"21st century skills" popped into my head.
I found a video by the Quality Learning Foundation, Thailand, and would like to share.
The following is a summary of important points gathered from the video. I would like to thank the QLF for the video. I really enjoyed watching it.
Presently, there is so much knowledge available. It is, therefore, very difficult to get students to concentrate in class. This is only because there are more interesting things outside.
This century is the era of information technology where the amount of knowledge increases everyday. Today, we do not just want clever students or the ones who are good at memorising textbooks. What we want is students who are willing to learn and who know how to learn. That is, they need to have learning skills.
In the past, teachers and lecturers had a job that required them to stand in front of a class and talk and talk and talk. Students were required to take everything (and maybe accept everythin) that was lectured to them. This teaching and learning method may be suitable 100 - 200 years ago. It simply will not work today.
The essential thing is to change the educational method: (1) from having "knowledge" as a target to having "skills" as the required outcome and (2) from "teacher centred" to "student centred."
It has been said and proved that project-based learning is a better method. In this way of teaching, teachers or lecturers will act as a coach. Students will be able to develop various skills such as understanding problems, researching for information, examining and evaluation data so that only appropriate data will be used in this particular assigned project. Moreover, they will get hands-on experience. They will improve their communication and presentation skills. Most importantly, they will learn how to work as a team. In addition, using project-based learning will get students to exchange their ideas which can lead to creating new knowledge of their own.
If we (especially in Thailand) are still attached to the traditional teaching method, there is no doubt that students will end up with having no skills to work and to live in the real world.
No inspiration. No fun. Boring. The worst thing is the whole country will just become stupid because students will get only knowledge ... and no skills.
