When it comes to the future of learning methods, to be progressive, I believe we must understand two paradigms shifts–one has to do with need and the other is time. Need in other words can be encapsulated in the question–why do I need to know this? The traditional schools that we still send our children to is based on a classroom where a group of students are exposed to new knowledge systematically by trained teachers. If not for schools students would otherwise not get the same knowledge at home or from any other source–this is the premise of the factory like schools that are still the norm. Students move from grade to grade slowly enriching their depth of knowledge and complexity of thinking. It would take an average student anywhere between 15 to 20 years of academia to be recognised by his or her community as an educated person. The new paradigm in education that is making factory schools obsolete is the ease in the availability of knowledge and education over the internet. In most developed and developing countries with good internet penetration children who are trained from young to access the knowledge they need over the net may never need to go to school for academic knowledge. Children who are able to harness the internet to grow their knowledge by themselves, perhaps with some supervision from a mentor, will probably be able to accomplish what students in schools did in about 2 decades in half the time. This is the paradigm shift in time that we find ourselves in where children tend to know more than we did at their age.
The traditional school system is fast becoming archaic and boring for students who realise that they can access whatever knowledge they want or need whenever they want over the net. Even the much admired ability of memorising facts that used to be the rage when I was studying in the 80's is not so cool anymore now that it all can be googled. Keeping up with this trend qualifying exams that used to favour memorised facts are now trending towards reasoning ability. This new paradigm of education is being called informal learning, where the old style of learning is called formal learning.
Informal learning is nothing new. It is simply learning without studying. It is about getting the knowledge that you are curious about from parents, peers, friends or media off-campus. It is the most effective way of gaining knowledge because it is based on a need or desire. Informal learning is also cheaper than formal learning–this will eventually make us question why we need to spend so much money to educate ourselves or our children. Hopefully this will lead to new form of education qualification which is based on what you can actually do instead of expensive theory driven qualifications that has watered down the efficacy of university degrees.
If you are interested in informal learning and how to harness its benefits for yourself, your kids or your employees this book–informal learning - Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance by Jay Cross is an eye opener. If you are considering homeschooling this book is a must have.
Chapters: Out of Time, A Natural Way of Learning, Show Me The Money, Emergence, Connecting, Meta Learning, Learners, Envisioning, Conversation, Communites, Unblended, The Web, Grokking, 'Unconferences' and Just Do It.
The traditional school system is fast becoming archaic and boring for students who realise that they can access whatever knowledge they want or need whenever they want over the net. Even the much admired ability of memorising facts that used to be the rage when I was studying in the 80's is not so cool anymore now that it all can be googled. Keeping up with this trend qualifying exams that used to favour memorised facts are now trending towards reasoning ability. This new paradigm of education is being called informal learning, where the old style of learning is called formal learning.
Informal learning is nothing new. It is simply learning without studying. It is about getting the knowledge that you are curious about from parents, peers, friends or media off-campus. It is the most effective way of gaining knowledge because it is based on a need or desire. Informal learning is also cheaper than formal learning–this will eventually make us question why we need to spend so much money to educate ourselves or our children. Hopefully this will lead to new form of education qualification which is based on what you can actually do instead of expensive theory driven qualifications that has watered down the efficacy of university degrees.
If you are interested in informal learning and how to harness its benefits for yourself, your kids or your employees this book–informal learning - Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance by Jay Cross is an eye opener. If you are considering homeschooling this book is a must have.
Chapters: Out of Time, A Natural Way of Learning, Show Me The Money, Emergence, Connecting, Meta Learning, Learners, Envisioning, Conversation, Communites, Unblended, The Web, Grokking, 'Unconferences' and Just Do It.
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