Life-long Learning in Action - Educational Transformation in the 21st Century

Author: (English) Norman Longworth
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: learner-centered learning Indeed, the European Commission's "Memorandum on Lifelong Learning" recognizes these diverse learning methods and provides a personalized approach to adapt to them. The memorandum states: "Everyone should be able to learn in an open way of their own choice, rather than being forced to follow a predetermined learning method to achieve specific goals. This can also be simply said, the training and education system should adapt to individual needs." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development endorses this view. "Lifelong learning for all means 'learning in one's own way,' a learning system that includes individual learning plans and personalized assessment methods, with learning goals that are closely linked and can be continuously adjusted. This will allow learning to take place in various contexts—home, school, or specific learning centers." Of course, these strategies and skills are particularly needed in schools. Makula and Sula argue: "Learning methods and attitudes are formed in early childhood. If a person learns how to learn at a very young age, their learning ability will be greatly improved. In the past, no one could imagine a 3-year-old child being able to use computers to acquire new knowledge in the way today's children do." Finland's national lifelong learning policy reflects the above view by emphasizing that children's learning ability is the primary and key pillar of lifelong learning. However, although these perspectives are becoming increasingly popular in industry and university education, they have left many schools and teachers behind. Learner-centered education has faced adverse attacks in some countries, partly because when it was introduced in the 1960s, there were few teachers who could grasp its basic theories and methods, but the main reason is that dismantling traditional learning concepts is much harder than imagined. Only a few schools are willing to explain the curriculum, content, information, meaning, and advantages of learner-centered education to their students. But there are exceptions. In Birmingham, England, a target learning experiment conducted in schools has shown that the worst result is the reduction in dropout rates, while the best result is the improvement in learning motivation and effectiveness. Schools in Nordic countries and some regions in Australia are also very enthusiastic about learner-centered education. The Mawson Lakes School in Adelaide mobilizes the entire community to educate their children. You might see a grandmother taking a math class, or a child learning Indonesian through watching a Jakarta TV channel. The Mawson Lakes School outlines its mission as follows: The educational services of Mawson Lakes will have two complementary roles:
● As a learning provider, it serves learners in the Mawson Lakes area by offering favorable advice, diagnosing learners' needs, providing learning strategies and plans, and ultimately connecting learners in the Mawson Lakes area to the global learning market.
● By increasing learning opportunities, reporting on the nature and scope of learning in the Mawson Lakes area, and encouraging and helping learners individually, families, and learning groups (such as a professional group, age group, or a group with specific needs or talents) to serve society and renew the learning society. Other schools are also adopting this forward-thinking, student-centered approach. For example, both the Mankka School in Espoo and the Mawson Lakes School have joined the exciting Paris Project (see Appendix 1), a program that implements a "hands-on workday" every ten days, during which all students are free to conduct their own learning, deciding what and where to learn. In Espoo, the movement for learning autonomy began early. Tamira reported on this as follows on pages 27-28.