The best learning is what we need to deliver
The announcement by Education Minister Hekia Parata that school-age children will be able to do all of their learning online has rightly prompted debate.
The minister has argued that kids already learn online in the school setting. Now they can learn online all the time in a ‘‘community of online learning’’ or COOL.
This is just a matter of keeping up with the opportunities new technology offers in the 21st century.
Critics of the minister argue that young people need to go to school so they can interact with other learners. The online option will lead to isolation and poor learning outcomes.
All good points, but the real debate should be focused on the model of teaching and learning that will be used by the COOLs, not the mode of delivery. Until we see what prospective online COOLs are going to offer their learners we can only speculate on the benefits.
But we can say what constitutes the best education and use that measure as we consider the proposals.
In the 21st century a simple but very significant shift in learning is taking place. For most of the last century the emphasis was on an instructional model where content was transferred from the teacher to the student. This dictated what students learned, how they learned and how they were assessed.
Over recent decades this model of learning has changed. At least some schools have moved to what can be called a (co)-constructional model of learning where a greater emphasis is placed on what learners can do with what they know. This is why the New Zealand school curriculum focuses on outcomes rather than content.
Effective teaching means personalising the experience of learners so they achieve the highest possible standards in ways that are meaningful to them.
Assessment provides feedback, involves the learner and aims to improve learning. This approach acknowledges that learning can take place anywhere and should involve families as well as the community.
The physical layout of schools and the organisation of the day should facilitate greater interaction between learners.
This is a significant change in the way schools operate so it requires futurefocused leadership that support teachers, learners and the wider community to operate in different ways.
In other words, the key issue is not how we deliver education – in school, online, blended, block course – what matters is if all students are getting the best education. If, for example, online learning translates into receiving large amounts of content to be read, memorised and regurgitated then the student is being short changed.
This is the model many of the new mass online providers of ‘‘education’’ are using around the world at the moment.
It hardly qualifies as education. It simply gives people the opportunity to access content. Learning is another matter.
The minister is right when she says that new technology offers students and teachers exciting new possibilities.
But those possibilities will only be positive and lend themselves to great learning if it is understood that the technology is merely a delivery mechanism. On its own it changes nothing.
What has to change is the model of learning that will ensure all learners, regardless of the mode in which they learn, get a 21st century education. That means they come out of our schools as flexible, creative, innovative people; that they know how to learn for themselves; that they know a lot; that they know how to create new knowledge for themselves and;
that they know what to do with the knowledge. If the COOLs are all about shifting the mode of delivery they should be rejected. If they can offer the kind of learning experience that is needed in the 21 st century then they should be given a chance.
It is a tall order. But then education matters. It is not something that can be taken back to the shop if it doesn’t work.
Before we experiment with the lives of learners, we need to be sure they are going to get the best.
Steve Maharey is the ViceChancellor of Massey University, a former education minister and a sociologist.
If online learning translates into receiving large amounts of content to be read, memorised and regurgitated then the student is being short changed.