Educators are well known for recycling. The so-called “21st Century Learning Skills” are a classic example of the phenomenon. Anyone familiar with North American education over the past few decades like Bob McGahey of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation is immediately taken aback seeing such old panaceas being repackaged around technology as the solution to education’s current problems.
A group of six ‘Young Turks’, funded by the Action Canada Foundation, has produced yet another report on the state and future of Canada’s provincial education systems. The latest offering, a rather thin 16-page paper, published in February 2013, carries an auspicious title, Future Tense: Adapting Canadian Education Systems for the 21st Century. Upon its release, the paper relatively little attention for good reason – it simply offers nothing much that’s new. After identifying the yawning gap between official policy rhetoric and school-level reality for teachers, the Action Canada report parrots the standard 21st Century Learning platitudes and puts its faith in the anemic Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC) to lead us to the promised land.
The Action Canada Fellows accept, rather uncritically, the familiar late 20th century knowledge-based economy tenets and skills now recast as 21st century competencies:
Creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation;
Critical thinking;
Computer and digital literacy;
Character.
The “Young Turks’ operate based upon the rather broad assumption that the ‘critical core competencies’ are absent in the current educational system.It is also abundantly clear that they think such skills are newly discovered concepts emerging fully formed from the fresh air generated by 21st century winds. It is difficult to discern, however, whether this is a reflection of youthful idealism or simply naivete.
The Action Canada report focuses on five Canadian provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec. Its analysis, based upon a survey of 920 teachers, conducted in December 2012 and January 2013, and attempts to assess the “salience” of each of the core competencies in provincial education policies and practices. The Policy Review revealed “little consistency between provinces” as to the substance of 21st century learning or the goals (p. 7). The five provinces, simply put, were all over the map in their policies and implementation.
Among the Canadian provinces British Columbia and Alberta fared best, demonstrating more integration of 21st century skills and more evidence of policy implementation, including a focus on “innovation.” Ontario specializes in promoting critical thinking and character development, but shows “lack of attention to computer and digital technologies.” New Brunswick was found to be in limbo, following the abortive 21st Century Learning initiative, halted by the David Alward government. Quebec policy proved to be the most archaic, with no policy initiatives on “computer or digital technologies in the last decade.”(pp. 7-9).
The Teacher Survey was quite revealing, identifying a significant gap between the promise and delivery of educational policies. Descriptive thinking and writing still ranges between 38% and 46% of the curriculum, and teachers with graduate degrees are more likely to set higher analysis/evaluation expectations. Classroom IT use remains surprisingly low in all provinces, and even in New Brunswick where all teachers have personal laptops. Character development is strongest in Alberta and weakest in Ontario, where it is a stated provincial curriculum priority. Overall, Canadian teachers aspire to demonstrate creativity, but “conventional modes of teaching” remain prevalent. (pp. 10-12).
One of the report’s real revelations is how much the the New Brunswick 21st Century Learning initiative, launched with tremendous fanfare by Shawn Graham’s Liberal government, has fizzled. After 3 school years, classroom computers are still used very rarely in the province’s schools. It’s anyone’s guess why the initiative’s champion, former Deputy Minister John Kershaw, was chosen as a mentor for the group (p. 7) that produced this report. Only in education are architects of programs asked to evaluate the success of their creations.
The report’s Recommendations are incredibly disappointing, particularly given the teacher survey findings. Since Dr. Paul Cappon, the Canadian Council on Learning, and most educational policy analysts consider CMEC to be a weak sister, and a poor substitute for a national education agency, putting such faith in that body to deliver is likely doomed to failure. Sinking more financial resources into promoting teacher professional development has to be questioned given the lukewarm response from regular teachers skeptical of technology-driven solutions.
The sad state of commuter integration in the classroom and online learning, documented in the report, warrants more action and the authors completely ignore the specific policy proposals set out in the SQE research report, The Sky Has Limits, released a year ago. Top down solutions proposed in Future Tense rarely work, especially when so many structural barriers to online learning and virtual schools remain in place in our provincial school systems.
Why is the Action Canada team’s prescription for 21st Century Learning such an anemic and conventional policy reform document? What’s become of the ‘Young Turks” that we look to to shake up the educational system? Where did the Action Canada team develop its abiding faith in the Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC) to actually step up to the challenge of national leadership? Whatever happened to the more robust agenda advanced in the October 2011 Final Report of the Canadian Council on Learning?
All teachers (in New Brunswick) do have personal laptops. (Having said that), the technology investments made prior to 2010 are withering with the lack of vision, planning and investment by the current government.
It is too bad you use such dismissive language as this is an important topic we should all participate in.
…NB321C was an initiative that involved a great number of teachers, administrators, ministry employees and others (including consultation with parents). It was not at all top-down and it was presented as ‘an officials’ perspective’ not a Graham government strategy.
Building confidence, encouraging experimentation and providing incentive were some of the very reasons all teachers were provided with laptops beginning in 2006 under the Lord government. Many teachers have experienced the impact personal technology can have on their own teaching and learning and are interested in students experiencing the same thing.
