What might education focus on post COVID19?

In Australia, schools are just beginning to return after the long summer vacation. Teachers are turning their thoughts to what the new school year might look like, preparing for professional learning days and readying classrooms for a fresh year of learning that we all hope will look more like those we remember pre-COVID. In other parts of the world, schools are entering a new calendar year and where the challenges of remote learning continue to dominate their thinking. On the horizon is the prospect of a post-COVID world thanks to the development and distribution of hopefully effective vaccines.

As we move towards this brighter future with the fear of a global pandemic somewhat alleviated, what might be our next steps? How might we apply the lessons learned so rapidly, and brutally during this past twelve-month period? Might COVID be a catalyst for the reinvention of education that so many have been calling for?

In his book, “The Infinite Game”, Simon Sinek advises readers to look beyond the short term gain. Rather than seek the immediate win by playing a finite game, we are urged to consider how we might best engage with the infinite game where there are no fixed rules, no set players and the game has no end. The concept of finite and infinite games was developed by James Carse in 1986:

THERE ARE at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. (Carse, 1986 p3)

Infinite games have infinite time horizons. And because there is no finish line, no practical end to the game, there is no such thing as “winning” an infinite game. In an infinite game, the primary objective is to keep playing, to perpetuate the game. (Sinek, 2019 p4)

Education is most definitely an infinite game. For everyone involved, particularly in modern times, it meets all of the requirements of our definition of an infinite game. The players routinely change. So too do the rules and the goal posts move just as frequently and are at best fluidly defined by the changing tides of society, politics and culture. There is no endpoint. It might be argued that when we are talking formal education, we are defining a period of time from the moment one enters their first year of schooling as a Kindergarten or Foundation student until they leave with a formal qualification. In modern times such a neatly framed definition of our time in education is laughably ill-conceived. There is little if any doubt that education, and through it learning, is something we shall engage with until long into our sunset years.

Despite this, schools seem to adopt an unhealthy embrace of the finite game. Each school year seems to be viewed as a game with winners and losers. The measures of success are taken as the assessments students complete and the culmination of these is the final school leaving qualification and its associated ranking of students. This exam preparation focus distracts us from the infinite game that we should be giving our attention to. Instead of asking what grade I got for that last assignment, our students should be wondering how it drove them toward their next learning goal. If we were to play an infinite game, our focus would be on how each learning moment better prepares us to achieve the primary objective of playing-on, perpetuating the game of learning.

During our COVID adventures with remote learning, at least after the initial shock and rapid responses to the most immediate challenges, educators grappled with new challenges and found exciting solutions. Many of these allowed us to move a step away from playing the examination focused finite game. We recognised that a prime goal was to develop in our learners, new levels of independence. Unable to control every moment of their learning, we confronted a reality in which partnerships between learners and educators became essential. Remote learning also revealed to us that education could occur across boundaries of time and space. Freed from the constraints of the physicality of the classroom learning took on new shapes, new forms and achieved new possibilities. Our students saw their role in learning differently too. They were able to take ownership of the process in ways they did not have access to in a traditional setting. The almighty timetable and daily schedule became somewhat more flexible. Learning was less a thing that happened to them during set hours of the day and more a thing that they could choose to engage with in an almost à la carte fashion.

In a post COVID world, how might we continue to build learners who own their learning? What approaches to learning and pedagogy might we continue to engage that are supportive of independence and learner agency?

Such skills and dispositions are both timely and timeless. The World Economic Forum routinely publishes a list of the most desirable skills for the workplace of the not too distant future. For 2025 their top five connect beautifully with a vision for education focused on playing an infinite game. Each has value now, tomorrow and long into the future. Each is resistant to changing circumstances. Each equips a player in an infinite game with the capabilities they need as they adapt to changes in the game and to play as drivers of change.

1. Analytical thinking and innovation

2. Active learning and learning strategies

3. Complex problem solving

4. Critical thinking and analysis

5. Creativity, originality and initiative

6. (WEF - Future of Jobs Report 2020)

These are skills that we can develop and learn but never truly master. Nor are they pieces of knowledge or base capabilities which are likely to become irrelevant with time. We shall continue to call upon these dispositions over time, and we can refine and relearn how we approach each as new challenges and opportunities emerge. As society continues to evolve, new strategies, tools, modalities and ideologies are bound to emerge, but our capacity for engagement with these changes will be defined by these skills.

