how easy is it to weld

When welding .........................................

Transformation in my Practice- Agents of Change.

Lifelong Learning.

My initial reasons for engaging with the Mindlab course was to continue my aim of being a lifelong learner. I apply this to most things I attempt and became a volunteer firefighter last year and after a period of initial training, completed a 7 day practical and theory course. I enjoyed the challenge of learning something new. The Mind lab course presented further opportunities to up skill myself in my practice and provided a fresh approach to the dynamic changes currently occurring through education in 2016. We were also offered to become agents of change. Very James Bond!

Being recruited as an agent of change, I signed up and arrived with a growth mind set ready to absorb the content of the course. Much to my surprise the approach was to consider our personal views of such questions as “What is education for” and “What is learning”. Am I any clearer in my response to this question, having engaged with the readings, assignments, literature reviews and self-reflective logs over the course?

I would like to say that I am far more knowledgeable and better equipped to provide for my students learning experience. Furthermore I have a much clearer understanding of what is required to enable them to participate in and contribute to the 21st century workforce of the future.

The biggest changes and gains in my practice have been around the
 21st Century skills.

 
The ITL and Microsoft rubric has had a profound effect on my pedagogy, specifically around the collaboration and self regulating indicators. At a senior secondary school level, preparation for the workforce is vital and needs to meet the MOE expectation that employees are innovative and creative. My literature review on entrepreneurship has provided me with good insight into how we can move our students from creative individuals to successful entrepreneurs. It is also timely with the whole school rebuild underway with new flexible learning environments planned and interdisciplinary project based learning delivery of the curriculum signposted.

TWO KEY CHANGES:
Criterion 4 - Demonstrate ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

Blogs and teaching as inquiry are now everyday language within which I can easily converse with others. The teaching as inquiry has enabled me to focus on specific areas of my practice and improve my students performance. The Mindlab course has given me a wide range of practical experiences, as well as exposing me to a plethora of new digital platforms to improve my students learning. The next stage is to step back from my role as teacher facilitator and allow the students to lead their learning. In doing so I hope that the roles can be reversed and the students become the teacher and I become the learner.

Criterion 7 - Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment.

Working collaboratively at the Mind Lab gave me a useful insight to some of the frustrations that no doubt our students would similarly experience. The importance of understanding that others maybe facing their own challenges and also may feel out of their depth with the speed in which change is occurring. A constant theme and necessity for successfully completing the course was the use of social media. This has enabled me to become a digital citizen and provided me with the tools and strategies to support my students outside of the classroom. Through online learning sites and school based websites my students have had far better access to material and been able to contribute to each others learning and generation of knowledge. The next stage for me is to incorporate project based learning and collaboration by solving real world problems. In doing so I hope to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

Agents of change???

There are 340 or so teachers on the Mind Lab March intake (Google+ number) and a similar number on the July intake.The teachers who attended the course in November 2015 have been putting their newly gained knowledge into practice in schools for over a period of six months. There are Principals who have convinced their whole staff to attend the course and some individuals will travel 90 mins each way to attend. There are more centers opening and a local new build college on the edge of Christchurch has one night set aside for their staff to attend. There are just two of us in my school out of a staff of 30 promoting digital and collaborative teaching practices.

In my experience my colleague and I have had considerable influence in changing the awareness of staff in regards to the needs of our students for the future. Some are excited, some are skeptical, some are reluctant to engage.




One thing is for sure that even in the 32 weeks since the start of the course some new technologies demonstrated are now commonplace, the groundbreaking theories and models expressed are presently adopted as practice, the demand for a highly skilled workforce is increasing and the threat of automation of low skilled repetitive tasks unquestionable. What is not in doubt is the exponential rate of change will require the learners of the future to be able to unlearn and relearn As Alvin Toffler put it “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who  cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn".

Dreams of future professional development.

Considering a Masters or even a Diploma at this stage is very much on the table for me personally. However I would like to develop other colleagues expertise in this area. This will be my primary focus for my own professional development over the next two years. The new school rebuild will have significant impact on teachers practice and a move to collaborative practice. As these proficiencies become embedded I really would like to further my knowledge around the 21st skill set. Specifically around the requirements that employers will look for in a creative and innovative workforce and how best we can deliver this through project based learning. I can envisage a host of real world problem solving activities being placed on line and schools collaborating to come up with flawless solutions. Perhaps this a business opportunity as well as a professional development exercise.

