Five Focal Point to Digitize and Innovate Education

The ultimate goal of the education is to value and develop the child's natural potential and give space to his/her creative, instinctive way of discovering the world, and contribute to the progress of the human society.

Digital makes an impact on almost every industry and geography around the globe. It is not just about fancy gadgets or trendy technologies only. It is the mindset to advocate changes and innovation; it is the management philosophy to break down silos and encourage holistic thinking and self-management. Nowadays, commodity knowledge is only a click away, and creativity becomes #1 wanted skill for the business and our society. The “products” of education (elementary education and advanced education)- digital workforces today or tomorrow not only need to compete with each other in the global scope but also have to compete with machines. Therefore, the education system administrated via the mechanical and reductionistic management philosophy with manufacture style, focusing on instilling static knowledge, is no longer fit enough for the exponential changes and shorten knowledge life cycle. Talented people today not only need to learn, de-learn and relearn, but also co-create the new knowledge all the time to adapt to changes and catalyze innovation. Thanks for the unprecedented digital convenience today, there are so many things to learn, and there are so many ways to learn, how to digitize education with hybrid styles to inspire learning, unlock creativity, and build nonlinear skills and capabilities to meet the emergent digital talent requirement? And what are focal points to digitize and innovate education?

Metacognition: Or learning how to learn, is a vital element of independent learning in the digital era of rapid and relentless change. Traditional education is often one size fits all; digital education should be individually tailored and advocate self-directed learning. When we talk about meta-cognition, we're looking at process rather than outcomes. With this in mind, you’d want to observe learners in context while they are learning and try to gather evidence of their thought processes. By supporting learners to learn how to learn, critically examine their thinking and reflect thoroughly on what behaviors helped them learn, they will become better problem solvers, continuous lifelong learners and adapt more readily to whatever changes life/work throws at them. Metacognition can be assessed through observation and conversation. By asking questions and listening, you can understand how the individual is thinking; by continually asking how a person arrived at a particular statement, concept or idea, you can deduce how a person is understanding the things or the situations. A big part of metacognition and more importantly, why metacognition is important, is to give the learner an opportunity to be aware of and understand their own strengths and weaknesses so that they can learn or adapt their skills and strategies. Examining the learning process enables you to develop more effective learning and teaching approaches. If you know more about how people learn, you can work toward developing strategies that stimulate and support it as effectively as possible.

Developing multidimensional thinking skills: Traditional education focuses on instilling static knowledge, digital education needs to focus on developing thinking capability. The very quality of education is to assess how well it shapes the right sets of mind (growth, progression, creativity, open and learning, etc), and develop the multidimensional thinking skills such as independent thinking, critical thinking creative thinking, holistic thinking, strategic thinking, etc. “Quality" would be associated with an "Education" that fosters excellent problem-solving skills, ability to turn new ideas into innovative products, ability to apply specific knowledge as tangible applications in some field or another, ability to switch from meta-cognitive analysis to micro-analysis while understanding how the rules change when doing that, superb linguistic skills, fluency, and speed. Educators need to be creative enough to encourage and reward creative thinking and problem-solving. Education provides the broader window to see the world with knowledge lenses, but shouldn't become a constraint to limit one's imagination.  

Time Management discipline: Traditional education focuses on setting a mandatory schedule, digital education needs to help receivers build time management skill. Time is the most perishable thing, it is not storable. Time does not wait for anyone, and it treats everyone equally. Time is the order of moments in which the mind perceives the changes. Hence, it is the construction of the mind. Good Time Management skill can boost confidence and build new capabilities, which can be gained through self-improvement. The effective time management boosts creativity as well, it makes you creative-oriented, mature and generous enough. The wise time management can make life more meaningful, creative and productive. The digital education should instruct receivers to manage their time to improve their learning agility

Self-direct learning: Traditional education often has teacher driven agenda, digital education should evolve self-direct learning scenario, to encourage receivers thinking “who they are,” and explore “who they want to be.” Today’s digital-savvy generation will become more inquisitive than the previous generations, they have many inquiries in the mind: Why should we learn that static knowledge that I can search the internet only clicks away? What’s the connection between what I learn and what happens in the real world? How can I apply my learning to solve the problems which I am interested in? I want to be a unique human being, not just a commodity product with the “score identity.” The emergence of social platforms and digital learning tools provide the new way to learn, share and collaborate, and the hybrid solution of formal and informal learning makes self-directed learning a reality and imperative to unlock innate human creativity, unleash unlimited human potential, accelerate capability building, and make learning not just mandatory, but fun and inspiring.

Focus on capability building, not just teaching knowledge: Traditional educations often train followers; digital education needs to develop authentic leadership. The good students via traditional lens are good followers who are compliant to teachers’ command and try their best to answer teachers’ questions. However, often they lack the courage to challenge the “status quo” of their teachers, and lack of independent thinking to question the questions or frame their own questions. The pitfall of education is to stifle originality and creativity, detach receivers from connecting with nature. Digital education should focus on unlocking creativity; it needs to engage, enlighten and develop human beings, who from there can learn the skills and build capabilities. Natural potential and intuition foster into known and undiscovered diverse approaches of thinking for maximizing self-determination, personal interpretation, and individual and group expression. To put simply, digital education needs to focus on building capabilities, not just teaching static knowledge.

Education is the means to the end, it should never become a status quo. The education, we get maybe, takes us out of the well, but for some, it also sets the limit for their motivation to continuous learning and growth due to the burden of credential or the outdated talent management practices. Sometimes, traditional education adds the filter to blur the visions or create roadblocks to building silos and becomes the very barrier for digital transformation. Education's objective should be to provide the foundation that results in the addition of new information and discoveries, therefore, furthering the quality of civilization and enriching the role we play in the universe. The ultimate goal of the education is to value and develop the child's natural potential and give space to his/her creative, instinctive way of discovering the world, and contribute to the progress of the human society.

Posted in: Digitalization,Education