The Countenance of Info- Communication Technologies- Re-Inventing the Quality of Schooling Methodology

Abstract

Nothing sacred in regard of man-made education curricula and methodology. What is of ultimate priority for schooling is responding to students’  needs to grow civic, professional, innovative and effective national and global citizens.

Digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) coupled with the overwhelming globalization movement have freed schools from its didactic teacher ‘orator’, static book- bound content and massive “Factory Model” methodology, to a new responsive approach where learners-paradigm and differentiated open-ended blended and online alternatives are widely practiced. As such profound educational developments have been tentatively materialized but many others are constantly flowing. 

In lieu of ICTs, there will be no absolute place for one ‘untouchable’ learning text, sole teacher, one rigid classroom, one school location, one daily schedule, passive lecturing, or negligent paper and pencil summative exams. Factors and means of schooling at K-12 and higher education levels are transforming deeply due to ICTs effects. This article explores next several re-inventions just happening in the  methodology and content of schooling.

Keywords: Info- communication technologies (ICT), countenance of ICTs, Factory Model of education (FME); re-inventing the quality of schooling, transnational education, student centered education, blended learning, blended schooling, micro curriculum units, micro learning and instruction, multi-learning and achievement levels, achievement, trio-systemic assessment methodology.

 Introduction

 The advent of globalized digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by the end of Twentieth Century had transformed the static educational methodology of the Factory Model (Watters 2015) and the confined book content schooling into open-ended blended and cyber space infinity.

Meris Stansbury (2016), Editor in Chief, eCampus News affirmed that “Today’s students are tech savvy..they use tablets  instead of notebooks, apps like Evernote  on their iPhone,  their iPhone instead of pens, paper is a thing of the past ..”.

 The whole idea of assembling masses of students (raw material) to be processed by teachers (workers) in a centrally located school (factory) was an articulation of industrial ingenuity. Accordingly, schools were housed in large warehouses with hundreds of students in one extended classroom with one teacher (Watters2015)

Features of FME such big class size (OECD. 2012), students’ regimentation, lack of individualization, lecturing, the rigid systems of seating, grouping, grading and marking, the authoritarian role of the teacher are widely criticized. Hence, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2010) confirmed “Our K–12 system largely still adheres to the century-old, industrial-age factory model of education, and added “it is the wrong model for the 21st century”. While FME kept education living  in a crude handicraft stage, it hijacked schools’ capability  to address the needs of students in the digital Info-Global Age (IGA). 

Non-the- less, due to the wide dissemination  of ICT tools and practices, students feel no longer obliged to learn through one school location, one classroom, one teacher, one accent, one required text, one method, one learning speed rate, one fixed daily schedule, and one graduation or promotion date to next course or class level. in brief, Info- Communication technologies (ICTs) since two decades ago has been re-inventing the quality of schooling on both K- 12 and higher education levels.

Having said that, It will be a big mistake for any decision maker or authority to reform society, to develop generations or to treat problems of national concern without the consent of education; since schools and universities are the cradle in which offsprings are grown to their personal and professional destinies.

Further, it is critical for any person to succeed is not limited to how huge is the knowledge she or he owns, rather by how much are civic and effective in handling morally the purposes, content, means and thinking techniques in utilizing the memory stored information. In other words, using information (United Nations.2005) not as mere product, but as services or means for bettering worthy human development goals.

it is observed that more individuals, schools, higher educational institutions and even school systems have stored huge amounts of information in data banks, internet and other media; then use it carelessly with students by didactic large group techniques, rigid routines, subjective attitudes and grade inflation for achieving at the end memorized learning of trivial details.

 Actually, this profound educational problem represents the main reason beyond the backward status of underdeveloped and developing countries within worldwide   society. Schools and higher educational institutions are persistent for hundreds of years in teaching generation to memorize and recite facts in the absence of experimenting, differentiating, synthesizing, and generating new knowledge. However, With the globally spreading of digital info-communication technologies, the whole picture of schooling is thoroughly changing. This Author envisages the following reforming developments.