Thanks to everyone !!!



Ministry of Education. (n.d). Practicing Teacher Criteria and e-learning. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Interdisciplinary Connections

Interdisciplinary Connections

Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998).,

 Innovation in action-  New ideas from interdisciplinary connections-The Medici Effect.

This is nothing recent! During the 14-Century, a wealthy Italian banking family brought together a range of artists who shaped “one of the most innovative eras in history”.

Author Frans Johanssen covers this occurrence as "the Medici effect". His book explains how these individuals connected and collaborated, by relating their individual disciplines, and more importantly made connections and created new ideas at the intersection of their respective fields. Put simply, the book reinforces the notion that innovative thinkers connect fields, problems, or ideas that others find unrelated. Interestingly the Medici family did not intend the Renaissance, but contributed to it by bringing together creators from a wide range of disciplines - sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, painters, and architects. 

Given that the interdisciplinary approach facilitates the understanding of new areas and promotes the empathetic horizon of others, how does my current practice stretch out across the range of specialist subjects in a secondary school?

Potential areas of development.

From my interdisciplinary map the main areas of potential development are around the Project Based Learning initiatives and the new build of my current high school. The most significant aspect of this is the newly titled Innovation Block which houses the manufacturing/technology/science and arts block. The accommodation in this respect will drive the curriculum and more importantly consider these opportunities.

Challenges.

In designing this building I  have advocated for accommodation which is sufficiently flexible to facilitate different forms of curriculum delivery, e.g. immersive experiences of design and technology (such as half-day or whole-day blocks), themes, ‘Technology weeks’ etc. The intention is to provide an involvement far much more like that experienced by professional designers rather than the traditional school timetable.

Additionally accommodation should allow pupils to experience both working as an individual and as part of a team. Designing is often a collaborative activity, in which the views of others must be welcomed, listened to and respected. The challenge is to provide real life problem solving to ensure that their experiences are authentic and can promote innovation.

Silo -isolate (one system, process, department, etc.) from others.

An often used expression when describing secondary school areas is the the word “silo”. Retorize (www.rotize.com) identifies "By far the greatest driver of silo thinking is the behavior of leadership and leadership teams". Siloing often occurs in schools because of the specialisation of teacher training and physical layout of departments.  However my areas of expertise allow me to contextualise my teaching and foster interdisciplinary links. An example of this is using my Engineering background and the mathematics curriculum to engage a group of students solving speeds and feeds for a machining operation. However I am somewhat of an exception as it is often rare to teach outside of your subject area due to timetable constraints and to see an opportunity or to have an awareness/understanding around other subjects examination requirements. 

Project planning and culturally responsive pedagogy.

It is vital that students focus on their areas of interest however Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997) identified the role of teachers "to facilitate discussions, provide resources, and guide inquiry; but they also have the responsibility to encourage and make sure that students pursue inquiry in fields in which they have little knowledge or interest". This promotes also the Maori principle of “Ako” where the students and teachers roles can be reversed and student becomes the expert or leader. 

Benefits

The benefits of interdisciplinary activity in my practice are the improvements in the relationships with other staff members in the physical space we will share. Discussion and problem solving/sharing will become far more effective and facilitate the sharing of new innovative practice and activities.

For students it will enable them to make new connections and pathways by looking at interdisciplinary content through a new lens. This will provide opportunities to be creative and innovative at the boundaries of these fields. Just like the artists in the 14th Century!

References:Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107

Johansson, Frans; (2004):The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures; Harvard Business School Press;

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf:

Parker J.(2008). Modernising the D&T environment, Design & Technology Education. retrieved from
https://dandtfordandt.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/modernising-dt-environment.pdf

Social Media.

SOCIAL MEDIA

To reflect on my practice regarding social media there are two key areas I feel I need to address:

1 How to get social media to enhance, extend or enforce learning

2 The advantages and pitfalls of using social media as a professional development.

Not being a great user of twitter/facebook/google+/instagram, although aware of their existence and widespread use, I have always been sceptical and reluctant in engaging with students over any social media. Even "friending" a student has certain connotations that seem to overstep the boundaries of professional relationships and feels uncomfortable in the way that adults/students conduct themselves. Aligned with this is a constant backdrop of press/tv coverage of inappropriate relationships spawned out of  conversations over facebook or supposedly innocuous postings with pictures and comments which ultimately have seen disciplinary action and in some cases the loss of the teacher's position. 

