I will reflect on Theme 5, A culture of continuous learning for teachers
and educational leaders.
Like
Bolstad et al state, myself, my colleagues and my leaders are all of generation
X, we were educated in the 20th century. My learners are adults of generation Y. My
workplace is the teaching hospital pathology laboratory.
As I was pondering the
problem of how to thrive in a complex, uncertain and fluid world (Bolstad 2012,
p2), the concept of 21st CLS was introduced at Mind Lab. This was an
insight moment for me, because this is the practical solution to thriving in
the age of acceleration.
The 21st CLS summarised by the WEF infographic is helpfully
divided into literacies, competencies and character qualities, and is
applicable to my learner group, namely
to adults in the workplace.
Having
been immersed in 21st CLS over the past weeks at Mind Lab, my approach
to applying 21st CLS is 3
pronged, I must:
1. Recognise, use and develop
21st CLS myself, by practicing what I preach
2. incorporate 21st
CLS into my teaching, by double purposing teaching encounters.
3. Teach my colleagues who were educated in the
20th century why and how to incorporate 21st CLS into
teaching encounters.
I have
however, been challenged to use a public
blog for reflective writing. I have come to an impasse, and feel great
resistance. I think this is because of the following reasons
a) I
feel the benefit of public comments is less important than my value of privacy, intimacy and trust.
However, since I have not published this reflection, this remains an untested
assumption.
b)I
prefer to share my reflective thinking with a trusted, selected, colleague face
to face. I can be specific and name names, and get specific, candid advice.
c) I am
unconvinced there is research to support that public sharing of a teachers
reflective writing will increase the learning outcomes of students. In an
exploratory article from AUT School of
Education (Bernade 2015) shows reflective practice should be collaborative, and
can improve teacher self efficacy, but this reflective practise does not need
to be published publicly.
d) I
like to include screen snips of graphical elements from other websites, to
enhance my learning and recall, many of
these are subject to copywrite limitations, and this would be a problem for
public blogs.
I
consider public blogs and the like a useful forum for information sharing such
as technical training for “how to make a QR code”. I have for several years
co-authored and maintained such an open access Wiki https://digipathed.wikispaces.com/home
which has these technical tips.
Awareness
and knowledge of 21st CLS has enabled me to teach my colleagues how
to incorporate 21st CLS into their encounters. I have a) co-delivered a keynote workshop to
an e-learning platform user group on mapping 21st CLS to graduate capabilities and b) I am
co-authoring an editorial for publication in my professional society academic
medical journal titled ‘Tips and techniques for teaching trainees Pathology in
the 21st century”. Currently, I
have reached an impasse with this editorial, the Journal editor [traditionalist,
old school] does not want to include diagrams and infographics, but I think
they are essential elements of ‘practising what I am preaching’ by
incorporating principles of 21st CLS methodology. So I have written a rebuttal to the editor
with references, supporting my claim of inclusion of diagrams in the editorial.
I wait and see.
Amanda Charlton
References
Benade, L.
(2015) Teachers’ Critical Reflective Practice in the Context of
Twenty-first Century Learning, Open Review of Educational Research, 2:1, 42-54,
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