21st Century Learning and Teaching

Part of the challenge facing educationalists is that technological change will call for skills that fall outside of age-old approaches to curriculum design and teaching. Emotional intelligence, creative thinking, and collaboration are just three core aptitudes that will be needed, but which cannot easily be taught in a traditional classroom environment.

“Updating curriculum should always be on the agenda,” says Jaime Saavedra of the World Bank, quoted in the WEFFI report. “But it is incredibly urgent to invest in changing the behaviour of teachers and improving what happens inside the classroom.

From Blade Runner to I, Robot, the big screens of Hollywood have predicted the rise of the machine. Automated intelligences will wait our tables and drive our cabs. They will serve us by performing menial tasks. But fact is now surpassing fiction. Automation has moved beyond the factory assembly line as computers are diagnosing illnesses, providing legal counsel, and make financial and political decisions. And if artificial intelligence really is faster, smarter and more reliable, what are we left with?

The answer is precisely that element which makes us less efficient and slower. Our humanity. But rather than being seen as a weakness, this is actually our strongest suit. It’s one we need to empower, because studies show that as the world becomes increasingly automated, computerised and digitalised, we are losing the very skills that define us as human. Just when we need them the most.

Our empathy is something that computers will always struggle to emulate. We need to celebrate what makes us different from even the smartest of the machines. While the future belongs to those who are able to navigate this increasingly digitalised world of ours, the choicest spoils will fall to those who can combine technological fluency with emotional intelligence.

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Communication matters. While a few words can make someone feel special, words poorly chosen have the power to kill a relationship or tarnish a reputation.

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Every day, it seems, we’re bombarded with news of leaders, corporate heads, politicians and other key figures in our society whose behavior shocks and deeply disappoints us.

Whether it’s egregious lying, or a lack of accountability, or rampant narcissism or indifference to others, we’re reminded daily of how important character is in our lives and in the successes (or failures) we create and achieve.

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By teaching students these skills in an authentic, applicable way, will they see each other differently? It’s worth finding out. With so many curricular and time restraints on teachers, how can we be expected to explicitly teach empathy in a meaningful way?

A Definition Of Empathy

Webster’s dictionary defines empathy as: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either in the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this.

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Researchers from the University of Otago, New Zealand, wanted to find out if engaging in normal creative acts make people feel better. An analysis of the information found a pattern of more enthusiasm and higher ‘flourishing’ following days when the undergraduates were more creative.

Study author Dr Tamlin Conner said: ‘There is growing recognition in psychology research that creativity is associated with emotional functioning.

‘However, most of this work focuses on how emotions benefit or hamper creativity, not whether creativity benefits or hampers emotional wellbeing.’

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Nach Trump und Brexit: Ist unser liberales System am Ende? Der Experte Wolfgang Schivelbusch ist überzeugt: Politik muss wieder mehr verbaler Boxring sein und nicht nur Schönsprech-Diplomatie.

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Why are some people so much better at expressing empathy than others?

Psychologists define empathy as sensitivity to the emotions, both positive and negative, of other people. You can feel empathic—or empathetic (the two words are used interchangeably)—to someone who is feeling positive feelings, such as amusement or joy, in addition to someone who is feeling sadness or anger. “Empathy is being in the heart of another person,” says Susan Kuczmarski, a cultural anthropologist and adjunct faculty member in the executive education program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Researchers have determined that people react in one of two ways when faced with another person’s emotions. Sometimes people respond with “empathic concern” or caregiving. They see themselves as a source of comfort or support for the other person.

But sometimes people feel threatened by the other person’s emotions and focus instead on themselves. They might try to help, to minimize their own discomfort. Typically they distance themselves. Psychologists call this response “empathic distress.”

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The World Economic Forum shared the Future of Jobs report in 2018 that provided a list of the growing skills for 2022. Here are the top 10:

- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Creativity, originality, and initiative
- Technology design and programming
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Complex problem-solving
- Leadership and social influence
- Emotional intelligence
- Reasoning, problem-solving, and ideation
- Systems analysis and evaluation

If we look at these 10 skill areas, what types of learning experiences or learning spaces can we create for our students that can address most if not all of them? Looking at these skills individually and thinking about the nature of our work, it can seem overwhelming. However, there are some simple ways to create a space where students can build all of these skills and more.

Here are six ideas to try that can help to address these skills:

1. Project-based Learning (PBL)

2. Coding

3. STEAM and Makerspaces

4. Place-based

5. Genius Hour

6. Student-Led PD or Teacher for a Day

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https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/andragogy-adult-teaching-how-to-teach-ict/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/adventures-of-learning-how-does-it-happen/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/?s=life+long+learning

Selbstlos sein bedeutet, dass man die Bedürfnisse der Menschen um sich herum über seine eigenen stellt, statt immer nach seinem eigenen Bedürfnis zu handeln. Selbstlos handeln ist nicht einfach, aber umso mehr du übst, desto besser wirst du darin, häufiger gütig und großzügig zu sein. Wenn du es dir zur Gewohnheit machst, anderen zu helfen und die Welt ein wenig besser zu machen, wirst du feststellen, dass selbstlos sein auch Spaß machen kann.