The Teachers Council has a code of ethics (2015)  and despite this, and a huge dose of common sense, the PPTA  deals with a huge number of consistent issues around social media and allocates a substantial sum to deal with them. All of this is underpinned by the notion that learning can take place anywhere anytime and that teachers make themselves available to respond to students' postings/queries/concerns/requests almost instantaneously. This persuasive pretext provides even greater disinclination to participate allied with the exponential time demand to provide your own feed, let alone respond.

So bearing this in mind, it has taken a monumental shift to consider proactively using social media in my practice and I have to say I have been surprised at the opportunities and openness with which I am prepared to engage with social media.

The opportunities I have identified in my practice  to engage with social  media are:

1. Create a Facebook group for my subject area and get everyone to follow. The advantage is that I can post notes to remind students about the instructions of important assignments, as well as the submission deadlines. I can encourage students to post links to great online resources related to the curriculum and set discussion topics every week while inviting everyone to discuss. I would allow and encourage students to ask any questions they have and encourage them to search for new online resources that make learning fun, and share the links throughout the group.

2. Use blogging for students’ homework assignments and classroom activities where several “bloggers” can collaborate within a group. The blog can be used for posting discussion topics and inviting everyone to comment. Students who missed the classes can keep up with the coursework.

3. Use Twitter for bringing fun into the classroom by introducing a daily hashtag related to a certain topic and ask each student to discover a fun fact related to it.

4. Pinterest for pinning educational resources. Getting students to create their own boards to understand what each individual is mostly interested in.

5. Use YouTube for the flipped classroom concept and watching material instead of writing homework.

The key element of generating all this user generated content is time and eventually I would envisage the facebook page  being monitored and facilitated by the students taking responsibility. This is supported by Sillus et al (2009) who suggests that  “Linking together studies and spare time needs active students in the environment. These active users could be regular students but especially peer tutors, members of various clubs, students working actively in study groups and personnel”. (Silius et al. 2013, p60)

Social Media in my professional development.

The Mindlab course has introduced me to access Twitter, Google+ regularly and create a community through facebook. These interconnected communities allow me to observe and analyse the information arriving through the feeds, resulting in a decision whether to engage or contribute. On reflection I feel that in general I am “anti social“ in these types of forums; I recognise the advantages but still feel reluctant to engage. I’ve yet to attend a course where the Twitter feed is more compelling than the information being presented, but it does provide an opportunity to view other individuals' thoughts and comments. I also fully understand the advantages where the learning and networking has extended beyond the walls and hours of the allocated formal professional development time and space. There has been an abundance of thought provoking postings which have captured my interest, as well as links shared and ideas bounced around. I could spend all day following these threads but in reality I desire a social life outside of the virtual network which appears to demand our constant attention. 

New Zealand Teachers Council. Before you share.(2015) retrieved fom   http://www.teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/sites/default/files/resources/Before-you-share_0.pdf

New Zealand Teachers Council. Ethical use of social media, (2015) retrieved from  http://www.teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/sites/default/files/resources/Guidelines%20-%20ethical%20use%20of%20social%20media_0.pdf

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrived on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han.

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T.,Huhtamäki, J.,Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J., & Pohjolainen, S.(2010) ‘Students’ motivations for social media enhanced studying and learning.’ Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 2, (1). Retrieved on 7th May,2015 from http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-p.

LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONTEXT IN MY DIGITAL PRACTICE. Week 29

LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONTEXT IN MY DIGITAL PRACTICE. Week 29

This Blog covers the challenge of High School Students having their own internet connection through personal devices and data plans and the subsequent consequences for us as practitioners in protecting our students when not in the classroom. The use of school networks are closely monitored and safeguarded. However, what are our responsibilities when students access inappropriate material in school time but not in the classroom or over the school network and what does this mean for our practice?

I recently had an incident where 2 senior school students were viewing inappropriate and offensive material on a mobile device, just  having left my classroom and starting breaktime. I spoke to the students who acknowledged that it was unsuitable and reported it to the Dean who in turn followed the procedures as laid out in our Safe User Policy adopted from Netsafe. On investigation it transpired that the student was not connected to the school network and in effect that he was not breaching any of the school network rules. The parent was reluctant to acknowledge that the material was objectionable even though the site was R18. When asked why I reported it to the school management I referred to the Education Council's code of ethics which states “To teach using the code of ethics we will be positive role models, be respectful of others privacy, keep confidentiality and maintain professional relationships” (Education Council (n.d). The parent was concerned about the legal aspect of accessing the site. The Dean and I referred to The Ministry of Education's document DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and Responsible Use in Schools (February 2015) which gave this advice:

“Identifying whether problematic conduct is inappropriate or unlawful will have a significant impact on a school’s response. For example, if a criminally unlawful act has occurred, the police should be contacted directly for advice” (p6). 

