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Preparing Young People for the Future of Work

Dwayne Harapnuik — February 5, 2019 — Leave a comment

This Mitchell Institute Report reveals that:

These changes in young people’s pathways into work have clear implications for education and economic policy. Education systems have not been designed to foster the types of capabilities needed to navigate complex environments and multiple careers. The basic model of education has been largely static in the face of changes in the broader economy. Many young people are being left behind, and this challenge will only intensify into the future.

Future generations will navigate a vastly different world of work to that of their predecessors. Technology is rapidly disrupting how we live and work – many tasks at the core of low and medium skill jobs are being automated or contracted offshore. Some research estimates that 40 percent of jobs in Australia are at high risk of being automated in the next 10 to 15 years (Durrant-Whyte, McCalman, O’Callaghan, Reid, & Steinberg, 2015).

Young people will need different skill sets to thrive in technology-rich, globalized, competitive job markets. We need to adapt our approaches to education so that young people are equipped with the capabilities that will enable them to thrive in these complex education and employment settings. And we need citizens with the right skills and capabilities if Australia is to successfully transition from a resource-based economy.

Read the full report:
http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Preparing-young-people-for-the-future-of-work.pdf

In 21st century learning, Learning capablities, future, skill, skills, training, work

Why AI Should Scare Some Educators and Not Others

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 29, 2019 — Leave a comment

The promises or hype of educational technology are an unfortunate central part of our long-standing tradition of attempting to use technology to change education. Will the hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) be any different than the hype that we have experienced this past century? Should teachers be fearful of being replaced by AI? The answer depends on the type of the teacher. Before, we address who should be wary of AI it is important to set the context.

Schools have had a longstanding immunity against the introduction of new technologies. In 1922 Thomas Edison predicted that movies would replace textbooks. In 1945 one forecaster imagined radios as common as blackboards in classrooms. In the 1960s, B.F. Skinner predicted that teaching machines and programmed instruction would double the amount of information students could learn in a given time. Filmstrips and other audiovisual aids were fads thirty years ago, and the television, now seen as a supplier of brain candy, once had a sterling reputation as an education machine (Seidensticker, 2006, p. 103).

We have seen over a century of predictions and subsequent failures about how technology would radically change education as we know it and yet we still continue to buy into these notions. In The History of Teaching Machines, Audry Waters (2018) shares the progression of our infatuation with the automation teaching. The difference with the 21st century and the digital information age is that we are moving through these hype cycles at a significantly faster pace.

Just consider the hype around MOOCs that exploded in 2012, peeked in 2103, by 2014 many were reporting the problems with MOOCs (Friedman, 2014), and were declared complete failures by 2017 (Shahzad, 2017). I have been on the cutting edge of educational technology use and started teaching completely online in 1995 but knew from several decades of experience of using technology to enhance learning that the MOOCs would fail because of its emphasis on the information delivery and regurgitation model of instruction and that MOOCs ignore the fundamental presupposition that teaching and learning is uniquely human relational activity.

Another reason we fail in recognizing and using the potential of educational technology is that we ignore the challenges of our current information age. My colleagues Bill Rankin and George Saltsman (2010) offered the following summary of the challenges of the information age and how we as teachers should respond to the challenge of the digital information age:
Even though our educational system is still mired in the print information age, if we assume that we are currently in the digital information age then consider the following:

If I imagine my primary job as a teacher is to serve information, am I helping solve the current informational problem or make it worse?

And given the vast complexity of the informational network, if I insist on my centrality, does that establish or harm my credibility as a teacher?

If assessing information – and the wisdom & experience that requires – is the central challenge of the current informational age, are teachers more or less necessary?

Considering the overwhelming amount of information that that average 21st-century learner has at their disposal there is no denying that assessing information is one of our biggest challenges and subsequently teachers are more important than ever.

This brings me back to the initial question – Should teachers be fearful of being replaced by AI?

If you are a teacher that is currently operating in the 19th and 20th-century information transfer model of education focused on delivering content and then checking that delivery through a standardized testing model established in 1914, then you should be afraid of AI. Any standardized rules-based system can be automated. With the advances in AI that we have seen in the past several decades, we are only a short time away from the development of algorithms that can automate this information transfer model and eliminate the need for teachers who are using this information transfer model.

If you are a teacher who believes that learning is the making of meaningful connections and your role is to create a significant learning environment in which you give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities to help them make those meaningful connections than you will have no fear of being replaced. You are preparing your learners for a life filled with innovation and exploration.

Is your teaching future in jeopardy?

A more important question may be: Are you jeopardizing your students future by conditioning or preparing them to be replaced by a more efficient and automated information regurgitation algorithm?

