Saturday, September 7, 2013

Aren't we preparing for jobs that don't exist yet?

How are we preparing ourselves for our future jobs that don’t exist yet? Is it by burning the midnight oil to study for exams? Have you ever wondered how are you going to apply what you learned in school in real life? What are you actually learning, to be obedient, or independent thinkers? Did you know that our education system was modelled and conceived during the Industrial Revolution?

In his article, “How To Get A Job?” Thomas L. Friedman asserts that since jobs are evolving so quickly, a bachelor’s degree is no longer considered an adequate proxy for your ability to do a particular job by employers. Whether you acquired your education through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), homeschooling, or Stanford, all they care is one thing: how you add value to what you learned. Paraphrasing Harvard education expert Tony Wagner, “ the world doesn’t care anymore what you know; all it cares is what you can do with what you know”.  So what is education? What are we learning in school?

“Education is not a filling of vessel, it is the kindling of flames” – Socrates

With change happening at an unprecedented scale and rate, we face challenges that require us to be creative, as in combining old ideas into a new one, curious, and lifelong learners. The word education is derived from the Latin word, Educe, which means, “to draw forth from within”. It’s about “lighting” the potential in us as learners rather than filling our minds with loads of information. Having that said, how do we solve this problem within our circle of influence?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

In the heart of education is teaching and learning, without it there won’t be education. Hence, what needs to be improved is teaching and learning, by creating a condition where teachers not only teach the students, but making the students teach amongst themselves. It’s not about putting more effort by using the old solution; it’s about changing our teaching and learning methodology in classrooms, provided that the teachers have the autonomy since they (should) know what they do best. One of the solutions is flipped learning, or also known as the student-centered learning.

In it’s most basic sense, the flipped learning is basically where what you do as homework will be done in class and what you do in class will be done as homework by the use of video lectures. The definition of flipped learning is very slippery, as there could be many versions of it. For example,  Flipped Class 101 ( as Bergmann and Sams ,pioneers of flipped learning call it) , teachers create video lectures for students to watch at him so that they can help them with what used to be their homework in class.  Some have moved to Flipped Class 201 where students work on their own pace until they attain mastery in the topics they are studying.  Apart from that, others didn’t focus on mastery , but  rather other deeper learning strategies such as problem or project based learning, inquiry , challenge based learning etc. It’s entirely up to the teachers on how they would like to run their class.

So what is flipped class, or preferably known as flipped learning? Here are some points on what flipped learning is.
·      Transfers the ownership of the learning to the students.
·      Personalizes learning for all students
·      Gives teachers time to explore deeper learning opportunities and pedagogies with their students. (Problem based learning,  Challenge based learning , Mastery etc.)
·      Makes learning (not teaching) the center of the classroom
·      Maximizes the face-to-face time in the classroom.

Since many people tend to have misconceptions on the flipped learning , here’s a list of FAQ on it.





1. Does it make the teachers less important?


With the flipped learning, the role of a teacher is empowered, by giving perspectives, inspire and mentor the students instead of rote lecturing. The class will be student-centered instead of teacher-centered. Students will be more likely to claim ownership of their education. It's not just about the student-teacher ratio, it is about student-teacher time ratio. With this, struggling students will receive more help from their teacher, and students will also get to see things from many different nuanced perspectives, which develops their critical thinking skills. In short, technology doesn't replace, it complements with the teachers.

2.Isn't it more like an opportunity to bring boring lectures to a different location?

I believe that there are many approach that can be made to make the video more interesting, such as having more dialogue, make it approximately 10 minutes short and etc.

3.What if the Internet is simply too slow?

We can always consider using flash drive , or burn the videos into a disc.

4. What if the teachers are interested, but do not have the time to produce the videos?

Not all the teachers are expected to make these videos for their classes. Besides , as for a start , we do not need to flip the whole subject , we can begin by using the method only for difficult topics, as pointed out here (http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html) on myth no.2.





Flipped learning is becoming increasingly popular in universities like Harvard and Stanford University. It shows that it can bring outcome we desire , provided when we implemented it correctly. Since in the heart of education is the learner and educator , I believe learners or students should play their part in the education reform that is already happening now , especially in the U.S.A.  Do support and like my facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/voicesofglobalstudents and follow my blog on faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com
 

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