On Oct. 18, 2015, Professor Andreas Schleicher, known as the “World's Schoolmaster” and the father of PISA, delivered a lecture entitled “How to Cultivate Students that Fit in with the 21st Century” for the IICE’s International Education Podium. The lecture was chaired by IICE Professor LIU Baocun and attended by students and teachers from both our school and outside.
Professor Schleicher is the Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Previously, he studied physics in Germany and obtained his degree in mathematics and statistics in Australia.
In Professor Schleicher’s lecture, he first talked about factors that influence education in the 21st century including technology development and a changing society (including growth of the “gray population” and the acceleration of urbanization). Secondly, he explained what challenges and influence the above two factors have brought towards educators and learners, such as requiring teachers to engage in interactive and metacognitive teaching methods and learners to learn in an experiential and cooperative way. He noted that learners should also cultivate their interpersonal skills and cooperative spirit. Thirdly, he said nowadays what learners learn should include knowledge, skill and metacognition. They should map what they have learned so as to add realistic, cognitive and emotional value to knowledge; as well, they should cultivate skills including creativity, critical thinking, empathy, perseverance and ethics as well as meta-cognition skills such as self-awareness, self-discipline, self-reflection, and self-resilience. Moreover, Professor Schleicher gave his suggestions on addressing challenges in education posed by technology development and a changing society, particularly on professional teaching and professional leadership with an emphasis on schoolmasters’ leadership.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Schleicher had further discussions with teachers and students.
