Future of Public Education Conference

Context

The context for the remarks I’d like to make is that of a changing labour market and broader economy, which was one of the broad themes we’re speaking to today.

This is an important lens through which to view education because the labour market and the broader economy sets the mold for success that graduates need to fit when they leave the University of Waterloo and build their careers.

This is important to Waterloo, the University of Waterloo was built on the idea of serving society’s needs. We were founded in 1957 to provide the engineering and scientific prowess needed to fuel Ontario’s rapidly industrializing economy.

That connection to industry has been one of the keys to Waterloo’s growth, into what we have been for the last 21 years – Canada’s Most Innovative University.

Our connections with industry have served as a structural verification-and-enhancement system, that ensures our curriculum stays relevant across the full spectrum of our academic life.

The public education community is seeking innovative approaches to education so that graduates can achieve success in the changing labour market. What better way to do this than sensitizing them to that labour market as far upstream as possible? And before they are ready to participate in the labour market, why not equip them with the methods of learning, problem solving and application that will make their participation more productive?

Experiential Learning

Waterloo is known for our co-operative education program, which remains the largest of its kind in the world.

I think we can draw a broader point from this experience. The basic co-op education model at the University of Waterloo is a particular application of a broader approach to learning: experiential learning.

As we know, Experiential Learning is a concept that is permeating public education teaching methods more and more. There is more group work than ever before in our elementary school classrooms, and that breathes life into the experiential learning model at an early age.

Secondary schools are also benefitting from their own co-operative education programs that equip students with the skills and with the tacit experience-based knowledge that assist employability.

As an institution that has been deeply committed to experiential education since our founding in 1957, we note with great interest that experiential education is now reflected unevenly but unmistakably across the province’s educational institutions.

That’s a trend we need to sustain and accelerate, at a pace that keeps up with the rapid changes to our economy.

A New Kind of Graduate

As an organizing principle for innovating the public education system, partly through experiential learning, I believe we need to establish a model of the 21st century graduate. That’s the end-product and for the sake of our students and our economy. We need that end-product to be primed for success.

The 21st century student will be characterized by several core traits, including some of the following

  • Deep knowledge of a specific subject area
  • Broad literacy in a range of related areas
  • A global outlook on cultural, social, academic, economic and environmental issues
  • A team mindset that reflects the two-sided reality that in today’s economy, everybody needs to be an expert at something, and everybody needs to be a generalist about many things.

Essentially, we need to develop graduates who are deeply rooted in their specific subject areas, while having the broadest possible knowledge literacy and the broadest possible outlook and instincts.

When Ford Motor Company developed the Model T one hundred years ago, it was a revolution.

We need to build new Model T’s based upon the T-shaped knowledge of our graduates – grads rooted deeply in a specific area of expertise (Vertical), but broadly literate, aware and inclined (Horizontal).

The way we get there is partly through optimizing the benefits of experiential education, from group work when they’re in Grade 5, to nanotechnology-engineering co-op work terms when they’re 25.

I will close with that thought as we carry on with our panel discussion and Q&A.