The ‘pause on educational technology’ implemented by the Alward government and Minister Carr has certainly limited the capacity of our system to equip our students with digital skills and literacies and to embrace the internet as the tremendous learning tool that it is. Although it is difficult to watch the advances made with the 1:1 student laptop pilots (Lord government) and the flourishing experimentation with the Innovative Learning Fund (Graham government) struggle without support, connected learning will come to all NB classrooms eventually.
BTW – I understand the video was not to your liking, but I’ve yet to meet a teacher (or anyone for that matter) that was frightened by it.
Whatever the explanation, the Action Canada Teacher Surveys indicate that New Brunswick and Quebec are lagging in the use of IT in the classroom. To quote from the report, “the reported use of IT in classrooms in both of these provinces significantly trails that of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.”(p. 11).
The approaches taken by the two lagging provinces are also quite different: The Quebec approach was to equip classes with interactive whiteboards, whereas in New Brunswick teachers were given their own “notebook computers.” The “absence of sufficient teacher training, ” according to the Action Canada report, explains why, in spite of having “more technology” New Brunswick teachers either “never”or “rarely” make use of it with their students.
The New Brunswick 21st Century Learning initiative, fronted by John Kershaw, was introduced with that appalling March 2010 whiz-bang video and it completely fizzled out.
Jumping on the laptop bandwagon may well have been driven by the desire to match the State of Maine. Frightening teachers is certainly no way to motivate them and can result in a backlash. That top-down initiative, championed by the NB Business Journal and the technology vendors, will likely go down as a textbook example of how not to introduce educational change. Building teacher confidence, encouraging experimentation, and providing gentle incentives is a surer way of achieving lasting school change.
Film will revolutionize education (didn’t happen)
Radio ” ” ” ” ”
TV ” ” ” ” ”
VCR’s ” ” ” ” ”
PCs ” ” ” ” ”
Internet ” ” ” ” ”
Nobody in the IT business can be trusted to advocate in a balanced way about IT in education (Bill Gates). They have a conflict of Interest as “tech pushers”.
What is the rush for God’s sake. More haste, less speed. The faster we go the more mistakes we will make. Things are changing.
Why are some in a blind panic to integrate tech?
1) they have a financial interest ?
2) they have a political interest like Terry Moe (tech will replace teachers and destroy union power). Myth but some believe it.
It’s too bad that this article is so dismissive of a subject that is so important, and to six young Canadians who were selected by Action Canada as future Canadians leaders. To their credit, these six Action Canada Fellows selected 21st Century learning as the focus of their project because they understand the significance of modernizing Canada’s learning systems to meet the new knowledge and digital reality. At a summit of education and business leaders their report was well received. We can only hope that provinces and territories, including CMEC, heed the call for adopting 21st century models of learning, including technology enabled learning. And while the author dismisses the work and past efforts and work of New Brunswick educators to meet the needs of their learners, and the video that is still being well received and used in many jurisdictions, one can only hope that the current government begins to show the leadership the public expects from them in this area, and ignores those who have failed to remain current with international research in this area.
The author of this commentary is neither a wild-eyed futurist nor a modern-day Luddite , but the independent policy research analyst who wrote THE SKY HAS LIMITS (January 2012), the most recent comprehensive review of online learning in Canada, covering all 13 provinces and territories. To say that he is uninformed or unaware of the field is preposterous. It is also a typical ad hominem argument common among educators contending with dissenting views.
I have no quarrel with the Action Canada team at all, but rather with the scope of their research and the substance of their recommendations. It must shock you, as it does me, that the AC team completely missed the CCL Final Report, the CCL Online Learning report, and the research of Michael K. Barbour. The Teacher Survey actually has value as an unfiltered insight into what teachers actually think and do in the classroom. As a former Deputy Minister of Education, surely you would favour the Canadian Council of Learning proposal over the option of leaving it up to CMEC in its current form.
I’m also curious as to your view on the current New Brunswick policy direction which, judging from NBTA president Heather Smith’s recent comments, has turned “all professional development” into a means of advancing “the philosophy of inclusion.” The philosophy of “futurism,” it seems to this policy wonk, appears to have been supplanted by a new ideology.
It is one thing to “use” IT. It is another to use it well so that there are clear +ve effects on learning.
The jury seems to be out on this one, in part because conditions of use are so varied and in part because studies are conducted by the sellers. Another varying factor in drawing conclusions is the “how”.
– IT as “flipped classroom” with set up and follow-up in classrooms
– IT in blended or hybrid classes with a flexible F2F / online routine
– IT as distance ed provider with no F2F interaction (Sal Khan)
– IT as vehicle MOOCs: Do the 90% who typically drop out gain any benefit? How about the 10% who stay?
– and then there are issues of learner access and learner accountability
A: Twenty-first-century learning involves a great deal beyond the use of technology and digital media. Living in a digital world as we do, students certainly need to learn to use the tools that have become essential to life and work in the 21st century. However, the effective use of technology is only one element of 21st century learning. A 21st century education still requires that students master core academic subjects, but it has been proposed that the content be infused with certain defined themes and skills that are considered to be vital ingredients to success in the 21st century.
And of course views on early childhood education are always under review. This article suggests kids could start school as early as two: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/childhood-education-starting-age-2-pay-off-big-212006401.html While this one discusses the difference between academic and play based learning in younger kids: http://jellybeanpark.com/academic-vs-play-based-early-childhood-learning/