Glocal Educators - Conference Booklet 2013
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Transcript of Glocal Educators - Conference Booklet 2013
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Table of contents Page
Project introduction 3
Global interdependence 8
• UNESCO Tensions 10
Globalisation 12
• Definitions 13
Citizenship 15
• Defining citizenship: T H Marshall 17
Glocalisation 19
• Defining Glocalisation: CERFE 22
Social and economic success in society 25
• Success beyond the classroom 25
• 21C Lens 27
• Standardised Testing Globally 30
Global Competences in 21C 33
• Ruth Deakin Crick: Learning to Learn and Active Citizenship Competences 33
• The recognition of Lifelong learning 40
• The problem with Measurement 41
• The Essential Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) 45
The Future of Education 47
• The critical question 48
• Hargreaves: The Fourth Way 51
• Historical Trends 56
• The Reality for School. What are we Doing and How do we know? 58
• What is Happening Globally? 60
• OECD Scenarios for the Future 63
Teacher Practice 66
• Donald Schon: The Reflective Practitioner 67
• A Reflective Practitioner Thinking and Learning Model 71
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 72
• Keith Trigwell: A Model 75
• A Praxis Model: Theory and Practice Continuum 80
• The SOLO Taxonomy 84
• Reflective Professional Learning: An Experiential Model 89
Resources 91
• Thinking Routines for classroom practice 91
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Project Introduction Challenges for 21C Educators The challenge faced by schools and school leaders in the 21st Century is to lead the transformation of learning to match the transformation of global imperatives.
“every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation … Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself – its world view; its basic values; its social and political structures; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world”. Brian Caldwell
The implications for educators and education institutions – schools and universities – are both critical and immense.
“From what we already know about the 21st Century, it is clear that the traditional school has no chance of surviving in it, at least not in the developed economies”. Headley Beare.
This Glocal Educators conference embraces 6 critical
elements that are essential to understanding and meeting this
challenge they are: globalization, citizenship, conception of social
and economic social and economic success in society, global
competences in the 21C, the future of education, teacher
practices. Firstly, to provide an understanding of the nature and
implications of globalization, secondly to explore the challenges
and responses of educators and policymakers, globally, to the
forces of globalisation, and thirdly to identify best-practice
responses to the emergent education challenge to identify
effective projects and practices and explore their theoretical
foundation.
Problem statement
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Historically, education has been reactive to perceived
contemporary economic, political and social imperatives. At key
stages in history, education structures, curriculum and teaching
practices can be seen to mirror major economic, social or political
change. For example, the space race led to significant investment
in science curriculum and pedagogies, the civil rights movement in
the United States brought about curriculum and structural
transformation of education policy and practice and Australia’s
economic and diplomatic realignment with Asia led to the Asian
languages priorities contained in National Asian Languages and
Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP). A shift in education policy and
practice, then to mirror the impact of rapid globalization, should be
placed within this context. Zhao (2009) argues that what he terms
the ‘death of distance’, has led us to “enter a new era of human
history and one in which we cannot be certain of what specific
talents, knowledge and skills will be of value [and] to meet these
challenges we need to transform our thinking about education”.
The implication is that we must think globally in terms of what
knowledge and skills our children will need so that they can exercise
their natural rights, whether in rural Shaanxi province or metropolitan
Sydney.
Research (Law, Pelgrum, and Plomp, 2008), however,
demonstrates that teaching practice has not kept pace with 21C
technologies or practices. Of teachers in 23 countries in North
America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa it was found that
the three most common pedagogical practices were having
students fill out worksheets, work at the same pace and sequence,
and answer tests. ICT was rarely used and the applications used
most often were general office software, followed by tutorial or drill
practice software. Largely, the same level of learning is occurring
4
but through different media; the creation of new learning through
new forms of ICT is yet to be prevalent. This, though, is not to say
that education has not changed in response to globalization;
indeed, as stated, education policy globally has experienced
significant change through the death of distance over the past 30
years without, however succeeding in closing the achievement gap
that exists across school contexts, globally.
Globalization affords us both opportunity and challenge in terms of
creating curricula that scaffolds educators and students to
“become more aware of the global nature of societal issues, to
care about people in distant places to understand the nature of
economic integration, to appreciate the interconnectedness and
interdependence of peoples, to respect and protect cultural
diversity, to fight for social justice for all and to protect the planet for
all human beings” (Zhao).
In line with this, education policy makers internationally have
rightly responded with an increasing focus on education for global
citizenship. In Denmark, Progress, renewal and development:
Strategy for Denmark in the global economy published in 2006
outlines an aim to make Denmark a leading knowledge society with
strong competitiveness and strong cohesion and that education,
lifelong skills upgrading, research and innovation at the highest
international level were crucial for achieving this aim. In Australia,
the need for students to develop as 21C learners is made clear in
policy documents such as the Melbourne Declaration, the DEECD
Blueprint for Government Schools, and NALSSP. There is, then, clear
policy intent to address the imperatives of 21C globalisation in
Denmark and Australia along with other nations around the world.
Issue
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At issue, though, is the form that the global practice should
take in schools and the ability of teachers and teacher educators’,
schools and universities, to enact authentic global professional
learning and teaching practices and whether the global education
goals will extend beyond the existing global measurements of
literacy and numeracy and knowledge of science in classrooms to
demonstrating truly global learning practices in action.
Research Question
Reflective: How do educators understand the theory and practice
of the 21C glocal education paradigm?
How do educators communicate and engage in 21C professional
learning / practice?
Predictive: How is scholarly 21C glocal teaching and learning
practice created and supported?
Purpose of the Conference
The core purpose of this conference is to address the
disjuncture between current professional learning practice for
educators and the form of practice that is necessary to produce
‘glocal’ (simultaneous global and local) 21C learning and skills
acquisition outcomes across primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.
The focus of this conference is to explore the nature and
implications of the emergent 21C global education paradigm for
both educators and educational institutions and identify a set of
working principles that represent an effective model 21C
professional learning theory-in-practice. That is, the notion of
glocalisation in the context of this research has been used to point
to a strategy involving a reform of the different aspects of
globalization as they relate to education theory and practice; the
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goal being both to establish a link between the benefits of the
global dimension – in terms of education, technology and
information – and local realities, while, at the same time,
establishing a framework for professional experiential learning and
scholarship.
Specifically, the purpose of the conference is twofold: (a) to
understand how educators understand their practice in terms of the
21C global education paradigm and (b) to identify a theory in
action to best achieve the high level goals as articulated by the
Danish and Australian national governments as well as bodies such
as the OECD and UNESCO.
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Global Interdependence and Global Prosperity
The Glocal Educators project is founded on the idea that,
while the world over time has developed a complex
interdependence, it has yet to fully develop an awareness and
identity and thus effective and sustainable leadership forms and
fora that can effectively and sustainably overcome the equally
complex matrix of challenge and dispute, which manifest as threats
to global prosperity and peace. This significant challenge needs to
be addressed and involves a critical capacity, globally, to be built
for the development of citizens - local, national and global - that
have the necessary global dispositions and worldview as well as the
requisite skills to identify need and address it sustainably. This
capacity needs to be addressed over generations for that to
happen effectively and will hinge on the effectiveness of education
and educators.
The challenge that we all as inhabitants of the globe confront
daily, consciously and / or unconsciously is the reality of global
interdependence. That is, the world has developed over millennia
as a complex matrix of cultural, national, economic and legal
jurisdictions, all inextricably linked and all fundamentally grappling
with the implications of finite resources, distinct identities and
conflicting ideologies.
The reality is that global security threats arise from needs of
people, national and or cultural / ethnic groups that involve finite
resources or relationships, which conflict with counter claims or
interests. Threats such as eco / enviro; economics and trade; socio-
cultural recognition all fall under the umbrella of the question of
leadership and global security.
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The big question, then, is how educators and education
institutions and systems are to harness the benefits of the global
dimension - in terms of technology, information and economics
and local realities - to achieve sustainability in the distribution of the
planet’s resources and an authentic social and cultural rebirth of
disadvantaged populations.
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UNESCO: 21C Tensions to be overcome
Jacques Delors in Learning: The Treasure Within, outlined the tensions that
UNESCO have identified as being the main tensions that, although they are
not new, will be central to the problems of the twenty-first century, namely:
• The tension between the global and the local: people need gradually to
become world citizens without losing their roots and while continuing to play
an active part in the life of their nation and their local community.
• The tension between the universal and the individual: culture is steadily
being globalized, but as yet only partially. We cannot ignore the promises of
globalization nor its risks, not the least of which is the risk of forgetting the
unique character of individual human beings; it is for them to choose their
own future and achieve their full potential within the carefully tended wealth
of their traditions and their own cultures which, unless we are careful, can be
endangered by contemporary developments.
• The tension between tradition and modernity, which is part of the same
problem: how is it possible to adapt to change without turning one’s back on
the past, how can autonomy be acquired in complementarity with the free
development of others and how can scientific progress be assimilated? This is
the spirit in which the challenges of the new information technologies must be
met.
• The tension between long-term and short-term considerations: this has
always existed but today it is sustained by the predominance of the
ephemeral and the instantaneous, in a world where an over-abundance of
transient information and emotions continually keeps the spotlight on
immediate problems. Public opinion cries out for quick answers and ready
solutions, whereas many problems call for a patient, concerted, negotiated
strategy of reform. This is precisely the case where education policies are
concerned.
• The tension between, on the one hand, the need for competition, and on
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the other, the concern for equality of opportunity: this is a classic issue, which
has been facing both economic and social policy-makers and educational
policy-makers since the beginning of the century. Solutions have sometimes
been proposed but they have never stood the test of time. Today, the
Commission ventures to claim that the pressures of competition have caused
many of those in positions of authority to lose sight of their mission, which is to
give each human being the means to take full advantage of every
opportunity. This has led us, within the terms of reference of the report, to
rethink and update the concept of lifelong education so as to reconcile three
forces: competition, which provides incentives; co-operation, which gives
strength; and solidarity, which unites.
• The tension between the extraordinary expansion of knowledge and human
beings’ capacity to assimilate it: the Commission was unable to resist the
temptation to add some new subjects for study, such as self-knowledge, ways
to ensure physical and psychological well-being or ways to an improved
understanding of the natural environment and to preserving it better. Since
there is already increasing pressure on curricula, any clear-sighted reform
strategy must involve making choices, providing always that the essential
features of a basic education that teaches pupils how to improve their lives
through knowledge, through experiment and through the development of
their own personal cultures are preserved.
• The tension between the spiritual and the material: often without realizing it,
the world has a longing, often unexpressed, for an ideal and for values that
we shall term ‘moral’. It is thus education’s noble task to encourage each
and every one, acting in accordance with their traditions and convictions
and paying full respect to pluralism, to lift their minds and spirits to the plane
of the universal and, in some measure, to transcend themselves. It is no
exaggeration on the Commission’s part to say that the survival of humanity
depends thereon.
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Globalization
The phenomenon of globalization, dating back to the age of
discovery has been rooted in technological advances, which have
impacted on the way that individuals and societies operate.
Historically, new practices, literacies and technologies have
emerged and have altered social and work practices both locally
and globally, which have demanded new routines, learning forms
and skills. What has also been constant is the differing extent to
which groups within societies are able to successfully adapt to
change. While globalization has been a constant phenomenon
over centuries and the issues of social equity have existed for that
long, the pace of this phenomenon has increased dramatically with
the advancements in ICTs to the point where we must now talk
about new paradigms as having emerged and the need to
develop new forms of practices in response.
The structure of the 21C global economy today looks very
different than it did at the beginning of the 20th century, which
means that social, political and educational priorities have also
changed. The economies of developed and many developing
countries are now based more on the manufacture and delivery of
information products and services than on the manufacture of
material goods. Even many aspects of the manufacturing of
material goods are now strongly dependent on innovative uses of
technologies. The beginning of the 21st century also has witnessed
significant social trends in which people access, use, and create
information and knowledge very differently than they did in
previous decades, again largely due to advances in ICTs.
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Globalization: Some Definitions
“Globalization can be defined as the increasing interaction
among and integration of diverse human societies in all important
dimensions of their activities--economic, social, political, cultural,
and religious.”
Eduardo Aninat, “China Globalization, and the IMF”, speech by the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, The Foundation for Globalization Cooperation’s Second Globalization Forum, January 14, 2001, see http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2001/011401.htm.
“Globalization can be defined as a set of economic, social,
technological, political and cultural structures and processes arising
from the changing character of the production, consumption and
trade of goods and assets that comprise the base of the
international political economy.”
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), MOST Annual Report 2001, see http://www.unesco.org/most/most_ar_part1c.pdf.
“…globalization refers to processes whereby many social
relations become relatively delinked from territorial geography, so
that human lives are increasingly played out in the world as a single
place.”
Jan Aart Scholte, “The Globalization of World Politics”, in J. Baylis and S. Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, An Introduction to International Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 14-15.
“…understood as the phenomenon by which markets and
production in different countries are becoming increasingly
interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services
and the flows of capital and technology.”
OECD, Intra-Firm Trade (Paris: OECD, 1993), p. 7, as cited in R. Brinkman and J. Brinkman, “Corporate Power and the Globalization Process”, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 29, No. 9, 2002, pp. 730-752, pp. 730-731.
“The process of globalization suggests simultaneously two
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images of culture. The first image entails the extension outwards of a
particular culture to its limit, the globe. Heterogeneous cultures
become incorporated and integrated into a dominant culture
which eventually covers the whole world. The second image points
to the compression of cultures. Things formerly held apart are now
brought into contact and juxtaposition.”
Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture, Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity (London: Sage, 1995), pp. 6-7, as cited in “Culture Communities: Some Other Viewpoints”, Issues in Global Education, Newsletter of the American Forum for Global Education, Issue No. 158, 2000
“The historical transformation constituted by the sum of
particular forms and instances of... [m]aking or being made global
(i) by the active dissemination of practices, values, technology and
other human products throughout the globe (ii) when global
practices and so on exercise an increasing influence over people’s
lives (iii) when the globe serves as a focus for, or a premise in
shaping, human activities.”
