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Education Needs to Change - Part 2

February 02, 2017
By Dr. P. Ogborne

First off, you are invited to an evening of exploration of 21st century learning on February 16th at 7:00 p.m. at PCS. Tom Rudmik, founder of Profound Learning will be our guest. This evening will give you an insight into the direction that PCS is headed. The link will take you to a flyer with a bio of Mr. Rudmik. (Link)

Pickering Christian School will be following Mr. Rudmik’s lead in adapting the model to fit our school. Already, I have had teachers start to rethink room arrangements and differential learning centres. We have a pilot program running that has placed a Chromebook (laptop) into the hands of the Grade 7 students. We hope this will be a Grade 6 – 8 initiative next year.

After I had written my blog for last week’s discussion about learning strategies, I happened upon a website that once again reinforced our resolve to move in this direction:

“Today’s world requires different skills than the world I grew up in. For one thing, knowledge itself is a commodity. If I want to know the capital of Nebraska, I can look it up in an instant. If students today need to know what year World War I started, they can pick up their phone and ask Siri or Google Now. But the web can’t tell them what it is that we need to take away from our understanding of that war or any other event. That requires research, thought and critical thinking skills — the very things we should be teaching in school. And by the way, they’re likely to learn more if they collaborate with other students. Some call that cheating.” – Thomas Murray – (Link)

 

These skills are the reason we are planning to implement Profound Learning strategies at PCS.

It’s a long journey. It involves three key areas as we build our strategic plan. These areas are the implementation of teacher training, the development of technological advances, and adding an addition to the building to house the new learning environment.

There is an expense to the change and we will be trusting God for financial partners to help fund the process. Already, we have had one parent give a donation to purchase an initial set of Chromebooks as well as other necessary training for the staff.

We hope that you will come out on February 16th and catch the vision.