21st century schooling Archives

What if compulsory schooling was a 21st Century invention?

There are many long-running debates in Australia around the schooling our children. Often the battle lines are drawn between traditional approaches to education versus new designs for schooling.

There is often a huge divide over concepts such as quality, equity, mastery, assessment and the case for what some call future-focused skills. There is even debate on the notions standards and what learning is. Much of the research literature and media attention about assessment focuses on successful or poor education results overseas or Australia’s weaker than expected performance on international assessments.

Gurus and pundits regularly tour Australia, either challenging us to be more like Finland or more like we ‘used to be.’

We decided to take a completely different approach.

We examined what schools might look like if they were invented today and how that could help model possible futures for schooling, particularly in light of trends to personalise learning that are taking hold around the world.

We took a counterfactual approach for our research and propose that we come at the opportunity to reconsider schooling, learning and teaching as a question, “What if Compulsory Schooling Was a 21^st Century Invention?”

What is “counterfactual thinking?”

Galileo is credited with perhaps the most famous example of counterfactual thinking in history with his thought experiment that challenged the dominant thinking of Aristotle about the principles of motion. When Copernicus posited, and Galileo confirmed the Sun as the centre of the solar system and that the Earth revolved around it, many learned people of the time considered this heresy because they believed the opposite. Copernicus and Galileo had taken a very counterfactual thinking approach.

A contemporary example of counterfactual thinking is a TED talk by Matthias Müllenbeck, a director of the science and technology company Merck KGaA, who asked, “What if we paid doctors to keep us healthy?

“Counterfactual thinking is the comparison of a factual situation to a simulated alternative one.” “Counterfactual thoughts refer to mental representations that are explicitly contrary to facts or beliefs.”

We took a future lens to the counterfactual space to ask our question about compulsory schooling.

What did our study do?

We looked at 156 empirical studies comparing traditional and alternative approaches to instruction or assessment to examine the potential for compulsory schooling to be redesigned.

Despite much debate in the literature generally arguing the benefits of traditional versus student-centred approaches, we found no major study that sought to extensively address this question through a large scale, longitudinal comparative study. We found no study that sought to evaluate formative assessment approaches (assessment by teachers during the learning process) across at least one educational system over time.

Whilst ten studies were based on an initiative that was in place for at least one year, most studies involved a short intervention with no further follow up to consider long term benefits or challenges. The systematic review process highlights opportunity for further research to focus on evaluating initiatives over a longer period of time as well as seeking to follow up the impact of initiatives post intervention.

Using foresight strategy, a discipline that helps us to explore a range of plausible alternative futures from our current perspective, we were able to identify sixteen ‘weak signals’ that, while not predicting the future, could identify significant factors or forces that could become important.

What did we learn?

Weak signals are “the early signs of possible but not confirmed changes that may later become … represent the first signs of paradigm shifts, or future trends, drivers or discontinuities”. Identification and critical analysis of weak signals benefits strategic decision-making.

We identified 16 weak signals in the literature:

What are the implications?

This work points to several key points that inform our current conversation about the future of schooling:

Weak signals point to areas that are underrepresented despite their importance:

Lack of large scale, longitudinal comparative studies
Student Centred or Assessment for learning practices might offer some potential benefits for indigenous education. Learnings about indigenous ways of knowing may also offer benefits to all students
The impact of poverty beyond the school is understated

Weak signals point to emergent hypotheses for further inquiry:

Significant positive differences for experimental groups focussed on student centred approaches or formative assessment practices, compared with control groups, were more likely when the intervention lasted for more than four weeks
Standardised assessment may better gauge top end performance but can lead to criteria compliance (such as teaching to the test) that limits the development of advanced learners
No evidence of a reduction in gender gaps through standardised assessment
Standardised assessment may push for improvement but this could be a proxy measure for school improvement practices

Weak signals point to claims that are contested:

There are some possible advantages of teacher-centred approaches to support lower level students (remedial work) whilst students in the middle and upper bands are more likely to be advantaged from student-centred approaches
Standardised assessment might be leading to poorer pedagogy for equity groups
Standardised assessment is accepted by parents and students but is more likely to promote shallow, test-focused pedagogy
Monitoring of system level improvements through standardised assessment can lead to distortion of results through the use of exemptions for equity groups

As we build new buildings, embed emerging technologies and learn coding, entrepreneurship and STEM alongside of traditional literacy and numeracy, we may have failed to look at what the knowledge-based informs us.

We may also have an ultimate counterfactual question: “Can we imagine what schools might look like if we’d never seen one before?”

Can we design them so they promote engagement, learning and wellbeing? Can they be inspiring places of love and life, passion and positiveness? Can they embed indigenous perspectives and multicultural frameworks that guide their vision? Can we imagine and then design something that we ourselves didn’t take part in?

That may be our challenge. Our children’s future is on the line.

