cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change (by douglas thomas)
DESCRIPTION
In A New Culture of Learning, we suggest that thriving in the 21st Century requiresmore than just learning or even learning how to learn. These worked great for the 20thcentury but will not sustain us in this one. Instead we must focus on how to cultivateimagination.To us, imagination is more important than creativity - the current craze in education.Imagination is critical for finding new ways to frame issues and for crafting newconceptual lenses. Said most simply, in a world of constant change we must master theart of the beginner's mind where imagination reigns supreme.TRANSCRIPT
Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change
Douglas Thomas
USC, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
A World of Constant Change
• Why do our classrooms in the 21st century look like they did in the 19th century?
• Resisting, Managing, Adapting and Embracing Change
• Change is endemic
The Problem of Transfer
• Efficiency of knowledge transfer
• Explicit vs. Tacit• Content vs. Context• The differences between
teaching and learning
Harry Potter and the New Culture of Learning
• 4500 pages over 10 years• 150,000 stories written on
one fan site alone• > 1,500 stories are
100,000 words or longer
Innovation and Creativity
• What are the differences?• Why do they matter?• From what to where and
from where to how…• The power of “what if?”
and world building
Communities and Collectives
• Institution and agency• Community and the
problem of scale• Learning in the collective• Robust peer-to-peer
learning amplified by the power of the collective
A New Culture of Learning
• Inquiry• Questions• Two cultures• Bounded learning
environments• Questing disposition
Learning Around the Game
• 14 million players• Processing 15,000 pieces
of information daily• Knowledge economies• 360 degree peer
evaluations• Organic learning
structures
Thanks!
• Special thanks to John Seely Brown and the Annenberg Innovation Lab
• [email protected]• http://www.douglasthomas.com