“What Should a Competency-Based School Culture Look Like?” by Eric Hudson, in Global Online Academy blog

“At the center of competency-based learning is the belief that learning should be a meaningful, joyful experience for all students. How might our school cultures instill and nurture that belief in our communities?”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

The Basecamp team believes that competency- and mastery-based learning will characterize schools of the future.

But unless you’re starting your school from scratch, this shift will involve more than just a technical change.

You will also need to change your culture shift to move from a grades-based model to a competency model.

What kind of culture do you have now? And what kind of culture will you need to make the shift? Schools cannot afford to skip this step. 

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“The ‘Next America’,” by Tom Friedman, in the New York Times

“But in fact, in the Next America, argues McGowan, the right model will be ‘continuous lifelong learning’ — because when the pace of change is accelerating, ‘the fastest-growing companies and most resilient workers will be those who learn faster than their competition’.”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

We follow Heather McGowan closely for the same reason we follow Harold Jarche (see below): because curriculum is always a lagging indicator, we need L&D thought leaders to shine a light on emerging trends.

Among those trends: The Darwinian imperative…

• To learn faster

• To use that learning to adapt more quickly

If McGowan is correct that “the most resilient workers will be those who learn faster than their competition,” doesn’t that mean that those workers will have to develop the capacity to learn how to learn while their in school?

Which therefore requires us to ask: does your school prioritize learning stuff or does your school prioritize learning how to learn?

The future will be unforgiving about this.

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“Curiosity, Creativity, Complexity, & Chaos,” by Harold Jarche, on the jarche.com blog

“People in networks cannot be told what to do, only influenced through other nodes (people) due to their reputation. If people don’t like you, they won’t connect. In a hierarchy you only have to please your boss. In a network you have to be seen as having some value, though not the same value, by many others.”

Why does this matter to the future of learning?

As Jarche points out, working in the context of deep networks requires a different set of skillsets and mindsets.

Yet curriculum is always a lagging indicator, so schools are graduating students who are ill-prepared to navigate this new context.

How might we evolve the classroom experience to approximate the challenges and opportunities of a deeply networked world?

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Question of the week:

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