As we move through the second decade of the 21st century, it's essential to shape the future learning and teaching process in educational institutions. We have to accept that the traditional “chalk and talk” method of teaching that’s persisted for hundreds of years is now acquiring inferior results when compared with the more modern and revolutionary teaching methods that are available for use in schools today. Greater student interaction is encouraged, the boundaries of authority are being broken down, and a focus on enjoyment over grades is emphasized. We have to make our students 'school smart' to 'street smart' with the necessary high level thinking skills and competencies required for success in their futures with the help of new educational strategies.

New Educational Strategies

Spaced Learning

     Teachers have reported amazing results when it came to spaced learning. Spaced Learning is a learning method in which the condensed learning content is repeated three times, with two 10-minute breaks during which activities such as physical activities are performed by the students. Spaced learning involves encouraging students to quickly switch through activities. The key is in the brain cells. It helps them to create the connections that they need to actually remember the knowledge.                                                                                       

Flexible Fridays

     Sometimes conventional lesson plans don’t work as every student is different and they all have their problematic subjects. The concept of Flexible Fridays is that an in-depth session of a subject can be acquired by simply having a whole day of mathematics or some other subject. At Flexible Fridays lessons, a teacher try to help each student to study and learn what is the most difficult for him/her personally. It's a focused revision process and avoids spending hours struggling with a subject at home. Teachers get more in-touch with students and gives focused study time that can help students grasp difficult concepts.

Engagement

      Under a new teaching method called “engagement” students are urged to engage with the real world, analyze everything that happens in different life spheres. Teachers can show them how and what they are teaching connects to the real world. Then their own brain cells are going to connect them and associate them. New methods of teaching have the purpose to improve the quality of education and involve students in educational process.

Self-regulated learning

      Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a mode of learning, in which students are no longer passive recipients but proactive learners. Ways to raise their motivation and meta-cognitive strategies are taught in order to enhance their learning effectiveness.

Future-focused learning

      Future-focused learning mode highlights the different ways in which learning occurs. Each mode requires students and teachers to be interacting differently with space and each other. It prepares students across all curriculum areas and learning stages with skills and capabilities to thrive in a rapidly changing and interconnected world. It connects students and engages their sense of curiosity. Here teachers know and understand the needs and talents of their students. They are flexible and select from a range of effective teaching strategies. These learning environments inspire students to be leaders of their own learning. Students collaborate and use critical and creative thinking to solve complex problems to become mindfully global citizens.

Flipped Classroom learning

      In flipped classroom, just reverse or “flip” the way in which students receive and digest information. Instead of lecturing for half of a class period, teachers record their lessons and making them available online or on a transferable device like a DVD or thumb drive so that students can access the lesson on a computer at home.

Head, Heart and Hands learning process

      This learning process aims to provide a holistic learning environment whereby the pupils develop the fine attributes of the head (thinking), heart (feeling) and hand (doing) making them global citizens who are ‘future ready’. It's based on Steiner or Waldorf progressive education model which not only focus on child's physical and mental development but explores the connection between soul and spirit. The curriculum balances academic achievement, artistic experience and practical skills- the head, heart and hands. The will of the child is actively engaged in purposeful and practical experiences, involving problem-solving and teamwork. We nurture the moral development of the child by instilling a sense of reverence and gratitude for all life.

Transversal Education

      Transversal Education covers all the branches of knowledge with a number of experiences and educative proposals offered taking care of the development of thinking. To be short, educate for creative means let student be more aware of the need to “learn to learn”, to get right solutions to problems formulating hypothesis, making questions, searching for the most trustworthy and complete information to reconstruct the situation, cooperating with the group, avoiding rushed and early judgments, making decision on the strength of information gathered and changing, if necessary, initial points of view. The creative thinking should go beyond the known, outside the box.

      It's a teaching that moves from results to processes, from problem solutions to discovering problems, from definitions to the search of horizons of sense, from ready-made knowledge-oriented contents to a knowledge contextualized with developmental and educational psychology, from knowing theories to making theories within a communicative context characterized by the logic of good reasons, from an instrumental idea of language in comparison with thinking, to a more careful vision of its creative and productive powers, from a sequential randomness idea of relation between teaching and learning, to a systematic vision where reciprocal relations learning/teaching appear to be even asymmetric, ambiguous and unclear.

      Transversal competence is an entity consisting of knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and will. Competence also means an ability to apply knowledge and skills in a given situation, influenced by the values and attitudes they have adopted and their willingness to take action.

Phenomenon-Based Learning

      In Phenomenon-Based Learning (PhenoBL) and teaching, holistic real-world phenomena provide the starting point for learning. It is problem-based learning, where the learners build answers together to questions or problems posed concerning a phenomenon that interests them. The phenomena are studied as complete entities, in their real context, and the information and skills related to them are studied by crossing the boundaries between subjects. The starting point differs from the traditional school culture divided into subjects, where the things studied are often split into relatively small, separate parts.

      Phenomenon-based structure in a curriculum also actively creates better opportunities for integrating different subjects and themes as well as the systematic use of pedagogically meaningful methods, such as inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project learning and portfolios. Deep learning and understanding are the goals of phenomenon-based learning. Hence the concept of “phenomenon-based” teaching is a move away from “subjects” and towards inter-disciplinary topics. It enables 21st-century learning skills and to study complete entities in their real context cross-disciplinary.

      In simple words it's the ability to understand the big picture and see the relationship between theory and practice are essential elements of learning. Phenomenon-based approach generates rich learning experiences. Personal perceptions, interpretation, creating meaning, and activity support the understanding of the things to be taught, and learning becomes a meaningful, significant activity for the learner. This phenomenon-based approach is the new core curriculum for basic education in Finland, which has officially introduced multidisciplinary learning modules as periods of phenomenon-based project studies.

The Generated Resource Learning (GRL)

     GRL pedagogy is an innovative teaching methodology of a spiral experiential learning. Subject knowledge is delivered through a concept based curriculum and is integrated in a multi-disciplinary way through class projects that are meaningful, relevant, engaging. GRL pedagogy uses available material and immaterial resources that include the body, different senses, space and movement. Children learn to research autonomously and present work with academic rigor.

STEM Education

     STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Students apply knowledge, deepen their understanding and develop high-order thinking skills within an authentic context, so they can fulfill future career aspirations that require STEM skills.

21st Century Learning

     21st century learning and teaching refers to a whole new approach to learning and teaching that prepares young minds for life in the 21st century with 21st century skills. The 21st century skills are a set of abilities that students need to develop in order to succeed in the information age. 21st Century Skills include Learning Skills, Literacy Skills, Life Skills, Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, Flexibility, Creative Thinking, Media Literacy, Initiative Collaborating Technology, Social Skills and Communicating Productivity Leadership.

Other learning modes are

• Collaboration is a place to learn with others.

• Demonstration is a place to present learning.

• Discussion is a place to talk about and share ideas.

• Experiential is a place to make, explore and investigate.

• Explicit is a place to learn from an expert.

• Feedback and Reflection is a place to learn about my learning.

• Guided is a place to learn with an expert.

• Independent is a place to learn by myself.

        So changes in our education system are necessary to develop the creative and innovative abilities, gaining the acquisition of transversal competences, essential to manage and understand the uncertainty of a liquid society. Such qualities are obtained by new age learning with new educational strategies for difficulties, for freedom, for independence, for critical and creative thinking.