For my Education 530 class I read an article examining the major criteria that Google uses when evaluating potential employees. I feel that a major take away from this article actually comes right at the end where the author points out that "The world only cares about -- and pays off on -- what you can do with what you know (and it doesn't care how you learned it)."
In a lot of my education classes this idea has been brought up since it gets to some of the core issues with education in the 21st century and under common core. Students have a wealth of knowledge and skills available to them through the internet that we as educators are failing to leverage properly during their education. I have seen students working on personal projects that are more involved and technical than the work they are covering in their core courses because they have identified a personal passion project and they are taking personal time to try and master something they feel has value.
This article points out that Google wants these types of students as employees. They want people who understand how to self learn and utilize the resources available to them in new ways to identify and solve problems. They want people who have struggled and overcome and worked through issues while solving problems that they believe in.
As educators we need to start creating learning environments that foster this type of thinking and mindset so that are students are truly prepared for the world as it exists today. Any job that requires the kind of route work we expected out of students in a traditional classroom is better left to a machine. We need to help students learn to think and create original and creative solutions to problems they are given, and to identify problems that need a solution that the world hasn't even noticed yet.
In a lot of my education classes this idea has been brought up since it gets to some of the core issues with education in the 21st century and under common core. Students have a wealth of knowledge and skills available to them through the internet that we as educators are failing to leverage properly during their education. I have seen students working on personal projects that are more involved and technical than the work they are covering in their core courses because they have identified a personal passion project and they are taking personal time to try and master something they feel has value.
This article points out that Google wants these types of students as employees. They want people who understand how to self learn and utilize the resources available to them in new ways to identify and solve problems. They want people who have struggled and overcome and worked through issues while solving problems that they believe in.
As educators we need to start creating learning environments that foster this type of thinking and mindset so that are students are truly prepared for the world as it exists today. Any job that requires the kind of route work we expected out of students in a traditional classroom is better left to a machine. We need to help students learn to think and create original and creative solutions to problems they are given, and to identify problems that need a solution that the world hasn't even noticed yet.