CREATIVE SOCIETIES | CREATIVE EDUCATION ESSENTIALS

“The rates of social change, the movements of the world's people, industrialization, globalization, and militarization continue to escalate at an ever-accelerating pace. Educators face an unprecedented task. They must support people to become highly creative, collaborative, problem solvers, and critical thinkers. They must cultivate people's capacities to see the world from profoundly different perspectives. They must nourish people's capacities for connection and caring in a fragmented and divisive world. Nothing more is important” – Mark Field Belenky

OVERVIEW

A common misnomer is that we live in a “digital economy”. This author submits it is an “ideas economy”. Accordingly, the danger facing education is to further entrench prevailing global and national education systems by producing digital skills learning “strategy” (or digital substitutes) devoid of a genuine capacity to equip young people with the thinking techniques, values and new‐labour pre‐requisites needed to generate ideas and thrive in a disruptive era.

Thus – “If” nations are to compete in the global "idea" economy, today's educators and education systems must become more strategic and far more agile – embracing the opportunity to translate the potential of real and integrated leading edge industry practice, game changing technologies, and transformative education, into nationally relevant outcomes.

However - "Education" faces monumental challenges one of the most obvious of which is shifting mindsets away from industrial revolution practices and incumbent performance drivers, which are at conflict with transformative education and technology trends; which are designed only to churn out students on a production line of low end participative “learning”.

Backed by 10 years of demonstrable and seriously remarkable evidence, including 59 World and National education, titles, Triple-loop learning combined with real-time digital platforms have become the engine that proves new education goals and differentiates education between old vs. new paradigms.

Thus, triple is an evidence based, proven, fundamental paradigm shift that was created in response to the growing and serious implications, on learners, talent development, society, and New Zealand’s international position – emanating from a 2 decade, problematic, $ 118bn traditional school system.

Triple Loop methodologies are the proven way of empowering educators and students with capability to accelerate, and or regenerate nations, regions, schools, communities and Innovation ecosystems.

Driven by principles of introducing authentic real-world learning, with new learner-thinking techniques (infusing systems, design and critical thinking), delivered through 1:1 “triple-loop” learning, powered by cloud digital and productivity tool sets, endorsed by key global industry partners - together with embedding leading industry certifications directly to any core curricula; and evidenced by unrelenting international success, this potent transformation mix underpins clear intentions for K12 and system transformation.

These unique methodologies also present opportunities for schools to lead the way internationally through cloud-powered “education as a service(s)" enabling partner institutions to establish real world environments that generate the human capital required to thrive in an ideas’ based” economic environment – in COVID circumstance and beyond. Where border restrictions implicate international fee-paying revenues, this proven approach creates new funding lines, new international models, and new industry relationship opportunities for schools.

Ten years of incredible international education results prove that six crucial elements of education are needed to mobilise education mindsets, creating digital change for and in all educators and all students. Each element, when intertwined through unique people-based strategy approaches communities’ development.

This is achieved through measures to attract new staff, recreate the profession and role of educators - creating also new-thought leaders on both educators and learners - regardless of scholastic background, capacity or subject preference, skillset, culture or gender.

NEW PERFORMANCE DRIVERS

As opposed to at least a year in drag, manual course design, "as-a-server" technologies mean near instantaneous and highly relevant course design and deployment. Given this, new Curricula design principles test the robustness and alignment between the student’s interests, cultural, societal and market interests with highly engaging, highly objective project driven academic delivery and integrated internationally benchmarked, industrial certifications.

HUMAN CAPITAL QUALITY

Embedding systems thinking integrated with design and critical thinking into curricula and real-world learning develops deeper and sophisticated thinking in students.

Students engage as they are able to determine, digitally model and gain the essential cognitive platforms they need to adapt to the patterns of behaviour and cycles influencing the disruptive change in the societal systems around us. Using design thinking, digital skills therefore are scooped in the process of thinking and executing, but not as a learning objective or outcome.

