Thursday, January 24, 2013
ICOT 2013: Simon Breakspear - Radical innovation for learning
Simon Breakspear provided a workshop for the ICOT 2013 via Skype and despite the technical difficulties is was a thought provoking workshop. Essentially we need to be providing students with skills, as it is skills that are needed now and for the future. However the question is what skills will be of value? and how to we design programs that enable this learning to take place? But what we do know is that it is important to find ways for students to learn these skills as Andreas Schleicher (Deputy Director for Education and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD's Secretary-General) states: "Skills have become the currency of 21st century economies"
Students need to be problem finders and problem solvers. I think some of the important skills that they need to know are how to: create ideas, how to build and create knowledge and how to know how they think. Simon Breakspear talked about learning design and prototypes. Rather thank having students redraft a piece of work getting them to design and create prototypes. Having teachers design structures to capture peoples/students best ideas in order to create innovation.
Creating a 'live learning experience' - learning design
What is the minimum set of features that you need in order to begin the process of feedback and discovery. The website 'Design thinking for educators' is well worth a look through and even has a pdf you can download on Design Thinking. Here is another link to the Opening Minds Curriculum a practical example.
I am not sure if I have captured the essence of this workshop with this post but this is one workshop that has had me thinking and wanting to learn more. For a more in-depth and succinct blog post on this workshop read Hazel Owen's Blog
On a side note my favourite quote from the workshop:
"Smart may have the answers but stupid has all the interesting questions"