M. Albrow, The Global Age, 1996, p. 88, see http://www.globalizacija.com/doc_en/e0013glo.htm
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Citizenship
What does globalization mean in terms of citizenship?
The nature of citizenship is a significant area of discussion in
scholarship as well as in the broader public consciousness. Broadly,
the discussion has largely centred on the contrast between those
who view citizenship through a ‘rights versus responsibilities’ lens.
Similarly, between those who view a ‘passive’ citizen lens versus
those who view citizenship with an ‘active’ citizenship
understanding. This discussion also is one that is held globally and
one that is largely seen through a national lens rather than through
a global lens. The primacy of the nation in terms of citizenship is
consistent with the primacy of the legal status of citizenship and with
a primary socio-cultural national identity. A global citizenship is at
best founded in a quasi-legal sphere with only the most basic of
human identity to form a truly global identity.
The experience of globalization, however, means that people
and nations are increasingly living, working and acting globally, in a
way that 30 years ago they would be acting locally or nationally;
the growth of real interdependence has created, for the first time, a
global consciousness that resembles the starting point for national
consciousness and citizenship, a shared identity and purpose,
shared prospects and interdependent outlook on economic
prosperity. This has real implications on how we view the notion of
citizenship, its nature and how societies, local, national, and global
set about developing ‘good’ citizens. An exploration, then, of the
core elements of citizenship is valuable if we are to transfer an
understanding of citizenship from a local and national context into
a global one.
15
The most influential exposition of the post-war understanding
of citizenship is T. H. Marshall as articulated in “Citizenship and Social
Class”, written in 1949. In it, Marshall argues that citizenship is a
matter of ensuring that every person is treated as a full and equal
member of society. He further argues that the most effective way of
achieving this is by the state affording each person citizenship rights.
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Defining Citizenship: T. H. Marshall Citizenship rights, according to Marshall (in Kymlicka and Norman, 1994)
could be categorized into three types, each of which contributing equally to a
holistic set of citizenship rights. These rights, further developed sequentially over a
period of three centuries; civil rights in the eighteenth century, political rights in
the nineteenth century and social rights in the twentieth century. Marshall argued
that by guaranteeing civil, political, and social rights to all, the state ensures that
every member of society feels like a full member of society, able to participate in
and enjoy the common life of society.
This conception of cull citizenship accords with the perceptions of citizens
themselves. When asked what citizenship means to them, people are much more
likely to talk about rights than about notions of responsibility towards the state or
to others (Kymlicka and Norman, 1994). This is certainly true in Britain and in the
United States, although expressed in different terms. That is, in Britain, citizens
spoke in terms of social rights; that of public amenities such as health and
education. American citizens, rather articulated their understanding of citizenship
in terms of civil rights; that of freedom of speech and religion. “for most people,
citizenship is, as the U.S. Supreme Court once put it, ‘the right to have rights’”.
Marshall’s conception of full citizenship from within a rights framework
however, has come under attach in recent decades for representing a passive
understanding of citizenship. According to the New Right, to ensure the social
and cultural integration of the poor, we must “go beyond entitlement” and focus
instead on their responsibility to earn a living. Since the welfare state discourages
people from becoming self-reliant, the safety net should be cut back and any
remaining welfare benefits should have obligations tied to them. The ‘workfare’
programs that emerged in the 1980s which required recipients to work for their
benefits, reinforced the idea that citizens should be self-supporting; indeed, that
citizens should feel the responsibility to be self supporting.
The notion of responsibilities, however, is not dismissed by the Left. The Left
question, though the access of all people to the opportunity access the benefits
of citizenship, jobs, education and training. So, while the Left accepts the general
principle that citizenship involves both rights and responsibilities, it feels that rights
to participate must precede the responsibilities. That is, it is only appropriate to
demand fulfillment of the responsibilities after the rights to participate are secured
358. This is important in terms of global education in the sense that teachers and
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students need to be given the opportunity to access ‘global citizenship’ and the
opportunities that that affords them, before one talks about teachers and
students fulfilling any sort of responsibilities.
It appears, true, irrespective of one’s orientation on citizenship, to say that
public policy relies on citizens acting responsibly [much clearer in a national sense
than a global sense].
The state will be unable to provide adequate healthcare if citizens do not act responsibly with respect to their own health, in terms of a healthy diet, exercise, and the consumption of alcohol and tobacco; the state will be unable to meet the needs of children, the elderly, or the disabled if citizens do not agree to share this responsibility by providing some care for their relatives; the state cannot protect the environment if citizens are unwilling to reduc, reuse, and recycle in their own homes. The ability of the government to regulate the economy can be undermined if citizens borrow immoderate amounts or demand excessive wage increases. 360
Without cooperation and self-restraint in these areas, the ability of liberal societies
to function successfully progressively diminishes, yet at the same time, these things
cannot sustainably be secured by the state through coercion; oppressive regimes
in the imperial age and throughout the 20C are testament to this.
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Glocalization
The convergence of globalization and citizenship is forming
an understanding of a relevant form of citizenship for individuals as
well as societies large or small. That is it is the conscious recognition
that people throughout the globe have a growing sense of a
shared destiny and therefore are recognizing that the sense of
responsibility that they feel in a national context need to be
transferred into a global context if their rights are to be protected
and if all people are to achieve and / or preserve the same rights. In
this way, the local context of recognizing and accessing the
benefits of the rights afforded by the local and or national
jurisdiction if viewed through a glocal lend would understand this to
be threatened or limited if their responsibilities were not to be
expanded into a global sphere.
Case Study: The United States Pacific Rim
One analogy that serves to explain this local to global contextual transfer
is by looking at the US concept of the frontier theory and the Pacific Rim theory in
terms of their foreign policy. The idea being that in order to protect the American
way of life and the rights and rewards enjoyed as a part of that life, a very real
engagement with neighbouring regions and societies that had the potential to
threaten their way of life needed to be made; responsibility for action outside the
nation state was taken so as to preserve but also spread what it saw as being
fundamental rights. In terms of the frontier theory, American desire to protect the
society built in the east led to the desire to create a continental empire, through
purchase and conquest, guarding against foreign influence. One the nation
spanned the breadth of the North Amercian continent, the glocal sphere of
engagement spread through the pacific. While this analogy ignores the
‘conquest’ aspects of this engagement, the core recognition that one’s domestic
rights and xxxx and destiny are indeed intertwined with the destinies of others in a
global context is at the heart of glocalization.
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The reality of glocalization and what it is to be and / or act
glocally has been the topic of significant discussion and debate
and the term is used in different ways in a variety of contexts. At its
simplest, the notion of glocal or glocalization can be characterized
by a greater balance between the global and local dimensions of
any given context or contexts. The notion of glocal practice can
refer to social processes, to a project or policies and also to systems
of thought or ideas. Centro di Ricera e Documentazione (CERFE)1 as
a member with consultative status of the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations has been involved in conceptual
elaborations and in-depth examinations of themes concerning its
research programme. In terms of addressing the reality of global
and local convergence, the CERFE in association with the World
Bank and The Glocal Forum2 characterized glocalisation as a word
that:
“is meant to point to a strategy involving a substantial reform of the different aspects of globalization , with the goal being both to establish a link between the benefits of the global dimension – in terms of technology, information and economics – and local realities, while at the same time, establishing a bottom-up system for the governance of globalization, based on greater equality in the distribution of the plant’s resources and on an authentic social and cultural rebirth of disadvantaged populations.
Further, the CERFE make the critical distinction between localism
(and multi-localism) and glocalisation. The former representing a
national perspective of citizenship and the latter the perspective of
global citizenship:
1 CERFE stated aims are to make a creative contribution to policymaking and to establishing new visions of reality, with a view to problem-solving. 2 The Glocal Forum was created in 2001 to emphasize the role of local authorities in the world governance system. The Glocal Forum focuses on empowering local communities by linking them to one another and to global resources, in order to achieve 2 The Glocal Forum was created in 2001 to emphasize the role of local authorities in the world governance system. The Glocal Forum focuses on empowering local communities by linking them to one another and to global resources, in order to achieve social improvement, democratic growth, peace and a balance between global opportunities and local realities.
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Glocalisation in the proper sense of the word, cannot refer to a simple appeal for power and independence on the part of local communities (localism) or to the creation of partnerships or horizontal networks that link up exclusively local subjects (multi-localism). Without a doubt, glocalisation is based on the actions of a number of different local actors … that are interconnected in networks – at times of planetary dimensions – or connected in clusters or in pairs, often with the objective of creating bridges between north and south, or between countries that find themselves in opposing sides of a conflict. In any event, one fundamental element of the approach in question is the ability to link and interact with global actors, be they international organizations or, under certain conditions, the global private sector. It is this ability which makes it possible, in the interests of implementing concrete projects, to draw on resources which local communities, especially if they have already been impoversished or have suffered the consequences of war, would be hard pressed to procure on their own, even if they were to join forces.
The clear link emerges, then between glocalisation with multi-
lateralism and links back to the perspective of citizenship. One is a
tool for the furtherance of national goals, the other is a furtherance
of national and global goals simultaneously. One is focused on
actions that preserve rights in a local context, the other is
enhancing what those rights might be through global responsibility.
The CERFE has through research developed a ‘glocalisation ideal
map’, which outlines a set of principles that appear to govern the
form and prevalence of glocalisation:
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Defining Glocalisation: CERFE Principles of Glocalisation
Importance of local actors
The first element making up the glocalisation vision is the full
recognition that the actors and social relations at a local level have
acquired crucial importance for development and peace. Often it
is the agency of the local actors, their assessment of local problems
and needs, their knowledge, their attitude to exercise governance
over issues that affect them directly that makes the difference in
terms of success or failure in development programs. The same is
true for the effects that the quality of social relations at the local
level have on peace-building and pacification strategies. But the
relevance of this kind of actors is no longer limited to the locality.
They are, in fact, increasingly showing an unexpected capacity to
interact with and influence actors of higher levels in the global
arena, be they States, international agencies or even global
corporations. It is this attitude of local actors that makes the
glocalisation approach realistic and able to provide
unprecedented concreteness to peace and development
strategies. Among the new actors, one should not underestimate
the role of youth, whose contribution of imagination and orientation
to the future is essential to the glocal vision.
The war / poverty nexus
At the core of the glocal approach there is the assumption that the
most destabilizing factor of the current world is the vicious circle
poverty/endemic war, proliferation of conflicts and spread of
violence. Situations of war and conflict, and the culture which
derives from and fosters them, tend in fact to go beyond their place
of origin and to attain global dimensions while threatening the
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overall stability of the international community. In this perspective
the entry point of glocalisation to tackle this circle is not so much
the issue of conflict resolution (which is under state responsibility) but
peace-building in connection with development.
Mainstreaming peace-building
In the glocalisation perspective, peace-building is no longer
regarded as a sectorial policy, but is seen as a central axis of any
development strategy. This entails the drive to give concreteness
and content to peace, by making the peace dividends take root at
local level, while mobilizing local actors to take the new
opportunities offered and build a social, economic and cultural
regime that be as consistent and self sustaining as that of war.
The link between stability, poverty-reduction, and development
It is now generally recognized that poverty reduction is not so much
an outcome of, but a prerequisite for development. The glocal
assumptions, however, bring us one step further in pointing out that
no serious effort in fighting poverty and achieving sustainable
development can ultimately succeed if an adequate degree of
stability is not attained at all levels, from local, to global. It is the
virtuous circle of stability, poverty reduction and development that
in the long run can contrast the vicious one of poverty, war and
conflict.
The role of the city
Cities are the place where civil societies are emerging with more
strength and where relations with governing and administrative
bodies are more direct. They are also engines of economic growth,
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centres of cultural and intellectual innovation and privileged arenas
for social empathy and change as well as institutional reform. They
can, thus, be considered as the most relevant social units for
glocalisation strategies – including people-to-people cooperation,
preventive diplomacy and cross-border relationships – for the fight
against poverty and in order to promote sustainable development
and peace.
Governance
The glocalisation effect could ultimately contribute to a more
pluralistic and integrated governance of globalization, striving to
correct the shortcomings of market dynamics vis-à-vis social and
economicinequalities. This entails a double movement: on the one
hand, bringing the benefits of globalisation to local levels; on the
other supporting and empowering local realities so they can
contribute with their perspectives, options and demands to the
global decision-making process.
The use of global knowledge
The movement towards glocalisation is strengthened by the
characteristics of the knowledge society. These include increased
circulation of knowledge, communication and peer-to-peer
learning, and the possibility to insert local actors and organizations
into global communication circuits, this can enhance the practice
of a real multiculturalism, in which local players and their cultures,
far for being depressed and nullified, can access the global arena
and find ways of cross-fertilising with each other.
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Social and Economic Success in 21C Global Society
Success Beyond the Classroom
Both employers and students themselves have different
expectations of education, its outcomes and delivery forms that
they did even 20 years ago. The pervasiveness of ICT has changed
the way people access information and other people, as well as
the way they use information to create new knowledge and
learning. Business has undergone a significant transformation due to
a growing emphasis on teams and collaborative practice (Pearce
& Conger, 2003). The structure of companies and the nature of work
has also changed. Organizational structures have become flatter,
decision making has become decentralized, information is widely
shared, workers form project teams even across organisations and
work arrangements are flexible. To be prepared to operate
effectively in a global knowledge-based society and economy,
then, it is suggested that a new set of knowledge transfer skills and
practices are needed to enable effective performance (Trigwell,
2000). It follows then, that as it is incumbent on national
governments and education policy makers to strive for social and
economic equity, it is incumbent on governments and educators to
equip all citizens with the requisite skills, literacies and
understandings to succeed, simultaneously, in this new global
society (macro) by being equipped to operate effectively in very
different and ever-changing local contexts (micro).