 Re-Inventing the Quality Methodology of Schooling

Due to the global  effects of digital ICT, several methodological advances are taking place in schooling since the beginning of 21st  century. Transnational education,  student centered education, digital schooling sites, blended schooling, knowledge society, trio- systemic assessment, equitable education for all students, dynamic classroom meetings and connected interactive classroom, are main re-inventions which are altering deeply the course of schooling methodology. While these changes up-to-this date are in the experimentation stage, it is expected within coming ten years to transform into norm practices even in the education of developing countries. Brief illustrations follow.

A- Re-inventing the locales of schooling from basically local to cross-border geographies in form of transnational education.

The widely globalized practices of ICTs had made it possible for generating several pioneering shifts in the realm of education, among them “transnational urbanism” and “transnational education”. For transnational urbanism (Smith 2005) which focuses on the possibilities of transnational interconnectivity for constituting and reconstituting of social relations, it underlines the socio-behavioral spatial processes by which interested local authorities or organizations build translocal connections to create the trans-localities that increasingly sustain new modes of being-international. Transnational urbanism as such was (in the view of this Author) a motivating concept for envisioning many emergent transnational practices like “transnational education” in this paragraph. 

A-1. Transnational Schools

Transnational Schools (American Heritage Dictionary 2011) are institutions which extend educational missions and practices beyond their national boundaries, thus involving several nations and nationalities in achieving stated goals. Educational sharing in issues like professional expertise, instruction, programs, achievement degrees and certificates, support services and infra-structures, are maintained in accord of well-planned co-understandings and mutual contracts for handling academic and financial matters.

Thousands of years ago, transnational school practices represented a limited symbolic part of postage systems’ responsibilities(Hozien 2014; Islam for Life.nd). It was fulfilled in its simplest form by officially delegated workers who rode horses, camels and other means and carrying documents,  manuscripts, and postage materials. More facts which apply to transnational schools are presented next for transnational higher education.

A- 2. Transnational Higher Education “THE“

The concept and good practice of TNE in higher education according to the UNESCO/Council of Europe Code (Francois, Avoseh and Griswold 2016; Francois 2015; Vignoli 2004), are “all types of higher education study programs, or sets of courses of study, or educational services (including those of distance education) in which the learners are located in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is based”. TNE may encompass “all forms of higher education activities operating in parallel to and outside the official higher education system of the host country“.

However, “THE” should not be looked upon as merely “across the border” activity or assignment, joint degrees or programs, rather is seen by this Author as one of the most lasting universal and promising approaches for higher education.

“THE” has transformed the concept and practice of local isolated higher education institutions to global collaborating networks in which each partner accomplishes the assigned tasks according to mutually agreed upon plans and well-defined standards and/or outcomes (Hamdan 2013).

‏ B- Re-inventing the schooling paradigm from teacher to student centered approach.

Learning Paradigm (LP) has counteracted its predecessor the Instruction Paradigm (TP) prevailed in schooling for almost the entire educational history of  mankind. LP “emphasizes learning over teaching and student discovery and construction of knowledge over transfer of knowledge from instructor to student” (Barr & Tagg1995).

In fact, the LP delegates the learning responsibilities to students who decide on what, why, how, when and where of learning. Hence, teachers are giving up their conventional roles as the “center of educational universe”. Of course, This profound change in schooling paradigm is facing “passive resistance” from many teachers who are still adhered to the old time philosophy ‘If I don’t say it, they won’t learn it’. This one-sided point of view is seen nowadays totally invalid in lieu of the accelerating effects of info-global technologies (Kelly2015).

However, other teachers who continue pro TP have maintained a half way toward LP by adopting a customized LP-TP approach called ‘You Can Classroom Environment’. Teachers in this approach endorse the four following procedures (Hollis20150):

1 .The teacher maintains a deep belief that students can learn and communicates this belief through words and actions.

