The 21st century classroom’s fulcrum: the co-creation and co-construction of knowledge

Ms Gail Dyer
Belmore South Public School
Sydney, Australia

Getting the balance right is not really about curriculum. That is far too simple an explanation for the issue that is confronting all levels of 21st century educators from all around the world. It is about getting the working relationship between students and teachers in balance. Recognising there is a time to be a learner and a time to be a teacher.

It is easy to blame the curriculum and, in fact, this trivialises the difficulties we are facing as a profession. On an almost daily basis, we are hearing and seeing evidence of a lack of engagement by young people in the world of learning. For many young people, the concept of education is changing. In their out-of-school worlds, with the aid of technology, they are self-directed learners; learning about things that interest them. They don’t like the force-feeding of facts and the ‘test you to death methods’ (Prensky 2007) of formal schooling. Educational commentators worldwide are calling for our students to be encouraged to be participants in their education, rather than passive consumers.

It is not the curriculum that has created this situation. It is the politicians, the bureaucrats, the number crunchers, the teachers who want to see evidence, in real terms (data), about how students are progressing.

John Morgan (Vision, Issue 04, 2007, Futurelab, p.10) quotes an RSA Report that says: ‘We are still educating people for a world that is disappearing’ and we need to ‘promote independent rather than receptive learning’.

‘We teach students to be passive, non-thinking consumers’.
Lee Bryant, Headshift, (consultants to BECTA).

Another article in the same issue of Vision, states that: ‘the space to innovate still seems enclosed by the thorny hedge of accountability’.

Any educational leader, administrator or classroom teacher really has to be an honest risk-taker to step outside the norm and try different things. If, at first, there is no evidence of improvement or, in fact, the trend is downwards, it is far easier to retreat, beaten into the old ways. We need to remind ourselves that change takes a long time; it will take more than one repetition before tangible evidence is seen. It is a risk to give staff permission to try different things. It is a risk for the teacher to let go of the absolute authority that he or she has in the classroom.

But what are the skills our students will need to work and live in the 21st century? The QCA Futures group, in the United Kingdom, analyses the kinds of workers employers need. They have found that employers want the following:

‘ … people who are literate, numerate and have technology skills … people who can build and maintain relationships, work productively in teams and communicate effectively. They look for problem-solvers, people who take responsibility and make decisions, are flexible, adaptable and willing to learn new skills’.

The challenge is to have the conviction to abandon that which is unnecessary and develop that which progresses teaching, learning and achievement. We are living in an age of technology and there are endless possibilities for advances in teaching and learning. Abandoning or totally recreating curriculum is not one of them. Rewriting some syllabuses would be a positive. However, syllabuses are still necessary to provide guidelines for teachers as to what is asserted as needing to be taught. That is, except in the case of technology.

Employers want literate and numerate workers. Literacy and numeracy are foundation subjects. They are the building blocks for all learning and communication. Nationalism and a need to know about the physical world in the form of historical and geographical facts should also be foundation curriculum. Given the general health of young people, there is an obvious need for personal development, and health and physical education studies. Science as a systematic methodology for thinking, exploring, discovering, explaining and evaluating is vital to further progress and knowledge development. Often, science and technology syllabuses are co-assigned and technology is the ‘design and make’ component. In this context, technology is ‘systematic treatment’ of data, materials, and so on.

However, employers want people who are skilled users of technology. The technology they refer to is computer-based and any computer-based technology syllabus should be abandoned.

Technology tools are changing at an enormous speed and this change will only become faster and faster into the future. Prensky (2007) postulates ‘it is a huge one time leap from the analogue world of our past to the digital world of our hyper-changing future, because of the speed of continuous change, future teachers will always be behind the technological know-how of their students’. Before a technology syllabus is approved to be rewritten, it is out-of-date.

So how do educators and syllabus writers get their heads around email, ds lites, wireless technologies, psp’s, DVDs, interactive whiteboards, email, texting, instant messaging, Wii’s, blogs, wikis, the Wikipedia, digital cameras, polling devices, computer and video games, networking, peer-to-peer, social and community building tools, augmented reality, podcasting, GPS speed enhancers? And so the list goes on, and will continue to grow. How do they mandate which, where, how and what is to be used / taught?

New technologies for education are a constant and the speed of change is so fast that even if a teacher wanted to learn about all of them, it is close to impossible to do it effectively. To try to mandate a syllabus to capture the same is just as impossible. The divide just keeps growing.

This digital divide can be overcome. The tools to address it are already present, in the Quality Teaching Program (QTP). QTP has been promoting exemplary teaching strategies in schools for nearly five years. The skills required by 21st century students are easily catered for when teachers incorporate quality teaching strategies into their classrooms. Quality Teaching strategies encourage the teachers to let go of centre stage and give more power to the students, in order to develop their skills as independent learners. QTP promotes teachers working with their students to develop units of work, authentic assessment tasks and criteria for assessment. In other words, the quality teachers are co-constructors and co-creators with their students.

Using the QTP strategies, teachers can use the technology experts they already have in their classrooms - the students - with teachers and students working together, each drawing upon the strengths of the other. The teachers using QTP best practices, knowledge of curriculum requirements and providing models for critical evaluation; the students using their ability to master, use and apply technology fast and fearlessly when trying new things.

Together, teachers and students find the balance by co-constructing and co-creating knowledge. In the process, they develop their own technology syllabus.