Globalisation demands new abilities and understandings to
succeed, which has significant implications for education. Zhao
(2009) argues that cross-cultural competency means the ability to
live in and move across different cultures easily. In the globalized
world, we will be interacting with many cultures but it is impossible to
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be competent in all the cultures of the world. Thus cross-cultural
competency can be viewed as a general psychological ability that
includes attitudes, perspectives and approaches to new and
different cultures. Education for global understanding must be
supported by the notion of unity in diversity, a common link
between people that is enabled only through interaction between
different perspectives (Dewey, 1916/1997).
This argument is instructive in terms of the assertion that “every
few hundred years in western history, there occurs a sharp
transformation”. That is, within a few short decades society
rearranges itself, its world view; its basic values; its social and
political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there
appears a new world … we are currently living through such a
transformation” (Drucker, 1993, p. 1.). Townsend (2004)
characterises 2000 years of history as 5 clear periods: 2000BC-1890s,
thinking and acting individually; 1870s-1990s thinking and acting
locally; 1970s-2000s, thinking nationally and acting locally; 1980s-
2010, thinking globally and acting nationally and locally. The next
logical transformation, according to Townsend, is thinking and
acting both locally and globally, or ‘glocally’.
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21 Century Skills
These trends and associated skill outcomes, then, pose
significant challenges for educational institutions and educators as
most educational systems operate much as they did during the mid
20th century. The challenge for all educational institutions, teachers,
teacher educators, is to prepare students to acquire these skills
through scaffolding and modeling 21C skills through curriculum,
pedagogy, organizational learning practice; to achieve both
connectivity and authenticity in terms of both practice and
outcomes.
The recognition that the 21C world presents with new and
different challenges has very real implications for education in
terms of how students and citizens are prepared to succeed in the
21C global world. According to Townsend, Drucker et al, this also
represents need for a sharp transformation in the field of education.
The result has been the identification of specific skills and
competences that are seen to be necessary for success in the 21C
world. School systems, universities and not for profit organizations
have grappled with these competences and have published
numerous sets for schools and systems to enact in classrooms.
Assessment and Teaching of 21C Skills (ACT21S) project
One significant project that aims to bridge the gulf between
identifying skills and competences on a theoretical level and
practical classroom methodologies is the Assessment and Teaching
of 21C Skills (ACT21S) project. The project which aims to transform
education through a multi-stakeholder partnership to make a
scalable and sustainable difference in classrooms around the world
is led by the University of Melbourne but involves broad public and
private collaboration across governments, intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs), academia and industry. The mission, as it
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identifies, is to empower students to succeed in the 21C by
transforming the goals and practices of educators to meet the
challenges of the 21st Century.
Those challenges centre on reforming curricula that, it
suggests, does not fully prepare students to live and work in an
information-age society. As a result, employers today:
are often challenged with entry-level workers who lack the practical skills it takes to create, build and help sustain an information-rich business. Although reading, writing, mathematics and science are cornerstones of today’s education, curricula must go further to include skills such as collaboration and digital literacy that will prepare students for 21st-century employment.
The project, then, is focused on changing how teachers and
education systems approach education worldwide by developing
new ways for teachers to assess students against outcomes that
reflect 21C global skills and competences.
The Foundation: Assessment
To make changes at the classroom level, policy-makers need
accurate information about the skills of the student population.
Gathering that data through assessment is a critical component.
ATC21S is developing methods to assess skills that will form the basis
for 21st-century curricula, with an emphasis on communication and
collaboration, problem-solving, citizenship, and digital fluency.
Into the Classroom
ATC21S aims to offer 21st-century curricula recommendations for
education systems to support an improved workforce. Our goal is to
create a new assessment framework with teaching and learning
resources to help students develop 21st-century skills.
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Translating these skills to the classroom will shape the economic
and social development of countries and communities for years to
come.
The ACT21S project have organized the ten skills that they identified into four groupings as follows:
Ways of Thinking • Creativity and innovation • Critical thinking, problem
solving, decision making • Learning to learn,
Metacognition • Assessment and Teaching
of 21st Century Skills project white papers
Ways of Working • Communication • Collaboration (teamwork)
Living in the World
• Citizenship – local and global
• Life and career • Personal & social
responsibility – including Tools for Working
• Information literacy • ICT literacy
cultural awareness and competence
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Standardised Testing Globally:
OECD Standardised assessments missed opportunity or still an
opportunity for glocal practice?
21C global competences have been identified and the
OECD have developed the PISA tests as a means of generating
data, which tests for future citizens competences. The problem is
that there is no glocal practice and no indication of what the
affective competences are and how they are important to
develop in teachers. Instead there is a reliance on the data to
‘speak for itself’ in terms of instructing / developing teacher
practice.
The opportunity, though, is that the data is very useful but
needs to be explored by teachers (as opposed to policy makers
alone) through ‘glocal’ networks in a SoTL method to meet the 21C
challenges.
The central questions that PISA outlines as being critical are
“how well are young adults prepared to meet the challenges of the
future?” Are they able to analyse, reason and communicate their
ideas effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning
through- out life? Parents, students, the public and those who run
education systems need to know.
Comparative international analyses can extend / enrich the
national picture by establishing the levels of performance being
achieved by students in other countries and by providing a larger
context within which to interpret national results. They can provide
direction for schools’ instructional efforts and for students’ learning
as well as insights into curriculum strengths and weaknesses.
Coupled with appropriate incentives, they can motivate students
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to learn better, teachers to teach better and schools to be more
effective.
The assessments focus on 15-year-olds, and the indicators are
designed to contribute to an understanding of the extent to which
education systems in participating countries are preparing their
students to become lifelong learners and to play constructive roles
as citizens in society.
The results, published every three years along with other
indicators of education systems. The OECD suggest that this allows
national policy makers to compare the performance of their
education systems with those of other countries. They also help to
focus and motivate educational reform and school improvement,
especially where schools or education systems with similar inputs
achieve markedly different results. Further, they provide a basis for
better assessment and monitoring of the effectiveness of education
systems at the national level.
This emphasis on testing in terms of mastery of broad
concepts is particularly significant in light of the concern among
nations to develop human capital, which the OECD defines as:
“The knowledge, skills, competencies and other attributes
embodied in individuals that are relevant to personal, social and
economic well-being.”
Estimates of the stock of human capital or human skill base
have tended, at best, to be derived using proxies such as level of
education completed. When the interest in human capital is
extended to include attributes that permit full social and
democratic participation in adult life and that equip people to
become “lifelong learners”, the inadequacy of these proxies
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becomes even clearer.
By directly testing for knowledge and skills close to the end of
basic schooling, OECD/PISA examines the degree of preparedness
of young people for adult life and, to some extent, the
effectiveness of education systems. Its ambition is to assess
achievement in relation to the underlying objectives (as defined by
society) of education systems, not in relation to the teaching and
learning of a body of knowledge. Such authentic outcome
measures are needed if schools and education systems are to be
encouraged to focus on modern challenges.
While the OECD standardized testing achieves significant
benchmarking objectives and scaffolds the beginnings of teacher
reflective practice, there are many questions that need to be both
asked and answered. That is, the PISA and TIMMS tests scaffold
teachers across the globe to deal with cognitive outcomes but
provide no forum for them to collaborate on their practice.
Further, the OECD tests deal almost exclusively with cognitive
outcomes, which are important but are not sufficient, alone to
achieve the holistic conception of a globally orientated and
engaged student citizen. The result is that there is a need to
reconceptualise what it means to be a global citizen in terms of
affective outcomes.
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Global Competences in the 21C
Ruth Deakin Crick: Learning to Learn and Active Citizenship
In “Competences for Learning to Learn and Active Citizenship:
Different Currencies or Two Sides of the Same Coin”, Bryony Hoskins
and Ruth Deakin Crick, analyse two key competences drawn from
the European Education Council Framework of key competences:
learning to learn and civic competence. On first reflection, it could
seem that the learning to learn competence is directed towards
economic returns from the knowledge economy in the context of
lifelong learning and that civic competence is orientated towards
the social outcomes of active citizenship and social cohesion and
that these two competences are in competition for time and
resources within national curricula. These debates exist, for example,
in Norwegian education policy when they compare their students’
social and academic performances. Norwegians perform well in
the development of social and civic competences (Nerdrum, 2008)
for which there is good evidence from high performances in the
results of the active citizenship composite indicator (Hoskins &
Mascherini, 2009) and the civic competence index (Hoskins et. al. ,
2008). However, there is equally a concern due to the average or
lower than average results in international tests such as PIRLS 2006,
TIMMS 2003 and PISA 2006, despite spending heavily on the
education system. The debates that have occurred in Norway are
about whether focusing education on gaining high PISA scores
would reduce their social outcomes. This article examines whether
this dichotomy is a reality or if by developing a broader
understanding of the term competence we can move beyond
such a dualism towards a coherent strategy of values-based
learning.
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What is a competence?
A competence refers to a complex combination of knowledge,
skills, understanding, values, attitudes and desire which lead to
effective, embodied human action in the world in a particular
domain. One’s achievement at work, in personal relationships or in
civil society are not based simply on the accumulation of second
hand knowledge stored as data, but as a combination of this
knowledge with skills, values, attitudes, desires and motivation and
its application in a particular human setting at a particular point in
a trajectory in time. Competence implies a sense of agency, action
and value.
What is Civic Competence?
Civic competence is the complex mix of the sum of the different
learning outcomes which are necessary for an individual to
become an active citizen. Active citizenship is defined within the
context of the CRELL Active Citizenship for Democracy project and
its European network as:
Participation in civil society, community and/or political life,
characterised by mutual respect and non-violence and in
accordance with human rights and democracy’ (Hoskins, 2006).
The European Commission 2010 Work Programme relating to the
learning of active citizenship states that active citizenship: must
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comprise not only the development of intercultural understanding
(the affective level), but also the acquisition of operational
competence (the cognitive level)—and both are best gained
through practice and experience (the pragmatic level). And
learning for active citizenship includes access to the skills and
competences that young people will need for effective economic
participation under conditions of technological modernisation,
economic globalisation, and, very concretely, transnational
European labour markets. At the same time, the social and
communicative competences that are both part of new demands
and which flow from changing work and study contexts are
themselves of critical importance for living in culturally, ethnically
and linguistically plural worlds. These competences are not simply
desirable for some, they are becoming essential for all (European
Commission,1998).
The European Commission’s Recommendation on Key
Competences for Lifelong Learning defines civic competence thus:
Civic competence is based on knowledge of the concepts of democracy, justice, equality, citizenship, and civil rights, including how they are expressed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and international declarations and how they are applied by various institutions at the local, regional, national, European and international levels. It includes knowledge of contemporary events, as well as the main events and trends in national, European and world history. In addition, an awareness of the aims, values and policies of social and political movements should be developed.
Knowledge of European integration and of the EU’s structures, main
objectives and values is also essential, as well as an awareness of
diversity and cultural identities in Europe. Skills for civic competence
relate to the ability to engage effectively with others in the public
domain and to display solidarity and interest in solving problems
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affecting the local and wider community. This involves critical and
creative reflection and constructive participation in community or
neighbourhood activities, as well as decision-making at all levels,
from local to national and European level, including by
voting.There is a plethora of lists of competences necessary for
active citizenship (Veldhuis, 1997; Audigier, 2000; Crick, 1998).
The CRELL Research Network on Active Citizenship for Democracy
a list of competences for active citizenship:
• Knowledge: human rights and responsibilities, political literacy,
historical knowledge, current affairs, diversity, cultural heritage,
legal matters and how to influence policy and society;
• Skills: conflict resolution, intercultural competence, informed
decisionmaking, creativity, ability to influence society and policy,
research capability, advocacy, autonomy/agency, critical
reflection, communication, debating skills, active listening, problem
solving, coping with ambiguity, working with others, assessing risk;
• Attitudes: political trust, political interest, political efficacy,
autonomy and independence, resilience, cultural appreciation,
respect for other cultures, openness to change/difference of
opinion, responsibility and openness to involvement as active
citizens, influencing society and policy;
• Values: human rights, democracy, gender equality, sustainability,
peace/non-violence, fairness and equity, valuing involvement as
active citizens.
• Identity: sense of personal identity, sense of community identity,
sense of national identity, sense of global identity.
What can be said from all the various lists is that civic competence
is a complex mix of knowledge, skills, understanding, values and
attitudes and dispositions and requires a sense of identity and
agency.
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What is the ‘Learning to Learn’ Competence?
In the article, Hoskins and Deakin Crick refer to a key text which
summarises 42 theoretical frameworks for thinking and learning
which have been used since the Second World War, Mosely et al.
(2005) identified seven of these which they describe as ‘all
embracing’ frameworks which seek to provide a comprehensive
account of how people learn and think in a range of contexts,
rather than just deal with one aspect of learning, such as cognition.
What is common, they suggest, to these seven is that they treat
learners as ‘whole persons’ who think, feel, hope and have a sense
of self as ‘chooser’ or agent in their own learning journey. They all,
to some degree, see the learner as a person in relation to other
people, capable of communicating and collaborating with co-
learners and learning from experience. They acknowledge that the
learner is ‘embodied’, although they do not explicitly look at the
location of the learner in a particular community, with its own social
practices, traditions and worldviews.
The idea that learning can lead to profound change in individuals
and communities is an important link between these two core
competences because both the notion of competence as we
have described it and the notion of personal and social change
are historical, contextualised, and value dependent: they imply a
sense of direction leading towards a ‘desired end’. In a discussion
of key competences for life in the 21st century, Haste (2001)
identifies an overarching ‘metacompetence’ of being able to
manage the tension between innovation and continuity. This is
something which schools need to nurture and develop in their
learners and, in our opinion, is also a pre-requisite for both lifelong
learning and active citizenship.
