ASET Technology Alberta Fall 2021 - 17

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" We see these pockets of really excellent digital instruction
happening, but we also see communities where that
isn't happening at all, " she says. To rectify this issue, she
advocates for mobilizing and researching education across
Canada, to develop a better-informed, systems-thinking approach...
across every field of study.
" It seems to me there's a beautiful opportunity for experts
in science and technology to start thinking about how they
teach those critical dispositions around decision-making
with digital information, " she says.
Burbules points to that role as part of a larger transformation
of what it could mean to be a teacher. " Teachers still
play a crucial role in helping learners (especially young
learners but not only young learners) identify and evaluate
what are the valuable and credible sources of knowledge
and information they encounter online, " he says.
That education might look like comparative case studies,
something Hagerman says show a lot of promise in helping
students to pick out particular signs of trustworthiness and
the nuanced aspects of arguments presented to them.
Evolving education demands aren't just limited to properly
parsing out digital information. There's also the element of skills
transferability, exceedingly important to have given the modern
rate of change of knowledge-bases in many professions.
" Any advanced knowledge, any knowledge of getting into a
profession, whether it's a trade or law, is changing all the
time. You have maybe five years of shelf life of what you
know, " Bishop says.
" If you learn fundamental skills of how
to learn, how to collaborate, how to
problem-solve, how to communicate,
I don't care what you're doing. Those
are going to be useful; those are never
going to go out of style, " he says.
Even in fields primarily associated with hard skills and
knowledge bases, there's a high demand for fundamentals
like creativity, for example.
" Creativity is hard to assess, and so we call it a soft skill.
And yet for people who go into engineering, it's crucial. It's
absolutely essential, " Burbules says.
" Something like creativity,
communication skills,
critical
thinking skills, learning to collaborate. If you interview
employers in any field, not just engineering, these are the
things they say they most want, " he says.
Burbules emphasizes that such competencies aren't valuable
only to the job market; they're valuable to creating
better citizens.
Claire Simmers, professor with the department of management
at St. Joseph's University, points to the " old-school " of
schooling as a great place to find such skills.
Simmers attests learners should still retain a competent
knowledge in traditional areas like math and writing, to help
lock in strong and clear communication skills. She uses
sentence diagramming as an example of how to set up and
point out patterns - an especially useful skill for something
like data analysis.
" What you're trying to teach people
to do is take all this data and cull out
the important things, or the most
important thing, " she says. " That's
even more important right now,
because there's so much data! "
Using those digital systems can improve such traditional
areas of schooling in a reciprocal way. Hagerman uses science
curriculum, and how learners can test their hypotheses
using datasets collected from digital methods, as a
prime example of this enhancement.
In the humanities, meanwhile, Tim Skuce, associate professor
at the University of Manitoba, has found new and interesting
ways to bring more immediacy into social studies.
" There's such a multiplicity of voices now that we can bring
into class ... We can do it in real time. We can actually
listen to a speech by person X, as it's being presented, "
he says.
" I've seen our students reaching out to Indigenous communities
to talk about place differently, and to talk to an elder
on the land as they move in and through the land in ways
that [the students are] unfamiliar with. " Such an instant
learning mechanism is sure to have a bit more kick than
reading about the same topic in a textbook.
TECHNOLOGY ALBERTA | FALL 2021 | 17
ASET Technology Alberta Fall 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASET Technology Alberta Fall 2021