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As the world fills with more sophisticated AI and ubiquitous technology, human skills--compassion, empathy, etc.--will define the competitive edge of workers and entire organizations. So those interested in thriving in a high-tech world must put renewed prioritization on emotional intelligence and soft skills.


Soft skills represent the top three missing skills of job applicants according to the Society of Human Resource Management's (SHRM) 2019 State of the Workplace.

Top 6 Missing Skills in Job Applicants

Problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation, and creativity (37 percent)

Ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity (32 percent)

Communication (31 percent)

Trade skills (carpentry, plumbing, welding, machining, etc.) (31 percent)

Data analysis / Data science (20 percent)

Science / Engineering / Medical (18 percent)

The significance of developing and applying social and emotional skills is growing. Soft skills are twice as predictive of a student's academic achievement as home environment and demographics and 30-40 percent of jobs in growth industries require soft skills. Additionally, 57 percent of leaders say soft skills are more important than hard skills.

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Behavior changes in people doesn't just happen from one day to the next. Changes in this area takes time - and often, the motto: "You can´t teach an old dog new tricks" applies. Nevertheless - the situation is not hopeless and people are capable of change and are often willing to do so. You are likely to achieve the desired success, if you consider the following four "change levers":

Attitude & Motivation

Knowledge & Skills

Structures & Processes

Role Models & Culture

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In her early teaching years, Wanny Hersey learned how hands-on projects—which would eventually become known as “making”— could engage and motivate her English students like nothing she’d seen before. She’d witnessed the heartbreak of watching a one-size-fits-all education system fail to engage students who needed it most. And the joy of nurturing students’ natural desire to solve problems and create.

Design thinking gives purpose to making. It's a problem-solving, action-oriented, human-centered process that we engage in to assist our students in their journeys as makers.

These experiences as a teacher and administrator inspired her to found Bullis Charter school—with both her past and future students in mind. The award winning K-8 public school is focused on design thinking, making, and project-based learning—all of which Wanny believes engage children, and grow their natural curiosity.

Wanny spoke to EdSurge about how making builds empathy, why it’s important to compensate teachers for continuously learning, and her advice for administrators who want to drive change through design thinking.

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Does the character of our leaders matter? According to research done by KRW International it really, really, does!

Welcome to a Leadership Channel Podcast on TotalPicture. Joining Peter Clayton today is Fred Kiel, PhD, co-founder of KRW International, the author of Return On Character. For more than thirty years, he has helped Fortune 500 CEOs and senior executives build organizational effectiveness through leadership excellence and mission alignment.

Strategy+Business considers Return on Character one of the best business books of 2015.

With Credit Suisse replacing their CEO after years of fines and the future of companies like Uber and Yahoo! being questioned because of bad CEO behavior, (or the current CEO poster boy, infamous former Turing CEO Martin Shkreli), could this be the wakeup call we need to start measuring how the character of a leader impacts their organization's performance?

For the first time we now have data to measure the correlation. In Return On Character (Harvard Business Review Press,), the findings are revealed from KRW International's seven-year study on the financial impact of character.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Character

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Soft+Skills

Check also:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching?tag=Emotional-Intelligence

- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching?tag=Emotions-and-Learning

- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching?tag=Empathy

- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching?tag=EQ

- http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching?tag=Daniel-GOLEMAN

Empathy is systemically related to all of the abilities on the compass, particularly to self-awareness at "true south." Research suggests that the more children become aware of themselves, the better they become at understanding others. Volumes have been written about how to teach empathy, and there is still much to learn. In an excellent article from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, author Roman Krznaric, Ph.D., claims that highly empathetic people:

Cultivate curiosity about strangers

Challenge prejudices and discover commonalities

Gain direct experience of other people's lives

Listen and open themselves to others

Inspire mass action and social change

Develop an ambitious imagination

All of these behaviors foster personal growth and lifelong learning while contributing to the growth of society, particularly empathy's role in inspiring social change.

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Like other aspects of modern life, education can make the head hurt. So many outcomes, so much important work to do, so many solutions and strategies, so many variations on teaching, so many different kinds of students with so many different needs, so many unknowns in preparing for 21st Century life and the endless list of jobs that haven’t been invented.

What if we discovered one unifying factor that brought all of this confusion under one roof and gave us a coherent sense of how to stimulate the intellect, teach children to engage in collaborative problem solving and creative challenge, and foster social-emotional balance and stability—one factor that, if we got right, would change the equation for learning in the same way that confirming the existence of a fundamental particle informs a grand theory of the universe?

That factor exists: It’s called empathy.

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Are you pulled in a million directions? Because we’re all unique, it’s important to define what balance means to you and how you plan to achieve it.

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Wikipedia explains service learning as: "An educational approach that combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a pragmatic, progressive learning experience while meeting societal needs."

That second definition is easier to comprehend, but it still feels more complicated than it needs to be. How about this: In service learning, students learn educational standards through tackling real-life problems in their community.

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Harvard theorist Howard Gardner describes emotional intelligence as “the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them.”  Emotional intelligence can be broken down into five major components.  When we look at each in turn it becomes easy to understand why EQ plays such a key role success.

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