How we once educated our kids, our society, has shifted and become this new thing called “new learning”. As an adult learner transitioning into lifelong learning, I can say with certainty that the model of education subscribed to will no longer be. The model, once instituted, where children learn the same subject matter at the same time and then take a test to regurgitate the information, is gone. From Math to English, it was about memorizing and understanding the fundamentals.

With “new learning,” this is not necessarily happening. In the video this week, Professor Kalantzis explained, and I paraphrase that “learning is not memorizing facts, and it's about developing skills for the real world. Skills like critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and creativity”. These are skills that the old model did not, per se, teach and/or emphasize the importance of.

My takeaway is that technology and the need for globalization are changing everything. No longer do individuals have to work in a confined space, like a classroom or an office; the classroom and office are wherever you choose to be. Lonely and isolated is no longer what learning is about, but thrives in a culture where teammates work side by side, sharing information with one another to serve the greater good of the collective.

The good thing is that no one person or culture is going to be, think, or behave exactly as another. We are living in a diverse world now, and how we learn must thrive with that diversity. How we teach and learn must have flexibility and, to some degree, customization, “one size does not fit all”.

A final point for me, as we begin to look at education through a global lens, we should think about what Wagner discussed in the article, The Global Achievement Gap. he expresses that “what schools currently teach, and test should be more of what students actually need to succeed in today's world, and that many folks don’t even see the global gap”. He also warns that we need to keep 2 goals in mind: “preparing for careers and preparing students to be active, informed citizens of our democracy."

(Wagner, T. (2008). The global achievement gap. In New Learning Online. https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-1-new-learning/supporting-material-1/wagner-the-global-achievement-gap.”

Week 2