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Conclusion
Deakin Crick and Hoskins concluded that:
What we can conclude is that the two key competences, civic
competence and learning to learn, have a large degree of
commonality which, considering that both are essential for
individual and societal success, provides important implications for
education systems and the development of lifelong learning
opportunities worldwide.
From the evidence that we have drawn on, we can say that civic
competence and learning to learn competences are both a
requirement in relationship to real world tasks, for example, the
need to learn how to learn in the knowledge society and the need
to have the voices of citizens heard in a Europe concerned about
democratic deficit. Each competence has not only a cognitive
element, but also a strong affective dimension and should be
treated as a quality of a whole person. Critical thinking, creativity
and the values of equality and justice are, from the research
presented in this article, considered important dimensions of both.
The values in each case are attributed as the basis for action: civic
competence leading to active citizenship and learning to learn
leading to active learning or lifelong learning. Both are learned
most successfully through learner-centred pedagogies and an
environment built on trust and respect which is engaged with wider
communities. Academic success has also been correlated with
both competences.
What the evidence has suggested is that civic competence and
learning to learn enable or facilitate citizens into action. Presumably
whatever their circumstances, once these competences are
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learned, individuals have the tools to create positive social change
either by helping themselves politically to empower their
communities and assure their rights or by actively pursuing the
necessary learning opportunities to develop the relevant
knowledge and skills for new or better employment. What we could
suggest is that perhaps the ‘desired end’ to which these policies
are linked is social inclusion driven by empowered and active
citizens. The implementation of the learning opportunities on offer
to young people or indeed to all individuals will determine to what
extent all citizens can benefit from learning these competences in
order to maintain socially cohesive societies.
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The Recognition of Lifelong Learning
In Australia, the Business / Higher Education Roundtable (B-
HERT) have recognized this need and have called for a greater
emphasis on lifelong learning. The B-HERT policy statement (2001)
was aimed at highlighting the significance of lifelong learning in the
Australian context by drawing on analyses of lifelong learning
policies and practices in Australia and other OECD countries. It
suggested priorities for government, particularly in the areas of
lifelong learning, business, and higher education and called for the
development of infrastructures for learning in response to
developments in the understanding of learning processes. It is the
conditions which are needed for successful learning, and the
advances in the technologies of learning, which create the
potential for a new kind of learner and new kinds of learning more
appropriate for 21C society (B-HERT, 2001).
Specifically, the B-HERT statement argued for the adoption of
a multi-faceted approach to education policy to address the
complex interplay of the three major aims of lifelong learning:
lifelong learning for a more highly skilled workforce, for a stronger
democracy and more inclusive society, and for a more personally
rewarding life. This call is consistent with the international context, as
articulated by Delors’ Four Pillars of Learning (1996). Delors outlines
how education throughout life is based on four pillars: learning to
know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.
Accordingly, universities, globally, are challenged to respond to
these goals through the development of quality, relevant, and
measurable learning. WIL represents an appropriate and necessary
vehicle to develop students as holistic lifelong learners with a suite
of learning dimensions and who are consciously able to build a
satisfying working life across multiple career contexts. To meet this
challenge, the notion of the meta-competence is critical.
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The Australian government’s goal of developing citizens with
clear lifelong learning dispositions is a recognition that the
development of competencies are prerequisites for a successful life
and a well-functioning society. The Bradley review of higher
education in Australia highlights how “it will be crucial for Australia
to have enough highly skilled people able to adapt to the
uncertainties of a rapidly changing future”(Bradley, Noonan,
Nugent, & Scales, 2008, p. xi.). Critically also, the report highlighted
the Australian government’s commitment to addressing the citizens’
right to share in the benefits of the new global age and knowledge-
based economy. (Bradley et al., 2008). The review, along with other
government education imperatives as outlined in the Melbourne
Declaration articulates the call for all young Australians to become
successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active
and informed citizens.
The Problem with Measurement
A survey of the stated definitions of global skills and their
imperatives as they appear on the majority of global education
programs’ websites, reveals a common emphasis on the cognitive
learning domain, which highlights a primary focus on programs that
involve elements such as knowing, explaining, being able to, rather
than on 21C global learning outcomes in the affective domain. The
stated goals for example, of Globale Gymnasier are for students to
be able to: place themselves in an interconnected world; enter in
constructive dialogue; deal with cultural differences; connect
knowledge and praxis; use innovative ways in dealing with global
challenges; interact on local, national and global levels.
These, broadly representative of other similar programs, are
concentrated in the cognitive domain and do not explicitly point to
critical competences that fall within the affective domain; the
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curiosity, growth orientation, disposition towards making meaning,
creativity. These dispositions are the elements of student learning
that are critical to the development of a global meta-competency.
To focus exclusively on cognitive outcomes limits the capacity and
collective imaginations of curriculum designers to develop bespoke
learning. Most important, though, is that cognitively-focused
outcomes limit the capacity and collective imaginations of
teachers as professional learners, and as professional learning
leaders and scholars.
Rather than attempt a grand definition to address this issue,
this project has instead characterised global learning primarily in
terms of positive learning axioms, from which its characteristic style,
structures, and negations follow. The proliferation of different types
of global learning curricula and student experiences that are
professed to constitute the phenomena of teaching for global
citizenship, impede the understanding of the core global learning.
The structures and curricula forms that may form to constitute
global citizenship are infinite. It is thus unhelpful to attempt to define
the learning in terms of structures; they become a meaningless
infinity. What is needed, rather, is the identification of a unique
learning element that transcends disciplines and vocations and
prescriptive pedagogical forms to be identified. Critically, this
element would enable both development and measurement of
global education and fill the research void that exists around the
achievement of student learning outcomes and the impact of the
outcomes on their future
Definitions that primarily view global citizenship in terms of
curriculum preparation contribute to this conundrum. The
conception of global education as a curriculum design and / or
co-curricular design in which students spend time in globally
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focussed settings relevant to social science areas of study
perpetuates this conundrum as it reinforces the existence of an
archetypal global curriculum design or “essential pedagogically
relevant features” in curricula without providing clear global
learning outcomes. These outcomes would be able to be
measured across disciplinal contexts. Instead, at least implicitly,
they encourage learning value to be viewed through a single
disciplinal and/or vocational lens which has the effect of limiting
the pedagogical creativity and broader 21C lifelong learning
outcomes to be both developed and measured, unnecessarily. In
terms of Deakin Crick’s meta-comptence representation it only
measures the knowledge quarter rather than the whole learning
continuum.
As an ideal type, the attempt to define global learning, much
less to measure it, is an to attempt to perform a linguistic contortion.
To define global learning is to attempt to account for the infinite
number of skills and experiential contexts, which, ultimately, only
render the definition itself meaningless for practical purposes. The
term ideal type refers to the status acquired by any generic
concept, which is made central to an investigation of processes
and events concerning human beings (Weber, 1964). Global
learning, in this case, is the generic concept. By using Burger’s logic,
accepting global learning as an ideal type is problematic as
“before human consciousness acts upon the world to derive the
meaning and values, which form the fabric of experimental reality,
it consists of a ‘meaningless infinity’ of phenomena”. The argument
follows that to perceive or know anything at all, the mind needs a
filter capable of drastically editing this infinity, much in the same
way as a camera needs a lens before it will photograph anything
recognizable (Griffin, 1993). Global learnng is in need of a camera
lens to make it recognizable and thus measurable. The contention
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of this study is that that lens in global learning contexts should be
centred on Deakin Crick’s notion of meta-competency in the form
of a test rather than a definition.
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The Essential Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI)
The ELLI Dimensions
Changing and Learning: A healthy perspective of oneself as
a learner is present when an individual believes that through effort,
their minds will grow, and that learning is a lifelong process. There is
a sense of getting better over time. A less effective learner
perceives learning capacity as fixed and experiences difficulty in
learning as something that reveals inadequacies and limitations.
Critical Curiosity. Effective learners with critical curiosity have
energy and drive for learning. They value finding the truth, thinking
deeply and asking questions. They are critical in their approach to
learning and are undaunted by public exposure. They are in
charge of their learning and are motivated by challenge. Less
effective learners are passive in their learning and are more likely to
accept what they are told. They are less likely to engage in
speculation and exploratory discussions.
Meaning Making. Effective learners who make meaning
search for ways to connect what they are learning to what they
already know. They tend to make sense of new things by using their
own experiences and are interested in the “bigger” picture. Less
effective learners approach learning experiences as isolated and
fragmented events. These learners are more interested in identifying
the criteria for success than in constructing meaning.
Resilience: Effective learners are resilient and robust in their
learning. They like a challenge and are more willing to try things
and to take risks. They exert good mental effort and accept that
sometimes learning is hard. They are not easily frustrated. Less
effective learners present evidence of dependence and fragility.
They are easily frustrated when they are challenged or when they
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make a mistake. They rely on others for their learning and self-
esteem.
Creativity: Creativity allows the learner to look at things in
different ways. These learners are imaginative and believe in new
possibilities. They enjoy exploring new ideas and looking at things
from different perspectives. They are more playful in their learning,
as well as more purposeful. Less effective learners are
characterized by literalness and are rule-bound. They tend to be
unimaginative and prefer clear-cut and traditional ways of looking
at things. They prefer having preset rules or directions to follow.
Relationships/Interdependence: Effective learners are well
balanced and are able to be both private learners and social
learners. They know the value of watching others learn, and make
use of others’ knowledge to expand upon their own. They
understand that their peers and educators provide resources, as
well as support. Yet, at the same time, they also know that effective
learning may require time alone to study and ponder. Less effective
learners are more likely to depend on others for reassurance and
guidance, and are more likely to isolate themselves.
Strategic Awareness: More effective learners are interested in
learning about themselves as learners. They will try different
strategies in order to learn more about how they learn. They handle
frustration and disappointment and are more reflective and self-
evaluative. They like to plan and organize their own learning. In
contrast, less effective learners are more robotic in their learning.
They are less self-aware and more self-conscious.
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The Future of Education
In the many challenges that the future holds in store, humans
the world over are increasingly viewing education as an
indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace,
freedom and social justice (Delors, 1996). The context in which
education is situated could now be suggested to be within a nexus
with globalization and citizenship (Hansen, 2011), such is the
interdependence of the international economic, social and
political systems, fuelled by the forced of globalization. There are
pressures upon education systems globally to increase their
outcomes by adopting standards based education reform. To meet
these challenges, questions arise not about the significance of
educational change and practice or its importance in dealing with
the emergent global social and political challenges but around the
how teachers actually achieve this in practice and how schools
and school systems support them through effective professional
learning practices as there is an apparent disjuncture between
The growing demands on teacher and teacher educator
practice and the heightened culture of accountability through
standardized testing and national and international high-level goals
pertaining to 21C skills and global citizenship and interdependence.
This has meant that a greater emphasis is being placed on
generating professional knowledge and professional learning and
teaching practices that can have a practical impact on student
achievement, which poses significant challenges for educational
institutions and educators to scaffold and model 21C skills and the
behaviours of global citizens and educators.
The emergence of 21C global demands highlight the
importance of building the capacity of teachers and teacher
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educators at both schools and universities to achieve the high level
national and international goals pertaining to positive social equity
and economic outcomes by developing people across all socio-
economic and cultural backgrounds as global lifelong learners. The
study’s dual premise is firstly that teachers, as learners, need to
consciously ‘become’ global citizens and global learners before
they can develop students and secondly that all educators,
irrespective of their teaching discipline, can and should contribute
to the students’ development as global learners and citizens.
Critical Question:
A critical question is where we as citizens learn the virtues of
citizenship (global or local) and civic responsibilities? As people do
not automatically learn to engage in public discourse or to
question austerity or to exercise their civic rights (Kymlicka and
Norman, 1994) the answer lay in the sphere of education. It is
schools which must teach children how to engage in the kind of
critical reasoning and moral perspective that defines the requite
public resonableness. Children at school “must learn not just to
behave in accordance with authority but to think critically about
authority if they are to live up to the democratic ideal of sharing
political sovereignty as citizens” (Gutmann in Kymlicka and Norman,
1994).
As Gutmann suggests, education for citizenship will
necessarily involve “equipping children with the intellectual skills
necessary to evaluate ways of life different from that of their
parents because many if not all of the capacities necessary for
choice among good lives are also necessary for the [‘right’] of
choice among good societies.
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That there are civic societies and / or groups within civic
societies, however, that can reasonably be described as insular
raises and issue of critical importance to the notions of citizenships
and civic education. That is, those societies and groups, which rely
heavily on uncritical acceptance of tradition and authority, while
not strictly ruled out “are bound to be discouraged by the free,
open, pluralistic, progressive” attitudes which liberal education
encourages and which free societies demand as responsibilities.
Clear state examples are North Korea and sub societal groups such
as the Amish in the United States; in each case, leaders of these
societies have moved to separate their children from national and
international education streams and groupings.
Despite disagreement on the balance between active and
passive citizenship or between the weighting of rights and
responsibilities, there is an increasing consensus from all points of the
political spectrum for the view that citizenship must play an
independent normative role in any plausible political theory and
that the promotion of responsible citizenship is an urgent aim of
public policy.
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High Level National Aims
Denmark: Research 2020 goals
A competent, cohesive society
A vision of a competent, cohesive society where the population has
a high level of education and competence which will meet the needs of
the individual and society, and where knowledge, cultural understanding
and cross-cultural competencies will prepare Denmark for the global
competition.
1. Education, learning and competence development: The aim is to
strengthen the quality of education and increase the competence level of
the Danish population
2. Cultural understanding and cross-cultural competences: The aim is to
strengthen cultural understanding and cross-cultural competences so that
businesses and society in general will be prepared to make proactive use of
globalization.