References

Friedman, D. (2014) The MOOC revolution that wasn’t. Techcruch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/11/the-mooc-revolution-that-wasnt/

Rankin, W., & Saltsman, G. (February 2010). Teaching and learning in a mobile world: Engaging a new informational model. Presentation for the Teaching and Learning Initiative Conference. Houston, Texas.

Seidensticker, B. (2006). Future hype: The myths of technology change. San Fransico. CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Shahzad, S. (2017) The traditional MOOCs model has failed. What next? Educational Technology. Retrieved from https://edtechnology.co.uk/Article/the-traditional-moocs-model-has-failed-what-next

Watters, A. (2018). The history of teaching machines. A Hack Education Project. Retrieved from http://teachingmachin.es/timeline.html

In 21st century learning, Learning AI, COVA, CSLE, CSLE+COVA, Education, information transfer, teacher, teaching

Are You Asking Enough of the Right Questions?

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 20, 2018 — Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend some time with my boys and their friends at a biking industry party at a local bike shop that sponsors my boys and other professional racers. I took advantage of this time to ask a racer who my older son raced with earlier in the year in the Enduro World Series (EWS) races in Chile, Columbia and Whistler… what was the biggest lesson he learned this year on the EWS circuit? He stated that he the noticed that fastest racers didn’t always take the fastest line down the mountain—they seemed to take the most fun line or the line that allowed them to flow down the mountain. Instead of hitting the hardest and fastest lines they seamed to be having the most fun and were simply flowing down the course. He also stated that it took him the full season to finally accept this and it wasn’t until this last race that he stopped trying to go the fastest and simply went out to have some fun and enjoy the day. When you race for 6-7 hours each day its is foolish to try and run at 100%. You not only destroy your bike you destroy your body. He argued that when he stopped looking for the fastest line and simply went out to find the most efficient or most fun way to come down the mountain he ended up being much faster at the end of the day and posted his best results. It wasn’t until he started looking at the bigger picture and started asking different questions that enabled him to look at his racing different that finally led to his best results. His major regret was that he didn’t come to this realization and start asking a different questions until his final race of the season. He also wished that he would have learned this lesson many years earlier.

Asking enough of the right questions isn’t only a challenge in professional EWS racing it is a challenge in our educational system and more specifically in our learning environments. In the words of Ken Robinson, our educational systems are all too often focused on finding the right answer, which is usually at the back of book, and that we shouldn’t look at. Robinson is using humor to lesson the devastating foolishness of our practice and to spur us onto to acknowledging that we have a serious problem. If we just go along with the status quo and accept that our systems of education are primarily focused on conditioning students to find the right answers for the exam then we are missing the fact that our students are not learning because learning is not about finding the right answers it is about asking questions. Learning is the process of making meaningful connections and we can’t make those connections without asking questions— lots of questions from different perspectives. If we only focus on finding the right answers Clayton Christensen argues we will trap ourselves into marginal thinking because someone can’t be taught until they are ready to learn. Asking questions is how we open ourselves up to learning. Christensen argues that:

Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question — you have to want to know — in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.

Unfortunately, as I have stated above and pointed out in the post Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It our educational system focuses on right answers as opposed to starting with the pursuit of questions. I am not along in my assertions. In his book, A More Beautiful Question Warren Berger points to fact that our education systems reward rote answers over challenging inquiry. Berger uses research data to that shows that our children are filled with curiosity prior to going to school and by the time they are in their teens they have little curiosity for anything to do with the curriculum. He points to the correlation between the ages that children lose their curiosity and a number of questions that they ask.

Why have we created an educational system that quenches our learners curiosity and creativity? While the answer to this question is much more nuanced than I can deal with in this post but it is fair to suggest that our current system of education addresses the question of how we prepare large numbers of students to meet the needs of the industrial age. The problem we face is that we have moved beyond the industrial age into the digital information age and we are still operating on a educational system that asks questions related to problems from an earlier era. We have to start pushing educators to start questioning conventional or industrial age thinking about teaching and learning, the educational system, their schools and classes, and their process and methods so that their minds are opened up enough to the point that they want to know how to do things differently. To explore these idea further check out the video or podcast in the post Are You Preparing Your Learners for Life or for the Test?