AGILE PRACTITIONERS FOR A DISRUPTIVE WORLD

Demonstrable evidence shows utilisation of “agile” in learning measurably increases the employability of students as they can prove their outputs surpass the prerequisites for new labour specialistions, which are emerging in the disruptive idea economy. Students season their industrial experience as they continue to demonstrate ten dimensions of value development, on the international stage; including student’s self-direction, excitement, personal success, honing their negotiation and team work; heightened self-esteem, empathetic, competitive, cooperative and supportive social relations, driving richer and diverse and considerate values.

In one example, students seasoned their industrial experience as they continue to demonstrate ten dimensions of value development. As a result, this shifted student engagement time from the single-loop paradigm that limited "engagement" to 2.89 hours pa (or 0.7% of the national $ 13.6bn investment, to an average of 104 hours per student, pa. This translated to 700 students undertaking 27,823 hours of training-system/content consumption in 1 of 12 learning-management systems with 38% occurring out-of-hours!

With cloud-technologies, this meant deploying large-impact-value programmes where 1 teacher, leveraging game-changing edu.tech approaches, facilitated over 410 student projects from 67 learners – in 1 year – ZERO paperwork.

IMMERSION LEARNING

Students are empowered and their values transform through interdisciplinary “problems” that draw from the programme principles and actual real-world community, business or situations. Research supports growing evidence this is where 90% of rich learning occurs.

ACCELERATING STRATEGIC EDUCATORS Combined, this shifts the performance driver from post-learning-assessment of basic facts delivered, typically, through the limitations of ‘direct-teaching’, to deep synthesis of complex problems, given validity to modern learning environments, through deep and immersion learning.

Strategic practitioners, now as digital process engineers, resolve workload by digitally automating legacy administration. With time benefits, student-centred learning replace teacher or syllabus-centred approaches. Strategic educators then design courses with “Critical systems heuristics” as a pervasive learning component to continually season a student’s ability to evaluate reality, how facts are presented to them, extending their systemic awareness. This constantly challenges a student’s ability to determine their role in society and how their values shape their judgements.

To deliver such change - a 5-stage Digital strategy develops CEO-principles in edu.leaders who become digitally equipped to champion, deliver value and maturity-change in any setting.

The manner of delivery is so profound using digital technologies, it resolves digital fear and or competency barriers/challenges for staff. Examples include

• Staff have amassed a staggering 6,577 hours using “as-a-service” 24/7/365 PD training tools (zero after school training!).

• 181 staff now hold 606 internationally benchmarked qualifications across Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Autodesk, Pearson Vue and others.

• Staff developed 29 SharePoint Sites for process automation, content-sites & real-time 1:1 student engagement tools; 100 deployed O365 teacher-dashboard for interactive & automated workflow learner management.

DIGITAL – TRIPLE LOOP

Summary, these elements are central to driving diverse industry standard, anytime, anywhere, any means learning resources and industry-tools; tailored to and catering for multiple intelligences and learning styles. New learning platforms create, manage and counter-anticipate 1:1 outcomes through real-time teaching intelligence (Ex: measuring engagement, content effectiveness, cognitive, skill and assessed outcomes) and generate increased autonomy, responsibility and transformational learning in students. This has been the cornerstone of a real-world learning system which justifies better technology procurements – that enables educators to facilitate, celebrate, manage or adapt learning by understanding precise context of learning (as it happens):

• All students of all learning styles, backgrounds and traits, receive personalised 1:1, content and end-to-end support.

• Students gain deep expertise and insight so they can advance, think differently and address skill needs, in agile learning

• Student’s intrinsic & extrinsic motivators are enhanced with the immediacy of real time teaching and learning intelligence [assessment].

With cloud delivering real-time insights, 1:1 engagement advantages, that support authentic transformative education, and even cost savings, this creates opportunities to mobilise schools and communities with a backbone of transformative, human capital development and tech-smart institutions.

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