Day 1 Q&A – Reflecting on ‘Thinking the Unthinkable’

We put a lot of our education resources into our buildings. What if we look far beyond that – beyond ‘school premises’, to a science fiction world where a child sits in a ‘personal learning cubicle’. Is that where we are headed? Is that where we would want to go?

Sir Geoff Hampton sees a ‘blended’ future. Learning is and will continue to be a social process and we are social things – we only need to look at our cities and villages to see the evidence of that. He also highlighted the risk in relinquishing the link between a teacher and a learner through technology.

Tom Greaves offered that when computers first appeared in schools there was a great worry that it would break down and reduce the level and quality of teacher-pupil interaction – but the research actually indicates the opposite. It is clear that the presence of certain types technologies actually creates much higher levels of discussion and debate.

Sir Geoff finished the day with a serious observation. Too many teachers still focus on WHAT they are going to teach. Instead of knowing WHY they are teaching it and trying to understand HOW their teaching will work! 

Thinking the Unthinkable! – How to transform learning spaces

Marcus Orlovsky, the founder/director of Architects, Bryanston Square, says there are many, many ideas that can contribute to the debate about transforming learning space… But how many are really radical and truly new?… Clearly more technology and equipment? An education focused on the needs of the future for the children of today? New buildings? A Revised Curriculum?

… a set of familiar ‘transformational’ language that could feature in any Building Schools for the Future Brochure – but the language turned out to be extracted verbatim from a 1957 Pathe video about the launch of Comprehensive education.

It seems that although the content of what is being talked about in class may have changed-  it is in fact still taught the same way as a century ago.

What Marcus made clear is that we do know that organisational change is altering the working world. Our education system needs to prepare young people for a very different world. Their working world will increasingly feature:

• Less Hierarchy
• Careers that allows working anywhere
• Work that has a social aspect in people’s lives
• ‘Shortstay’ career paths - working in one place for a while and then moving on with the new skills gained instead of climbing the corporate ladder
• Ideas and futures – companies need innovative thinking and creative individuals to compete in the modern, fast paced world
• Co-location – You can shop, eat and do your banking in the same building – one day you will work in the same place.

Marcus says – Desired activities and emotions should drive the requirements for spaces to prepare student for their future lives. Spaces do influence emotions and enable activities

He also reminds us it is also not just about money…. Multi-purpose rooms are just a matter of thinking! Off the shelf furniture is cheap and attractive – a far better proposition than much institutional furnishings.

Some of the key questions that Marcus raised:

• Are we aiming at running a schools where 1000 pupils are educated or a place where 1000 people discover their potential?

• Does a school’s D&T thinking stop at the door of the D&T classroom or should it be seen everywhere across the site in the design of the building, hallways and public areas? Do we actually ‘walk the talk’ with kids- or just ‘walk the talk’ in our classrooms?

He reminds us that building schools for the future is about clever thinking and challenging all our assumptions.

Your comments welcome…

Classroom of the Future: What will it look like?

Mike Gibbons of the Innovation Unit reflected on the fact that 50 years ago this month, saw Sputnik and the ‘launch of the space age’. Before that the world felt like a fixed place – fixed in its ways and thinking about change – but now our technological progress is running at an exponential rate. For example, in the last 10 years more books were published than in the past 5000!

He says we cannot think about a modern education system without considering how this rate of change will fundamentally impact the learning spaces we currently call schools.

Mike says ‘even thinking about how the the school of the future may look is a limiting idea’. Whatever the solution is – it has to be something that can evolve and adapt.

He says we should not just refine what we have today but actually enable ourselves to build ‘something revolutionary’. That also means fully embracing technology in the learning process – not just building shiny versions of Victorian schools. Modern Education Technology does not de-personalise. Interactive technology, the Internet and other modern tools and devices have evolved learning technology to a point where it fundamentally encourages personal attention and no longer simply supports knowledge transfer.

To cope with that technological opportunity, Professional development must also reform with the current focus on ‘best practice’ becoming refocused on developing and exploring ‘next practice’.

Mike featured a few schools facing the challenge of re-inventing the education system and how they went about it

• Willow Tree Primary – the first school with an Interactive Whiteboard in every classroom.
• St Pancras – facing global warming issues though an environmentally friendly, geo-thermal heating system.
• Knowsley – original schools in the area have been closed and 8 new ones opened with radically designed spaces.
• Chesil Partnership – are developing their own curriculum
• Darlington Education Village – a federation across all phases of education.
• Shireland – opening their schools portal system up to families, the local community and the world.
• Bridgemary – 7am 11pm availability with learners and tutors negotiating individual timetables.
• Bridge Academy – redesigned the timetable to allow 1 day a week for home learning.

“What about the Curriculum?” – Mick Waters QCA

In his role at QCA, Mick is facing the challenge to ‘develop a modern, world-class curriculum that will inspire, challenge all learners and prepare them for the future.’ It means facing fundamental questions, including:

• How do we make a curriculum special for learners?
• How do we create a curriculum that is something that unfolds and evolves with the times?

He claims that problems in the past have been in documenting and listing the curriculum forcing regimentation and inflexibility on the education system and that things need to move on. A new curriculum must reflect the changing world and the nature of a modern, technologically rich society.

To do this means addressing key issues coming from learners:

• Why do I get taught at the speed of other pupils?
• Why do I take exams in the Summer?
• Why must I fail an exam this year when I could pass them next ?
• Why do I have to remember things when I can find out on a mobile phone?
• Why are there so few subjects when I have hundreds of TV channels?
• Why do I have to write in school when everyone types in life?

He went on to describe a vision of ‘Lifelong learning’. Learning that means more than just developing subject knowledge – Learning means developing enterprise and initiative, individual maturity and a sense of self and belonging. Schools also must adapt. In schools everyone will be learning, teachers and pupils – even parents.
The curriculum will be purposeful and authentic. Technology will be pervasive. Assessment will become ‘on demand’ seeking ‘achievement routes’ that matter to individual learners. Lessons will also persist – captured online or on a personal device – so a learner can relive the experiences.

A final presentation provided a big picture of the UK curriculum – what it is trying achieve and how it might be organised? Mick presented a picture of Successful learners, Confident Individuals, Responsible Citizens where their Skills, Knowledge and Attitudes are all equally important.

• Does this make sense to educators around the world?
• Is addressing this why we came here to the Symposium?
• What questions does it raise for you?

Co-located publisher event attracts large numbers

The rapid international growth of interactive technologies such as learner response systems and interactive whiteboards has led to a requirement for new forms of content to exploit the pedagogical approaches they provide.

In recognition of that, over 50 national and international publishers are attending a publisher event that is co-located with the Symposium on the 10th of October.

Some of the questions that this event hopes to answer are:

• Is there a new blend of technologies that can make the best of group teaching and independent learning opportunities and what does it look like?
• What technical support and authoring tools do publishers needs to maximise the infrastructure that is actually going into schools and being adopted by teachers?
• What options exist for a publisher or software developer to create completely new tools and services by integrating learner response hardware and multi-user interactive whiteboards into their own products?

It certainly looks like there will be many questions and hopefully many answers. Expect to see a range of interviews and comments in the blog…