Bayview Beach Resort, Batu Ferringhi Beach, Penang, Malaysia

27-30 September 1999

Transforming Schools into Learning Communities of the Third Millennium

Marilyn Kairouz

Vicki Watson

St Columba's College, Essendon, Victoria.

Abstract

In the knowledge based society of the third millennium, pedagogy will need to focus on 'just-in-time learning'. This will involve the immediacy of access to limitless data, and the critical thinking skills that students will require for analysing and interpreting information, and for constructing and communicating new insights. Coupled with the freedoms that the new learning technologies bring, are heightened concerns that we (as educators) may be unwittingly contributing to the demise of real thinking.

This presentation seeks to integrate the shared learnings of three educators who posit significant questions for pedagogy and practice beyond the year 2000. Themes explored include 'critical thinking', 'multiple and critical literacies' and 'translating theoretical underpinnings into school-based transformation'.