Week 6: Multi-Modal Presentation on Rethinking Education

/ Noelle Fleszar

During the duration of this course, we were tasked to work with a think tank on a wicked problem about education. My think tank chose to work towards finding solutions for Rethinking Education. Berger’s “A More Beautiful Question” encouraged us to ask What If, How, and Why questions to help us discover the issues, recognize the steps needed to make a change, and come up with solutions for implementation (Berger, 2014). We focused our attention on coming up with solutions for the following questions:

  1. How can we rethink education to ensure that it is individualized and responsive to the needs of each student while maintaining standards for rigor and effectively utilizing 21st century technological tools?
  2. How can we structure education for teachers to provide ample productive opportunities for collaboration to meet the needs of all students (e.g. lesson studies, curriculum planning, activity coordination and evaluation)?

Through research and discussion, we came up with a few solutions to answer our questions and solve our wicked problem. We realize that these solutions are not a panacea, but they are a step in the right direction.

Solutions:

  1. Rethink education so that it is individualized while utilizing 21st century technologies, developing critical thinking skills, and meeting reimagined state standards.
  2. Create an environment for both teachers and students to learn and collaborate locally, statewide, nationally, and internationally.

Once we discovered some solutions to our wicked problem, we surveyed our Personal Learning Network of educators to find out their thoughts and opinions on our wicked problem and proposed solutions. Many of our solutions were well received, while others had doubters. We understood that not everyone would agree 100% with all the  solutions we proposed, which makes Rethinking Education a wicked problem.

For more information on our wicked problem, our process of inquiry, and our solutions, please view the multi-modal infographics below as well as the link to our survey. We hope you become as inspired as we did to Rethink Education!

Multi-Modal Infographic of Wicked Problem Solutions Link

Survey Link 

Questioning Process Infographic Link

 

References:

Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.

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