Australia: Australia and the Asia Century White Paper
1. Australians need an evolving set of Asia-relevant capabilities that are both
broad and specialised
2. Australia’s education and training systems play a fundamental role in
ensuring that all Australians have the right capabilities to take advantage
of the Asia Century
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Harvreaves’ 4th Way Placing the Need into context: Response
to new competences by education systems.
The nature of citizenship and global citizenship in the
contemporary interdependent global age, then, needs to be
explored to be useful in terms of education policy and practice. In
terms of pedagogy, the experience to date, however, has been
that international organizations such as the OECD and national
governments and school systems have largely responded to the
implications of 21C globalization with a narrow outcomes-based
focus on standardized testing (PISA, TIMMS, NAPLAN, NCLB) to meet
the 21C challenge rather than a more holistic one that aims to
scaffold 21C-appropriate teaching and learning practices. While
the assumption that literacy and numeracy proficiency is a valid
one in terms of it being essential for children to be properly
equipped for a 21C society, the experience is that the narrow
testing focus has led to narrow and ineffective teaching and
learning practices.
Also of critical importance is the equity challenges that these
tests pose, particularly in terms of their ability to cater for diverse
school and community contexts and cultural literacies. This
research recognizes the fundamental importance in ensuring real
equity and that schools, well resourced or under resourced, do not
presently have the capacity, alone, to develop the necessary
bespoke programs to scaffold the level of 21C teaching and
learning practice needed. This research is thus committed to
exploring a theory in practice that is better equipped to support
and sustain 21C practice.
The relationship and roles of education authorites and
schools in the context of teacher professional learning is at the core
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of any discussion of school effectiveness and student learning
outcomes. The balance between centralization and
decentralization and regulation and deregulation in terms of
teacher practice, Andy Hargreaves (2008) argues, is one that has
not been achieved. In “The Fourth Way of Change” (2008),
Hargreaves studies long-term change spanning more than 30 years
in eight innovative and traditional high schools in the United States
and Canada. He characterizes four clear stages of change.
Though Hargreaves does not overtly link the development of the
different phases to increased globalization, it is acknowledged as
being a clear factor that has driven the forces of standardization
and marketisation that have defined each emergent phase.
Hargreaves’ (2008) characterizes his First Way as being the
‘Golden Age’ of education as teachers had curriculum and
teaching practice freedoms – professional autonomy. Good
collaborative practice and teaching and learning innovation did
exist during this period, however, with little or no attached data. The
issue for this age is that it can also be characterized as having no
meaningful measures of student achievement, having no
standardized testing and government intervention in terms of
curriculum.
He characterizes his Second Way as being a knee-jerk
response in the form of an imposition of prescriptive standardization
of curriculum and practice, market competition, and punitive
measures, particularly in the UK. The paradox was that while parent
consumers experienced freedom, professionals were subjected to
greater controls at the cost to quality, breadth and depth of
learning. In a 21C context, the 2nd way can be viewed as being the
antithesis of the glocal practice.
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The Third Way, in which contemporary education practice is
located, can be characterized as being a softening of the 2nd Way
methodology but being more incrimentalist in nature than
progressive or reformist. There was a clear recognition that there
had been too much coersion of teachers and prescription of
curriculum during the 2nd Way, yet as Hargreaves (2008, p. 58)
suggests that the 3rd Way remains every bit as top-down as the
previous period but that there are “hyperactive [coaches rushing]
around, energetically and enthusiastically delivering the
government’s narrowly defined targets and purposes, rather than
also developing and realizing inspiring purposes of their own”. The
3rd Way, then, remains top down in its conception, despite being
delivered by more lateral coaching structures and has, anecdotally,
stymied approaches that attempt to reform teaching and learning
culture and practice to meet unique school circumstances; instead,
fostering a production line culture in schools.
In Australia, the Smarter School National Partnership (SSNP)
program design and implementation is evidence of the same issue
and further highlights practices that are consistent with Hargreaves’
3rd Way characterisation. The SSNP Victorian Progress report (2010)
reports on outputs, totalling $326 million, in terms of quantity rather
than quality and much less on a set of guiding theories or practices.
That is, programs appear not to facilitate reflective practice; the
form of the leadership and teacher capacity outputs are more
didactic than experiential; the success criteria are narrow and are
consistent with ‘3rd Way’ goals. Further, a significant proportion of
outputs provide for coaches and mentors to assist schools to
implement literacy and numeracy programs that are yet to be
evaluated by research (Ling, Usher, Eckersley, 2012) and have had
little impact. In the words of Hargreaves, “despite the ‘collective
effervescence’ most of the energy is directed towards hurriedly
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and excitedly adopting short-term strategies and programs to
deliver forms of achievement rather than towards longer term
attempts to transform teaching and learning” (2008, p. 65).
Similarly, in the United States, too often reforms are
conceived and implemented in a top-down manner and on a
scale that, consciously or not, denies the existence of very different
localized contexts, thus negatively impacting on the reforms’
success (Tyack and Cuban, 1995). That is, large scale reforms, it is
suggested, tend to be based on popular ideas such as phonics
versus whole language or opposition to bilingual education, without
consulting with teachers and teacher educators and without
having a clear sense of the impact across very different student
and school contexts. It is the contention of this research, then, that
teachers should be supported as educators and as scholars to
better provide for appropriate localised approaches and effective
teaching and learning strategies – ultimately leading to higher
levels of student achievement.
Despite what has been termed a generation of failed reforms
(Morrell & Noguera, 2011) that have both stymied progress and
continue to stymie progress, this research will begin with the premise
that widely criticized practices such as standardized testing do not
necessitate ‘standardised teaching’ or ‘teaching to the test’
(acknowledging, though, that this practice is regrettably the rule
rather than the exception). Rather it will view such testing as
articulation of essential enabling learning benchmarks that are
essential in foundation of key cognitive strategies (Conley, 2010).
That is, the strategies that enable students to learn, understand,
retain, use, and apply content from a range of disciplines; literacy
and numeracy is both scaffolded by the core cognitive strategies
and become essential enabling skills for the acquisition of these
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strategies. Critical to this is the challenge of harnessing the learning
and culturally appropriate teaching practices and perspectives of
educators globally – in line with the ‘glocal’ ideal – to identify a
more democratic, inclusive method to support teachers, teacher
educators and students acquire Conley’s key cognitive strategies,
for filling the gap between policy and classroom practice.
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Engström Craft • Tacit
knowledge • The worker
is also designer
Mass production • Articulated knowledge • Workers and designers are
separated, designers give the ‘final touch’
Process enhancement • Practical Knowledge • Designers are used as
resource in product development
Mass customization • Architectural knowledge • Designers become full
members of product development teams
• Development of truly new products
Co-‐configuration • Dialogical knowledge • Designers may
become scouts, negotiators, boundary-‐spanners
1400-‐1760 1760-‐1945 1945-‐1970 1970-‐2000 2000-‐present Empire • Ideas created the modern
state • New institutions (financial,
judicial, educational) • New technologies –
transport (railways, shipping), communications –(radio, telegraphy)
• Ideas / political ideologies strengthened nation states and caused nationalist conflict)
• Technologies such as television, commercial airlines, computers, satellites enabled the spread of intensified activity globally.
• Market liberalization and corporatisation
• challenge to the primacy of national governments (more shared with global organisations, UN/ WTO)
• Global stalemate – the Cold War
• Deconstruction of global national hegemonies (with the end of the Cold War)
• Development of a global media
• Emergent trade blocs • Emergent awareness of
scarcity of global resources – OPEC oil crisis
• Development of human rights organisations
• Social networking / social media
• Arab spring • Interdependence • Climate change
Townsend
Thinking and acting individually
Thinking and acting locally 1870s Development of systems to adapt to socio-‐economic need arising from industrialisation
Thinking and acting locally and nationally 1970s/80s Linking education to national interests / risks.
Thinking locally and acting globally. PISA and TIMMS. A new period of accountability Centralized ‘innovation’
Thinking and acting locally and globally Need a new generative teacher-‐teacher global networks. To fit with the co-‐configuration
Citizenship identity
Local through a global (imperial) lens
National through a local lens National through a local lens National through a global lens Global through local and national lenses
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The reality: What are we doing and how do we know?
Typically, programs and organizations that are aimed at
supporting schools to develop students as learners and global
citizens do so most visibly through school-school exchange
programmes but also through curriculum innovation, pedagogical
techniques and globally-focussed teaching materials. Globally,
schools and organizations work to construct methodologies and
strategies to support high schools to integrate a global perspective
in the everyday teaching and school life. In the development of
learning programmes. They work closely together with international
schools, universities and organizations to secure a challenging and
involving education to encourage the formation of young global
citizens. In Australia, the BRIDGE Program, sponsored by the Asia
Education Foundation, the Asia Society, in the United States and
the DFiD North South partnerships organization in the United
Kingdom adopt similar practices.
The extent to which global learning, knowledge exchange
and student / teacher exchange programs in schools contribute to
the achievement of these goals, however, remains difficult to
scaffold and to quantify due to two major factors. The first factor is
the difficulty associated with defining the characteristics of a global
citizen and in identifying its learning characteristics. The prevailing
literature and practice in the global education field highlights this
as it characterizes global education practice as being
combinations of school-school exchanges; the development of
discrete units in History or Geography curricula; or teacher
professional learning to those ends. The prevailing theory and
practice accepts global citizenship and global education as ideal
types rather than as a characterization of a specific learning
elements.
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The second factor, which stems directly from the first, is the
associated difficulty with measuring and comparing the
contribution of global education programmes to student outcomes
with that from non-global education contexts. That is, schools face
difficulties in demonstrating the positive impact of global education
as a learning outcome rather than as a service outcome and how
to promote the contribution of teachers and program leaders from
across the curriculum against a single outcome set. Both factors
have created difficulties for schools in building and implementing
professional learning programs and quality assurance structures
across school contexts and diverse disciplines.
Implications for Schools
Further, these characteristic practices have been associated,
causally, with a familiar set of challenges at schools. That is, the
view that a reliance on teachers of particular disciplines or teachers
with an inclination to be involved with different forms of exchanges
and / or global social action activities engender a feeling of
exclusion from within schools and a division amongst teaching staff.
There is a feeling, too, that the practices of schools that promote
global learning have not fully capitalized on the potential
opportunities that a multi-dimensional, whole-school approach
would afford. Opportunities such as providing a vehicle to counter
the perception of a narrowing curriculum, a vehicle to break down
the disciplinal silos and a vehicle to promote collegiality and
engaging professional learning dialogue across all disciplines. At
universities, too, teacher education programs are among the least
internationally orientated activities and most prospective teachers
do not take courses that focus on international subject,
emphasizing the long-term difficulties.
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The key to the realization of whole-school value is achieving
a common recognition of global education as a learning form and
the ability to identify it and support it through professional learning.
This study aims to identify a common meta-language that
educators can engage with, sustainably, to create the types of
collaborative professional learning forms that will ultimately better
prepare teachers and students as 21 Century global learners and
citizens.
What is happening Globally?
While national governments such as Australia and the US worry about raising test scores in reading, maths, and science and subjects students to high-stakes testing and an increasingly standardized curriculum, other countries are doing taking different approaches. While one model of education is moving toward more standardization and centralization, other models, in Asian countries are working hard to allow more flexibility and autonomy at the local level. The US and Australia are investing resources to ensure that all students take the same courses and pass the same tests, while Asian countries are advocating individualization and attending to emotions, creativity, and other skills. While some countries are raising the stakes on testing, Asian countries are exerting great efforts to reduce the power and testing. CHINA In 2002, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a policy authorized by the Chinese State Council to reform assessment and evaluation in elementary and secondary schools. Entitled Ministry of Education’s Notice Regarding Furthering the Reform of Evaluation and Assessment Systems in Elementary and Secondary Schools, this policy calls for alternative ways of assessment to simple testing of academic knowledge. It specifically forbids ranking school districts, schools, or individual students based on test results or making test results public (Chinese Ministry of Education 2002). In 2003, the Chinese Ministry of Education released its plan for high school curriculum reform, which was scheduled to start in 2004. The primary goal of this reform is consistent with the previous curriculum reform for primary and middle school: foster creativity and the spirit to innovate and develop practical life skills. The specific strategies include granting more flexibility and autonomy to students and schools in deciding what to learn, more courses outside traditional
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disciplines, and a more authentic assessment and evaluation scheme. The reform pushes for more electives and fewer required courses for students, more local and school-based content, integrated studies, and such new subjects as art, environmental studies, and technology. A strong community service and experiences component is also included (Chinese Ministry of Education 2003). In addition, foreign language (mostly English) is a required course starting from 3rd grade in China. SOUTH KOREA In 2001, South Korea released the 7th National Curriculum. It aims to cultivate creative, autonomous, and self-driven citizens who will lead the era’s developments in information, knowledge, and globalization. The curriculum promotes fundamental and basic education that fosters sound human beings and nurtures creativity. It helps students build their self-motivated capacity and implements learner oriented education that suits students’ capability, aptitude, and career-development needs. And it ensures expanded autonomy for the local community and schools in curriculum planning and operation (Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development 2001). As in China, foreign-language learning (again, mostly English) is being promoted in the primary grades.
