Design, Science and Technology

What is metacognition?

Metacognition, a term that was first defined by John H. Flavell in 1979, is basically thinking about thinking. With metacognition, we become aware of our own learning experiences and the activities we involve ourselves in our paths toward personal and professional growth. We are better able to understand ourselves in the whole process of learning and can develop skills to think about, connect with, and evaluate our learning and interactions each day. But how and why is metacognition important in education?

It has been identified as an essential skill for learner success. Therefore, do we need to design specific lessons focused on metacognition for use in our classrooms each day? And if so, how can we make this happen?

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

Unstructured learning is an authentic real-world way of learning. That’s because the real world itself doesn’t have neat compartments or set disciplines for success. It demands adaptability, patience, and a willingness to learn and to use what is learned in the moment. Most of all, it requires us to take full responsibility for what we learn.

It’s time to play and to let go of rigid teaching in favour of unstructured learning. For this to happen, teachers have to foster trust in their students. They have to be willing to take a step back and put a little slack on the reins of traditional pedagogy. In short, we need to let things get a little messy. Ease into it—it’s a bold step and it will transform everything.

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https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=modern-education

Technology is bringing a holistic, radical change to the new generations’ life. The learners that we currently have in schools are those who Snapchat their daily life experiences, YouTube their practices and share their voices by tweeting; they have the world at the tips of their fingers.“The fear is that digital natives will start perceiving school as non-authentic.” In minutes, they can change a thought to a video, a live stream or a podcast that they can share globally.

As mentioned earlier, technology integration is a process that is incorporated in lesson planning. It is not about picking up an app and forcing it into teaching to make it more attractive. With pedagogy steering the process, the first step is to identify the learning objectives. Typically, the teacher will then decide on the methods and assessment tools to achieve learning objectives in a student-centered learning environment. 

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

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Rise+of+the+Professional+Educator

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

Schools nowadays are required to learn faster than ever before in order to deal effectively with the growing pressures of a rapidly changing environment. Many schools however, look much the same today as they did a generation ago, and too many teachers are not developing the pedagogies and practices required to meet the diverse needs of 21st-century learners.

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

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=Rise+of+the+Professional+Educator

LEARN

It’s no longer enough for teachers to get a credential and then sit back and teach the same content year after year.

Richardson says to be part of modern learning, teachers need to actively educate themselves about the context students live in and how they can improve as educators.

“There’s never been a more amazing time to be a learner,” Richardson said. “How are we in education not running towards that in our own personal lives and embracing that?”

It’s not just about connecting on Twitter with other educators or asking for professional development about technology. If teachers are waiting for a planned PD about something they are probably already stuck. “You have to have the disposition of an eight-year old to find your own learning,” Richardson said.

Flipping the curriculum could help us meet the demands of the artificial-intelligence era

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotech are redefining what it means to be human—and employable.

Jobs are disappearing as automation replaces the need for people. New occupations are emerging that demand competencies that can transfer across the multiple assignments workers will experience in their lives. The disappearance of global boundaries presents opportunities—and risks—for all workers.

These changes demand a significant, ambitious evolution in how we prepare students for their future in a world that's increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We need a relevant and modernized education.

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https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=modern-education

If schools are supposed to be training the workers of the future, the growing consensus is that most of them are not doing a very good job of it.

In a trend that seems long overdue, technology-based companies are increasingly turning inward to bridge the gap between the skills they need employees have and the skills they’re actually graduating from college with.

In 8 Critical Skills For A Modern Education, we offered one view of what ‘modern workplace’ skills might look like, and have argued many times that true ’21st-century learning’ should change what work looks like all together.

(Nevermind that, in our estimation anyway, the purpose of school is not job training.)

Still, companies (for now, anyway) need human workers with certain skills that, increasingly, they just don’t have. It’s nearly 2018, and the concept of 21st-century skills is more than two decades old now.

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https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/if-i-would-own-a-company-what-skills-would-i-expect-from-my-workers-in-21st-century/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/learning-path-for-professional-21st-century-learning-by-ict-practice/

It is almost universally acknowledged that in order to succeed in the 21st century, students must learn much more than the “three Rs” and basic computer competency.

The term “21st century skills” is used often in educational circles to refer to a range of abilities and competencies that go beyond what has traditionally been taught in the classroom, including problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation. Others define the term as “information literacy, media literacy, and information, communication and technology literacy.”

More importantly, students need these skills because employers across a huge variety of industries increasingly demand them. A recent McKinsey report indicated that close to 40 percent of employers could not find people with the right skills while 60 percent “complain[ed] of a lack of preparation.” Even jobs that were once considered vocational, such as welding, petroleum production, and even factory work, are now high tech, and require specialized knowledge that includes not only a robust science background and familiarity with the computerized machinery that keeps heavy industry humming, but also critical thinking and collaboration skills. In other words, 21st century job growth is outpacing our ability to develop a prepared workforce, making it more critical than ever to teach these skills.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/learning-path-for-professional-21st-century-learning-by-ict-practice/

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/if-i-would-own-a-company-what-skills-would-i-expect-from-my-workers-in-21st-century/

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