The digital revolution is transforming our work, organizations and daily lives. Driverless cars are now legal in three U.S states. One third of payments in Kenya are made via mobile phones. This revolution is already transforming the way children and young people play, access information, communicate and learn. While this revolution has impacted schools, it has not transformed most teaching and learning.
Where technology is used, research findings on its impact on learner outcomes are disappointing. That does not mean that we should abandon technology, nor can we go back to teaching the way we have been so far: the teacher at the front transmitting knowledge and the children listening quietly. The research on brain activity by Rosalind Picard and her colleagues at MIT's Media Lab suggests that students' brain activity is nearly non-existent during lectures. Lectures equal brain "flatlining," and as Professor Eric Mazur of Harvard University's Physics Department puts it, "[students] are more asleep during lectures than when they are in bed!" For these reasons, we need a new pedagogy. [1]
In the 20th century we expected school systems to sort people: those who would go to university and those who wouldn't, those who would do professional jobs and those who wouldn't, and those who would fill the semi-skilled and unskilled jobs for which minimal learning at school was required.
In the 21st century we are aware that this is not good enough - not good enough morally, not good enough socially and not good enough economically. Machines can do much of this work better than people. Only capable learners willing to pursue education and knowledge continuously w
ill thrive in the world that is coming. We need every young person to graduate ready for college, career and citizenship -
prepared to learn.
If we could develop a new pedagogy that would help us rise to these two challenges, then we
would see a huge acceleration in the improvement of education outcomes. Moreover, we would see learning outcomes that would include not only literacy and numeracy, but also those wider, less well-defined outcomes such as problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, thinking in different ways, and building effective relationships and teams.
How would we measure learning beyond the knowledge of content?
Currently, there are a few examples of measuring skills and processes using ACT Work Keys and other credentialing called "badging."
Both systems shift from credentials that simply measure seat time to ones that more accurately measure competencies.
New measures are urgently needed to give students, teachers, parents and leaders a clear picture of what deep learning really means in practice and how it can concretely and positively impact the talent development of our youth and Stark's economic vibrancy.
[1]
Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014) A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning, London: Pearson.
