1) Today's employers seek workers who can think critically, solve problems creatively, innovate, collaborate and communicate. However, many students lack these 21st century skills. 2) Early education should focus on developing higher-order thinking skills from a young age to better prepare students for the future workforce. 3) Rote learning and filling out worksheets is not the best approach for young children. Their education should engage them in authentic, experiential learning that serves their long-term development.

1. Speaker: Dr Khoo Kay YongBSc. (Malaya); MScITE(HKU); EdD(HKU)

2. Today’s employers want workers who can
think critically, solve problems
creatively, innovate, collaborate
and communicate.
Furthermore, low-skilled workers are being "turned
away at the factory door and increasingly becoming
the long-term unemployed . . .”(Collins, 2014).

3. Many teachers and employers have been expressing concern that young
people “cannot think”.
Indeed, research has shown that today’s students tend to be weak in
critical thinking and do poorly in simple logical reasoning tests.

4. Case-Study

5. MOOC digital texts
Scaffolding
multimodal texts
Situated Learning
viewing/representing skills
Bi-manual skills
Experiential learning
HOTS
STEAM
Ubiquitous learning Pincer
Pincher Collaborative learning
Learning through “coming to know”…

9. The world is
multimodal …
We were no longer
using “words” as the
sole mean of
communication, now
we combine visual,
sound, animation in
our communication.
The learning must
take place at anytime
and anywhere…
The opportunity to
learn is “ubiquitous”.
Learning by repeating
is no longer required,
as it can be taken
over by ICT. We need
to apply “Higher
Order Thinking …”
The learning must be
authentic and
improving the world.
Thematic teaching is
focusing on
something to “tell”
and not to problem
solve. STEM is
designed with the
objective of solving
the authentic
problem of the world.

10. This points to a disparity between the skills that worker have and those that
employers need. In order to succeed in the information age, students need to
develop 21st century skills, particularly the higher order thinking skills. This
aspect of education must start from a very young age (Costello, 2013).

11. In many preschool programs and kindergartens, young children are engaged in filling
out worksheet, reading from flash cards, or reciting numbers in rote fashion.
But just because young children can do those things, in a normative sense, is not
sufficient justification for requiring them to do so.
The developmental question is not “What can children do?” Rather, it is “What should
children do that best serves their development and learning in the long term?

12. The process of the learning and not the product that matters!
Knowledge
A child acquires knowledge from someone’s answers to his questions, explanations,
descriptions and accounts of events as well as through observation.
Skills
Skills are small units of action which occurs in a relatively short period of time are
easily observed. Physical, social, verbal, counting, and drawing skills,…
Feelings
These are subjective emotional states, many of which are innate. Among those that
are learned are feelings of competence, belonging, and security.
Dispositions
Dispositions can be thought as habits of mind or tendencies to respond to certain
situations in certain ways.

13. The process of the learning and not the product that matters!

14. Soon after Edison revealed his earth-shattering
invention, a French reporter asked, “Mr. Edison,
how did it feel to fail 999 times?” As the story
goes, Thomas Edison just smiled and replied,
“Young man, I have not failed 999 times. I have
simply found 999 ways how not to create a
light bulb.”

15. Science /Divergent thinking

16. Science /Come to know…

17. It is important to remember that technology did not begin in the digital age.
People have been inventing and using tools for millennia, and we continue to use these simple
devices in our daily life.
Reference:
Moomaw, S. (2013). Teaching STEM in the early years. USA: Redleaf Press.
In our kitchen: apple slicers and
peelers, hand-held juicers, and mortar
and pestles, are applications of simple
machines and technology that children
can understand and therefore apply.
In fact, experimentation with simple
machines, such as pulleys, inclines, and
wedges, can greatly expand children
understanding of physics (Moomaw,
2013).