The Future of Education

Global Citizenship and work integrated learning is becoming more desirable for young people to engage with. [1] However, as graduates enter the new global workforce they are challenged with; digital platforms, trans-disciplinary teams and working across time zones and cultures. Coupled with this, many large global corporations have noted that recent graduates lack the 21st Century skills of; collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, communication and citizenship to be work ready. Both tertiaries and their local business sectors are not equipped to offer every student a place to practice their 21stCentury skills to apply their knowledge to a modern globally connected work place. In collaboration with the New Zealand Government, we conducted an active research project which tested a proof of concept to augment the current tertiary system. Over 350 participants from 70 countries across 21 time zones were placed in international teams where they worked together solving global challenges. We tested their critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity and citizenship skills in this peer to peer digital environment. [1] Our results show that scalable platforms where students can collaborate in a peer to peer learning environment could be the key to ensuring that all graduates are work ready and also that these new learning methodologies have the potential to augment the current grading system for graduates entering the workforce.

Keywords: Work integrated learning, 21stCentury skills;

References: 
[1] www.emergingfutures.co.nz/report