yong zhao – Education & Teacher Conferences Skip to main content

Tag: yong zhao

Learning Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for all Students by Yong Zhao
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
November 17, 2021

Learning Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for all Students by Yong Zhao

Read More

In Learning Without Borders: New Learning Pathways for all Students, Yong Zhao outlines an ongoing and necessary paradigm shift in education, offering new ways of thinking and examples from the frontier of this trend. This is a timely piece that highlights the changes that were forced upon us by the pandemic but have been in the works for a long time. The pandemic exacerbated existing cracks in the system but also spotlighted new opportunities. The old boundaries and structures of education need to be transformed if we truly want to create pathways for the success of all students.

This book asks us to fundamentally reorganize our thinking about school and to make it genuinely student-centered. Putting the student at the center of education is a relatively common idea in education, but Yong gives a contemporary angle enabling the reader to systematically build an understanding of emerging roles teachers and students will play in this new education. His book challenges the way we think about pedagogy by integrating discussions of learning pathways, curriculum design, self-directed learning, and existing technology.

At the core of the discussion is an education system that is built around student needs that are determined in partnership with students. But before we can challenge the practices of the system, flawed mindsets are challenged: schools do not prepare students for life — students are already living full lives full of formative experiences, and schools do not transmit knowledge to students — students have unprecedented access to knowledge and are learning all the time without direct instruction.

Along with a changing mindset comes a need for an evaluation of the paths we offer, schools do much more than prepare students for college. Schooling should dynamically align with the individual student pathways, not group students onto the same path. The current structured form of education focuses on curriculum design without students; to support student development, students need to be co-owners of curriculum design. The curriculum should support the students in following their passions and endeavors not in satisfying a list of government determined metrics. Learning needs to be meaningful and Yong helps us ask the right questions to direct our practice.

These changes are not only theoretical but are ready to implement now more than ever before. They are scaffolded by ripening technology that has enabled students to truly take the reins. This has led some to fear a replacement of teachers, but the challenge in education he [proposes is not how technology might replace teachers, but to understand what aspects of learning will be done through technology and what aspects have to be done directly by teachers. He helps the reader find their role in this shift by asking us to question our widely held beliefs and adopt new roles. Students have taken charge of their own learning and we as educators need to gain comfort and facility in acting as life coaches, resource curators, community leaders, and project managers. The challenge is to find the new emerging roles for teachers and students in this new educational ecology.

While Yong critiques ways of thinking he also challenges established and accepted norms. We have new types of students who are often enabled by technology engaging the world in new innovative ways. We are completely ignoring the student entrepreneur in our education approaches, for example. We send these students the message that school does not fit them rather than integrating their skills into the system. In another example, he points out structural flaws in student groupings. We currently ignore basic principles of development by grouping students by age not developmental level or passions. And while the classroom has been seen as a fundamental unit within a school, the new classrooms can span the globe. The book is filled with ideas that help us consider the development of current systems.

One may initially think such a book is only for the progressive school and the changes discussed are above the level of the teacher. However, the attentive reader will notice suggestions for small and large changes that teachers can make in their practice. It is not always about creating a new way, it is often about accepting and becoming aware of the ways that are already practiced in the world around us. Educators can use the principles outlined here to empower students, design classrooms, and engage in ways of practicing education that can affect change.

The crux of this argument is that the system is not addressing student needs and radical redesign is necessary to align with systems of learning that are already taking place.  This book helps the reader see and become part of a new education without borders.

Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All Children by Yong Zhao
Rebecca Gotlieb
Rebecca Gotlieb
July 12, 2018

Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All Children by Yong Zhao

Read More

Yong Zhao, University of Kansas Professor of education, has published over 30 books, including a few reviewed here at Learning and the Brain about the importance of entrepreneurship and  creativity  for producing a well-educated citizenry, even though the educational culture is test-obsessed and is increasingly standardizing procedures. In his newest book, Reach for Greatness: Personalizable Education for All Children, Zhao revisits these important themes and emphasizes the need for an educational shift away from trying to mend students’ deficits and towards supporting students’ strengths and passions.

One problem with our current educational model is the expectation that all students will gain roughly the same skills and knowledge at roughly the same pace.  We measure extensively whether this is happening. In spite of extensive efforts to regiment and assess student learning, certain groups continue to systematically receive lower quality education and all students’ are exposed to an educational system that is not focusing on real learning. Zhao calls for a dramatic shift towards developing students’ strengths and interests, ceasing to fix students’ weaknesses, and supporting the development of a broader range of skills, especially creative and entrepreneurial skills.

It is rare for students to be rewarded in school for their passion. Students are rewarded for being well-behaved and competent, regardless of what they are learning or how they feel about it. Our meritocratic educational system determines each students’ merit relative to other students’ ability on a narrow set of skills. Since not all students can be the best at those few skills, many are held to low expectations. These expectations can be damaging, and those who hold them ignore the fact that while not all students will be outstanding at everything, all students can learn and can be great at something.  Students have “jagged profiles”.  That is, there are a myriad of human qualities, and each student excels at some unique combination of those qualities. Each student has his or her own set of strengths, interests, experiences, and relations, and this diversity is what can allow each student to be great in his or her own way.

Indeed, it is natural  for people to need to feel as though they are great and to be able to realize their full potential. In fact, the more the need to feel great is met the more it grows.  Focusing on and developing that which is unique about each student can satisfy each students’ need for greatness.

Zhao calls for “personalizable education.” He explains how we can bring it about—by focuses on enhancing students’ strengths, developing the broad spectrum of human talents that are important for our changing economy, and capitalizing on students’ motivation to contribute to the world. Personalizable education is premised on the idea that students can organize their own learning. To implement it schools need to give students substantial agency over how they spend their time, allow for shared governance among administrators, teachers, and students, create a culture that believes change and flexibility are good, and encourage students to engage in authentic work where they make a contribution.Notably, personalizable education is substantially different from personalized learning, which, paradoxically, does not give students control over what they learn and focuses on fixing what students have not learned well-enough.

Realizing personalizable education will require governments to move away from telling educators what and when students should be taught. Instead, governments should focus on providing adequate and equitable funding as well as investing in educational innovation. Business should stop profiting from counter-productive “personalized learning” tools and instead lead the charge to move schools towards personalizable education. Parents and the public too should advocate for personalizable education.

Higher education institutions can help bring about personalizable education by changing admission standards to value diverse skills and by making the higher education experience itself more personalizable to prepare students for the workforce. Finally, educators are key to bringing in an era of personalizable education, but the current model of treating teachers as merely the deliverers of content, rather than the co-constructs and guiders of sophisticated learning needs to change. Personalizable education will require educators to develop the ability to identify students’ strengths and passions, inspire change in students, show empathy towards students, have a broad/long-term perspective on education, demonstrate management and leadership skills, and demonstrate resourcefulness and collaboration in shaping students learning. With action from each of these stakeholders we can help all students’ realize their greatness and create more fulfilling and useful educational experiences.

Zhao, Y. (2018). Reach for greatness: Personalizable education for all children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.