We both did not feel that it was a matter for the police and preferred to deal with the issue at school.

To resolve this issue the Dean and I had to reinforce  the safeguards put in place at school to prevent  offensive material reaching our students. We had a long discussion at how effective they are are came to these elucidations.

Safeguarding our students.

When students report classmates watching inappropriate material on their BYOD or mobile device when they should be engaged in a class activity - there are clear boundaries that have been overstepped. Most schools will have a Digital Use policy and Digital Citizenship statement that the student parents sign. School networks will have sophisticated filtering systems and safe sites identified by Netsafe and their internet provider (usually NT4L). Yet it is becoming increasing more difficult to filter out the inappropriate content due the website providers tagging the content with innocuous words so that it passes the test around keyword alerts.

Classroom monitoring. 

Additionally with more sophisticated IT classroom systems that show and list the users website history plus real time displays of user activity (such as Hepara dashboard) one would think it would be easy to identify inappropriate content and activity by simply looking at the website address. One obvious strategy to prevent students accessing inappropriate material is to give them a safe or known list of websites from which to resource their information. However, this also means that the teacher is directing the activity and limiting the information available and therefore stifling their creativity and access to further knowledge.

Consequences at school.

To support the user agreement policy there are clear procedures and consequences. If students access inappropriate material, rules are breached and the standard procedure is to call the parents in and restrict or even prevent internet access. This has significant impact especially at Secondary School as often an assessment task is reliant on accessing the internet for information. 

Implication for the school and my practice.

Both the parent and school now recognize that students’ access to the internet is no longer limited to schools, home and WiFi hot spots. These still remain the main way we connect to the internet. However with the development of mobile devices being able to access 3G and  4G networks, students have far more independence and opportunity to access the internet when they want and view what they want. This is more often the case with High School Senior students who often work part-time and pay out of their own pocket for their plans and data.

What schools need to focus on is individuals' own responsibilities and to educate them to what is inappropriate and offensive material. This needs to evolve from the protection to learning safe and responsible usage of the internet as this graphic shows from The Ministry of Education document DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and Responsible Use in Schools (February 2015).   

(p.16)

The most telling factor was the discussion around leaving a digital footprint and that no matter how hard you try to delete your own web browser history there is a permanent record somewhere of you accessing a site and the content that was viewed. That is the moment of realisation that even though the internet is a wonderful thing it needs to be used responsibly.

References

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and responsible use in schools: Ministry of Education document (February 2015) retrieved from  http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf

Educational Council, (n.d), The Educational Council Code of Ethics for Certified teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Staying Safe Online :https://www.netsafe.org.nz/resourcesengageparentscommunity/

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Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice : Week 28

Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice.

There has been a focus at our school to develop our cultural responsiveness through the He Kakano, Ka Hitkita and more recently the Kia Eke Panuku building on success program.

Areas that work well are the learning activities where the content and delivery has changed significantly to improve Maori achievement and engagement.

Ako: Teachers can use a range of strategies that promote effective teaching interactions and relationships with their learners

"Relationships are key in gaining student motivation and engagement" ( Hattie 2009). Central to this is providing opportunities for teachers to become the learner and the student the teacher. To facilitate this students need to have ownership of the activity and see relevance in achieving the challenge set before them. In a practical subject such as Technology there are ample opportunities to engage with student interests that exist outside of the learning environment. It also provides an opportunity to make connections with the whanau and the community. This is essential in identifying that Ako is grounded in the principle of reciprocity and also recognizes that students and their whānau cannot be separated.

The move to reframing teaching opportunities into a Maori context.