Jason McGrath is a New South Wales school principal who is currently undertaking Ph D studies at the School of Education, University of Newcastle. The research question is ‘ What if compulsory education was a 21st century invention?’. Jason is on Twitter @Mcg_jason

Professor John Fischetti is Interim Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Education and Arts at the University of Newcastle. John’s research focuses on reframing teacher education, school transformation and learner-focused school design. John can be reached at john.fischetti@newcastle.edu.au or on twitter @fischettij

For those who want more What if compulsory schooling was a 21st century invention? Weak signals from a systematic review of the literature

What is a teacher in the 21st century and what does a 21st century teacher need to know?

There is now almost universal recognition around the world that ‘teaching matters’ and that the quality of teaching is crucial in social and economic development. This is shown by the wide influence of international rankings and reports such as the OECD PISA and TALIS reports that compare the performance of school students, and the Mckinsey Reports that compare the economic performance of nations. Policy makers all over the world quote these reports.

This trend to focus on teaching can also be seen in any general election in ‘advanced’ nations. It appears Australia is headed in this direction for the looming federal election.

However while education and teaching get headlined in elections it is less common for teacher education to be seen in the media as a significant part of this. Nevertheless, politicians and policymakers seem to have no inhibitions in developing their policies in this area.

In spite of all this, there has been remarkably little change in the ways in which teachers’ work in classrooms and schools, or in the ways in which teachers are educated for a lifetime of preparing young people for their future worlds. I believe this is significant and needs our attention.

Policy makers missing the importance of the relationship between teacher and student

Politicians tend to argue and make policy on matters such as where beginning teachers should learn, how their courses are structured and, to some extent, what should be the balance between their subject knowledge, their professional knowledge and their classroom skills. They seem less interested in changing the fundamentals of teaching and learning, the relationships between teachers and their students.

Politicians rarely refer to research or indeed to other evidence – apart from those mentioned above. In my work, I like to reflect on debates about the nature of teaching and teacher education in order to challenge this tendency. I suggest that such thinking is often driven by ideology and prejudice rather than by careful deliberation or by the use of research evidence.

Move to apprentice-type teacher education in England

In the UK, in particular, there is the most extreme form of such policymaking. It can be found in England where there is a move away from the serious study of education as part of teachers’ preparation. The university contribution is being marginalised and schools are being encouraged to ‘go it alone’. That is, schools directly recruit their own students and train them to be teachers on the job. Learning to teach is being seen as a simple apprenticeship rather than a professional programme of integrated theory and practice.

Whereas in Scotland teacher education is moving towards master level

Other UK jurisdictions take very different approaches. For example, in Scotland there is the Donaldson Report which places the university at the heart of effective teacher education and is encouraging moves towards Masters level entry into the profession. In other words teaching is seen as a profession rather than simply as a craft.

Developments in Australia

In Australia you have the Action Now: Classroom ready teachers, a report by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG), which makes several recommendations, such as all initial teacher education programs should be rigorously assessed. And, in relating teacher education to a number of wider issues around teacher supply and educational provision, it is perhaps more constructive than the recent report in England, The Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training. Furthermore the TEMAG report also makes a strong call for further research to be carried out in order to inform future developments in creating 21^st century teachers.

Also, Australia is very lucky to have a large-scale study of teacher education happening, the multi-institutional Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE). This study is led by distinguished scholar in teacher education, Professor Diane Mayer, from the University of Sydney. This study follows graduate teachers in Victoria and Queensland during their first three to four years of teaching. It will provide great evidence for policy decision-making regarding teacher education and beginning teaching in Australia, including the importance of ensuring continuity in beginning teachers’ learning over the early years of their careers. Such an independent and significant study of this kind has certainly not been done in the UK for the last decade or more.

Research literacy is an essential skill for a teacher of the 21^st century

In the UK, part of our response in the British Educational Research Association to the challenges facing initial teacher education was to establish an enquiry which found evidence to suggest that ‘research literacy’ should be seen as a fundamental element of teaching and therefore of teacher education.

The concept of research literacy has two elements. First, that all teachers should be able to access, critically evaluate and use, as appropriate, the educational research that is relevant to their practice. Second, that teachers should have the capacity to engage in systematic enquiry within their own classrooms and schools – that is, they should possess a repertoire of research skills that they can deploy if and when the need arises.

Underlying values of teachers are now more important than ever

My conclusion is that in spite of the many upheavals experienced by teachers and teacher educators as politician juggle their policies, there are important underlying values, such as respect for learners, commitments to social justice and equity, that can be traced through the history of teaching that may now be more important than ever. But the ways in which these values are embodied in the work of contemporary teachers are in need of major reconsideration because of the rapid social and technological change affecting all of us. The responsibilities for teachers today, and therefore for teacher educators, are greater now than they have ever been.

Ian Menter is Vice-President, British Educational Research Association and Emeritus Professor of Teacher Education, University of Oxford.

Professor Menter will be presenting a lecture What Is a Teacher In The 21st Century and What Does a 21st Century Teacher Need to Know? on Tuesday 26^th April, 6pm to 7.30pm (followed by refreshments) in the Education Lecture Theatre 351, Education Building, Manning Rd, The University of Sydney. Registration is essential, register here if you would like to attend Ian’s lecture.