Have a look at Chris Kennedy’s post here: http://cultureofyes.ca/2011/05/08/open-government-and-education/

He says, “There are a number of interesting thinkers outside of the education realm with ideas around open government. We do some work with Stephanie Hayes in West Vancouver and I really like the six pillars she describes when considering social capabilities in the public service:
Communication
Engagement
Innovation
Trust
Collaboration
Alignment”

I think these relate well to:
1) Relationships for Learning
2) “Creating a Space” for Learning
3) Systems for Learning

The questions I wonder about relate to the attitude, skills and tools people need to build the relationships, create the learning spaces, and alter the systems for learning so that the change becomes easier or even embedded into the system.

I’m not sure saying it this way relays my intended meaning but I wonder how we do this by creating a ‘new educational plate’ rather than ‘adding to the current plates’ of educators and educational leaders? ~ What systems can we implement, what skills do we need to teach, so that learning becomes the action and not just the end-product of the system?

A few years ago I wrote this to start off my ‘Statement of Educational Philosophy’:

The goal of education is to enrich the lives of students while producing articulate, expressive thinkers and lifelong learners, who are socially responsible, resilient, and active citizens of the world. Education is about teaching students, not subjects. It is about engaging students in their learning, and maximizing the potential of each and every child. Education is about looking beyond the child’s intellect, and seeing the whole child. Education is about providing students with opportunities to be challenged and still succeed.

Can we look at the ‘whole child’ in our current education system? Can we let some play their sport or do their creative arts of choice and get credit for it? Can we help students balance time doing something they are passionate about with time spent on learning some basics? (…Whatever that might be?)

Can we let reading assignments slide for your kid, but make sure the kid who can’t successfully read for information do just that, no matter how much he/she hates the assignment? (No matter how much we empower him/her to make it something enjoyable.)

Do we expect students to be motivated? What do we do when they are not? Does every assignment have to have personal relevance?

How do we produce articulate, expressive thinkers and lifelong learners, who are socially responsible, resilient, and active citizens of the world? Or am I just stuck in a paradigm just using the word ‘produce’… as in production line… as in back to the industrial age?

You said, “I sit here wondering what this all means?” and all I did was ask more questions… I’m really not sure what it all means?

Wish I could continue this conversation in Starbucks over a coffee:-)

She had no idea why reading and comprehension are important for her life. This assignment isn’t meaningful for her, at all! There is no relevance. And I also realized that I’m not sure how the assignment relates to real world skills either?

It’s assumed that reading is important and that kids need to be able to show their comprehension somehow – with some sort of output. We all agree that it’s a necessary skill. But why? What is the end goal of reading? Of a book report? Of a monthly reading assignment?

These are great questions and ones I am afraid not too many educators are asking. We spend so much time discussing the advantages and disadvantage of technology and it’s miraculous or nefarious influence on our children that we forget to simply stop and reflect on what we are doing in school and why?

I recently read a post by Cathy Davidson ( http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/why-doesnt-anyone-pay-attention-anymore) where she says, ” The point is we measure our kids’ deficits by our glowing and often inflated idea of how much better “we” (our entire generation, of course) were. This is not really a discussion about the biology of attention; it is about the sociology of change.”

I think this is what you are saying about you and your daughter’s are experiencing. Let’s face it! Aren’t we all? We are at a stage where we are not sure what to do next, but we know what we have been doing is not working. This is causing anxiety. This is why we write articles blaming our kids changing behavior on computers.

Cathy goes on to say:

Virtually all of our institutions of learning have evolved to support an industrial age model. The problem is not in the students. It is in the mismatch between the way they are being taught and what they need to learn. We’re only fifteen years into the Information Age.  It took 150 years to make education for the Industrial Age. It is a challenge to rethink education from the ground up, but we need to. For the sake of our children, it is time to stop complaining and looking backwards and to start thinking about the best ways we can help our children succeed in a future they have inherited and will help to shape.

So that is it. Sorry, but I don’t have much more to add, expect to say that you raised some very important questions and I look forward to continuing on this journey to find the answers.

The world needs more Shameless Idealists and I’m glad you are (finally) starting to feel shameless about your idealism… it’s a great quality and you wear it well!

However, I am concerned that the simple joy of learning is not presented here. There is a hint at it: “Create meaning within each person’s own context. When I can connect something new to something I already understand, learning is better retained and becomes sustainable.”

With so much focus on social learning, constructivism, and relevant knowledge for work “out there”, what has happened to working with students for the sheer joy of learning, for that “ah ha” moment? Does that moment have to be “sustainable”?

I know there are standards and tests, etc. to be met, but I regret that so much curriculum design and redesign is built on the premise that knowledge has to be tied to something else “out there” rather than hearing a student say, “I just read a poem and understand it. Wow! How cool is that?”

Under the heading ‘Learner Centred’ you make reference to a continuallly changing work, seems that statement belows somewhere else. What about focussing that section specifically on what the learner, who by your definition is the centre of their learning, will experience in this or any learning environment that you create. It is common in technology projects to make allowances for technological changes, and the adjustments in practice that has for the users. This seems divergent from the heading of learner centred.

