Education vs Learning... Want To Innovate?

I have HEARD about blended learning and personalized learning before. I am putting emphasis on the verb “heard” simply because I just really know about it from some information relayed to me from training, readings, video presentations, or even from hearsays and eavesdropping. But do I have my firsthand experience or knowledge about it…. not really! Yes, it is such an unfortunate admission now that I am learning more and more about how beneficial these innovative learning approaches are, and that I have not been able to fully apply or even try it in the classroom

I watched Joi Ito’s TED talk several times. I really enjoyed his simple yet very practical analysis of how most of us perceive education. We have been dependent on memorization, rotes, and other old traditional methods of how learning should be, notwithstanding if it’s still making a difference on the students’ learning. We were doing the exact opposite of what Ito identified as the key to bringing about the innovation in our current educational system. We are doing “push over pull,” pushing all the information to our students, instead of allowing them to pull all the resources to learn how to learn. We value education over learning, that we just keep teaching them and not give them the opportunity to experience these lessons and realize how it can impact their lives. We rely on maps over compasses, that we keep rigid plans and strict pacing, instead of focusing on the process and direction of the learning.

I want to transition from being a futurist to becoming a “now-ist.” I need to focus more on the present and not be obsessed with the outcome or the destination. This whole ADL program has opened my eyes to a lot of realities and possibilities. Some were eye-openers, very alarming but at the same time gives me so much hope to change. As we have learned, it starts with having a growth mindset. The challenge is to withstand the process of change and be more flexible to adjust my old ways and be open to something new. Build the commitment to pursue and follow-up until the change is already evident. I think the bottom line is, we also need to transform our role, we become not only educators, but rather along with our students, we are also the learners, the innovators, who will go through the process of change together, and be the change for others to see.