Refelctive Journal on 21st Century Education

1499 Words6 Pages
Concepts and key ideas of 21st Century Education Personalised Learning Future learning can best be described as an emerging cluster of new ideas, beliefs, knowledge, theories and practices some of which may already be evident in schools now and some which still may not be. The educator Ken Robinson believes that our current system was set up to cope with twentieth century industrial needs and that as a result of “massive and on-going social, economic and technological changes” our world is more complex, fluid and uncertain and our education system is seriously lagging behind (Robinson, K. 2010). Education for our new knowledge age must help to create learners who are creative, flexible, innovative and proactive. I can see that education concepts, ideas and theories seem to have changed considerably since I was at school in the 1970's. We had traditional desks in a row with the teacher at the front by the blackboard teaching from textbooks. It was very much a behaviourist style. I remember the experience positively though and it was by no means lacking in innovation or challenges. Our headmistress was a feminist and we were encouraged to think big, be politically active and question everything. I concede though that there were girls who weren't as academically inclined who clearly struggled with education of that style. One of the main concepts of future learning is Personalised Learning. It is widely acknowledged that our education system can no longer be based upon an industrialised 'one size fits all' model. We need to take into account the needs of all learners if we are to have a fully functional future adult workforce (Bolstad & Gilbert, 2012). School has to become a place for all round personal development not just academic skills. The Viccso report (Abbey & Bayliss 2012,2) found that there needs to be
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