This week in EDCI 336 we talked about the BC Privacy Laws relating to education in BC, as well as the differences between Lesson Plans and Learning Plans. Something else that was of interest this week was our discussion about using generative AI in schools and how it could be used as a positive thing in some cases rather than a negative thing. The other subject that we talked about related to the documentary we watch called Most Likely To Succeed .
At first, watching the documentary felt surreal. In what world has school ever been looked at like this before- but I think that is the point. This is such a fun and new way to think about school and how students interact and participate in school. I did some more digging on High Tech High, and their website is great:
“Connect the classroom to the world.” is the first thing you see when you open up the website. I feel like this is a great first impression- especially when there are certain people out there who don’t believe in this type of schooling. And if I am going to be honest, it took me a while to come to terms with it as well. I think I am sitting on the edge of being fully supportive of it and kind of not at the same time. There were points hit in this documentary that make so much sense to have school this way, but there are other points that make this kind of school hard to wrap my head around. For example, I LOVE the idea of students leading their own learning and straying away from some of the traditional learning topics or ways of learning, however, I do feel like there are some truths in the way most of the population is taught right now.
Something that came up in conversation since watching the film is how hard it will be to change pedagogy. It has been the same way for soooo long- I am super interested to find out where it’s going, and maybe even a little more interested in finding out how it is going to get there too. I can’t help but think back to my time in high school… I was always a student who needed very clear expectations and criteria for an assignment or project or whatever it was (I actually still am), and thinking about this kind of school absolutely stresses me out… while I think I would learn to like it or get used to it, I think that it would have really had an impact on the way I learned or how much I understood
So the big question is “Do we need to reimagine education?” At first, this question feels overwhelming, as if education is one single thing to be rebuilt from the ground up… But education is made up of many moving parts, and it is far more powerful to look closely at those pieces rather than the whole. Reimagining education means shifting our focus away from memorization and focusing more on thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Collaboration and adaptability are often treated as add-ons instead of central elements. Learning should have a bigger focus on understanding why and how knowledge is used, not only how it is required.
So, while not everything in education needs to be reimagined, the parts that do matter deeply should be reconsidered for a more inclusive and meaningful future for learning.