Call to overhaul school system
Our brains, bodies and relationships are integrated and change in response to our experiences
THE most important skill for today’s students is the skill to learn and to love learning, but technology and education expert Gary McDarby says the traditional education model is outdated.
Speaking at the Education Transforms symposium at the University of Tasmania in Hobart yesterday, Dr McDarby, Enterprize Tasmania chief executive, said the education system was still based heavily on the Victorian-era model, in which students were taught to read and write the same way and measured on the same skills.
While this approach translated in the past to the workplace, rapid changes in technology had led to the need for flexible, adaptable skills, Dr McDarby said.
“People now have to redefine themselves every couple of years.
“The greatest skill is the skill to learn and to love learning. We need to create a framework for outcomes, not a framework for measurement.”
Dr McDarby, who is a technology consultant with a background in electronic engineering and neuroscience, said neuroscience had provided new insights into how people learn.
“Our minds are fundamentally embodied and relational. Our brains, bodies and relationships are integrated and change in response to our experiences,” he said.
“This has profound implica- tions for the way we learn, especially in the early years, but also for lifelong learning.”
He said while human emotions and social interactions were important for learning, it was also critical for the brain to have time for reflection.
“These insights suggest different approaches to learning and education that challenge the way our current system operates,” he said.
Dr McDarby said he would like to see learning centres that focused on imagination, where children used technology to explore areas they were interested in.
Education Transforms is the Peter Underwood Centre for Educational Attainment’s second international symposium.
The status of Tasmania’s teaching profession and workforce development were also discussed yesterday.
Australian Education Union research officer Jeff Garsed said the traditional view that “a teacher is a teacher” and therefore could teach in any classroom was changing but there was more to be done.
“We still have a registration system that in many ways says general registration is a category,” Dr Garsed said.
He said early childhood was now an area of specialised qualification.
Underwood Centre workforce change associate director Jodee Wilson said this reflected the need for increased specialisation in early childhood teaching.
Ms Wilson said graduate certificates had been developed by the University of Tasmania in conjunction with the Education Department, including in early childhood education.
Some teachers had also completed graduate certificates in mathematics and science teaching and a technologies graduate certificate is also being developed.
Ms Wilson said the qualifications were designed to help teachers working outside their area of specialisation.