Never has it been more important for humans to gather and work together to solve some of the biggest problems of our time. The starting point, as always, is education. Too many institutions are operating within an outdated industrial model; which doesn’t serve its students, its educators, or the greater community; let alone the global issues at hand.

As Dr. Katie Martin states in her impactful book, Evolving Education: Shifting to Learner-Centered Paradigm:

‘It’s time to create a new normal.’

It’s time to leave behind practices that don’t best serve all learners and educators, and to prioritize what matters most: relationships, connection, purpose, flexibility, agency, and authentic learning. Education must evolve. Looking to learners will help us see what’s working, what’s challenging, and, ultimately, what’s possible. To ensure that all of those learners thrive, we’ll need to use insight from our own experiences, research from the field, and new tools and approaches to adapt our practices.

In Evolving Education, Dr. Katie Martin advocates for a much-needed shift to a learner-centered teaching model. Learner-centered education creates purposeful, personalized, authentic, and competency-based experiences that help students develop skills that empower them to learn, grow, and solve problems that matter to them and others. Following on Martin’s previous book, Learner-Centered Innovation, Evolving Education offers a deeper dive into how educators can harness new technologies, learning sciences, and pedagogy that center learners and learning. After all, Martin argues, if we truly want to develop knowledge, habits, and skills in students, we have to know them, love them, and help them see the full beauty of who they are and what they can become.

The book is broken down into three main sections; each leading with a powerful question, that then sets about giving the reader, research based answers and actionable steps:

  • Part 1: What Are Our Aspirations for Learning?
  • Part 2: How Might We Create the most Impactful Learning Experiences?
  • Part 3: How Might We create the Enabling Conditions to shift to a Learner-Centered Paradigm?

 

The Natural Pod team can’t recommend ‘Evolving Education’ enough. It is a call to action, from where we are, to where we want to get to, in the best interests of not only the learners themselves but society as a whole.

“Evolving Education is an inspirational and practical guide to shifting to a learner-centered approach. It clearly articulates how to redefine success, how to create powerful learning experiences and how to support them with enabling conditions. Evolving Education would make a great book study for any school faculty or a community group considering engaging new learning pathways”. – Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Getting Smart