SINGAPORE Since 1997, Singapore has engaged in a major curriculum- reform initiative. Titled Thinking Schools, Learning Nation, this initiative aims to develop all students into a community of active, creative learners with critical-thinking skills. Its key strategies include the explicit teaching of critical and creative-thinking skills; the reduction of subject content; the revision of assessment modes; and greater emphasis on processes, rather than on outcomes, when appraising schools. In 2005, Singapore’s Ministry of Education released another major policy document, Nurturing Every Child: Flexibility and Diversity in Singapore Schools, which calls for a more varied curriculum, a focus on learning instead of on teaching, and more autonomy for schools and teachers (Ministry of Education 2005). Singapore is already multilingual in its education, but there have been recent calls for stronger teaching of Chinese. JAPAN
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Since 2001, Japan has been working to implement its Education Plan for the 21st Century, which has three major objectives. The first is “enhancing emotional education” by cultivating students as emotionally well-rounded human beings. The second objective is “realizing a school system that helps children develop their individuality and gives them diverse choices” by moving toward a diverse, flexible educational system that encourages individuality and cultivates creativity. The third is “promoting a system in which the school’s autonomy is respected” through decentralizing education administration, enhancing local autonomy, and enabling independent self-management at the school level (Tokutake 2000). UNITED KINGDOM On 15 November 2004, Charles Clarke, then Britain’s Education and Skills Secretary, launched a comprehensive national strategy to build stronger links between the nation’s education system and their world partners, requiring every British school to have an international partner school within the next five years. “Our vision,” Clarke noted (in Department for Education and Skills 2004), “is that the people of the UK should have the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to fulfill themselves, to live in and contribute effectively to a global society and to work in a competitive, global economy. It means, in short, putting the world into the world class standards to which we aspire.
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OECD 21 Century Challenges: 6 Scenarios for the Future Story lines have been developed by the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its Schooling for Tomorrow project that led to the formulation of scenarios for the future of schools (OECD, 2001). The starting point was a conference on ‘Schooling for Tomorrow’ in Rotterdam in November 2000 that involved ministers and senior officers of education systems. Further work with representatives of key stakeholders led to the formulation of scenarios in 2001.
The six scenarios described the possible strategic directions
for schools over 10 – 15 years, with two maintaining the status quo, two involving re-schooling, and two resulting in de- schooling. The following is a brief account of the major features of each. It summarises a revised version of the initial formulation (Istance, 2003, Chapter 62).
Maintaining the status quo Scenario 1: Bureaucratic systems continue with pressure to
sustain uniformity and resist radical change, even in the face of critical commentary. Schools remain distinct entities. Efforts to change are countered by claims that equality of opportunity would be threatened and that important roles for schools related to socialisation would be jeopardized. Curriculum and qualifications would remain centralized and student assessment is the key element in accountability frameworks. The classroom and the teacher remain the key units of organisation. There is an emphasis on efficiency, and national and state / provincial departments maintain their roles despite pressures for decentralization. Teachers are civil servants, and union and professional associations remain strong.
Scenario 2: Teachers leaving the profession without
replacement characterise the second scenario that endeavours to maintain the status quo. This is the ‘meltdown scenario’. Not all school systems or parts of school systems would experience a crisis in this regard. There would be severe teacher shortages in some settings and this would limit capacity to deliver the curriculum. Crisis management would often prevail and a fortress mentality would be evident. The international market for quality teachers would be strengthened. Remuneration for teachers would increase in an effort to sustain the profession.
Re-schooling Scenario 3: The re-schooling scenarios see an increase in
public support for schools and a new status for the profession. The
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‘schools as core social centres’ scenario would see the school playing an important role in building a sense of community and creating social capital. A range of cooperative arrangements between schools and other agencies, institutions and organisations will be evident. There would be a broadening of the curriculum and more non-formal learning. Management of such enterprises would be more complex and leadership would be widely dispersed. Local decision-making will be important but national and international frameworks of support will be utilised. Additional resources will be secured to upgrade facilities. A core of teachers will enjoy high status but a range of persons from other professions will be involved in different contractual arrangements to support schools.
Scenario 4: The second re-schooling scenario sees a
strengthening of schools as ‘focused learning organisations’, with emphasis on a knowledge rather than social agenda. Specialisations and diversity will flourish as will research on different pedagogies. Management involves flatter organization structures and the building of teams and networks that draw on a range of expertise. There are high levels of investment in infrastructure, especially in disadvantaged settings. There is extensive use of ICT and partnerships with tertiary education and other institutions involved in knowledge creation and dissemination. Teachers enjoy high status as professionals, with substantial engagement in research and development as well as continuous professional learning. Much if the latter is in networks, including international networks. There is diversity and mobility in employment arrangements.
De-schooling Scenario 5: Increasing dissatisfaction with the formal
institution of the school results in the weakening of schools and school systems and, in varying degrees, leads to the ‘de-schooling’ scenarios. One is known as ‘learning networks and the network society’ in which dissatisfaction and demand for more diversified approaches to learning results in a weakening of the formal institution of the school. This scenario is clearly supported by the powerful capacities for learning now possible through ICT. Home schooling flourishes in this scenario. Schools may continue but in networks that together furnish the services that are required. Different governance arrangements prevail but there will be a requirement that certain public obligations are met in the interests of access and equity. There will be a diminution of the teaching profession as it is currently understood but a range of new learning professionals will emerge.
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Scenario 6: The second de-schooling scenario is described as ‘extending the market model’. It is also consistent with the loss of trust described above, as an increasing number of parents see schooling as a private good. The market for different approaches to learning flourishes, with different providers furnishing information on a range of indicators to attract customers. There is a greatly reduced role for public authorities that may be limited to market regulation more than provision. New learning professionals emerge. There is clearly potential for substantial inequities as far as access is concerned.
Work continues in the Schooling for Tomorrow project. Studies
in five nations will be utilised to construct a ’toolbox’ to assist policymakers and practitioners at all levels to develop their own scenarios.
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Teacher Practice Responses to new competences – teacher collaborative practice
Despite the top-down systemic approaches prevalent,
globally, there are projects that have taken up the idea of
collaborative support but from within a lateral bottom-up
partnership context. For example, in a single context or micro
setting, the peer-driven Raising Achievement / Transforming
Learning (RATL) project initiated by Hargreaves in the UK was based
on lateral (teacher-teacher) support rather than system-driven
interventions and resulted in two-thirds the number of participating
schools improving at double the rate of the national average over
two years (Hargreaves et al. 2007, 2008). There has been
demonstrated success, too, in professional partnership relationships
such as the Annenburg Challenge program in the US that
encourages participating schools to link with other schools and
learn from and support one another. Such programs demonstrate
the success of school-school partnerships and teachers supporting
each others’ practice. Further, on a national scale, the National
Writing Project is a successful example of scholarly collaboration of
educators, teachers and teacher educators (Leiberman, 2002,
2005).
Reflective Practice as Coolaborative Practice: Schön
Reflective practice is of critical importance for citizens and for
educators to model through learning practice. The term refers to
"the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of
continuous learning", which, according to the originator of the term,
is "one of the defining characteristics of professional practice".
According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to
the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by
examining practice reflectively and reflexively. This leads to
developmental insight".
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Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based
professional learning settings where individuals learning from their
own professional experiences, rather than from formal teaching or
knowledge transfer, may be the most important source of personal
professional development and improvement. Further, it is also an
important way to be able to bring together theory and practice;
through reflection you are able to see and label schools of thought
and theory within the context of your work (2007, McBrien).
The notion of reflective practice was introduced by Donald Schön
in his book The Reflective Practitioner in 1983, however, the
concepts underlying reflective practice are much older. John
Dewey was among the first to write about Reflective Practice with
his exploration of experience, interaction and reflection. The
following are excerpts from Schön’s work:
Donal Schön: The Reflective Practitioner
Part one: Professional knowledge and reflection in action There are three components to professional knowlegde:
• An underlying discipline or basic science component upon which the practice rests or from which it is developed.
• An applied science or ”engineering” component from which many of the day-to-day diagnostic procedures and problem-solutions are derived.
• A skills and attitudinal component that concerns the actual performance of services to the client, using the underlying basic and applied knowledge. (24, Schein: Professional Education, 1973)
For the educator, professional practice is about more than merely transferring knowledge, it is a process of problem solving. That is, problems of choice or decision are solved through the selection, from available means, of the one best suited to establish ends. For teachers, this involves decisions around creating learning experiences that meet the bespoke needs of the class. While problem solving is an important skills for the educator with an over-emphasis on problem solving, we ignore the equally important problem setting or the process by which we define the decision to be made, the ends to be achieved, the means which may be chosen. In real-world practice, problems do not present themselves to the practitioner as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of problem situations, which are puzzling, troubling, and uncertain. (40)
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Problem setting is a process in which, interactively, we name the things to which we will attend and frame the context in which we will attend to them. (40) It is useful to think of the process of both problem solving and problem setting as a combination of ‘Knowing in Action’ and “Reflecting in Action”. Knowing in action: Knowing has the following properties: There are actions, recognitions, and judgements, which we know how to carry out spontaneously; we do not have to think about them prior to or during their performance. We are often unaware of having learned to do these things; we simply find ourselves doing them. In some cases, we were once aware of the understandings, which were subsequently internalized in our feeling for the stuff of action. In other cases, we may never have been aware of them. In both cases, however, we are usually unable to describe the knowing which our action reveals. (54) Reflecting in action: Improvisation consists on varying, combining and recombining a set of figures within the schema which bounds and gives coherence to the performance. (55) They are reflecting in action on the music they are collectively making and on their individual contributions to it, thinking what they are doing and, in the process, evolving their way of doing it. (56) A practitioner’s reflection can serve as s corrective to overlearning. Through reflection, he can surface and criticize the tacit understandings that have grown up around the repepitive experiences of a specialized practice, and can make new sense of the situations of uncertainty or uniqueness which he may allow himself to practice. (61) When a practitioner reflects in and on his practice, the possible objects of his reflection are as varied as the kinds of phenomena before him and the systems of knowing-in-practice which he brings to them. He may reflect on the tacit norms and appreciations which underlies a judgement, or on the strategies and theories implicit a pattern of behaviour. He may reflect on the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way in which he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional context. (62) …then the practitioner may surface and criticize his initial understanding of the phenomenon, construct a new description of it, and test the new description by an on-the-spot experiment. Sometimes he arrives at a new theory of the phenomenon by articulating a feelimg he has about it. (63) The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomena before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomena and the change in the situation. When someone reflects in action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case. (68) Part two: Professional context for reflection in action Architects: In a good process of design, this conversation with the situation is reflective. In answer to the situations back-talk, the designer reflects in action on the construction of the problem, the strategies of action, or the model of the phenomena, which have been implicit in his moves. (79) Having constructed and tested a solution to the puzzle, the Supervisor means to keep it open to further inquiry. The Resident should use the tentative solution to guide his work with the patient, but he should keep the puzzle alive. (124) The structure of reflection in action: Because each practitioner treats his case as unique, he cannot deal with it in applying
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standard theories or techniques. In the half hour or so that he spends with the student, he must construct an understanding of the situation as he finds it. And because he finds the situation problematic, he must reframe it. (129) But the practitioners moves also produce unintended changes which give the situation new meanings. The situation talks back, the practitioner listens, and as he appreciates what he hears, he reframes the situation once again. (131-132) When the practitioner tries to solve the problem he has set, he seeks both to understand the situation and to change it. (134) That is, the practitioner has built up a repertoire of exambles, images, understandings, and actions… When a practitioner makes sense of a situation he percieves to be unique, he sees it as something already present in his repertoire.(138) Seeing-as is not enough, however. When a practitioner sees a new situation as some element of his repertoire, he gets a new way of seeing it and a new possibility for action in it, but the adequacy and utility of his new view must still be discovered in action. Reflection in action necessarily involves experiment. (141) Having constructed and tested a solution to the puzzle, the Supervisor means to keep it open to further inquiry. The Resident should use the tentative solution to guide his work with the patient, but he should keep the puzzle alive. (124) The structure of reflection in action: Because each practitioner treats his case as unique, he cannot deal with it in applying standard theories or techniques. In the half hour or so that he spends with the student, he must construct an understanding of the situation as he finds it. And because he finds the situation problematic, he must reframe it. (129) Part three: Conclusions The traditional professional-client relationship, linked to the traditional epistemology of practice, can be described as a contract, a set of norms governing the behavior of each party to the interaction. (292) It is important to note, first of all, that reflective practice does not free us from the need to worry about the client rights and mechanisms of professional accountability. My concern is to show how the professional-client may be transformed, within a framework of accountability, when the professional is able to function as a reflective practitioner. That is, just as reflective practice takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation, so the reflective practitioers relation with his client takes the form of a literally reflective conversation. (295) Both client and professional bring to their encounter a body of understandings which they can only very partially communicate to one another and much of which they cannot describe to themselves. (297) Within such a contract the professional is more directly accountable to his client than in the traditional contract. There is also room here for other means of assuring accountability, that is, for peer review, for monitoring by organized clients, and for the ”default procedures” of public protest or litigation.
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Expert: I am presumed to know, and must claim to do so, regardless of my own uncertainty. Reflective practitioner: I am predumed to know, but I am not the only one in the situation to have relevant and important knowledge. My uncertainties may be a source of learning for me and for them. Expert: Keep my distance from the client, and hold onto the experts role. Give the client a sense of my expertise, but convey a feeling of warmth and sympathy as a ”sweetener”. RP: Seek out connections to the client´s thoughts and feelings. Allow his respect for my knowledge to emerge from his discovery of it in the situation. Expert: Look for deference and status in the clients response to my professional persona. RF: Look for the sense of freedom and of real connection to the client, as a consequence of no longer needing to maintain a professional facede. (300) Traditional contract: I put myself into the professionals hands and, in doing this, I gain a sense of security based on faith. Reflective contract: I join the professional in making sense of my case, and in doing this I gain a sense of increased involvement and action. TC: I have the comfort of being in good hands. I need only comply with his advise and all will be well. RC: I can exercise some control over the situation. I am not wholly dependent on him; he is also dependent on information and action that only I can undertake. TC: I am pleased to be served by the best person availiable. RC: I am pleased to be able to test my judgments about his competence. I enjoy the exitement of discovery about his knowledge, about the phenomena of his practice, and about myself. (302) When practitioners are unaware of their frames for roles or problems, they do not experience the need to choose among them. They do not attend to the ways in which they construct the reality in which they function; for them, it is simply the given reality. (310) When a practitioner becomes aware of his frames, he also becomes aware of the possibility of alternative ways of framing the reality of his practice. This practice is the practice of innovation. (310)
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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
It is important at this point to highlight the critical link between
schools and universities at a global level as representing the key
difference between this research and the previous collaborative
models. This link fosters genuine scholarship of Teaching and
Learning and student achievement outcomes, consistent with
Boyer’s theory (1990) of overlapping scholarships; that of discovery;
of integration; of application and; of teaching. Further, as the
model involves educators that span the education sectors, it
engenders a vital sustainability element, which is critical to any
successful professional learning model.