We need to create significant learning environments that will help to open up spaces in our educators minds for new ideas to fit. If we don’t purposely design our learning environments to address the questions and problems of the digital information age we can easily remain mired in marginal thinking and the status quo. It is very easy to maintain the focus on standardized testing, on covering the content, on checklists masquerading as rubrics, and the need to regurgitate the right answer. Maintaining the status quo is much easier then creating a significant environment where giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities will lead to making learners struggle with the anxiousness that comes with facing the challenges of deeper learning. We have to remember that authentic learning has never fundamentally been about spouting off the right answer; it has always been about making meaningful connections and to make those meaningful connections you have to start with the questions. The type of questions that open up the spaces in our thinking and motivate us to want to know and to make those meaningful connections—only to have the whole process start over. This is learning—this is life.

Perhaps we need to start asking:
Are You Preparing Them for Real Life or Just the Test?

References
Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.

Fried, J. (2012, September 25). A Conversation with Innovation Guru Clayton Christensen. Retrieved September 7, 2016, from http://www.inc.com/magazine/201210/jason-fried/a-conversation-with-innovation-guru-clayton-christensen.html

Robinson, K. (2010, Oct 14). RSA ANIMATE: Changing education paradigms. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

In 21st century learning, Authentic Learning, Learning authentic learning, choice, COVA, CSLE, Learning, ownership, Voice

How to cut through the hype of educational promises

Dwayne Harapnuik — May 2, 2018 — 2 Comments

When educational issues hit the evening news it is very important that you understand how to move past the hype to see what is really happening. The announcement of Chicago Public Schools and nonprofit Leap Innovations receiving a $14 million grant from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to expand personalized learning to 100 schools is definitely worth investigating. Without fully understanding what personalized learning means within the educational context, on its own merits, it sounds like a great idea. If we look to the recent confession from Larry Berger, CEO of Amplify about what personalized learning actually is. Berger’s company Amplify creates products and curriculum that are supposed to “truly personalize learning” (https://www.amplify.com/curriculum) and since he and his company has spent over a decade using big data algorithms to promote this model, his insider knowledge is useful.

Berger argues that when most people refer to personalized learning they are referring to the engineering model of personalized learning. His explanation of the model is worth repeating verbatim (link to the full confession):

You start with a map of all the things that kids need to learn.

Then you measure the kids so that you can place each kid on the map in just the spot where they know everything behind them, and in front of them is what they should learn next.

Then you assemble a vast library of learning objects and ask an algorithm to sort through it to find the optimal learning object for each kid at that particular moment.

Then you make each kid use the learning object.

Then you measure the kids again. If they have learned what you wanted them to learn, you move them to the next place on the map. If they didn’t learn it, you try something simpler.

If the map, the assessments, and the library were used by millions of kids, then the algorithms would get smarter and smarter, and make better, more personalized choices about which things to put in front of which kids.

I spent a decade believing in this model—the map, the measure, and the library, all powered by big data algorithms.

Here’s the problem: The map doesn’t exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library.

To be more precise: The map exists for early reading and the quantitative parts of K-8 mathematics, and much promising work on personalized learning has been done in these areas; but the map doesn’t exist for reading comprehension, or writing, or for the more complex areas of mathematical reasoning, or for any area of science or social studies.

If the CEO of one of the leading personalized learning companies is willing to confess that – The map doesn’t exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library – then perhaps we should listen to him. Especially when he points to the fact that if we really want our kids to learn how to learn then we need to take a look at what “your best teachers and coaches do for you—without the benefit of maps, algorithms, or data—to personalize your learning?”

Chances are these great teachers and coaches created significant learning environments in which they gave you choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. Learning has always been personal because until you take ownership of your own learning by making meaningful connections you do not learn. Effective teachers have always known that learning is the responsibility of the learner and their role was to create the environment in which this could happen.

These types of teachers have always used the latest technology to enhance the learning environment and recognized that technology, big data, and algorithms as simply tools that can be used to help make this happen. Unfortunately, we have the tendency to look to the tools to solve our problems. We need to head the warning or confession of the foremost tool maker and remember that: The map doesn’t exist, the measurement is impossible, and we have, collectively, built only 5% of the library

Instead of looking to technology to solve the personal component of personalized learning we need to look to the great teachers who have been doing personalized learning all along by giving their learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. These people have also been using technology in those authentic learning opportunities to help their learner explore, create, collaborate and communicate.

Personalized learning is one of the many educational technology quick fixes that we have a tendency to hope will solve our learning challenges. There are many more ideas, issues, and topics that need clarification and we are looking to you and our Digital Learning and Leading students to join us in exploring these significant issues.

