Tapio Varisprofessor emeritus

Financial University, Moscow 11.3.2019

Long Working Life Learning. Requirements of Employers and new learning environments

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Topics of the discussion today

• The impact of artificial intelligence and 5g networks on everything

• The period of university diplomas validity and relevancewithout updating by massive open online courses and othermeans of continuing education

• Learning at work is not enough without capacity for life-long learning

• Is the paradigm of learning still 70 % on-the-job, 20 % coaching, 10 % e-learning or changing?

• From a system of education and training towards a systemof competence with new actors like employers, developersof learning technology, organizations

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Lifelong Learning (SITRA 2019)https://www.sitra.fi/en/topics/lifelong-learning/

Finland needs a lifelong learning policy where the development of skills and competences is seen as a long-term investment and a source of well-being. The aim of Sitra’s Lifelong learning focus area is to support different actors in Finland in order to develop a cross-sectional policy for lifelong learning. The aim of this three-year project is to speed up the transition to a lifelong learning policy in which competence and work are seen as the building materials of well-being. The resources used to build competence are seen as a profitable investment in Finland’s competitiveness.

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Objectives of LLL

• Educational action and learning competence

• Visions for social and economic changes

• LLL for all

• Basic competences

• Culture and civilization

• Working-life

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“education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid

economic and social change”http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018

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Learning crises

• Providing education is not enough

• What generates a real return on investment is learning and acquiring skills

• In many countries and communities learning is not happening

• Schooling without learning is waste of resources and human potential

• Short term and long term learning capabilities

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Media Literacy and ICT Technology

• People use media for every kind of personal and social practice today – talking and other forms of communication, playing, shopping, dating, relaxing, staying informed, creative expression, exploring and promoting interests, learning, therapy, and as a dimension of expressing personal identity through the display of branded products. An increasing proportion of household expenditure is devoted to media and their uses

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https://ojs.pensamultimedia.it/index.php/sird/article/view/2796

• Media and digital literacy skills are now seen as crucial for 21st century teachers, but teachers’ initial training is still far from coping this emerging need. Media education can be integrated into the academic context through the presentation and discussion of the results of an experimentation of learning scenarios, implemented in three universities within the European project e-Media Education Lab. From the experimentation it emerges how both analytical skills and media production skills are important; that the teaching of media literacy should be more explicit; that the university organization presents rigidity that risks hindering the typical processes of media and digital literacy education.

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Finland: Strategy after 2015:Knowledge and Education

• New pedagogical approaches

• Dialogue between educational institutions and working life

• New learning environments and digitalmaterials

• Reform of vocational upper secondaryeducation: learning in the workplace

• Cooperation between the upper secondarylevel and higher education will be increased

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Confederation of Finnish Industries

• In 2011 two out of three of the MemberCompanies cooperated with vocationaltraining and educational institutions

• Cooperation included training periods, studiesfor diplomas, visits and exchanges of teachersand experts

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SKILLS, EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE OF WORK (HTTP://PGLRESEARCH.FI/)

• Advances in technology and increasing globalization are causing major changes in the nature of work. As firms adapt and adjust to these changes, they require new skills from their employees. In addition to skills related to formal qualifications, communication technology skills, and languages, various non-cognitive, interpersonal, and career management skills are also now required.

• At the same time, the workforce is aging and diversifying. Key issues here concern how aging employees can cope with the changes in skills requirements and how the skills of increasingly diverse populations can be recognized, updated, and complemented and then applied in a productive working life.

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http://pglresearch.fi/

• LEAD and CharVEL are two collaborative research groups operating at the Tampere University.The groups’ research focuses on professional growth and learning in the contexts of education and working life. The research themes are examined within several intertwined research projects.

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Technology

• LEAD studies factors related to teaching, learning and development of expertise in the formal (higher education) and informal (working life) engineering contexts. The research is based on the socio-constructivist theory of learning, where communities and factors related to regulation of learning are strongly connected to the development of expertise. The research themes of the group include self-regulation and self-directedness in learning, active learning methods, emotions in different learning situations and environments, workplaces as learning environments and the connection between the development of expertise and the use of social media.