2. The teacher works to create a classroom environment that is respectful and trusting for all students.

3. The teacher responds quickly to feedback from students indicating misconceptions or confusion concerning content. The teacher does not restate the content louder but rather teaches it with different strategies.

4. The teacher has a healthy dose of self-efficacy, believing that his or her actions can positively impact the students“.

In the course of LP, “the instructor’s role is to guide students in the right direction rather than simply delivering the content. And with the wealth of resources available online, the instructor is no longer the only source of knowledge. “Rather than feeling responsible for delivering material, instructors need to be responsible for monitoring students’ progress, giving feedback, and intervening when students have problems”(Kelly2015).

It should be noted moreover that adopting student-centered paradigm implies the commitment for the philosophy and actions of self-paced learning which in turn requires dynamic acts such as(McKee 2015):  

·‘Open entry/open exit allows students to enter or exit the program at whatever learning level they need.

·Lessons accommodate varied abilities, backgrounds and motivation levels of students. 

·Each student moves through learning independently and at his/her own pace.

·micro study units require active responding, written, oral, and/or behavioral to ensure each student experiences successful task completion.

·Logically sequenced activities progress students through inductive learning steps – from simple to complex – before progressing to more difficult materials.

·Students achieve each micro unit in a systematic way with continual reinforcement and motivation which aids in learning retention.

·Micro unit Built-in self- assessment activities to help in focusing and building learning.

·Small groups up to 10 students with similar abilities and needs could be formed and supervised by a single teacher.

·Individualized and small group instructions are the norms of teaching and learning which enable monitoring each student’s progress and provide tutorial assistance as needed.

·Instructors’ and students’ Guide could be prepared to provides step-by-step plans for every micro study unit and meso curricular units (Mazzarol 2005).

·Support services such as  paraprofessionals, volunteers, or peer tutors could be available and  easy to maintain‘.

 In short, LP provides students the following advantages (Partly,Kelly2015):

·Offers students broader context for learning where differentiated goals, sources, contents, techniques, equipments, facilities, support services, study time options are openly available.

·Offers students cooperative learning as students work together toward a common goal and learn from each other and actually teach each other. Further, LP enables groups to search back the materials, examine what they did, and have a feedback how to  be better achievers.

·Offers students collaborative inter-independent learning  opportunities to build their individual “self-made- personalities”. Through knowledge, experience and skill sharing and interaction with peers, teachers and human resources, students enjoy achieving their ultimate academic, professional and personal goals.

·Offers students decision making opportunities to determine individually and in small groups what they need to learn, to carry on responsibility for intended learning and to be accountable for the efficiency of achievement results. The mechanism which enables LP achieve this principle emphasis, is the use of systemic diagnostic and formative assessments rather than the summative tools, as illustrated bellow.

C-  Re-inventing the schooling presentation mode from in-person to blended and online systems.

Didactic in-person education which persisted for thousands of years ago is transforming by the beginning 21st century to a new  form that mixes on-ground and online content and activities in what is called “blended” schooling. This new methodology is here to stay due to different nature of individuals, in growth, cognitive modalities, and availability of responsive sources. There will be environments that are high, fair or low in e-learning, but neither in-person nor online will reach in practice the 100% or 0% points in this regard (Hamdan.2014).

 A group of U.S university professors convened 2014 to debate the fate of lecture room in higher education in comparable to some online techniques. They  concluded that “the future of the university won’t be without bricks, won’t be all clicks, but will certainly be far more clicks than bricks” (Schaffhauser 2014), confirming thus the lasting role of blended schooling in  education.

Other writers (Bluhm and Mobbs 2015) stated that the web provides valuable resources that can be shared with others. Obviously internet pedagogy is clearly the future of education. They added, one can consider students are both face-to-face and online at the same time – a kind of lively ghosts. In essence, residential  classes are redesigned into new forms of blended courses through which educational methodology interweaves real teaching and learning with cyber pedagogy. What is emerging here is a complimentary blend of real and online schooling.

