EDUC5010: Unit Seven, Written Assignment

University of the people

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EDUC5010: Unit Seven, Written Assignment

My assignment

A twenty-first century world requires a twenty-first century approach to teaching and

learning. At the heart of this approach should be the identification and development of the

skills that will be most important to current students in their future lives. It is the belief of this

writer that five of the most important skills are functional skills, know-where, evaluation,

creativity and resilience.

First, functional skills must be covered if students hope to stand any chance of accessing a

given curriculum. Basic literacy and numeracy should be the starting point. Some may take it

for granted that success in these areas has been achieved. However, global data indicates that

there is still work to be done (Global Education Monitoring Report, 2015). Once the basics

are attained, every teacher, irrespective of their subject area, should strive to incorporate

literacy and numeracy into their lessons. Literacy can be developed via work on spelling,

punctuation and grammar; how to read well; different reading strategies; and swift and clear

articulation. Numeracy, on the other hand, can be improved by an emphasis on quick, mental

mathematics; personal financial handling; time management; and how to get from A to B. Of

course, this list is definitely not exhaustive. It is ultimately the responsibility of the individual

teacher to facilitate progress in the field of such functional skills.

Secondly, it must be accepted that the world is now rife with technology. The use of

computers, and the internet in particular, has dramatically changed the purpose of education.

For instance, education is no longer about just content knowledge as most content can be

rapidly accessed online and does not need to be memorised by heart through methods like

rote-learning. Know-how obviously has an important role to play in the contemporary setting,

yet, what is perhaps more vital, and possibly more neglected, is know-where (Siemens,

2004). Students need to know the most effective ways to find information that can then be

placed at their disposal in the twenty-first century world. Oftentimes, a search on Google

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EDUC5010: Unit Seven, Written Assignment

might not be enough. Therefore, teachers need to give their pupils opportunities to

experiment. This might involve the use of different search engines, online platforms for

academic journals, retrospective glances through student notes in their notebooks or visits to

a local library.

Tied into this idea is the notion of evaluation. Due to the abundance of information now

available on the internet, there is a strong potential for the global citizens of tomorrow to be

bombarded and subsequently manipulated by fake news. In response to this post-truth world,

students need to be able to think critically and evaluate the information that they find or are

presented with. The subject of History has a crucial part to play in this endeavor. Through its

handling of primary and secondary sources, processes can be taught that help students to

assess the provenance and resultant value of what they see, read or hear. In the main, this can

be done by teaching students to pose the following questions: Who produced the source?

When was it produced? Why was it produced? How was it produced? It would additionally

be worthwhile for teachers of subjects other than History to explore these questions when

dealing with any text in their class.

Furthermore, there should be a focus on creativity. Unfortunately, it is difficult to predict the

problems that might be faced in these tumultuous times. Creative thinking can help to tackle

these problems when they emerge via the offering of alternative, even innovative, ideas.

However, this writer would warn against just listening to prominent figures like Sir Ken

Robinson who say that education should be creative and do not really provide any ways

through which this can be achieved. As asserted by Tanninen (2015), creativity needs to be

taught and developed. Systems need to be put in place so that students can be more confident

in their creative ideas. The IB programme does a credible job of trying to ensure this. The IB

Learner Profile encourages students to be inquirers, thinkers, open-minded, risk-takers and

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EDUC5010: Unit Seven, Written Assignment

reflective. Also, in the compulsory Theory of Knowledge course, imagination as a way of

knowing is studied. All teachers, not just IB teachers, should try to incorporate these elements

into their teaching and find ways to refine their students’ creativity.

Lastly, educators need to acknowledge that all of the twenty-first skills discussed so far are

not necessarily easy – hard work is required. Consequently, students need to experience a

progressive, yet rigorous, curriculum, where they are challenged, where they are open to

failure and where they discover that they can learn from their mistakes. Too much ‘fun’

might hinder students in developing their resilience in this respect. Whether people agree

with the advocacy of resilience or not, it must be realised understood that there are some

growing nations where students are extremely resilient and it would thus be remiss of

teachers to not give their own students in their own countries the ability to compete with

these young people in the increasingly globalised job market (Choi, 2015).

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EDUC5010: Unit Seven, Written Assignment

REFERENCES:

Choi, A. (2015, December 22). What the best education systems are doing right. Retrieved

March 5, 2018, from https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-best-education-systems-are-doing-right/

Global Education Monitoring Report. (2015, April 15). Report cards for education for all:

2000-2015. Retrieved March 6, 2018, from

https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/report-cards-for-education-for-all-2000-

2015/

Siemens, G. (2004). ‘Connectivism: Design and Delivery of Social Networked Learning’. In

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Vol. 12.3. March 2011.

Tanninen, H. (2015, August 31). ‘What the Finnish education systems could learn from

Asia.’ [video] Retrieved March 6, 2018, from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=tXihBgHJelY&feature=emb_title