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Learners Without Borders

New Learning Pathways for All Students

By: Yong Zhao

It’s time to imagine a different kind of learning, without borders, and to begin the shifts in practice required to personalize learning for all students.

Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781506377353
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2021
Page Count: 160
Publication date: July 19, 2021

Price: $39.95

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Description

The future of education centers empowered students in a global learning ecosystem.

Despite decades of reform, the traditional borders of education—graduation, curriculum, classrooms, schools—have failed to deliver on the goals of excellence and equity.

Despite massive societal changes, education remains controlled by an old mindset. It is time to change that limiting mindset and, more importantly, the ineffective practices in education. To truly serve all learners, future classrooms must remove the boundaries of learning and become student-centered, culturally responsive, and personalized—supportive and equitable environments where each student can direct their own learning and seek multiple pathways to skills and knowledge in a global learning ecosystem. This compelling call for transformative change offers all involved in education

Evidence-based arguments that reveal the need to break the traditional borders that limit learning
Strategies to personalize learning and remove the confinement of traditional pathways
Examples from around the world to create equitable and student-centric learning environments
Resources for creating a school learning environment that expands opportunities for personalized learning into the global learning ecosystem

It is time to now imagine a different kind of learning, without borders, and to begin the shifts in practice that will result in personalized learning for all students.

Author(s)

Yong Zhao

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.

Table of Contents

About the Author

Chapter 1. New Possibilities

The Failure of Educational Reforms

Our Changing World

Hope for the Future

Chapter 2. The School Pathway

The Borders of Schooling

The Dysfunctional One-to-Many Model

Summary

Chapter 3. New Learning Opportunities

The Impact of Technology

What Matters: The Pressure on Education

New Students and Their Interactions With Technology

How to Improve: The Opportunities

Summary

Chapter 4. Changing the School Pathway

The School Pathway

Rethinking the School Pathway

Breaking Out of the School Pathway

Dropping Out of the School Pathway

Changing the School Pathway

New Personalized Pathways

Summary

Chapter 5. Breaking the Curriculum Border

Futile Efforts

The Owners of Curriculum

The Missing Actor

Students as Co-Owners

Summary

Chapter 6. Breaking the Classroom Border

The Classroom Is Not the Only Place for Learning

The Human Teacher

New Forms of Teaching and Learning

Technology and Teachers’ Roles

Summary

Chapter 7. Self-Directed Learners

Natural-Born Learners

Diverse Learners

Self-Determined Learners

The Loss of Learning

Teaching Self-Determination

Cultivating Future Creators

Advocacy

Summary

Chapter 8. Making the Change: Learners Without Borders

Advocating for the Right Outcomes

Making the Changes

Learners Without Borders

Conclusion: Can Change Happen?

References

Index

Reviews

Yong Zhao, one of our most consistently profound leaders in the transformation of education, breaks the rigid mold of traditional schools, replacing it with a global ecosystem of student-engaged learning. In this future, which is already here, students, teachers, and a community of resources are liberated from those molds, and we are inspired to re-create school as unbounded learning environments.

Grant Lichtman

This book presents some very provocative notions on why we need significant changes in today’s schools. The remote learning environments that have been implemented as a result of COVID have taught us some very real lessons and this book begins to put them in the perspective of individualized and personalized learning for students at all levels.

Marianne Lescher

Learners Without Borders is a thought-provoking look at the opportunity before us. For decades, schools have remained relatively unchanged, though overnight change was forced upon us by a global pandemic. Zhao urges us to consider this upheaval as a gateway to fundamentally redesign schools, break the “default view” and disrupt education as we knew it.

Melissa J. Weatherwax

Professor Zhao consistently pushes us to dream big about what’s possible in teaching and learning. Anyone who wants a pulse on the future of our rapidly changing world needs a copy of this book!

Julie Stern

Long before COVID, a second virus began spreading around the world, infecting school systems and rendering them resistant to change. Its costs to students, families, and societies have likewise been enormous. In Learners Without Borders, Dr. Yong Zhao delivers the much-awaited vaccine. Its active ingredients include treating students as owners of their own learning and helping them harness technology for education, work, and life. As educators and policymakers plan for a post-COVID world, this book is their best vaccination against the pandemic of educational mediocrity.

Milton Chen