Learning Futures

The expectations we place on teachers are high and growing. We expect them to have a deep and broad understanding of what they teach, how their students learn, and of the students themselves. We also expect them to be passionate, compassionate and thoughtful; to make learning central and encourage students’ engagement and responsibility; to respond effectively to the needs of students from different backgrounds and languages; to promote tolerance and social cohesion; to provide continual feedback and assessments of students; and to ensure that students feel valued and included in collaborative learning. We expect teachers to collaborate with each other, and to work with other schools and parents to set common goals and monitor their attainment.

These expectations are so high, in part, because teachers make such a difference in students’ lives. People who are successful today typically had a teacher who took a real interest in their life and aspirations; someone who helped them understand who they are, discover their passions and realise how they can build on their strengths; a teacher who taught them how to love to learn and helped them find ways to contribute to social progress.

But our education systems are not keeping up. Most schools look much the same today as they did a generation ago, and teachers often don’t have the opportunities to develop the practices and skills required to meet the diverse needs of today’s learners. To help advance the education agenda, the Finnish Ministry of Education, with support from the OECD and Education International, brought together education ministers, union leaders and other teacher leaders in Helsinki this month for the ninth International Summit on the Teaching Profession. Over the years, the Summit has become a seminal event for education policy discourse, with this year’s edition attracting 21 education ministers and the union leaders from the best performing and most rapidly improving education systems, as measured by PISA.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=OECD

World Class
How to Build a 21st-Century School System

In a world where the kind of things that are easy to teach and test have also become easy to digitise and automate, it will be our imagination, our awareness and our sense of responsibility that will enable us to harness the opportunities of the 21st century to shape the world for the better. Tomorrow’s schools will need to help students think for themselves and join others, with empathy, in work and citizenship. They will need to help students develop a strong sense of right and wrong, and sensitivity to the claims that others make. What will it take for schools to be able to do this? Andreas Schleicher, initiator of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and an international authority on education policy, has accompanied education leaders in over 70 countries in their efforts to design and implement forward-looking policies and practices.

While improvement in education is far easier to proclaim than achieve, in this book Schleicher examines the many successes from which we can learn. This does not mean copying and pasting solutions from other schools or countries, but rather looking seriously and dispassionately at good practice in our own countries and elsewhere to understand what works in which contexts. Trained in physics, Schleicher offers a unique perspective on education reform: he convincingly argues that it should not necessarily be less of an art, but more of a science. “No one knows more about education around the world than Andreas Schleicher.

Full stop. For the first time, he's collected 20 years worth of wisdom in one place. World Class should be required reading for policy makers, education leaders and anyone who wants to know how our schools can adapt for the modern world – and help all kids learn to think for themselves.” – Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World, a New York Times bestseller “[Schleicher]…grasps all the key issues, and does so through keeping his ear to the ground and by working out solutions jointly with a variety of leaders at all levels of the system, and in diverse societies” – Michael Fullan, Global Leadership Director, New Pedagogies for Deep Learning “Every visionary leader who is serious about improving student learning should add the data-driven World Class:

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=OECD