Education, as a finite game, will always tend to undervalue these skills. They are too easily seen as obstacles to the teaching of essential content required for exams. To win the finite game of education, one’s needs are seen as best served by privileging the specific knowledge and skills assessed in the next test. Time spent on teaching active learning strategies, innovation, creativity and initiative is too easily seen as a series of distractions which stand in the way of achieving the more immediate goals. Like a player in a soccer game, we are focused on scoring the winning goal but blind to the reality that there is no winning goal to be had in this game.

Perhaps this is the ultimate challenge for education post COVID, to shift our focus towards how we prepare our students to play the infinite game of education.

By Nigel Coutts

Carse, James. (1986) Finite and Infinite Games (p. 3). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

Sinek, Simon. (2019) The Infinite Game (p. 4). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

What might it take to bring real change to education?

I had the pleasure recently of listening to Michael Fullan thanks to ACEL (Australian Council for Educational Leaders). Like many thought leaders who are looking closely at the current state of education, Michael builds a strong case for radical change in education. Like others, Michael believes that the circumstances we find ourselves in now as a result of COVID19 might be the catalyst for change that education has long needed. There is a perceived opportunity to shift the dial, to reimagine what education might be like rather than retuning to what was normal in pre-COVID times. “The education goal is not just to survive COVID-19, but to end up with something significantly “better” than was the case in 2019.” (Fullan 2020)

The case for change is well known and well documented. The current model of education has its roots in a distant past. It reflects the need for a workforce that was able to carry out well-known procedures with high levels of repeatability. The world of work would require a great deal of routine cognitive labour, and the education would supply the highly standardised workforce that was needed. The result today is a system, that despite reforms around the edges and despite two decades of talk about embedding 21st Century skills, has stalled and is failing to motivate the young people who depend upon it for their futures. 

According to Fullan, the system has not progressed for five key reasons:

• The failure to connect students with purpose

• The failure to challenge students with high expectations

• Inadequate learning goals

• The continued use of old pedagogy

• Failure to build relationships and belongingness

What is needed is a focus on Deep Learning. Fullan details a multi-part process to achieve this through a focus on the 6Cs (character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity & critical thinking) with practical pedagogies, learning partnerships, learning environments and leveraging digital affordances. If these factors are considered within the frames of broader changes to schools, district and systems along with addressing aspects of equity and with a desire to engage the world, change becomes possible. A more detailed understanding of Fullan’s conception of a new model for education is detailed in his book with Joanne Quinn and Joanne McEachen, “Deep Learning: Engage the World Change the World” and details on how it might become a reality through nuanced leadership and systems change can be found in the following books which are highly recommended.  

• Nuance: Why some leaders succeed, and others fail. By Michael Fullan

• The Devil is in the Details: System solutions for equity, excellence, and student well-being. By Michael Fullan & Mary Jean Gallagher

Early in his presentation, Fullan makes an important point about change, and it connects strongly with why now might be the time to see real change take place. “It’s not going to happen by drift.” The model so far for change in education has been one of slow change, gradual reform around the edges with the core barely touched. This is reflected in the research conducted by Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine who went “In Search of Deeper Learning” and found that it was more likely to occur on the edges of education in co-curricular activities. We might all want change, but we want it to occur very slowly so we never feel the pain and we would prefer if it doesn’t happen in the educational heartland of traditional classes. 

The slow pace of change is why we are still talking about introducing 21st Century Skills as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century. It is this pace that means students in classrooms across the globe are losing interest. It is why we continue to confront issues of equity. Combine a slow pace of meaningful change towards a new more enlightened vision for education with a rapid drive towards heightened levels of standardised testing (an unceasing desire to measure attributes of learning that increasingly matter less), and we have a system that is in need of radical change. The question is, will COVID be the catalyst for this change?

