TRUE TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION

Chen (2000) discusses that educators are often criticised for failing “to prepare students to solve the ill-structured types of problems faced in life”. It follows that the remarkable changes to New Zealand’s education system, that occurred in 2002 and 2004:

“NCEA has been successful in many areas, especially keeping students in school longer [they turn up to get credits]. However it is very clear from our research that for very many students NCEA is not effectively preparing them for engineering study at university - Professor Dale Carnegie - Head of Engineering School, Victoria University” – NZ Herald, Dec 2013

“Chalk n talk”, text book based, instructional and follow the leader, students in rows "hands up" learning, prevails as the industrial revolution education paradigm, in NZ. Innovation-hungry industry and tertiary remain cry foul over how education is failing to prepare students.

Chen (2000 proposes there are three core areas, which call for educators to become savvy in systems thinking approaches (in order to model real world education environments). This approach enables educators to integrate relevant, real world education context into teaching practices.

Real world learning fills in the blanks to the heavily criticised NCEA blank canvass. The opportunity is for educators to break the paradigm by teaching mind-sets of the future, in an emergent transforming digital and social phenomena and knowledge creation era; where, if we all being very honest, NCEA, used wrongly or left alone, is not an education curriculum more of a political and ideological device. These includes:

1. Identifying general approaches

2. An infused approach

3. And, an immersed approach

For educators and industry, in the first instance, it is important that recognition is made that transformative circumstances requires industry and education to engage differently, to solve the same problem. For educators, transformative requires a shift from that of the “general” or “direct” approaches which teach just comprehension or, at best, problem solving. This is because these approaches are extremely limited and do not incorporating real world context. Examples include teaching computer applications where only specific functions of the software are taught (or students “follow” – “click this, do that”.)

Students are prone to disengagement as they do not gain understanding or interest in why or where to apply the functions in a real world context (that hasn’t occurred for them yet).

Secondly, the “infused” approach, educators are able to balance real world context and critical problem solving; with an infusion of systems thinking, design thinking and other knowledge creation means. The emphasis, as Chen (2000) says, stresses the relevance of subject matter with in class contextual business problems; in teaching either simulations of the real world and or ICT. This approach, is effective in preparing students for employment providing the basis of an experiential and competitive edge, which NCEA currently deprives.

The third approach is described as an “immersion approach”. This draws from creating project based learning, interdisciplinary “problems”, where students immerse themselves into rich and actual real-world community, business or situations.

Chen (2000) points to Lambrecht (1997) who says this approach has yet to become fully developed. In New Zealand, arguably, this is a wholesale problem across most subjects and schools yet, this is said avoiding any offense to educations who do practice real world education approaches. It is a balance of the infused and immersed approach therefore, which underpins a transformative shift in education and teaching pedagogy.

With the pace of social change and digital transformation, educators face a moral and daunting task. Remain with the status quo or....

How and in what form should transformative education be encouraged and adopted, across education, particularly across a resistant education paradigm, to generate highly creative, collaborative, problem solvers, and critical thinkers?