ICI International Conference║Professor Zhao Yong: Students as Change Partners: Student Self-determination and Autonomy

Professor Zhao Yong

University of Kansas and University of Melbourne

Title: Students as change partners: Student self-determination and autonomy

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We publish this report with the permission of Prof. Zhao for the use of scholarly communications only.

Education itself is not a natural phenomenon, it’s a man-made phenomenon, especially for modern education. Our education reform has been done for decades. In western countries, I have seen great reforms in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia in recent decades, however, the changing designs do not seem to bring any effect. When we talk about education reform, we can either transform the curriculum, the teaching methods, the examination form, the evaluation method, the teacher, or the management, nevertheless, the only thing that has not transformed is the students. In fact, after COVID-19, I feel that one of the great changes in the West is how to treat the students. In the future, great changes in education will take place in how students are treated.

As a matter of fact, what kind of students do we need in the future? I think all of you here today are doing curriculum studies. To think too much about the curriculum and instruction now will lead to the ignorance of the question that really needs to be considered-what kind of students do we need in the future.

What exactly do we need in the future?

1. Students should possess creativity, entrepreneurial ability and international vision;

2. Students need to be independent and unique;

3. Students should be healthy both physically and mentally.

Just now I was talking about the needs of the future. Another question is what kind of people are we? What was the condition of our students when they entered the school? We need to consider three points: first, each of us is a natural learner; second, all of us are different learners; third, all of us are conscious learners. It is these three points that lead to the problem of education, because in traditional education, different people come into the schools and they graduate uniformly.

If you want to be a strong person in some way in modern society, what do you need? You have to find your innate advantages, to spend time on it, and to be well educated.

Now we should reconsider that we need diversity in the future, we need individuals that are creative and entrepreneurial, so how do we think about this? In fact, modern psychology has also talked about this problem, people not only have to become a great person according to the individual, nor should people be like others, because self-realization is also very important.

In my opinion, future education should train independent individuals to create value for others through creativity and entrepreneurial spirit plus their own pursuit.

I was considering when we talk about curriculum, besides national core curriculum and school mandated curriculum, can we have personalized curriculum?

Apart from personalized curriculum, the other issue we need to consider is problem-oriented learning. So generally speaking, it is of great importance to consider personalized learning, problem-oriented learning, and learning in a globalized environment. Thank you!