Accordingly, this project seeks to (re)create an autonomous
creative space not enjoyed by teachers since the period of
Hargreaves’ 1st Way but critically to create it with the support of
academic research methodology through partnership with tertiary
institutions. The Global Educators’ Learning Community aims to
scaffold an active role for the teacher as scholar rather than the
passive teacher as presenter, while simultaneously providing
excellent SoTL outcomes for teacher educators and cultivate the
development of scholarly reflective pre-service teachers. Also of
critical importance is that this project seeks to validate educators as
scholars equally across education sectors, understanding that each
practitioner has valuable experiences and understandings to share,
avoiding the top-down hierarchical model of ‘professional
development’ in the traditional mode.
The Glocal Educators project seeks to embody Boyer’s (2010)
principles of scholarship to create a scalable and sustainable
lateral scholarly community of educators that will foster more
sophisticated teaching and learning outcomes, consistent with 21C
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imperatives. Gardner (2009) outlines specific cognitive abilities that
will be sought and cultivated by community and industry leaders in
the years ahead; abilities such as creativity, initiative,
entrepreneurship and problem-solving are he suggests will be
marketable attributes for the 21st century. Further, both emphasise
the need to synthesise knowledge across disciplinary boundaries
and collaborate across networks. This research recognizes, then,
that educators will need not only to ‘teach’ but also to enact these
attributes through authentic practices in order to achieve this.
Critical to supporting 21C attributes is the element of
scholarship. The scholarship of teaching is about improving student
learning within the broad education community generally, by
collecting and communicating results of ones own work on
teaching and learning from within the discipline and context. The
intention of the scholarly teacher and teacher educator in this
model would be to improve student learning across the whole
community, not just the learning of ones own students. The aim is to
foster a community of educators who go beyond the disciplinal
subject matter and beyond the institutional and national contexts
(3rd Way approaches) to the communication of the results of ones
own work on teaching and learning to a larger GELC audience for
it to be developmentally critiqued; this is at the heart of scholarship.
Shulman (1993) rightly suggests that scholarship entails
artifact, a product, some form of community property that can be
shared, discussed, critiqued, exchanged, built upon. So if teaching
and learning, or pedagogy in a school and university context is to
become an important part of scholarship, we have to provide it
with the same kind of documentation and transformation. Trigwell,
Martin, Benjamin and Prosser (2000), argue that it’s about reflective
practice and it’s about active local and global dissemination of
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that practice for the benefit of learning and teaching. It is the aim
of this project, then, to establish such a community and measure
the impact on teaching and learning across sectors and across
national contexts for the benefit of all educators and ultimately
students.
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Kieth Trigwell: A Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Model Research conducted by Keith Trigwell et al. in “Scholarship of Teaching: A Model” outlines the following categories of attitudes and approaches to teaching and learning and contextualizes them within a “scholarship of teaching” framework: A. The scholarship of teaching is about knowing the literature on teaching by collecting and
reading that literature.
B. Scholarship of teaching is about improving teaching by collecting and reading the
literature on teaching.
C. Scholarship of teaching is about improving student learning by investigating the learning
of one’s own students and one’s own teaching.
D. Scholarship of teaching is about improving one’s own students’ learning by knowing and
relating the literature on teaching and learning to discipline-specific literature and
knowledge.
E. The scholarship of teaching is about improving student learning within the discipline
generally, by collecting and communicating results of one’s own work on teaching and
learning within the discipline.
TABLE 1.
A. Knowing the literature on teaching by collecting and reading the literature. In Category A, scholarship is described as the intention to know the literature on teaching, and to achieve this through the strategy of collecting and reading this literature. I think of the research projects on teaching and of journals like Teaching Sociology and also Boyer of course. It’s when you really know the literature, read and know what it says about teaching. That is what it is to be scholarly. B. Improving teaching by using the literature on teaching. In Category B, the approach to scholarship is still built on the strategy of collecting and reading the teaching and learning literature, but in this category, unlike Category A, the intention is not only to know the literature, but to use that knowledge to improve teaching.
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Scholarship in teaching, as distinct from research and publication, is being familiar with the literature and using this to improve teaching. Scholarship in teaching is when you introduce a new teaching idea into classes after reviewing the literature. Not introducing new ideas in teaching, or introducing new ideas without this step means scholarship is absent. C. Improving student learning by investigating one’s own teaching and student learning. In Category C, there is a qualitative shift in both intention and strategy. The intention is to go beyond improving teaching to improving student learning through a strategy of investigating one’s own students’ learning and one’s own teaching. Scholarship in teaching is about learning about your students’ learning and what makes learning possible. It is an investigation of the teaching/learning dynamic and the institutional context, and reflection on this - and then changing practice. I see teaching as requiring an orientating philosophy about teaching and learning and informed evidence of what works and doesn’t work. Informed through the literature and through practice. Scholarship in teaching involves developing and reflecting on and reviewing one’s own thinking about how students learn and what helps this. D. Improving student learning by attending to the literature of discipline as well as that on teaching and learning, and relating one to the other. Category D has the same intention as Category C (to improve student learning), but the strategy is to attend to two lots of literature, that within the discipline as well as that on teaching and learning, and to relate one to the other. Engaging in teaching in a reflective manner, remaining focused on student learning and desired discipline specific outcomes. Drawing on research on student learning and teaching, substantiated experiences of other teachers in the discipline and being across debates in the profession and the discipline. No matter how good a teacher you are, you have to have knowledge of the discipline as well and be able to integrate those two things. So, there’s two research fields to be across. In computer systems there’s a way of thinking, which can be picked up on in the teaching. I’m sure it helps students see what you are on about and almost work through things intuitively. E. Improve student learning generally, by communicating the results of one’s own work on teaching and learning to a larger audience. The approach to scholarship, as described in Category E, is again qualitatively different in both the intention and the strategy. The intention is to improve student learning generally, not just the learning of one’s own students. The strategy is to go beyond literature collection and investigation of student learning to the communication of the results of one’s own work on teaching and learning to a larger audience. I think it resembles a regular research process. You spend some time looking at different approaches to teaching and learning within a specific field of knowledge and about learning in general in that area. You research how the knowledge is known and practised and applied within the discipline and you consider what others have done. and then you plan your program and you monitor the results and improve it. It is also about writing about it and communicating it to others in the larger arena. You communicate what you do locally so other students within the discipline or profession can be helped to learn and more can be known about how the learning is achieved and how thinking and knowledge is structured in the areas. It’s about reflective practice and it’s about active dissemination of that practice for the benefit of learning and teaching.
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The challenge for 21C education is to create within each
school a culture of scholarly reflective practice that enables it to
identify and address its own set of unique challenges; it is only such
a prevalent scholarly culture adopted across all schools that has
the potential to scaffold appropriate and scalable practices in
schools to fit the unique issues that that these schools face. All
schools are challenged by their authority to plan and achieve
continuous improvement; it requires schools to analyse its
performance and using the results of this analysis, to generate
priorities for improved student performance.
The Glocal Educators key notion is that strategic learning
partnerships created across education sectors are a genuine
vehicle for both schools and universities to become more effective
‘learning organisations’ is of fundamental importance to creating a
scalable and sustainable model. The project concept is consistent
with the primacy of problem setting over problem solving
(Schön,1983; Wenger 1998, 2002; Engström 2001). They argue that
organisations, generally establish self-reinforcing systems in which
either role and problems are framed to suit a theory of action, or a
theory of action is evolved to suit the role and problems that are
framed. Valuable learning outcomes are lost in both scenarios.
The partnerships, created and modelled by this project, is
designed to scaffold effective problem setting through research-
based dialogic reflection-in-action. That is, the ‘action’ extends
thinking and the reflection feeds on the action and the results. Each
feeds the other and each sets boundaries for each other. Critically,
it supports practitioners at education institutions at all levels
individually and collectively, to develop the key enabling (Barrie,
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2006) cognitive strategies, which fosters a reflective and academic
approach to solving the contextual issues faced.
Key to the project methodology will be the experiential
professional learning model that is embedded in the experience.
Through effective reflection and questioning, collaboration forces
people to confront their own presumptions. By doing so,
participants are, in effect, forcing themselves to be view themselves
and their ideas from outside of themselves in order to assess their
validity. In the course of a collaborative dialogue, participants are
confronted with an array of hypotheses, convictions, conjectures
and theories offered by the other participants, and themselves - all
of which subscribe to some sort of belief or philosophy. The model
requires that - honestly and openly, rationally and imaginatively -
they confront the dogma by asking questions.
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Socratic Dialogue
• Identify overarching topic and / or aim:
o Explore the implications of ‘glocal’ practice for educators
• Quick-write. Participants write what the topic means to them and shares with the group.
• Ask participants to identify one rich question that they think would be
critical to understanding or progressing the overarching topic / aim.
• Each participant ‘justifies’ their question
• Discussion and ranking of each of the question against the overarching topic and / or aim
• Unpacking of the top ranked question with scaffolding questions to
derive a fuller meaning / intention
• Discussion of the top ranked question starts with the person asking it. Each 5-10 mins, participants ask questions that progress the discussion. This process repeats for the allotted time.
• Refocus on topic / aim on the basis of the discussion.
• Focusing on the implications for the future.
Participants ask one question each for consideration as the next step.
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Scaffolding Pedagogies Supporting Learning Theory ELLI Dimensions GHS Goals • Practices of
Incremental theory Vs Entity theory
• Positive inter-personal relationship building - High expectations and high support. (Pygmalian effect)
• Visible thinking strategies
• Socratic discussion format
• Myself as person: myself as learner
Dweck: individuals can be placed on a continuum according to their implicit views of where ability comes from. Some believe their success is based on innate ability; these are said to have a "fixed" theory of intelligence (fixed mindset). Others, who believe their success is based on having opposite mind set, which involves hard work, learning, training and doggedness are said to have a "growth" or an "incremental" theory of intelligence (growth mindset). Individuals may not necessarily be aware of their own mindset, but their mindset can still be discerned based on their behavior. It is especially evident in their reaction to failure. Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a negative statement on their basic abilities, while growth mindset individuals don't mind or fear failure as much because they realize their performance can be improved and learning comes from failure. These two mindsets play an important role in all aspects of a person's life. Dweck argues that the growth mindset will allow a person to live a less stressful and more successful life. Piaget – a child learns everything that they know. Rosenthal – Pygmalian effect
Changing and Learning This dimension is about your sense of yourself as someone who can and will change and learn and get better over time. It is having a positive learning story or journey to reflect upon. This gives you a layer of confidence, helping you to cope with obstacles and difficulties by putting them in perspective. Learners without much of this are likely to feel ‘stuck and static’ instead of having a ‘trajectory’: a sense of having ‘come a long way’ and of being able to ‘go places’ with their learning.
Deal with cultural differences
• Action Research techniques (plan – action – observe – reflect)
• Scholarship principles (telling others) of teaching and learning
• Visible thinking routines
Collis: Solo Taxonomy As learning progresses it becomes more complex. SOLO, which stands for the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome, is a means of classifying learning outcomes in terms of their complexity, enabling us to assess students’ work in terms of its quality not of how many bits of this and of that they got right. At first we pick up only one or few aspects of the task (unistructural), then several aspects but they are unrelated (multistructural), then we learn how to
Critical curiosity This dimension is about your desire to delve into topics and get beneath the surface, find things out and ask questions, especially ‘Why?’ If you are a critically curious learner, you will be unlikely simply to accept what you are told without the reasoning behind it. You might challenge what a teacher says, rather than take it at face value. Learners who lack Critical Curiosity
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• Questioning / thinking stems and assessment forms
• Authenticity of tasks and assessment
• Conscious creation of learning identity
• Socratic discussion format
integrate them into a whole (relational), and finally, we are able to generalised that whole to as yet untaught applications (extended abstract). The diagram lists verbs typical of each such level. Costa’s work also highlights that inquiry is an important aspect of curriculum. Inquiry-based learning focuses on the student as learner, developing skillful, open-ended questioning skills.
might generally turn up and expect to be taught, rather than expect to do the work themselves, seeing themselves as passive recipients of their learning, rather than active agents in it.
• Analysis / synthesis / coding techniques
• Socratic discussion format
• Critical reading strategies
• Activity system (problem setting) routine
• Authenticity of task and assessment
• Experiential learning framework
• Visible thinking routines
Kolb’s work highlights how experiential learning can exist without a teacher and relates solely to the meaning making process of the individual's direct experience. However, though the gaining of knowledge is an inherent process that occurs naturally, for a genuine learning experience to occur, there must exist certain elements. According Kolb, knowledge is continuously gained through both personal and environmental experiences. He states that in order to gain genuine knowledge from an experience, certain abilities are required: • the learner must be willing to be actively involved
in the experience; • the learner must be able to reflect on the
experience; • the learner must possess and use analytical skills
to conceptualize the experience; and • the learner must possess decision making and
problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience.
Meaning making This dimension is about your ability to make sense of everything by ‘relating’ to it: relating to facts and ideas, linking them up, seeing patterns and connections and constructing a ‘map’ of your learning, so you can see how it all fits together and ‘know your way around’. The personal nature of Meaning Making is important: it includes feeling that ‘learning matters to you and ‘connects with your story’ and so helps you to become engaged, linking new ideas to more familiar ones, connecting the present with the past and the here-and-now to more remote ideas and experiences. Without this, everything seems fragmented and nothing really makes sense.
