Do we need to reimagine education? 

This is such a huge question; if we define reimagine as throw out the old and invent the new then I would say no, we do not need to completely reimagine education. However, if we declare that reimagine just means to consider future economic needs of our society and of humanity and then evolve and tweak our current system then yes, I believe we do need to reimagine education for a few reasons. Firstly, in general, students are less equipped with the skills necessary to thrive in BC‘s 21st century workforce economy. These skills are things such as collaborative work, creative problem-solving, effective communication, and leadership. These skills are not necessarily taught directly but are practiced in an environment created specifically to nurture and expand the skills through inquiry and project-based learning. Typically in the past, school has not been student centered, allowing for inquiry but has been teacher based, mostly through didactic learning. Since our education system holds many of the values from 125 years ago, it would be wise to re-examine and reimagine the system on an ongoing basis. This would create more of a continual evolution rather than individual redesigns. The video about success based on high tech high showed an education environment that had many similarities to Dewey‘s original education model. This supports the concept of not needing to reimagine education but to evolve education. It’s interesting to note that evolving our education system must be based on projections that are conjectures. We cannot know the future. Therefore, there will always be a degree of risk when evolving a system to satisfy future unknown needs. Another consideration is that in the past, solid good educational ideas have not translated from policy into practice as evidenced by the year 2000 document followed closely by the 1994 education plan. I think that teachers need to be the driving force behind an ongoing continual evolution of our education system which necessitates prioritizing collaboration and communication between educators. I think it’s a no brainer that increasing funding to allow expansion of the current curriculum for project based learning and inquiry and to improve equity across the province is a sound recommendation. Reimagining how EA‘s or education assistant support learning may be one area that is an untapped resource where there is huge amounts of lost opportunity and fiscal waste. In conclusion, I believe that there are valuable foundations within our current education system; however, I think that many areas and factors need to be reimagined in the system and as a whole it needs to evolve significantly to meet future needs of humanity as well as the province. BC has made strides in that direction with our new curriculum and I am excited to be part of the potentially ongoing evolution driven by the underlying current momentum I feel.

Check out this thought provoking you tube video that challenges technology norms in the classroom.

What obstacles do educators often face when they try to change pedagogy?

  • Objections from parents based on underlying fear of their children falling behind in society even though they are growing as humans.
  • A disconnect between levels of education and the workforce so that elementary schools work a bit differently than middle schools which work a bit differently than high schools which then also don’t often have the same priorities as the workforce.
  • Availability of resources and materials and learning plans and physical space to accommodate inquiry type collaborative learning.
  • Teacher hesitation because they don’t feel prepared for a new way of teaching.

What concerns and or excites you about this approach?

I’m excited to think that students will be more engaged in inquiry than in typical school and I’m excited to really tap into students’ love of learning and personal growth. I am concerned that efforts to evolve the education system may not succeed in practice since there are so many players in the system with different needs and priorities.

Pros and cons of lesson plans versus learning plans?

  • Learning plans take more time to create as they are individualized whereas lesson plans apply to the whole class.
  • Learning plans have a potential to increase student engagement as they are personalized and focussed on students” interests more than a generic lesson plan.
  • Lesson plans are a great place to start and then teachers can have brief one on one conferences with students to add an individualized learning component to that overall lesson plan may be a good solution.

What are the potential benefits of developing a robust PLN?

  • Sharing resources
  • Become reinvigorated in your career by being stimulated by other ideas
  • Constantly striving to improve one’s own practice can lead to greater satisfaction
  • Support

What are the potential benefits of using creative Commons?

  • Less time lesson planning as we are not starting from scratch
  • Diversifying the knowledge we teach
  • Exploring new ways to teach