However, for any school system to succeed in blended schooling, specific procedures should be firstly maintained by teachers. These briefly are:

1.  Be professional in both on ground and online instruction. There will be no successful blended schooling without this pre-requisite principle.

2.   Re-organize the course of instructional and learning topics and activities that are better to perform on ground and others online.

3.  Resist the social conventions that learning cannot take place in ghostly (online) realm. Students may learn not merely by focus and alertness, but by being in a thoughtful and engaged state, the case that electronic devices can provide.

4.  Remain fully human in blended schooling: authentic and engaging, thoughtful, and interesting. In both real and online cases be always real, simple, none-directive, none- stiff and to the point. These personal and professional teaching qualities will keep students focused, engaged and achievement interested.

D-  Re-inventing the schooling facilities from physical buildings to blended and electronic sites in the Cyber Space.

School facilities at different levels of education started physical thousands of years ago by Greek Plato Academy in Athens 387 b.c. and continued and enlarged in shape, services and size up to the end of 20th century. By then, ICTs overwhelming developments have changed deeply the nature, mission, physical means, management and communication settings of schooling.

While education as observed (by this Author) seems a highly conservative domain among other societal concerns to live up with contemporary developments of ICTs, a major shift at the beginning of 21st century is recognized worldwide in regard of the attitudes towards ICTs and the utilization of its products by educational systems, schools and higher education institutions.

For this, most school buildings on ground, especially in developed countries have online twins operating in the cyber space. This transformation of schooling facilities appear in two forms: online education centers located side by side of conventional school buildings, or new study departments or offices and services established within existing physical sites. These two options of schooling facility could be termed in lieu of ICTs implications: External and Internal blended school sites. The two blended sites could be experimented by school systems to decide on the  one which may serve more its goals and needs in reality.

E- Re-inventing school society from static subjective gatherings to dynamic digital open organization named Knowledge Society.

As knowledge ” became a resource and a utility and transformed from being private to public good” (Drucker 1993), Knowledge Society was initially born. This is due however to contemporary ICTs which reshaped how people think, learn, behave and perform inter-social, educational, and societal affiliations (Prag Foundation2016) .

In fact, ICTs  have transformed memory-based societies to knowledge counterparts that symbolize freedom of expression, Digital solidarity, knowledge-sharing, and self-learning. (Bindé 2005) added values of ICTs which are  providing basic and Lifelong education for all, and scientific and pedagogical research that tend to diffuse information and communication technologies into communities’ work and ways of life. hence creating constantly new opportunities for development.

Knowledge is looked upon as the “fuel” of thinking which is in turn the driving force for any social, scientific, and educational advances. Thus, new terms have been coined such global society, digital society, global economy, blended learning and many others. Digital knowledge as Hughes (2000) and Neil Butcher(2011) confirmed has become the predominant indicator of future wealth.

Further, knowledge as Prag Foundation (2016)  added, “has become the key resource that  has value in itself and for the welfare of society.. The most important property is now intellectual property, not physical property. It is the hearts and minds of people, rather than traditional labor, that are essential to growth and prosperity. Workers at all levels in the 21st century knowledge society will need to be lifelong learners, adapting continually to changed opportunities, work practices, business models and forms of economic and social organizations“.

It is believed in the foreseeable future that every ‘on ground’ society whether school, sport, profession, science, politics or technology will have a “digital copy” running somewhere in the “cloud”. However, the cyber society seems more lawful, concise, peaceful, objective, and goal-oriented than its authentic twin on the ground which appears emotional, negligent, absent minded and over occupied in endless corruption and inter-mindless barbarian wars that exceed every imagination.

In regard to size, school knowledge society can be on the level of classroom, school building, school system or league, nation state, region and worldwide community. Each society as its nature implies, could also specialize in working on specific purpose, social, professional, scientific, academic or cultural interests.

For Characteristics of a knowledge society, Neil Butcher and Associates ( 2011) has summed the following points:

*  ‘its members have attained a higher average of education.

*  its labor’s force are employed as knowledge workers i.e. researchers, scientists, information specialists,  knowledge managers and other related services.

