A New Culture Of Learning: Initial Thoughts

It seems that our educational system is persistent in remaining the same versus adapting and moving forward with current research and technological advances. The response given by the educational system in America at large toward an ever-changing educational environment seems to be rooted in fear, and very reactive. It shouldn’t surprise anyone with a knowledge of our current structure. The current goal of our current educational system was based on the Industrial Revolution and is about standardizing everyone. The system of inputting a child into a classroom with a group of similar-aged children, having a teacher only teach certain things in the exact same way at the exact same time as other classrooms of similarly grouped children, and then the expected output at the end of a determined amount of time is the children leave with the same knowledge. The only problem is that schools are in the people business. Teachers aren’t machines and children are not robots. Teaching is a craft. Education is a humanities discipline. Each human is unique.

The purpose of education should be learning. Learning is naturally something all humans are born already knowing how to do, and we start learning through curiosity and play. If learning is something our brain loves to do, it would make sense that an organized educational system should support learning. However, “education” in America at large is forgetting that purpose in its attempt to “keep up with the Joneses” and perform well compared to to global peers on standardized testing measures. The purpose of school in America is that by the age of 18, everyone leaves with a standard set of information that they can display in one defined way. The meaning of “learning” has been replaced with “performing”.

Technology has disrupted the strictly controlled, regulated, and supervised educational system with free access to digital content that is literally accessible 24 hours per day through any device that has internet capabilities. Not only is there an unregulated, free-flowing knowledge exchange, but you can also join groups of others and virtually discuss ideas. By adding the social component of learning through interests, passions, and curiosities and connecting groups of people that inspire and encourage each other to freely share information through reading, video, first-hand observations, art, music, etc. providing a more holistic and natural approach. It combines multiple areas: language, math, science, history, and the arts without even trying, and by its very nature reaches all types of learner preferences in sharing, receiving, applying, and displaying knowledge. Technology enables people to go beyond the subject itself and bring “outside things” in, answering the “what if” questions and playing with ideas and thoughts- building upon and expanding ideas together. It makes sense that an extremely regulated and controlled system would have a fear-based response to this disruption. There is no way to regulate or standardize this way of acquiring and sharing information.

This new arc of learning is going to require a paradigm shift in the way our society views the purpose of an educational system. The educational system is in the people business. People are unique. Teaching is an art; a masterful craft of sharing information and creating meaning to a group of unique individuals that have their own experiences that shape how that information is received, applied, used, and evaluated. Once that is a realization that you can’t just input-output with people the same as a machine, then I think digital tools and a new approach will be welcome.

I think the resistance stems from the fact that in this current system not only are there anticipated successes, but there are also anticipated failures. The successes are well-defined and there is a flow chart to plug in the predictable areas of failure and reroute them toward this defined success measure. However, these measures don’t define true learning. These measures are based on a predetermined knowledge and skill set, and success is based on how well a brain remembers how to show that knowledge and skill set in limited ways with little variation (ie the science fair trifold).

One way we can start to shift patterns of thinking, to embrace change and modify current patterns of thought from “technology is the downfall of learning” to “technology helps us all learn even more than we thought possible” is to create a learning environment that promotes and supports the way our brains are born knowing how to do. Our brains are naturally designed to create learning from the world around us through curiosity and play. Learning is natural and fluid. Our school structure is rigid and narrow. The bridge to learning in schools is through the use of digital tools. Digital tools are the great equalizer-making the inaccessible, accessible, the impossible, possible, the unknown, known.

References

Dwayne Harapnuik. (2015, May 9). Creating significant learning Environments (CSLE) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ-c7rz7eT4

TEDx Talks. (2012, September 13). A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas at TEDxUFM [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM80GXlyX0U