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Societal and educational challenges and the changing role of teachers. Emilija Sakadolskien ė sakadolskis @hotmail.com Lithuanian Educational Council Vilnius Pedagogical University. What is a paradigm?.
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Societal and educational challenges and the changing role of teachers Emilija Sakadolskienė sakadolskis@hotmail.com Lithuanian Educational Council Vilnius Pedagogical University
What is a paradigm? The set of common beliefs and agreements shared between scientists about how problems should be understood and addressed The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn, 1962
Similar concepts • worldview • zeitgeist • metanarrative • schema (Immanuel Kant). • disciplinary matrix (Kuhn)
How paradigm shifts occur • Phase I: New discoveries produce anomalies that the current paradigm is unable to explain or fix • Phase II: a sufficiently large quantity of anomalies accumulates and the system experiences crisis • Phase III: if a sufficient number of people oppose the anomalies, a new paradigm is created to battle the remnants of the old paradigm.
“A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education”Change magazine 1995 (November/December) Robert Barr and John Tagg
The paradigm dichotomy • The Instructional / Teaching Paradigm • The Learning Paradigm
A related concern: Do alternative teacher certification programs match our accepted paradigm of teaching and learning?
Educational paradigm shifts • The agricultural paradigm • The industrial paradigm • The information society • Knowledge-based society • The creativity paradigm
Knowledge is the social product of human intelligence and creativity. (New Zealand)
Richard Florida :The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) • scientists, engineers • university professors • writers, artists, entertainers, actors • designers, architects • editors, composers, cultural figures • think tank analysts • opinion makers
Elliot W. Eisner: The Educational Imagination (3rd edition, 2002) • The Explicit Curriculum • The Implicit Curriculum • The Null Curriculum
Daniel H. Pink:A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future • Design • Narrative • Symphony • Empathy • Play • Meaning
“Trends Shaping Education” THE ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD) Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 2008
Averaged across the 1990-2004 period, more now enter than leave all OECD countries except Poland. OECD countries are now primarily destinations for migrants from other countries. The speed with which change can happen is illustrated by the cases of Spain and Greece.
Increasing competition on global markets has underpinned the idea that countries need constant innovation to maintain position. Does education nurture the creativity necessary to be innovative? Education and training systems have traditionally been strong bastions of national decision-making. Are they sufficiently sensitive to the culturally diverse requirements of immigrants? Are teachers aware?
What role do schools play, through implicit messages and explicit guidance, in shaping the career and professional (as well as educational) choices of girls and boys? How are schools experiencing the impact of ever-greater numbers of mothers with full careers? Has it changed the balance of responsibilities between schools and families in raising children – for better or worse? – and has it altered relations between fathers and schools?
How has greater feminisation of the teaching force being experienced by schools and teachers? Should policy seek to modify the trend and if so in what way?
It is common now to maintain that social capital is declining as we live more individualistic, unconnected lives with falling levels of trust. Family structures continue to change: marriage is less prevalent; couples are increasingly living together without being married; separations and divorces are common; and one-parent families are increasing.
We seem to live in a more individualistic world, with a declining sense of belonging to the traditional reference points of community, church or workplace. Is there more or less trust and co-operation than before? If people are more individualistic, this will promote consumer behaviour in education at the expense of social goals; if social ties are decreasing, this places still more pressure on schools to provide a source of connection.
Mary M. Kennedy: Inside Teaching: How Classroom Life Undermines Reform, 2005 Hypotheses why reforms fail: • Lack of knowledge base (subject and pedagogy) • Beliefs and values differ • Teacher dispositions • Circumstances of teaching • Reform ideals unattainable
In the opinion of fools it is a humble task, but in fact it is the noblest of occupations - Erasmus