We were very privileged to have received Dr François Taddei, Dr Gaell Mainguy and Dr Mariana Losada at our centre in United Square for a dialogue session on Tuesday, 10 January 2017. We arranged for our guests to meet with our TLL teachers, curriculum teams, and senior academic management team.
About Our Guests
Dr Taddei, who is currently serving as the UNESCO Chair of Learning Sciences, is also the Director of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinary (CRI), Paris. In addition, Dr Mainguy is the Director of Development and International Relations at CRI and Dr Losada is the Head of the Université Sorbonne Paris Cité Office in Singapore.
21st Century Learning To Match 21st Century Learners
During the dialogue session, Dr Taddei shared the importance of education in nurturing the creative and inquisitive nature of children. This aspect of education is especially crucial in this day and age, as it is slowly becoming apparent that technological developments will allow for more tasks to be automated.
The importance and value of education is not the same as what it was in the past, where an individual’s abilities would be pitted against his peers – our children will not only have to compete with each other, but also with machines and what they can be programmed to do.
In other words, we have to ensure that the education we provide our child with today does not become obsolete in the next 20 years due to automation of tasks.
Creating Learner-Centric Curriculum
Dr Taddei highlighted that students should be involved as contributors (as opposed to pure consumers) of knowledge in education. This develops their ability to question areas of interest and, if given the right tools to hypothesize and conduct research, allows them to effectively form their own opinions.
Following this line of thought, one of our English teachers, Ms Gao Hui Fang, raised an interesting observation. “The curiosity in our younger students [dies out]", she shared. "How can we protect and nurture the [innate curiosity] our students have?"
To achieve this, Dr Taddei emphasized that curriculum should be heavily based on feedback and input from students. He brought in the example of Design for Change, a movement that has been successfully implemented in schools in India and Africa. The methodology behind Design for Change helped students create innovative ideas to solve a problem in their immediate environment through a simple 4-stage process.
He went on to elaborate on the importance of creating an education system that empowers students as actors of their own learning process, and shared his approach to facilitating fun and enriching learning experiences for the students.
Our Final Thoughts?
We are greatly inspired by what Dr Taddei had to share and his passion in this field. Many of the points he raised resonated deeply with us as we, too, believe that the value of education goes far beyond the classroom.
As shared by Mr Justin Leow, Academic Head of TLL Tampines, The Learning Lab decided to take on a more enriching angle as compared to other tuition centres. Through incorporating real-world issues and trends into lessons, we are able to pique our students’ interests by bringing the world to them. We are heartened to learn that we’re on the right track with equipping our students with more than just academic excellence!
The session with Dr Taddei reaffirmed our belief that nurturing the love of learning should lie at the core of our company, and showed us how we can achieve this by working closely with our students to create the best possible learning journey for them.
Finally, we would like to thank Dr Taddei, Dr Mainguy and Dr Losada for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us, and wish them all the best in their endeavours ahead.
If you are interested to speak with our enrolment specialists about our 2017 programmes, please email ENROLLMENT@THELEARNINGLAB.COM.SG or call us at 6733 8711 and we will be happy to assist.