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The OEB Global Plenary Debate: 'This House Believes That an Obsession with Economics Is Harming Education and Undermining the Skills We Need for the Future'
Date Thursday, Nov 28 Time – RoomPotsdam I
Education is becoming increasingly focussed on delivering the skills employers need. Is this a good thing? As we struggle to satisfy employers and meet the demands of the market, are we losing sight of what is really important? In our obsession with 'Industry 4.0' and as we try to define '21C skills' in an era of rapid, technological change, are we losing sight of what is really important in education and failing to provide learners with what they are likely to need for their whole lives? Shouldn't we be providing the existential skills that will always be relevant and not just the training for jobs and markets that are likely to be here today but gone tomorrow? Are the short-term needs of industry and an exaggerated emphasis on the importance of economics in planning education policy distorting our priorities? Are the latest models right for what our societies and our planet are likely to need in the future? How can we future-proof learning?
Join us at the OEB Global Plenary Debate for a discussion about the fundamentals of education and an exciting exploration of what learning should mean in the future.
Paul Kirschner
Professor of Psychology, Professor, author and internationally recognised expert on interaction in learning and collaboration for learning
Paul A. Kirschner is university distinguished professor at the Open University of the Netherlands as well as visiting professor of education with a special emphasis on learning and interaction in teacher education at the University of Oulu, Finland.
He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of educational psychology and instructional design. He is research fellow of the American Educational Research Association (the first European to receive this honour), the International Society of the Learning Sciences, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Science. He was president of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) in 2010-2011 and a member of both the ISLS CSCL Board and the Executive Committee of the Society. He is currently a member of the Scientific Technical Council of the Foundation for University Computing Facilities (SURF WTR) in the Netherlands and was a member of the Dutch Educational Council and, as such, was advisor to the Minister of Education (2000-2004).
He is chief editor of the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, associate editor of Computers in Human Behavior, and has published a number of very successful books including Ten Steps to Complex Learning (now in its third revised edition and translated/published in Korea and China) and Urban Legends about Learning and Education. He also co-edited two other books (Visualizing Argumentation and What We Know about CSCL).
His areas of expertise include interaction in learning, collaboration for learning (computer supported collaborative learning), and regulation of learning.
Links
David Toborek
Head of talent and Head of IT at Metronom GmbH
David is currently responsible for growing the METRONOM Hub in Berlin and has previously worked for numerous companies in Product Management related roles and he additionally actively participates in the area of entrepreneurship.
Being exposed to the various educational systems throughout his life, Germany for his secondary school, Poland for his High-School and Bachelors and Scotland for his Masters, he got first-hand experience on how they differ.
Olivier Crouzet
Head of Pedagogy at "42", a disruptive educational model and coding school
With a scientific background, Olivier Crouzet got a Master degree as an IT engineer. During scholarship, he acted both as a technical assistant and a teaching assistant. After 2 years as system administrator in the 3rd French Internet service provider, he developed during thirteen years a well-known IT school which became a French major institution.
He designed the pedagogical model, and made it evolve. Based on this educational success, a new IT school '42' is created in 2013, along with Nicolas Sadirac, Kwame Yamgnane and Florian Bucher, promoting an even more advanced training methodology, called Peer-Learning. Olivier Crouzet designed this model: 100%-project-based, without any teacher, lecture, nor knowledge transfer. Students debate, exchange ideas, try, fail, try again, to reach the goal, and finally evaluate their peers.
Founded and funded by Xavier Niel, owner of one of the four French telecom company, '42' is totally free for the students. In this spirit of social opening, Olivier Crouzet, while still evolving the pedagogical model of the school, is also promoting evolution in the French education system through various conferences
Edith Hooge
Serves as the Chair of the Education Council of the Netherlands
Edith Hooge serves as the Chair of the Education Council of the Netherlands, the governmental advisory body which provides advice, both solicited and unsolicited, to the Ministers of Education, Culture and Science, to Parliament and to local authorities.
Since hundred years, the Dutch Education Council operates as an independent think tank, providing analyses of current topics and formulating recommendations and solutions on the application of (new) laws and policies.
Prof. dr. Hooge is full Professor on Boards and Governance in Education at TIAS, Tilburg University. Her research and teaching revolve around policy, network governance and management in complex education systems, educational quality and accountability.
Links
Moderator
Harold Elletson
Editor / Senior Fellow, International communications consultant and editor of the eLearning Africa Report
Dr Harold Elletson is an International Communications Consultant and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Statecraft.
He is a founding director of the Africa Forum on Business, Investment and Security, a member of the steering committee of OEB, a member of the Organising Committee of eLearning Africa and a consultant to ICWE GmbH. He is also the editor of The eLearning Africa Report.
Dr Elletson was previously Director of the NATO Forum on Business and Security, which he created with support from the NATO Science Programme.
A former Member of the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1992-1997), he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the early stages of the peace process and was also a member of the Select Committee on Environmental affairs. He served as a member of the Lancashire Education Authority (the Education Committee of Lancashire County Council) before being elected to Parliament where he represented the interests of schools and colleges in his constituency in discussions with Ministers and on the floor of the House of Commons. He is a Fellow of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and of the Industry and Parliament Trust.
As a communications and public affairs specialist, he has advised many leading companies on aspects of their business in challenging markets, including BP in Azerbaijan and Alstom in Siberia. He has written widely on political and historical subjects and his first book, The General Against the Kremlin, that was published by Little Brown. His journalism has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Dr Elletson holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford.