What will educators look like?

For several years I have been thinking a lot about "alternative education providers." After working in the public schooling system and listening to teachers and students talk about what they liked and didn't like so much I would often find myself daydreaming about the "what if?"

A paper by Siemens (2008) where he highlights the challenges to traditional education has been stimulating to say the least. I've already covered in a previous post some of his ideas regarding how the system of education is changing slowly with more of the same and how the proliferation of content on the web has caused what is dubbed "knowledge fluidity." I expressed my concern after the latter not because of the opportunities it provides budding education entrepreneurs but because of the "instability" and "flux" of "knowledge produced by the individual" (Pachler, 2007 as cited in Siemens, 2008). I have a feeling that my concerns are based on my prejudice of what constitutes knowledge and my conception of knowledge being produced by individuals or groups with authority. I also have a feeling, like Anne has expressed, that my ideas on this are changing.

Siemens (2008) talks about the importance of individuals developing "different mindsets." In an era of "supercomplexity" (Barnett, 2004 as cited in Siemens, 2008) he says, we need to transition from an epistemological (knowing things) to an ontological (becoming something) emphasis. These two superconcepts, as I've dubbed them, are two theories for conceptualising what is happening. To be able to navigate the sea of information we must go from "being in possession of a particular type of knowledge" to actually developing into a type of person who is able to continually learn and become something they were not before.

Anne recently shared a video "Teaching in the 21st Century" and it illustrates exactly what Siemens is talking about and everything that we are doing in NGL, both as learners and teachers. It highlights how teachers, or educators in general, need to move from being knowledge providers to skill providers. This particularly if we want to avoid becoming "obsolete" in a world where learners can access all the information in the world. The role of educators now is to model how to navigate through the "virtually limitless knowledge" - we need to act as "filters." Modelling how to handle having so much access to information but also be "relevant, challenging and engaging." It is one thing to send students to Google to search but as anyone who has tried to find valid and reliable sources has experienced, how does one know how to "validate, synthesise, leverage, communicate, collaborate and problem solve," as highlighted in the video. This is indeed a skill set that needs to be explicitly modelled, particularly how to create knowledge on the web, such as through blogging, animating and programming.

I think everyone will agree that education is changing and that there needs to be alternatives, particularly if we're going to have a system that nurtures innovation and creativity. Although it is impossible to predict accurately how education will look like in the future it is undoubtable that students will need to acquire the skills to be active participants, particularly, as my son has pronounced, they "need to get good at shovelling through the %$#@ to find the gems."

   by  fdecomite 

References:
Siemens, G. (2008). New structures and spaces of learning: The systemic impact of connective knowledge, connectivism, and networked learning. Retrieved from http://elearnspace.org/Articles/systemic_impact.htm