Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group 2019

Really proud to participate in such a great project.
More details can be found in Newsletter 9!
Pages 38-39

https://joom.ag/T4Pe

Education systems

Many of our education systems were initially designed during the Industrial Revolution and they placed a major emphasis on the teacher sharing information with their students in class. This model of education generally views knowledge as something that is fixed and transmissible, placing a high value on students sitting passively absorbing information and later recalling it either orally or in written form.
However in today’s globally-connected world, will this model of education be sufficient?
We live in a world that is constantly changing at an ever-increasing pace. In fact, we are swimming in a sea of information. For example, every minute:
Facebook users share nearly 2.5 million pieces of content.
Twitter users tweet nearly 300,000 times.
Instagram users post nearly 220,000 new photos.
Email users send over 200 million messages.
We need to ask ourselves: is knowledge something static or is it dynamic and constantly evolving?
We also need to be able to effectively make use of this vast volume of information in order to construct knowledge.
To be able to navigate this volume of information, we need to prepare our students to have more than just the skill of retaining and regurgitating information that others have developed. There is a need for schools to design learning opportunities to move beyond repetition.
We often ask students to answer questions such as What? Who? How? and How Much?, when in reality we need to move beyond these questions that typically have one right answer.
The idea of engaging deeply and constructing knowledge is not new. However, what has changed is the access to information. We now have instant access to information and a range of people who can help with finding possible solutions.
In addition, we also have available an ever-growing range of digital tools - often referred to as “mind tools” - which can offer us new ways of interacting with information. These computerised mind tools can act as repositories for ideas, resources and learning to ultimately allow a student create an extension of their own mind.
Mind tools can extend or augment our cognition, helping us to use information in new and exciting ways to make sense of the world we live in.
So we need to move beyond asking students questions that they already know the answer to or that they can search for online instantly. With the advent of internet search engines there is less of a need for them to know lots of facts; instead we should require them to use information to construct their own understandings and engage in purposeful meaning-making.
We want them to construct knowledge by engaging in deep learning where they have to interpret, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information in order to construct understanding. We want them to use their existing knowledge and move beyond mere recall in order to generate ideas or knowledge that is new to them.
Then, once students grasp concepts and ideas in order to deepen their understandings, they need to apply their learning in a new context.
Deep understanding also means being able to make connections across and between “big ideas”. So rather than working within single discrete subject areas – such as Mathematics, Science, History and Languages – students should have opportunities to engage in learning across multiple disciplines. For example, can you really understand why artists of a particular time-period painted in a certain way or used specific techniques or materials, if you don’t have an appreciation and understanding of the economics and the social norms of the time?
By engaging in such learning, students will be better-prepared to construct knowledge individually and in collaboration with their peers in order to make meaning and construct deep understandings of the dynamic ever-changing world we live in.
👩‍🏫21st century learning design🌎