come for an intensive two days training from experts within the cluster, SOLO focus groups, Early Years School Transition and G & T One Day schools programmes. We are in an amazing team but possibly the teachers themselves from the schools need to be more pro-active about creating our own support groups across schools. This needs the attitude of us taking the initiative rather than waiting for 'The Cluster' to do it for us!

Lincoln Cluster Conference: Keynote: Future Focused Education with Joanne Robson

Joanne Robson - Core
Future Focused Education - a Practitioner's Perspective

Who am I? Educator for 20 years + Canada and London.

1. The drivers of change:
Back to the future 1996: 3D printer, robots, UBER,
- Anything is possible: google glasses, self-checkout at supermarket,
- Google cardboard - 360 experience
-  Multiple decives - information, time saver,
- This is NORMAL for our kids
- Change is very fasy

SO WHAT: 
What do we focus on most in education?
Routine cognitine - measuring, rules based processes
Non routine cognitive - creating, mental tasks, unique contexts
Routine manual - assembly line, manual tasks
Non routine manual - tasks too difficult to automate
Non routine interpersonal - problem solving, people interaction

The highlighted ones are those that are needed most in the current labour market.
Are we spending out time at school working on these as they are the hardest to test. (UBER)

One size does not fit all - our students are diverse.

2. Themes of future focussed education
codeclub.nz - collaborative, screen time, creative, problem solving,

What skills do we need  to develop:
resilience, collaboration, problem solving, creativity, persistence, growth mindset, purpose, ask questions

Tony Wagner - The Global Achievement Gap
1. Critical thinking - problam solving
2. Collaboration accross networks, leading influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneuralism
5. Effective oral and writtern communication
6. Accessing and analysing information - asking the right types of questions
7. Curiosity and imagination

Which one do you need to develop in your class?

3. A practitioners journey
Establishing a new school: Albany Junior High School
- going to do things differently
- whanau within the school - vertical Year 7 - 10 forms
- no bins
Lots of speed bumps but this was an amazing opportuity.
They wern't use to the new opportunities - how can you plan without having student input?
Adapt to biuilding not being finished.
What seemed cutting edge was not modern four years later - technology and pedagogy.

Just beacuse they could bring their device - need to have a purpose.
Begin to use the social media and understand digital citizenship.

Assess what matters - characteristics, attitudes, mindsets.

Journey:
Growth Mindset - staff and students
Learner focus - learning is visible, students own leawrning, student led conferences, student reflection, 
Taking risks - AKO kids becoming the teachers
FAIL - culture of learning
Fun - use survey tools like CROAK to check up on lken learning and enjoyment of the lesson
Community -

Design thinking - how to make the learning relevant and part if the design process.
Know your learners - know the specific needs - own desk, ear muffs...
Get learning outside - where is the best place to teach this lesson? CAn you teach writing outside with a ball?
It's OK to fail - kids to take a risk, failure seen as a learning opportunity
Personal reflection - get the kids to tell you what youneed to improve - CROAK etc

4. A personal challenge
Where do you get your PD from: online, face to face or blended?
Often on-line leads to f2f, conferences, catch-ups and educamps.

So What for the classroom:
Look for ways to make learning fun - getting out the classroom.
Lots more reflection - as students, as teqacher and as a group of learners.

Skills to focus on:
Asking the right question
Analysis of information
Creativity