How do we as teachers foster "learning for the unknown?" We can't begin to prepare students for every situation - so how do we prepare them to engage in lifelong learning once they leave the classroom?
Great answer - I've adopted "heutagogy as an approach" - where I believe student is student and student is teacher; teacher is teacher and teacher is student. It's about creating space for learning to unfold
I, for one, have been creating e-learning online 3D simulations for teaching physics in the university (http://www.ialms.net/sim) and I aimed these tools to be accessible for the unknown. Thus I targeted as broader group of people as possible to be able to access my simulations in order to facilitate as many people as possible in learning theoretical mechanics. Then I realized that for a given learning initiative to be available to the unknown, where their capabilities to access learning materials are also unknown I tried to adapt my work to any circumstances, when possible. The restrictions to learning tool access are in several directions among others: financial affordability, accessibility by people with disabilities, applicability to society/religion/prejudice ground. I tried to satisfy those conditions to the largest extend I could, making the simulations with free access to everyone in the world, the needed additional hardware except a computer was optional and costed under a dollar (anaglyph glasses), there was no reference to social/religious/prejudice background, the simulations were accessible to people with certain disabilities.
Soon, I received positive feedback from hundreds of professors worldwide who were using my e-learning tools in their tutoring activities.
That is great to hear - flexibility is necessary when we start to think about the unknown. Good luck with your e-learning tools
This is indeed a very important topic and interesting replies. I would believe that inquiry learning is helpful in that case. It would familiarise learners with searching for anything unkown, learn and make decisions.
I would agree - knowing which questions to ask and pursue is more important than believing you have all the answers and are "formed"
Paul: I don't think we can prepare students for every possible future situation they may encounter. However, we can give them knowledge that will help them make good decisions and take appropriate choices.
We can teach them problem-solving skills, decision-making skills, and analytical skills. We can also teach them about poor decisions made in the past so they don't repeat the same mistakes.
I totally agree - as educators we need to teaching thinking skills not get overly fixated on content
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