Connect knowledge and practice
• Advocacy and self-advocacy through visible thinking and guided reading
• Predictions - Headlines
• Positive inter-
Marzano’s new taxonomy is made up of three systems and the knowledge domain, all of which are important for thinking and learning. The three systems are the Self-System, the Meta-Cognitive System and the Cognitive System. When faced with the option of starting a new task, the Self-System decides whether to continue the current behavior or engage in the
Resilience The opposite of dependence appears to be resilience & robustness. Learners with these characteristics like a challenge, and are willing to `give it a go' even when the outcome and the way to proceed are uncertain. They accept that learning is
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personal relationship building - High expectations and support. (Pygmalian effect)
new activity: the Metacognitive System sets goals and keeps track of how well they are being achieved: the Cognitive system processes all the necessary information, and the Knowledge Domain provides the content.
sometimes hard for everyone, and are not frightened of finding things difficult. They have a high level of `stickability', and can readily recover from frustration. They are able to `hang in' with learning even though they may, for a while, feel somewhat confused or even anxious. They don't mind making mistakes every so often, and can learn from them.
• Decision theory based routine
• Problem setting techniques
• Questioning / thinking stems
• Activity system • Mind mapping
Schön, has been a significant promoter of constructivism to understand workplace learning. Schön’s view is that professionals live in a world of uncertainty, instability, complexity, and value conflict, where they often must deal with problems for which no existing rules or theories learned through formal training or past experience can apply. He was most interested in how reflection, and particularly critical reflection, plays out in the ongoing learning of professionals in their practice. He proposed that practitioners learn by noticing and framing problems of interest to them in particular ways, then inquiring and experimenting with solutions.
Creativity Those learners who score highly on this dimension are able to look at things in different ways. They like playing with ideas and taking different perspectives, even when they don't quite know where their trains of thought are leading. They are receptive to hunches and inklings that bubble up into their minds, and make use of imagination, visual imagery and pictures and diagrams in their learning. They understand that learning often needs playfulness as well as purposeful, systematic thinking.
Use innovative ways in dealing with global challenges
• Activity system routine
• Socratic discussion format
• Visible thinking routines
Vygotsky’s theory founded on constructivism asserts three major themes: • Social interaction plays a fundamental role in the
process of cognitive development. In contrast to Jean Piaget’s understanding of child development (in which development necessarily precedes learning), Vygotsky felt social learning precedes development. He states: “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people and then inside the child.” (Vygotsky, 1978).
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD
Learning Relationships Learners who score highly on this dimension are good at managing the balance between being sociable and being private in their learning. They are not completely independent, nor are they dependent. They like to learn with and from others, and to share their difficulties, when it is appropriate. They acknowledge that there are important other people in their lives who help them learn, though they may vary in who those people are, e.g. family, friends or teachers. They know the value of learning by
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is the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task under adult guidance and/or with peer collaboration and the student’s ability solving the problem independently. According to Vygotsky, learning occurred in this zone.
watching and emulating other people, including their peers. They make use of others as resources, as partners and as sources of emotional support. And they also know that effective learning may also require times of studying or `dreaming' on their own.
• Identity and internalization of the meta-competence
• Mind mapping • Organisation
strategies • Questioning /
thinking stems
Deakin Crick suggests that a meta-competence involves the ability to meet complex demands by drawing on and mobilizing psychological resources (including skills and attributes) across different contexts (OECD, 2005). For example, the ability to communicate effectively is a competency that may draw on an individual’s knowledge of language, practical IT skills and attitudes toward those with whom he or she is communicating, which would be needed across disciplinal and vocational realms.
Strategic awareness – Some learners appear to be more sensitive to their own learning. They are interested in becoming more knowledgeable and more aware of themselves as learners. They like trying out different approaches to learning to see what happens. They are reflective and good at self-evaluation. They can judge how much time, or what resources, a learning task will require. They are able to talk about learning and about themselves as learners. They know how to repair their own emotional mood when they get frustrated or disappointed. They like being given responsibility for planning and organizing their own learning.
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The SOLO Taxonomy
A Means of Shaping and Assessing Higher Order Teaching
and Learning
The belief about education that supports the Glocal
Educators project is that it should lead to higher order thinking for
both teachers and students. The discussion rests on the assumption
that educators should intend that students develop deep
knowledge in their fields, if necessary change their conceptions
and their world-view, and to learn to think critically. This implies that
educators should teach to facilitate such outcomes, deliberately
and visibly. The use of the SOLO Taxonomy is an effective way of
influencing and assessing learning outcomes to facilitate higher
order thinking.
Examples of responses at each level of the SOLO Taxonomy
Prestructural No Idea Uni-Structural Real learning is what you remember, that is important values and lessons, even information you remember from schooling in the years after it. That is how I found it. You remember it and in your later years it is amazing the data you recall. Multi-Structural Learning is to have real understanding about a particular subject whether through actual experience or through other sources such as text books. This belief was probablyacquired through the conservative thinking of the education system I was brought up with. I know that I can learn easily and quickly if there is a teacher who teachers in a methodologically planned way; where I can see the plan and know where I am heading. I usually go about learning by reading, memorising, by applying to my actual experiences or knowing about other people’s experiences. By applying it to reality it becomes simpler. Other peoples’ espoused opinions and beliefs and values influence how I learn, and sometimes make it difficult to learn. By this I mean, I sometimes want to hold my own opinion but other people try to sway me to their belief. I know that I have learned something when I feel satisfied. I also know when I use the knowledge years later. Relational Learning involves the sharing of knowledge to facilitate personal growth and a greater understanding of the world around me. This perception of learning is based entirely on my own subjective value judgements and could not be considered a view that I have acquired within the education system which for the most part, focuses on a relatively utilitarian
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approach. That is, producing skilled people for the work force. Learning for me is facilitated by my being able to gain further insightinto why I am here, how I fit into the society in which I live, and why certain attitudes and belief systems exist in society. I know I have learned something when I reach a greater understanding of myself as a person and the comples inter-relationships that mould the society in which I live. Extended Abstract. First of all, learning for me is a body of information that’s there to be acquired. But I don’t think that the body of information should be taken in and just regurgitated to others. So often in our society, people think that learning is about how well or good you can regurgitate it. I believe in the synthesis of information and ones own life experiences. That is, applying your own experience to the information that you learn and looking for the sense or reasoning contained within that melting pot of ‘experience and information’. This is the only way we make sense of our world. In order to feel confident in the world we live in we need to have understanding and knowledge of ourselves, others, and the things around us. If we know how something works and understand it, it gives us confidence which I believe is a virtue. However, it only becomes a virtue when we use that knowledge and understanding for the good of mankind. And this is where moral implications come into play. Knowledge and understanding of something involved with law and order, or more specifically ‘justice’, is what continues ‘good’ learning.
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Example 1: Mathematics Stem 1: The machine changes numbers. It adds the number put in three times and then adds 2 more. So if 4 is put in, it put out 14.
The Mathematics Machine If 14 is put out, what is put in? Answer: 4 One piece of information is used, one answer required. This is obtained from the last sentence or the diagram. This is a uni-structural response. (M) If 5 is put into the machine, what number will be put out? Answer: 17 All the information (two pieces) in the stem is used as instructions. This is a multi-structural response. If the machine puts out 41, what number was put in? Answer: 13 All the information is used but in addition the student has to extract the principle. That is, the relational response. The cycle is at the Concrete symbolic Mode of Thinking. It is based on number system in a real-world context. Let us take this example to a further level of sophistication.
Stem 2: If x is the number put out by the machine when the number y is put in, write the formula which will give the value of y whatever the value of x. Answer: y = x - 2 3 The student has to extract the general principle and write it in an abstract form. Distracting cues must be put aside as hypotheses are formed and tested. Ultimately the relationships are identified in a logical formula. e.g.:
x = 3y + 2 x – 2 = 3y + 2 –2 x – 2 = 3y
x – 2 = y 3 This is an illustration of how a cycle of responses may lead to thinking at a higher Mode i.e. at a ‘new mode’ in Figure 2. In this case the response has moved up to the Extended Abstract response.
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Example 2: Environmental Studies Stem: Global warming and floods Global warming is causing the melting of glacial ice in moraines holding back lakes at the head of
valleys in the Himalayan Mountains. This has resulted in outbursts of lake waters and severe floods
down valleys such as Punakha and Wangdue in the summer of 1994. There was some lost of life,
many people lost property and environmental damage was widespread along river systems. The
Bhutan Government has spent considerable funds assessing glacial river systems and undertaking
remedial and mitigation works
Question: What measures can be taken to stop or mitigate these floods ? Answer 1: Stop the lakes breaking out and flooding the valleys.”
Comment: This is true but focuses on ONE measure. It does not explore the links between cause and effect. It is a Uni-structural (U) response because it focuses in one relevant fact.
Answer 2: Global warming should stop by not using so much fossil fuel. People should be moved from the floodplains of rivers. ”
Comment: Both statements are correct but no attempt is made to explain of relate them. It is a Multi-structural response (M) because the answer is based on more than one relevant concrete piece of data. Answer 3 The alpine lakes likely to break out and cause floods should be identified and early warnings made downstream so that people and animals can be moved to safety. In the long run lake walls might be strengthened. Global warming should be stopped by reducing the burning of fossil fuels.”
Comment: a relevant range of cause and effect concrete details are used to explain and relate them to a problem. There is a coherent structure for this context. It is a Rational response because it focuses on ideas that relate the relevant information.
Answer 4: “Flooding in Bhutan could be mitigated by the government and local communities adopting early warning schemes for likely outbursts and evacuation measures downstream. Lakes likely to cause such disasters might also be strengthened. Global warming is a fundamental cause of this problem and will require an international response to reduce the burning of fossil fuels. The flood problem in Bhutan is one symptom of global warming, another is the melting of the ice caps and the rise in sea levels affecting coastal and island peoples. Even climate change is regarded as a result of global warming affecting the whole world, so that international cooperation and change in technology are required.”
Comment: The answer contains a wide range of relevant and well-related points. Abstract ideas are raised beyond the immediate problem. This is a level beyond and is referred to as an ‘Extended abstract Response (ER). It is also a level about the concrete symbolic Mode to the Formal Mode.
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Reflective Professional Learning: An Experiential Model Experiential Learning Steps (adapted from Glaser’s model) Learning Context Action Type ELLI Dimensions Who? 1. Getting the group on track – whole-school professional learning session The aim of this step is to help teachers focus on the concepts, skills and attitudes of a particular glocal learning element. The element will represent the professional learning focus of the term. In this stage they will set themselves up – get on track- for the experiential learning to follow. For the project, the topic / focus of the professional learning session would follow the 7 ELLI dimensions as outlined in the Learning Continuum (1 per session)
Whole school inset with particular focus
Presentation of ‘global learning’ element
• Critical curiosity
• Growth • Strategic
awareness
• All teachers and leaders
• ELLI Champions
2. Structured learning experience Teachers, having been introduced to the learning focus in the whole-school inset, are asked to internalize and make bespoke the concepts and skills in their particular subject area as a ‘concrete learning experience’. The structured experiences could include, for example, problem setting exercises, philosophical discussions around the core learning purpose and outcomes, a curriculum audit aimed at aligning 21C learning outcomes with mandated curriculum outcomes. These activities will probably lead to reactions related to past experience of similar situations. This process gives a basis for making visible the theoretical foundation for the proposed approach.
Department / subject area meeting
• ‘Translating’ the whole school learning focus into a subject area context - Reflection, brainstorming,
• creativity • learning
relationships • meaning
making • strategic
awareness
• HoD to lead • All teachers • ELLI
Champions
3. Theory Input Teachers reflect critically on relevant theory and discuss their reactions to their praxis enquiry activity. The theory could be introduced through the online forum or teachers may develop their own theories to explain the structured learning experiences.
Individual (using online resources and discussion)
Research and scholarship • Reading and sharing
experiences • Connecting theory with
practice
• Critical curiosity
• Meaning making
• Global stream teachers
• ELLI Champions
4. Processing / publishing Teachers reflect critically and discuss their reactions to the activity. This reflection would typically begin with the individual followed by discussion in smaller groups both face-to-face and with teachers from outside their local context in the online forum. Critical to this learning stage is the transfer of understanding to a concrete written form.
Individual / teams (online and face-to-face)
Lesson planning and publishing online
• creativity • learning
relationships • strategic
awareness
• Global stream teachers
• ELLI Champions
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5. Skills practice Teachers have the opportunity to practise and apply their learning. This enables them to incorporate the knowledge, skills and attitudes developed into their own profile by trying them out in authentic context and reflecting on the effect of their changed practice; this corresponds with Kolb’s ‘testing implications of concepts on new situations’
Individual in classroom
Action research • Growth • Meaning
making • Critical
curiosity
• All teachers
6. Feedback (what does this mean for me?) Teachers get feedback on their new use of knowledge, attitudes or skills suggested by the theory, that is, on their performance as it relates to the theory. Teachers provide feedback of their own experiences and hear the feedback of teachers in their own local context and global contexts through the online forum.
Department / subject area meeting Online discussion
Reflective discussion from classroom practice / student feedback
• Learning relationships
• Meaning making
• Growth
• All teachers
7. Evaluation This review step involves teachers synthesizing and making an evaluation of their experience from within the original context. That is, teachers articulate the lessons learned, the knowledge enhanced, the skills developed and the way the experiences have affected thinking and behaviour(s) in relation to the term’s glocal learning element. The synthesis would be presented to the school senior leadership team to help guide strategic direction.
Department / subject area meeting School Leadership team meeting
Group synthesis Publishing online
• Resilience • Meaning
making • Strategic
awareness
• School leadership
• Curriculum / pedagogical leader
• HoDs • All teachers