The International Summit on the Teaching Profession is under way this year in Banff, Canada, with a contingent of NZ educators attending. Last year I had the privilege of attending this event when it was held here in NZ, and it provided a a great opportunity to hear from a variety of international 'experts' and leaders from a range of countries in the OECD.
Among them was Andraes Schleicher who is the OECD's director of the Directorate of Education and Skills, and the person most will associate with the research behind the PISA results. He is also author of a new report titled Schools for 21st Century Learners which has been prepared for this year's Summit.
I've only had a chance to browse the document, which has three key themes around building responsive schools for 21st Century Learners:
- Promoting effective school leadership
- Strengthening Teacher's confidence in their own abilities
- Innovating to create a 21st Century learning environments
Each of these themes is already a strategic focus in our NZ education system, and no doubt we'll see some of what happens at the Summit feeding back into our context.
Of the three, however, I have spent a little time looking at the third one, Innovating to create 21st Century Learning Environments (p.61 in the downloadable PDF).
The study concludes that schools and education systems will be most powerful and effective when they:
- Make learning central, encourage engagement, and be where learners come to understand themselves as learners.
- Ensure that learning is social and often collaborative.
- Are highly attuned to learners’ motivations and the importance of emotions.
- Are acutely sensitive to individual differences, including in prior knowledge.
- Are demanding of each learner, but do not overload students with work.
- Use assessments consistent with their aims, emphasising formative feedback.
- Promote horizontal connectedness across activities and subjects, in and outside of school.
The chapter describes how some schools are regrouping teachers, regrouping learners, rescheduling learning, and changing pedagogical approaches – and the mix of those approaches – to provide better teaching for better learning. These are all themes that CORE is currently addressing in our work on Modern Learning.
The commentary and examples provided, together with the conclusions that the reearch team draw from, this will provide a useful reference for school leaders pursuing modern learning approaches in their schools, and who may find themselves responding to requests for 'the evidence' that this will contribute to better learning outcomes.
