A New Era of Learning (for Teachers Too..)

A generation ago, teachers could expect that what they taught would equip their students with the skills for the rest of their lives. However, today, teachers need to prepare students for more change than ever before, for jobs that have not yet been created, to use technologies that have not been invented and to solve social problems that we just can’t imagine. The time of the industrial age of mass education, which was essential for rapidly industrializing nations, has now gone. 

Today, schools need to be (and they certainly are, given the onset of the COVID-19 era) more future focused, drawing alignment from societal trends to guide global education reform. Many commentators are spruiking the view that there is a collation of necessary skills that our students will need for the future of their careers. However meeting this challenge will rely upon bold leadership from teachers, administrators, principals, parents, school boards, business/civic leaders, and even the students themselves. How they will do this will be through strategies such as employing systems thinking, education for sustainability, learner‐centered pedagogy, and building schools as learning communities. 

While the pressure on schools to improve student learning and classroom teaching has always been there, the rise of the COVID-19 era of schooling has accentuated the refocus on the role of the teacher and the skills needed to teach in a technology rich environment. The Information Age of technology moved us into an era of instant information necessitating changes in pedagogy to facilitate learning in this 21^st century. The old saying, “we need to educate our students for their future, not our past” is more relevant now than ever before. Future employment opportunities necessitate graduates to have strong interpersonal communication skills, be able to collaborate and problem solve. They will require critical thinking skills, be able to show initiative and have strong self-management skills. 

And amidst this COVID-19 pandemic and as we work towards a post COVID-19 environment, this is the real challenge for education systems. With this in mind, teachers are working overtime to help students to: 

1. Work in teams and collaborate;
2. Think critically and engage in complex problems; 
3. Develop presentation skills and build oral communication; 
4. Write effectively to communicate and articulate ideas; 
5. Use technology to learn; 
6. Be global-minded and take on community service; and
7. Be knowledgeable

Although these strategies have been key in restructuring teaching and learning, necessitated by the sudden shift to a remote learning environment, we need to be careful as schools slowly return to the face to face classroom. Teachers will need to continue to look at building these strategies into their curriculum projects, activities and assignments. They are designed to elicit the key skills future employers require including collaboration, critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, work ethic, and other critical skills while simultaneously meeting the required content standards.

In recent years it seems every country has revised their curriculum articulating the knowledge and skills that students need for the new global workforce. Unfortunately, with the close scrutiny that accompanies changes to current practice, the debate on quality and success inevitably follows. This debate leads to more confusion and disrupts the momentum. Educational agencies need to remove the barriers and impediments that school leaders argue inhibit creativity, innovation and even the autonomy to lead schools. (You don’t lose weight by constantly weighing yourself!)

There is no “silver bullet” or simple fix as all educational entities have their own nuances. However, suffice it to say, that every subject specialist believes their discipline is the most important and as a result, the curriculum expands but time to instruct doesn’t. We need to learn from the higher performing nations, like Singapore, and “teach less to learn more”. This is becoming increasingly the norm as schools revisit curriculum and what is essential to deliver during this COVID-19 remote learning period.

But it is not just the curriculum that needs addressing. As the experience of the transition to remote learning unfolds, we note that the role of the teacher is also changing as a major paradigm shift in learning moves from Teacher-Centred to Learner-Centred approaches. With teachers experiencing the delivery of learning both synchronously and asynchronously,  together with the availability of the growing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to K-12, teachers are not only supporting student engagement in their learning but introducing new pathways for students. These factors tend to suggest that the successful teachers are shifting from a traditional teaching methodology to one based on coaching, enabling and guiding student learning. 

Consequently, taking our experience of remote learning, the transition back to the classroom and a thrust into a new era of learning, calls for new teacher skills to embrace a new pedagogy for the classroom are getting louder.