One project which has seen a high level of engagement is the manufacture of a Waka Huia. This was previously a storage box type activity which students designed and manufactured. The change to a Waka Huia or container for treasured possessions has created opportunity for developing Maori design and the significance of graphics and symbols. Students are encouraged to have significant input from family and whanau when designing their artwork for their Waka Huia and reinforces the research that "students are more likely to achieve when they see themselves and their culture reflected positively in subject matter and learning contexts." Te Kete Ipurangi, MOE. (2012)

Providing strong pathways for success. As part of our manufacturing program our department has actively sought to create productive partnerships with parents, whānau, hapū, iwi, communities and businesses. These are primarily focused on educational success; however there has been a significant input from local employers to provide quality careers information, advice and guidance. This is done in consultation with students whanau, whilst listening to the aspirations of Māori students, their parents, whānau, hapū, iwi and communities. We often invite past students back into our manufacturing classes to give first-hand accounts of the expectation of employers and tertiary training providers. This also creates an opportunity to have older family members to speak to wider audiences, providing mana for these students and set high expectations for our students.

Areas for improvement.

The New Zealand Curriculum, page 9 states that “The curriculum has meaning for students, connects with their wider lives, and engages the support of their families, whānau, and communities.” 
In this clip Dr Mere Berryman discusses the findings from her research with Māori whānau and communities regarding the connections between Maori and engagement.

Video 1: Connecting with the BES from Copeland & Associates on Vimeo.

So whilst providing strong connections in my subject area I need to ask myself how effective are we in engaging the support across the school through our communication.

Regular communication. 

Even though the school produces a paper copy of the school newsletter to be sent home with every student there still remains opportunity to build stronger relationships. The school guidelines suggest that schools/teachers' communication with parents should be timely, useful, easily understood, and culturally appropriate. It also states that the communication needs to be clear, precise, frequent, and that a range of media and formats is to be used. However our school needs to find more innovative ways to communicate with parents, for example engaging with parents face-to-face outside of school hours, and outside of school grounds. One suggestion from a parent, which is  being auctioned, is to identify at the start of the year parents' preferred method of communication. Schools should also proactively and systematically identify families who are not yet involved in their children’s schooling and extend personal invitations for them to become involved, providing clear guidance on what is expected from parents. This then would improve the turnout at parent evenings and could provide the first opportunity to build the relationship with parents you would not usually see.

Despite trying a number of different approaches and times to parent teacher interviews there is still a low turnout (42%  of the school population and 30% for Maori families). This provides limited opportunity for 1 on 1 conversation and little time to discuss aspirations  for their tamariki and even less time to discuss ways to support learning and achievement. Subsequently communication is often formal through letter writing and electronic methods and is part of the school's standard schedule of communication. Part of this is the reporting of student achievement which is always compared against NZ pakeha , Pasifika and Asian students and generally indicates a lower standard of achievement which reinforces deficient thinking. One suggestion is that the school management should meet with Māori parents to discuss their involvement with the school and find out what they can do to improve communication. Specifically to find out how they prefer to consult about the curriculum, progress reporting, and Māori student achievement.

References:

Connecting with the BES. Dr Berryman M https://vimeo.com/151600659 retrived from http://kep.org.nz/module-8/5-key-messages-from-chapter-7-school-leadership-bes

Education for Māori: Relationships between schools and whānau, Controller for the Auditor General, February 2015. retrieved from http://www.oag.govt.nz/2015/education-for-maori/docs/education-for-maori.pdf

Evaluation Indicators for School Reviews A commentary on engaging parents, whānau and communities Berryman Dr M., University of Waikato June 2014. retrived from http://www.ero.g ovt.nz/assets/Indicators-supporting-reports/Berryman-paper-approved-160816.pdf

Hattie, J.A.C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of 800+ meta-analyses on achievement.  Oxford, UK: Routledge.retrived from http://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/

Inquiry into engaging parents in the education of their children :Report of the Education and Science Comittee, Fiftieth Parliament (Dr Cam Calder, Chairperson) July 2014. Presented to the House of Representatives retrieved from  https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-nz/50DBSCH_SCR56937_1/510e16a9c5abb15a7885c981e73632251e93eb8c

Ka Hitkita: Aceelerating –  Success 2013–2017 , Ministry of Education, New Zealand retrieved from  http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/Strategies-and-policies/Ka-Hikitia/KaHikitiaAcceleratingSuccessEnglish.pdf

Qualification Pathways in a Māori context. NZQA Sept 2014, retrieved from http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/about-us/publications/qa-news/qa-news-issue-2/

School Leadership BES (Robinson, Hohepa & Lloyd, 2009)  Creating Educationally Powerful Connections with Families, Whānau, and Communities (p.142)

Supporting Maori Students, TKI,Ministry of Education retrieved from   http://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/supporting-maori-students/

Broader Professional context :Contempary Trend or Issues Week 27

Will teaching the 21st Skills meet the needs of a future work force????The latest educational practice breaks down the 21st Century Skills into a simplistic 4C's, whereas other frameworks offer more detailed specifics. 

