Education is facing a lot of changes from practically all fronts. I, for one, am advocating radical changes in the way education is being provided. To me, it should be “learner-centric”, but, unfortunately, there are still a lot of teachers out there who believe otherwise.

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is Open Education. The latest entry, “21st Century Schools – Pedagogy Must Give Way to Andragogy“, just introduced me to Marcia L. Conner, who also happens to believe that education should be learner-centric. 

“To succeed, we must unlearn our teacher-reliance. We must take it upon ourselves to meet our learning needs and demand training providers do the same. To know our demands, we must know how we process information.” – Marcia L. Conner

Students must also know what they should demand from their teachers, if and when given a chance, of course. If I may say, I think the laws of demand-and-supply applies here as well. If students demand a learner-centric education, teachers must supply it, right?

Clearly, to ensure that educators meet the needs of the 21st century learner, teachers must realize that traditional pedagogy, while once the norm, was never as effective as it was made out to be. To properly implement technology in the classroom setting educators must begin to use an adrogogical approach with learners of all ages.

Now this is a tall order for the Colleges of Education out there and other teacher training schools. I am wondering which one takes on this challenge first.

It is not often that one finds a Filipino blog about education so when they do, I usually read it right away. One such blog entry is from a Twitter friend of mine, tessadeleon, titled “For us, the race is (not) on“. In her blog, she says

Sometimes I wonder how it’s like to study in a global university, where facilities are the most modern, faculty is top notch, and the environment is most conducive to learning.

Having studied overseas, I’d say that, at least in UP Diliman (and I am not saying this because I teach in UP Diliman), some faculty members can provide the same level of education that some faculty members in universities overseas provide. These same Filipino faculty members studied under the same professors overseas. Whilst they are not necessarily better than their mentors but, perhaps someday, they can achieve the same level of expertise. 

The environment for learning is the same. In UP, you may opt to go to the Sunken Garden, open a book and study – the same way that my classmates in the UK did during spring and summer terms. You can go to the library, too, if you wish. And if you’ve gone to one library, almost all other libraries look, feel and even smell the same. (and yes, you still see the old librarians manning the desks but not in UP Engg Lib II, of course hehe)

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