Consider the following list as a starting point and let us know if you would like to write an article, post or other publication that will bring real clarity to the learning environment:
Never been a better time to be a learner and/or teacher
Growth mindset & Grit criticism
STEM instruction is mostly delivered via lecture
The much-needed shift to mastery learning
Personalized learning problems & benefits
Individualized instruction
Differentiated instruction
Additional names for competency-based education
Why technology isn’t a Quick fix
Silicon Valley’s failed promises with edtech
Problems with SAMR and related quick fix methodologies
Learning styles and related educational Zombie myths (bad ideas that just won’t die)
Problem-based instruction that isn’t
Shift from passive to active learning
Choice
Ownership
Voice
Authentic learning opportunities
Why all elements of COVA must co-exist
COVA from a student perspective
The issue with taking ownership and agency – why folks don’t do this
Creating significant learning environments
Future of education
Connecting the dots – making meaningful connections
Why – go & show rather than sit & get
Digital leader vs digital manager
Design thinking for designed learning
Confronting the Myth of the ‘Digital Native’
Decades of evidence…but where is the change? Translating educational research to practice
18 years into the 21st century – how are we doing with 21st Century learning
Communities of Practice (CoP’s) and their impact
Problems with STEM/STEAM initiatives
Importance of Learning How to Learn
Importance of asking good questions vs finding right answers
Reality of Thorndyke vs. Rhetoric of Dewey – more to be said
Failing forward
Feedback to Feedforward
How to Avoid the Hype/Getting Caught in the whirlwind of day-to-day processes

Please contact either Dr. Thibodeax or myself (Dr. Harapnuik) if you would like to research, write, and publish on one or more of these topics. This list is also just a starting point so if you have other ideas with which you would like to collaborate write, just let us know.

In 21st century learning, Learning authentic learning opportunities, choice, COVA, ownership, Voice

Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 18, 2017 — Leave a comment

In the Curiosity is the Cat post, Will Richardson makes the argument that curiosity is the only “C” that truly matters. Richardson alludes to the variety of authors who have pointed to 4, 7, or more Cs of 21st Century learning and suggests that without curiosity you wouldn’t have critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. He also points to the reality that our children are filled with curiosity prior to going to school and by the time they are in their teens they have little curiosity for anything to do with the curriculum. There appears to be a correlation between the ages that children lose their curiosity and a number of questions that they ask.

Santana & Rothstein of the Right Question Institute have compiled a graphic from NCES data that shows children’s peak questioning happens at age 4 and then significantly declines as they progress through school.

Warren Berger confirms this correlation in his book A More Beautiful Question and points to our education systems that reward rote answers over challenging inquiry as one of the primary causes of this decline. Our educational system focuses on giving the right answers as opposed to starting with the right questions. And yet the most innovative organizations in the world like Google, Netflix and IDEO and most innovative artists, teachers, and entrepreneurs look to change the world by starting with a “beautiful question.” Innovation requires starting with questions and our current educational system is not preparing learners who are equipped to ask questions and innovate.

When we focus on the right answers instead of starting with questions we not only extinguish our learner’s ability to question, inquire and innovate we create an environment of rewards and punishment that fosters fear in the learner when they aren’t able to regurgitate the right answer. In my research into how to get adults more comfortable with using technology, I learned that in order to stimulate the natural curiosity that is extinguished by our educational system I had to first help the adult learner get over their fear of doing something wrong or the fear of not knowing the right answer. Once steps were taken to help adult learners deal with this fear then we could start working on rebuilding that inquisitiveness that would help them to explore and see “what would this button do” as they learned how to use technology. While my approach to adult learning called Inquisuitivism proved to be effective, I couldn’t help wonder why we had to reactively help people rebuild a natural disposition or mindset that we all have as children.

Instead of attempting to reignite our learner’s inquisitiveness wouldn’t it be much more effective to nurture that natural ability they have in abundance before they start school? When we ask this question we need to be prepared to do something about what our inquiry reveals. There is no doubt that if we continue to do what we have always done in school our passive educational environment of main lecture points, content delivery, step by step rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing will continue to efficiently extinguish our children’s natural inquisitiveness.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Like Santana & Rothstein, Richardson, Burger, I also believe that we can help develop connected curious learners who will become the innovators of the future. While reigniting the questioning spark is extremely important this is only one part of a bigger process. If we focus on just this part of the problem we can easily fall into a quick fix mentality which is another perennial problem that we face in education. There are no quick fixes; we have to purposefully design our learning environments. We have to stop doing what we have always done and start creating significant learning environments by giving our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA).

References
Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.
Richardson, W. (2017, February 11). Curiosity is the cat. Retrieved from https://willrichardson.com/curiosity-is-the-cat/
Santana, L., & Rothstein, D. (n.d.). Percentage of children asking questions. Retrieved from http://rightquestion.org/percentage-children-asking-questions/