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Learning environments

• CharVEL investigates vocational talent development and learning in various types of learning environments. Vocational talent development refers to characteristics and predictors related to vocational expertise and excellence in the context of secondary and post-secondary education. Learning environments are examined from a broad perspective, including both physical and virtual, closed (formal, e.g., curriculum-based education in institutions) and open (non-formal and informal, e.g., workplaces, social media), and take hybrid forms (e.g., apprenticeships). The research focuses on professional growth which involves learning process throughout entire the career, during which an individual embraces the skills needed to respond to the changes in working life.

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Development of Vocational Expertise and Excellence in

Formal and Informal Learning Environments

(Laura Pylväs 2018)

• individuals with fluent cognitive skills combined to advanced social skills, self-awareness and self-regulation are perceived as vocational experts in modern working life

• both institution-based (formal) and work-based (informal) VET were considered to provide the basic vocational skills for a learner to pursue higher levels of vocational expertise in working life

• lack of time, resources and pedagogical approaches were found to challenge workplace learning by hindering individual guidance and reciprocal workplace learning between apprentices and experienced workers.

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Drivers of Change(IFTF 2011: Future Work Skills 2020)

• extreme longevity

• rise of smart machines and systems

• computational world

• new media ecology

• superstructured organizations

• globally connected world

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Accelerating technological change(Harari, Jack Ma)

• Critical thinking

• Communication and social skills

• Creativity

• Opinions and knowledge

• Ecological civilization

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https://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/competences_en

Key competences (EU):• 1. Communication in the mother tongue• 2. Communication in foreign languages• 3. Mathematical competence and basic

competences in science and technology• 4. Digital competence• 5. Learning to learn• 6. Social and civic competences• 7. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship• 8. Cultural awareness and expression

Ten Skills for the Future Workforce(source: IFTF)

• transdisciplinarity• design mindset• virtual collaboration• cross-cultural competency• new media literacy• cognitive load management• computational thinking• social intelligence• novel and adaptive thinking• sense-making

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https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/european-framework-digital-competence-educators-

digcompedu

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https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/european-framework-digital-

competence-educators-digcompedu

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e-Learning trends 2019

• Media and information literacies (MIL)

• Virtual reality (VR)

• Augmented reality (AR)

• Games

• Video (story telling)

• Algoritms

• Multicultural competence

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Trends in Technology enhanced learning

Hybrid Personal Learning Environment (HPLE)

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Development of Vocational Expertise and Excellence in

Formal and Informal Learning Environments

(Laura Pylväs 2018)

• individuals with fluent cognitive skills combined to advanced social skills, self-awareness and self-regulation are perceived as vocational experts in modern working life

• both institution-based (formal) and work-based (informal) VET were considered to provide the basic vocational skills for a learner to pursue higher levels of vocational expertise in working life

• lack of time, resources and pedagogical approaches were found to challenge workplace learning by hindering individual guidance and reciprocal workplace learning between apprentices and experienced workers.

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Key objectives

• To identify the key cognitive and non-cognitive skills demanded by firms coping with the changes caused by globalization and related phenomena,

• To evaluate how different policies and interventions can induce individuals of different ages and in various social groups to acquire and improve those skills.

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Success stories in Finnish education

• Succesful reforms

• Flexibility

• Culture of trust

• Professional competence of teachers

• Future orientation

• Equality and trust

• Broad supportsystem for thosewho are in need of it

• Major TVET reformin process

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http://iite.unesco.org/news/639368/

• UNESCO IITE: For more than six years, UNESCO has promoted the composite concept of Media and Information Literacy. However, there is still much debate all over the world on wording and notion of such an important sort of literacy. What are the reasons for this lack of professional consensus and what developments in the field you consider the most promising?

• Prof. Tapio Varis: There is not enough theoretical understanding that in essence we are dealing with communication competence where media is only part of the process. Furthermore, there are many types of literacies and new ones are being created since new technologies emerge and different civilizations have different communication practices. Communication and education are interrelated and the new forms of media change the thought processes as well as the structure of the memory. The political, educational and spiritual communities may prefer other literacies than the industry or business, for example. I consider the civilizational approach most promising because it reflects the holistic, historical and value-level thinking and competence.

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