Other industries have confronted change on this sort of scale. Famously many leading players in these industries missed the boat. Kodak was one of the leading players in photography. Big Yellow was the much-loved film used by many and its place in pop culture was cemented when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang its praises in “Kodachrome”. But despite playing a leading role in developing digital imaging technology, Kodak failed to transition into the new world of digital photography. They persisted with a product that was no longer fit for purpose. As the world demonstrated an increasing desire to share images instantly and through the emerging internet and social media worlds, Kodak stuck with film. Instead of embracing radical change that played on the edges by making film easier to load and by promising faster turn around times for development. While Kodak played on the edges and took a slowly, slowly approach to change, others leapt in and embraced the possibilities for a new industry centred on digital photography. 

Is now the time for a new player in the field of education to emerge? What are the possibilities for an organisation with the mindset of a tech start-up to disrupt education? What if instead of playing on the edges, someone approached education as though it was a fresh field. How might we imagine an education system fit for the purposes of today if we started from nothing instead of trying to repurpose a system past its use-by date? 

Maybe this is the challenge that we confront as we consider what comes next. Instead of thinking about evolution, we need to go back to the beginning. What if there was no education system to be evolved but instead a realisation that we need one to meet the needs of our young people. How would we come to understand those needs, and what might our response look like? Almost certainly it would not look like the education system we have today, but just as certainly it is unlikely to be like anything that our current system is likely to slowly ‘drift’ towards. 

By Nigel Coutts

Responding to COVID19: Now and in the long-term.

The past months and even more so the past few weeks have been challenging for educators on an unprecedented scale. As COVID19 continues to spread both as a global pandemic of a medical nature and as the almost singular focus of social media, education has confronted change on a scale we might never have imagined. Amidst the very real threat to our health and to the safety of our families, teachers have risen to the challenge of reinventing overnight what school is and what it looks like to be a teacher. 

At this point in time, most of us have dove into the deep and murky waters of online learning. For some, this means that all students are working remotely. For others, there is the double challenge of providing for remote learners while also meeting the needs of those who are still attending in person. Some are in lockdown, restricted to their homes and under intense police surveillance, others with varying degrees of liberty. Regardless, we all confront an uncertain future. Timeframes provided by experts vary enormously and it can be hard to see a light at the end of this tunnel. 

"All that was 'normal' has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense." - Sardar, Z. "Welcome to postnormal times”

I have shared this quote from Sardar often, but it seems more real now than ever. There is very little ‘normal’ in the ways we are living our lives, connecting with loved ones, running our households and, for teachers and students, how we are engaging in learning. 

Change in schools is always challenging, but at this point, it seems it is also absolute, unavoidable and urgent. Many educators have been on a slow journey towards models of education that integrate seamlessly with an online world. There have always been those who rapidly embrace technology and those who see it as a threat to their identity or a shiny add-on with little proven value. Now, online learning is very rapidly becoming the norm. This brings with it very real tensions, many of which are yet to be seen in full. These are early days and while teachers are doing an amazing job of learning to swim in this new world of online learning, many will be longing to a return to the modes of teaching they know best. If the need for online learning continues beyond the scope of weeks and extends into months, as many have predicted, we can predict greater challenges. 

Teacher identity is closely linked to our role as teachers and our perception of that role is reflected in our pedagogy. Where the intended change alters the nature of our pedagogy and fundamentally shifts the relationships between teachers and students, and between teachers and knowledge resistance is more likely. Smollan and Sayers indicate the importance of understanding the socially constructed nature of identity and the potentially negative impact that change can have on this for individuals, 'that change ‘dislodges’ identity and leads to anxiety and grieving’ (Smollan & Sayers. 2009 p439) it is difficult to predict how this forced change is likely to impact teacher identity in the long term, however, a degree of grief for what has been lost seems inevitable. 

Educational organisations with their focus on the provision of human services and the inherent relationships between teacher and student and between teachers, creates a complex emotional playground. In schools, emotion and culture are linked, and change of culture frequently invokes an emotional response. “A person’s sense of identity is partly determined by his or her values, which can mesh or clash with organizational values” (Smollan & Sayers 2009 p439) When cultural change is sought in a school and it is not viewed as fitting with one’s values or it calls those values into question emotional responses such as fear, anger or sadness are common. The rapid nature of this change has, at least in many schools and at least in the short term, prohibited the normal processes and norms which accompany significant change. The process of planning, programming and resourcing units of learning, is typically lengthy, involves many stakeholders and much debate. The result, when everything works, is a sequence of planned learning opportunities that are tightly aligned with the teacher’s core beliefs about teaching. Whether this is a belief in the primacy of direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, teaching for understanding, a Reggio Emilia approach or another signature pedagogy, the experiences planned for students by teachers should be in alignment. In the rush to get content online, this process has been derailed and the short-term responses do not reflect the best our profession is capable of, even if they represent an exceptional response under the most challenging of circumstances. 

