An Educator should have a vision to create a learning environment for teachers and children as an intellectual and emotional person, equipping them with personal values and make them tomorrow’s leaders with imbibed ethics. The motive is to make them love, to be lifelong learners, and to ensure that each child regardless of orientation, ability, race, gender and economic status, can learn and have access to the tools to thrive towards a global outlook. A sense of responsibility is needed with responsive new ways of learning, integrating various forms of knowledge to help the students develop intellectually and emotionally, as moral individuals.
Goal is to impart education beyond books, wherein we as educators should create relevant learning amidst the accelerating change of the environment to grow in a climate of non-threatening, respect and trust where teachers need to be empowered with the right, innovative, creative and activity based hands-on teaching methodology.
My vision for transforming education toward student-centred learning is encouraged and emboldened by the fact that a diverse group of education leaders with different perspectives are engaged in bringing a change in the transformation of education system and policy.
Education Re-imagined defines success as a whole. It might look like a learner-centred movement in future, rather than serving as concrete, measurable goals. These ambitions represent a direction in which we should move and would require collaboration and contribution from education pioneers across the country.
The Education sector has evolved to blended learning and personalized learning and the focus is on putting the learner at the centre, anytime and anywhere, through online learning, flipped classrooms, internships, community-based organisations, libraries, mentors, and many other sources.
Students have personal learner profiles with precise knowledge and skills, within flexible learning environments, supported by a variety of resources, modalities, and modes. By organising learning resources around students, we can harness each student’s intrinsic motivation to succeed, and empower the learner to demonstrate his or her learning in authentic ways, rooted in real-world experiences.
As per the research, five interrelated learning elements that form this transformational, visionary design for learning are –
Competency-based learning: Competency education is an infrastructure where each learner works towards competency and strives for mastery in defined domains of knowledge, skills, and dispositions
Personalized learning: Personalized, relevant, contextualized learning draws from the learner’s own passions, strengths, needs, family, and culture to fuel the development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions
Learner agency: Learner agency recognizes that learners are active participants within the educational process, and new learning models engage learners in the design of their experiences in ways that are appropriate for their developmental level.
Research on ‘growth mindset’ shows that students generally become more motivated and engaged when they get a choice in their learning experiences. Cultivating a growth mindset in students can help continue self-efficacy, which influences esteem, motivation, and attitude.
Socially embedded: Socially embedded learning is achieved through the development of meaningful relationships between the students and their families, peers, and other community members. Independent exploration, collaborative group work, and intentional instructions are integrated to develop mastery of competencies.
Open walled Learning: Open walled learning recognizes that learning can happen anytime in any place, and it intentionally leverages real-world experiences to develop mastery of competencies. Learning experiences can be in-person, virtual, or in blended contexts, and they are all legitimate vehicles for authentic, rich, and diverse learning opportunities.
Alongside Education Reimagined, we are committed to designing new, learning environments that provide access, equity, and excellence for all students.
Reimagined vision creators need to create visionaries to develop learner-centric paradigm shift and make it as a prime goal to bring the change.
The views expressed above are the personal opinion of Dr. Aruna Wadkar, Principal, ARJ International-The Futuristic School, Vijayapura, Karnataka
