Ian Jukes – Beyond Literacy to Fluency

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I attended Ian Jukes’ workshop, “Beyond Literacy to Fluency” on the first Monday of the school holidays. What Ian spoke about reflected the views of many of the keynotes at EduTECH, and as such, they weren’t radical new ideas for me. However, he provided me with a framework for implementing these ideas, which has resulted in many ideas floating around in my head.

In a nutshell, Ian explained that our education system needs to change, as it is still modelled on the schools of the Industrial Age. We cannot continue doing things because that’s they way we’ve always done it (TTWWADI). Disruptive innovation is fundamentally changing how we live. These changes have implications for our students. For example, we live in a world of hyperinformation. We have access to any piece of information instantly and wirelessly. And yet, the major skill that is developed in our schools is memorisation (Ian stated that 80-85% of the work that students complete is focused on factual recall and low level procedural thinking). Furthermore, disruptive innovation is changing employment. Ian proposed that in the next 10-15 years, white collar jobs will disappear due to them being outsourced to third world countries or being displaced by digital tools. However, in five years, creative class jobs will make up 50% of Australian jobs.

How do we address short term goals (e.g. NAPLAN, achieving ‘good’ grades) whilst addressing long term goals (e.g. life skills)? Ian states that:

Engagement (Relevance and Personal Interest)
+ Higher Order Thinking Skills
+ Real World Experiences (or Simulations)
+ the 9Is (Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Independent Problem Solving, Interdependent Collaboration, Information Investigation, Information Communication, Imagination Creativity, Innovation Creativity and Internet Citizenship)
+ Authentic Assessment
= Modern Learning

Whilst planning for Term 3, I continue to consider how I can better incorporate HOTS and authentic learning and how I can use the 9Is Model (and the 6Ds and the 5As) as frameworks to support the development of my students’ long life skills. I’m looking forward to trying to change things up!