Green Skills and Curricular Improvements

Youth Learning

Youth are more inclined to learn by actively participating in the learning experience. Situated learning, essentially, is a matter of creating meaning from the real activities of daily living where learning occurs relative to the teaching environment. The following are examples of situated learning activities:

Situated learning essentially is a matter of creating meaning from the real activities of daily living.

Field trips where students actively participate in an unfamiliar environment.

Cooperative education and internship experiences in which students are immersed and physically active in an actual work environment.

Music and sports (physical education) practice which replicate actual setting of these events, e.g., orchestras, studios, training facilities.

Laboratories and child-care centers used as classrooms in which students are involved in activities which replicate actual work settings

These examples illustrate that students are actively involved in addressing real world problems. As the practice implies, the student is “situated” in the learning experience and knowledge acquisition becomes a part of the learning activity, its context, and the “culture in which it is developed and used”. Students form or “construct” their own knowledge from experiences they bring to the learning situation; the success of situated learning experiences relies on social interaction, preferring to do things rather than read about them.

Situated learning environments place students in authentic learning situations where they are actively immersed in an activity while using problem-solving (critical thinking) skills. These opportunities should involve a social community which replicates real world situations.

Young people are a valuable resource for organizations and groups involved in community development. By encouraging and allowing opportunities for adult-youth-collaboration, community organizations can help youth learn valuable skills and prepare them to become civically engaged adults.

Youth involvement in community planning, decision making, and action hasn’t received a lot of attention in the past, but youth are becoming increasingly involved in community development. Youth collaboration can benefit community nonprofit organizations, volunteer programs, and nongovernmental organizations in the following ways:

Youth can be an effective planning and evaluation resource. Younger members can help long-term community efforts because they’re in a position to become long-term contributors.

Involved youth can help organizations become more aware of issues that concern younger populations, which can increase an organization’s impact.

Not only do community organizations benefit when they collaborate with youth, this collaboration also helps youth themselves. Community participation helps youth become empathetic citizens who could potentially continue similar work when they become adults. Additionally, youth who give back to their communities develop leadership skills, learn the importance of helping, and gain work experience.

Consider the following suggestions to encourage youth participation in community development:

Give youth an opportunity to contribute and offer their input.

Allow active collaboration between adults and youth
Integrate youth into committees with adults who can act as mentors.

Form relationships with teachers who engage youth in community concerns to increase youth involvement.

Connect youth to policy efforts by including them in the assessment of current policies and potential policies.

Encourage youth to identify their own interests and activities where they can make positive changes.

Allow youth to confront serious social problems and become active community citizens.

Evaluate youth involvement efforts on a regular basis to identify and capitalize on strengths, identify and address weaknesses, and help gain more meaningful youth participation.

Jobs Conferring Digital Identity

Digital identity is an educational pickup that is particularly associated with jobs that require the use of digital skills where self learning on the job can be associated with the increased blurring between a worker’s online presence and their offline identity, which presents them as a ‘landscape of views’.

For young people, an online/offline identity is:
an extension of themselves
a way to explore different parts of themselves
a way to share or explore interests that are not available offline.

In general, it can provide:
a sense of belonging and community
access to support from like-minded individuals
an appreciation of different perspectives
reduced isolation
a discussion environment.

Blogs recently have become a popular way of collecting information and learning experiences related to formal education. Public objects tagged with information can be accessed by learners to view connected blog parts, comment on posts by others (peer feedback), or create new blog entries with mobile authoring appliances. They are simple, but powerful software tools for integrating formal and informal learning, supporting long-term informal learning on the job and communicating a deep place group’s or individual’s achievements and ideas. Furthermore, blogs offer all categories of learners a great degree of autonomy to structure information while also embedding reflection in a peer community. Moreover, the interaction of learners with community-constructed web-posted content can be used to facilitate formal and informal learning in a single community of practice as a social adaptation to a local cultural ecology of CLICs. A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning.