At some point, we will need to pause. Lift our heads up and survey the scenery in this new world. Then, let us hope that we ask the right questions. Making time and space for a moment of pause and reflection will be crucial if it becomes clear that this is more than a brief fling with online learning. In this moment of pause, we must go back to the fundamental questions that shape our beliefs about learning. These questions should shape how we organise learning in an online world as much as they do when we are teaching face-to-face. 

• What do I want my students to understand here?

• What might they already understand about this? What gaps might there be in their understanding? How might I make this visible in an online environment? What obstacles block students from showing their understanding that I can remove? e.g not requiring a written response.

• What experiences might allow them to achieve this and then demonstrate it?

• As I evaluate the activities I have planned for my students:

• Do they move students towards this understanding?

  1. What understanding does this activity require?

  2. What evidence of understanding does this provide?

• How do I fill gaps? Questions, Prompts, Provocations, Direct Instruction, Feedforward.

• What thinking will they require for this task? How might I scaffold that? How do I make it visible in an online environment?

• What next?

And, now perhaps more than ever, as we confront fear and uncertainty, we will all need a sense of agency empowered by capacities required to activate or perform our intentions (Clapp et al 2010). "This entails thinking about the world not as something that unfolds separate and apart from us but as a field of action that we can potentially direct and influence” (Ritchhart p. 77). They must become creative problem finders through learning opportunities that allow them to "sense that there is a puzzle somewhere or a task to be accomplished" (Csikszentmihalyi p. 95) and respond strategically, creatively and collaboratively towards solutions devised with empathy and a long-term view of impacts and real-costs (Kelley). Our students must be shown the value of acquiring deep-understandings through weaving ideas together, going beyond information and figuring things out (Ritchhart).

This demands that our students are routinely engaged with learning that requires them to do thought-provoking things with what they know, such as considering different viewpoints, reasoning with evidence, uncovering complexity and building explanations (Clapp et al) (Blythe). Such complex thinking does not occur automatically, and our students will need to master structures which support this. Visible thinking strategies assist teachers to make deep thinking a routine part of their classrooms and allow them to 'see' the way their learners are engaging with ideas (Clapp et al). All learning is a consequence of thinking and schools must transform themselves into "cultures of thinking” (Ritchhart). This demands a continual evaluation of the culture that is experienced by students and teachers. We must come to value thinking in all its forms and appreciate that our collective futures depend upon the quality of our thinking.

What is most clear to anyone with an understanding of the scale of the challenge educators are confronting is that this is a profession with immense reserves of talent and wisdom. Amidst such great chaos and confronted by a very real threat to their safety, teachers have reinvented what schools look like in a matter of days. Now, we need to be granted the time to step back from the immediacy of our overnight response and plan how we move forward with plans that will best serve the needs of our learners in the longer term. While we hope and pray that we might return to more normal times, the learning that has occurred in the past weeks seems to offer an opportunity too good to be missed. Moving forward this seems like the perfect time to reflect upon what might be the best possible model for education. A chance to restore that which we miss most from our previous models while retaining what we value in the new. 

By Nigel Coutts

Blythe, T. (1998) "The teaching for understanding guide”, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013) "Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention”, New York, Harper Perennial.

Clapp, E., Ross, J., Oxman Ryan, J. & Tishman, S. (2017) "Maker-centered learning: empowering young people to shape their worlds”, San Francisco, Josey Bass

Kelley, D. (2013)  "Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All”, London, Harper Collins.

[4] Ritchhart, R. (2015) "Creating cultures of thinking: The eight forces we must truly master to transform our schools”, San Francisco, Josey-Bass.

Sardar, Z. (2010) "Welcome to postnormal times”, Futures, 42(5), p. 435-444.

Smollan, R & Sayers, J. (2009) Organizational Culture, Change and Emotions: A Qualitative Study, Journal of Change Management, 9:4, 435-457