Aiming to transform high school experiences to meet the changing needs of next and future generations of learners, NEXTschool asks people to forget about what school is and instead think about what school could be...
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Using a change process called Design Thinking, the NEXTschool initiative asks educational stakeholders - like teachers, students, administrators, community members, policy makers, consultants, and researchers - to learn how to problem solve collaboratively. Design thinking is cyclical and involves generating as many ideas as possible towards solving a context-based problem. Ideas are turned into prototypes that are tested and refined until a problem is solved or a new idea is tested. Design thinking can be applied to any problem - great or small - and since it is cyclical, change towards improvement never stops. In this way, the NEXTschool initiative is equipping anyone who cares about education with the skills to adapt to the changing needs of 21st century learners and beyond.
Through this multi-stakeholder design process, the NEXTschool initiative is attempting to bring 21st century and lifelong learning approaches to several of Québec’s English language secondary schools as a potential model for sustainable, system-wide change and educational improvement. |
NEXTschool seeks to provide and support an educational model that will empower schools to better align with the learning needs of students in the 21st century. |
In order to navigate the complexity of the world today, NEXTschool is predicated on the belief that students need to develop interpersonal skills including:
1. critical thinking and problem solving,
2. collaboration and leadership,
3. agility and adaptability,
4. initiative and entrepreneurialism,
5. effective oral and written communication,
6. accessing and analyzing information, and
7. curiosity and imagination .
What better way to learn these skills than having students engaging within their own school community to effect meaningful educational change?
1. critical thinking and problem solving,
2. collaboration and leadership,
3. agility and adaptability,
4. initiative and entrepreneurialism,
5. effective oral and written communication,
6. accessing and analyzing information, and
7. curiosity and imagination .
What better way to learn these skills than having students engaging within their own school community to effect meaningful educational change?