Gateway Jobs

Jobs don’t all have the same potential for developing skills. Some are like escalators; the experience of being on them moves you up. Others are cul-de-sacs, bad, dead-end jobs that take you nowhere. In the future, skills and curricula in the future will develop against a shift towards a post 2030 global society at ease with the formation and spread of closed loop indigenous cultures (CLICs). In the best future economic context, the definition of ‘indigenous’ takes on the form of deep place, where people’s prosperity is coupled with local education, jobs and leisure. Deep Place is a holistic approach to indigenisation through lifetime education for sustainable place-making, focussed on how to practically achieve more economically, socially, environmentally and culturally sustainable places and communities. In a deep place, good jobs are gateways to the development of foundational skills on the job, such as listening, communication, empathy, judgment, and decision-making. It turns out these skills play a key role in unlocking the value of technical skills. Indeed, without them, individuals cannot entirely utilise their technical skills. These basic skills are also valuable over a lifetime of work. “Gateway” jobs have already been identified as having no two days alike, such as customer service, sales, computer support, vocational nursing, blacksmith welding and machining, where each day calls for a different response. They may grow workers who have acquired skills through alternative routes (STARs). STARs are defined as individuals at least 25 years old, currently active in the workforce, and not having a university degree. Valuable skills are learned on the job. In fact, research has found that millions of STARs have demonstrated skills for roles with salaries at least 50% higher than their current job. The experience of work itself is a major developer of skills and 94% of business leaders said they expect their employees to pick up new skills on the job.

Curricular Improvement to Deliver Green Skills for the Future

At the WorldSkills Event, held in partnership with the Education and Training Foundation in November 2001, green skills and education for sustainable development were examined through two different lenses: the educator and the employer. The panels represented a rich variety of backgrounds and industries and these sessions explored what knowledge, skills, behaviours and values learners might need to deliver green skills for the future

A key message that emerged from a panel of employers was the need to develop learners’ growth mindset and commitment to lifelong learning . This was cited as vital so that people are able to easily adopt new skills in the future, ensure their knowledge is up to date, and are open to innovation. The term ‘transitional principles’ was used – developing a mindset that’s open, resilient and adaptable to change and understands short and long term perspectives – these are the skills that will help learners throughout their whole careers as jobs, context and technology will perpetually change.

The further education and training sector has a vital role to play in combating climate change and enabling the achievement of sustainability and social justice, both nationally and globally, but the landscape of ESD can feel overwhelming, and there are gaps in the ESD knowledge that must be addressed. The further education and training sector is also at full capacity, and many teachers simply do not have the time or resources to pursue ESD. Over 60 per cent of educators don’t feel well-equipped to bring this into their teaching and learning practice.

The commonsense message is that there has to be root and branch reform of education at all levels, beginning at the top with jobs that deliver prosperity with contentment and at the bottom with an international cross curricular syllabus and a pedagogy for schooling that integrates culture with ecology.

This group has been around since 2006 teaching about climate change. Let's share with them what you all are doing on green skills education!

The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training has been up to some interesting things, here's a recap on some 2022 activities below.

The annual celebration of vocational skills across Europe and beyond was back this May after a year of absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 800 physical, hybrid and virtual events in 27 countries, involving more than 300 000 people.

South Africa is being intentional around their conversation on Green Skills for their people, African and creating global connections.

Please see the websites below for further details.

Are there other such actions from other nations that we can share about?

https://www.dffe.gov.za/projectsprogrammes/greenskills

Green Recovery, Green Jobs, and Inclusive Growth in Africa || Welcome to this Session happening today, September 7, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. GMT.

LinkedIn is the largest community of professionals, today we have a press release from their press room as they lend their voice to the conversation on Green Skills!

EU Skills Week-VET and the green transition...

ACCA Global held this interesting webinar that discusses the role of finance specialist in the Green Transition.