For an additional topic, how about a heading on ‘Active or Engaged’. I continually refer to the Principles of Learning that are in the front of all the BC Integrated Resource Packages. “Learning requires the active participation of the student; People learn in a variety of ways and at different rates; Learning is both an individual and a group process.”

You might also want to add a statement under the ‘Social’ heading about learning being an individual process as well.

Hope this helps on your journey.
James

Another concern, when I read the list from a teacher perspective, is practicality. Some of the ideas sound good but their implementation might worry me, were I in the classroom. I would worry about what you were intending to expect me to do.

I will take one example. We have both discussed before the issue of parent involvement, as we are both parent advocates. Schools always send home papers at the start of the year stating that parent support is vital to student success and that parents are partners in education… then they generally lock parents out as much as possible. Probably the schools more or less believe that parents are important but, really, they get in the way, so it’s easier to talk about it than to do it.

Without a concrete and doable approach to parent involvement, your declaration risks the same fate of actionless statement. I think this links to the idea above that the reader doesn’t have the chance to know exactly what you mean by these statements. What does it look like?

I know from our conversations that you do have a workable idea of what this kind of corroboration between home and school & community and school might look like. You have some excellent ideas on opening the classroom up to wider input – but that doesn’t come through here. It would be great if this list caused the reader to be excited, rather than wary.

Yes, learning should be relevant. Sometimes, though, you do have to learn something that won’t seem relevant yet but will come in handy later. This is especially true at the younger years. So, whereas I agree with you on relevancy overall, I’d leave room for a little waffling. Personally, I’m not an “unschooler” who thinks that children always make their own best choices of what to study and why, though whenever it works, it’s great to go with it. It might be good to tip one’s hat to the need for some realm of requirement and discipline here, though always with a view to the overall relevancy of the learning. This is one of the main critiques of unmitigated child-centered learning.

I especially liked your Networked Learning section, as this starts to get into some of the new ways of doing things.

It’s a good opening volley. I look forward to its evolution.

So, would your questions be any different if you substituted “teacher” for “student”?

@Chris – Love it! The translation of what we know about learning into tools, structures and culture that supports that learning is EXACTLY what my current project is all about!! I hope you’ll keep exploring the actual “what does this mean??” conversations with me!

Chatting with @intrepidteacher on twitter this morning, I was saying that I’m often overwhelmed and wondering if I have any idea what I’m doing?? But that’s the space that creativity and innovation lives – so I just keep walking into the unknown here and am grateful for your company!

@Jabiz – Thanks for letting this percolate – please jump in any time! And thanks for that conversation (above) this morning! Good perspective for me to remember!

My current project is with a large K-12 district. We’re doing some simple things, like replacing their email system. But part of it is to migrate all of their websites (internal and external), virtual discussions, pro-d support, etc… to a new technology. And I see it as a huge “disruptive” opportunity. Rather than giving everyone a new way to do old things, we are encouraging conversations about how we WANT to be doing things? This post is about the beliefs I think need to be embedded in all we do! Whenever we build something, does it support relationships? Does it provide opportunities to connect the community into the learning? Does it make it easy to allow differentiated resources so that people can receive information in the ways that work best for them? Do we have ways to connect a variety of groups, as needed?

Next steps are to explore how each of these beliefs/approaches could manifest in a technology system/infrastructure. In ways that remove barriers and where ease of use is paramount! Because I want EVERYONE to use these tools – not just the tech savvy.

Because, to me, it’s all about EVERY CHILD…

Curious what will you do next with these ideas? A little context for this post?

Your summary leaves me with so many questions after each section – which is a good thing. The how’s are the ones that become the biggest challenge in a current school structure and culture. By presenting what effective learning is, we can then move to the conversation of how we create a structure and culture that promotes this.

You have focused on motivational factors and social learning theory almost exclusively. While the need for students to see things as relevant could be argued as constructivist learning theory, it is a stretch. So my questions are:

In what ways do we need to account for student prior experience and learning?
In what ways will students developmental stage/needs be addressed?

To add to your motivational factors, I would want to see something about making the learning process more transparent for students. Most students walk through our doors thinking memorizing = learning. How do we move them away from such a simplistic view?

Hope that gives you some things to think about, whether you take it or leave it will be up to you

My Masters program was based on those three types of learning – self, community, teacher. The first year was very challenging as we are so conditioned to teacher-based learning. The experience changed me as a teacher, as a person.

It was an MA in Human Systems Intervention at Concordia University in Montreal.

If you’re reading and taking notes, isn’t that still “learning from” someone? Isn’t that still “social”, even though you’re not face to face with the author?

And the bike riding – perhaps that’s self reflection? Self assessment and self guided improvement? More in terms of a physical skill, as opposed to thought processes and self knowledge, but similar…

I’m thinking that the three types of network/learning I described could still fit the dimension you added, without adding a fourth category. What do you think?

Thanks for the push back, Brian!

And, as you point out, independent of titles or positions! I wonder how the business world will change as our kids move into it without the same preconceptions about hierarchy? Right now, traditional business complain about the “lack of respect” from this generation. But perhaps we’ll all learn to navigate that dynamic better over time?

Thanks for your comment!

This includes our personal reflection, which often requires the variety of “imperfect mirrors” that our human community provides. This is the advantage of, say, blogging a concept before writing an article – the process of “talking to yourself in front of an audience” has great advantages.