Towards a LEARNING NATION
Start 2021
The concept of "Austria's emergence as a LEARNING NATION" is not an isolated school reform project, but a vision for society as a whole. In order to strengthen the necessary willingness for renewal in a system in which change is often perceived as a threat, successful intermediate steps are needed. These should be radical enough to bring about structural change and at the same time adaptive enough to remain compatible within the system. From the outset, the concept of the LEARNING COMMUNITY met with the strongest response from science, business and school practice.
The LEARNING COMMUNITY
The central idea is not to think of school development primarily from the perspective of individual schools, but to form learning regional communities.
The concept was successfully implemented in the three pilot municipalities of Oberwart in Burgenland, Schladming in Styria and Wolfsberg in Carinthia. The projects implemented were documented in detail. The objective of the 2017 school autonomy package to further develop cooperation between all schools or school clusters in a region in such a way that structural, organizational and pedagogical potential is identified and utilized could be implemented across the board based on the experience gained to date. Legal changes are not necessary for this.
The 4K model schools
The 4K model of 21st Century Skills offers schools a practical framework for teaching the four future skills of communication, cooperation, creativity and critical thinking to learners in a realistic way. The voluntarily participating schools in a municipality are given the autonomy to use at least ten percent of their existing teaching time (value units) for three new elements:
- Experiential learning of selected 21st Century Skills
- Work on real-life projects such as solving a regional environmental problem, building a machine or producing a play
- External experts support teachers with the projects
A decisive factor for the implementation of this model is the administrative relief of the school management and professional external process support.
The school of the 21st century
There are a large number of schools that prove that the future of learning is already being implemented in the present. Therefore, 16 particularly innovative educational projects were analyzed in best practice case studies.
"The school of the 21st century" is based on tried and tested principles and values such as a learner-centered approach, openness to resonance experiences, a high degree of learner autonomy and appreciative relationships. In concrete terms, these are implemented in pedagogical working methods such as learning offices, teams of teachers instead of lone wolves, interdisciplinary projects, at least temporary dissolution of the 50-minute lesson and separation of subjects, epoch lessons, individual student coaching, holistic forms of assessment through learning portfolios and the often neglected inclusion of space and body in the learning process. Schools that follow this model demonstrably achieve better learning performance and greater enjoyment of learning among students and teachers.
The "school in school" model
The widespread implementation of the "school of the 21st century" would require a radical rethink of the school system, which realistically will not take place in the near future. However, it would be a mistake to deny that traditional schools are generally willing to change, because there is also a lot of positive energy and effort there to make things better. We therefore propose a hybrid "school within a school" model as a low-threshold entry point for innovative school development. To implement this model, it is not necessary to change the entire school, but only a few classes and teachers who are willing to do so voluntarily.
Conclusion
Tackling issues such as the digitalization of the world of work, climate change, social justice and a healthy lifestyle requires learning people. We therefore recommend a combination of an ambitious vision, the "school of the 21st century", and a bottom-up concept, namely that of the LEARNING COMMUNITY. This prepares the ground at a regional level so that people can master a self-determined and meaningful life long after they have graduated from school.