 

           

Do these 21st century skills match the requirements of the skill-set that employers are looking for and will they future proof our students for employment in the future? 

During the Mindlab course there has been a constant backdrop to the course content which can be summarised by these Global Issues:

65% of jobs in the future haven't been invented yet.

Low skilled jobs will be replaced by automation and robots

How can we best prepare our students for this unknown and how accurate are these claims? 

These are statements that are out in the public domain and to some extent are driving the change in education to ensure that our students can meet the requirements of working in the 21st century. 

Jobs that don't exist yet :

10 years ago you wouldn't have considered being a web designer, social media manager, 3d animator and there is no doubt that the landscape of work has changed during the past 10 years. Globalisation, demographic shifts and technological advances are some factors that have created a highly competitive, rapidly changing work environment.

However there is an often used sound bite that is used to advocate for the rapid change in education which is "65% of jobs in the future don't exist yet" and/ or "60% of children will be employed in jobs that currently don't exist.". This appears to be an incredibly high percentage and on first inspection would appear to reflect the exponential growth in digital technologies. Andrew Old in his blog A Myth for Teachers: Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet attempts to identify the source of this statement and find no clear attributable reference despite it appearing in the New York Post article indexing it to a 1999 report from the US Department of Labour. Importantly he closes his article with the following from a book written in 1966:

The idea that our schools should remain content with equipping children with a body of knowledge is absurd and frightening. Tomorrow’s adults will be faced with problems about the nature of which we can today have no conception. They will have to cope with the jobs not yet invented.

This demonstrates that the notion of future proofing our students for future employment is nothing new so what skills are required to thrive in a 21 Century Work Place of the future.

Skills for Future Employment.

Alex Grey in his article for The World Economic Forum suggests that "Five years from now, over one-third of skills (35%) that are considered important in today’s workforce will have changed." He identifies the loss of negotiation and flexibility skills as a consequence of machines, using masses of data, starting to make our decisions for us.

So how accurate is the claim that robots and automation will cause high unemployment.?

It is widely excepted that automation does remove hard manual labour and even back in the 1800's when the wool mills underwent an industrial revolution through to automation of car assembly plants there has been radical change in workforce requirements. This Guardian article suggests that since 1790 new technologies have created more jobs than it has destroyed. Their conclusion was positive and upbeat and showed that rather than destroying jobs, technology has been a “great job-creating machine”.

Skills requirement in a New Zealand context. 

Careers NZ provide an excellent website which identifies the top 10 skills required by employers. 

• communication skills
• customer service skills – in person, on the phone, and online
• ability to work well in a team
• literacy and numeracy skills
• confidence learning about and using computers and technology
• planning and organisational skills
• initiative and a can-do attitude
• problem-solving skills
• good work habits and independence
• health and safety skills.

These skills are all transferable, which means that they are useful in most jobs. So even if you don't have a lot of job-specific skills, you may already have transferable skills that are appealing to employers.

Informing my practice.

Teaching at a Christchurch High School in the current climate of the rebuild has ensured a steady stream of opportunities for students to easily access employment in the manufacturing and construction sectors. The attributes that I previously focussed on was to ultimately prepare them for employment, have a skill set that employers saw as desirable and ensure they were competent in using specific machinery and processes. However the single most challenge that I need to focus on is the ability of my students to constructively work as a team and to engage them in real world problem solving. This will ensure that they need to be creative in their ability to generate ideas before coming up with a solution.

References:

A Myth for Teachers: Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet, Old A., May 27, 2015 retrevied from 

https://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/a-myth-for-teachers-jobs-that-dont-exist-yet/

Skills employers are looking for, Careers NZ, New Zealand Govt. July 2016 retrieved from

http://www.careers.govt.nz/plan-your-career/not-sure-what-to-do/skills-employers-are-looking-for/

STEM Education Helps Teach Skills Necessary for 21st Century Success retrieved from  http://www.enterrasolutions.com/2015/09/stem-education-helps-teach-skills-necessary-for-21st-century-success.html

The 10 skills you need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Grey A., Jan 2016 retrieved from World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/

Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data, Allen K.,August 2015 Guardian Newspaper. London UK. retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/17/technology-created-more-jobs-than-destroyed-140-years-data-census