 * its organizations and products are digital in nature.

 *  availability of organized knowledge in forms of digital expertise, data banks, expert systems, and organizational plans‘.

F- The shift in assessment – based sporadic negligently prepared assignments and final summative written exams to systemic blended trio-stage methodology

New blended and online schoolings by the beginning of 21first century require new methodologies of educational assessment.  It is proposed here, beside the limited use of summative evaluation at the end of each studied course, to adopt two types of assessment: pre-learning diagnostic and during learning formative assessments (Hamdan 2015).

Diagnostic assessment concerns itself with specifying where each student stands in regard of required knowledge and skills before learning, specifying thus where he or she will start new learnings and what content will be learned.

Formal and informal formative assessments (students’ self assessment of progress) measure what students are achieving. The data obtained could then be used to modify teaching and learning goals and activities to further students’ engagement and performance.

Summative assessment (SA) while could be administered in real halls, online or blended in real and online situations, is concerned basically with specifying the overall outcomes of students’ final achievement of the studied courses. These appraising sessions are usually conducted at the end of an instruction, a course, a midterm, or the school year. The SA decisions are made against specific norm or criterion-referenced-standards or benchmarks.

The data of SA are transformed into qualitative judgments such as: pass- fail; grades A, B, C, D, and F; or to more descriptive ruling, such as: moving to next level or new blended learning (topic is specified), more blended learning achievement is needed (subject is specified), or repeating the class, the year or the course of blended learning.

G- The shift from biased teaching focusing on normal ability students to equitable education for all.

ICTs have made it possible to correct the unjust massive schooling treatment of students’ learning which conventionally focused on serving the needs of normal ability students. The main weakness of this conventional approach lies in its basic concern for educating the average ability students who sum usually around 68% of learning population. This happens frequently in absence of upper 16% and lower 16% of students who don’t get enough educational attention for their special needs in terms of differentiated responsive content and methodology.

ICTs ever flowing advances have made it viable for schooling to change this educationally and morally unjustified position. The psychological and behavioral effects of these evolving technologies have motivated educators and school authorities to adopt through school curricula and methodologies a new equitable responsive approach for all: lower special needs, normal, and superiors / gifted students.

However, Despite the many ICTs’ application breakthroughs observed in this regard which are generally changing the realm of schooling, the overall commitment to the “mass methodology” in accord of the “factory model of education” is still observed. What is simply needed in this unfolding stage of schooling is more thoughtful planning, educational will and insightful perseverance for reforming schooling by means of contemporary ICTs. Equitable education is a natural right of every person, child or adult, and educational systems should comply to this ultimate principle of human rights if their formal status could be justified.

H- The shift from instruction- based paper curricular resources to differentiated blended and digital alternatives.

Today’s paper resources represent in form and industry a lasting dilemma in school and university education, especially in developing countries. Curricula and textbooks are produced mostly by personal armchair manners in absence of both curriculum expertise by persons in charge for the tasks, and concerned students’ characteristics and educational needs for which these resources should be tailored. Resulted textbooks  from this unsound approach are suffering from being poorly designed and developed, invalid for students’ cognition and previous knowledge, having many language and academic errors, being too briefed or over “long” for class level.

In addition, paper texts are causing students extra agonizing problems, especially in under and developing countries, in regard of school dissemination. Examples of  this problem are the unavailability of texts by beginning of school year, reaching students too late in the school year, or worse yet graduating students without having the texts and consequently missing the learning of its academic knowledge.

Paper resources in western education are also not problem free particularly at university level. College students are facing wide spread difficulties in getting courses’ texts. Devaney (2016), Director of News, K-12 and Higher Education called the problem “textbook dilemma” and reported an agreed upon solution among a group of U.S universities under what is called Rafter360’s model which states: “students receive all required course materials and textbooks at the beginning of each term“.

Dealing with above educational problems of paper resources in the context of ITCs innovations, the possibilities look very promising. Through online and blended schoolings, problems of curriculum making could be digitally solved, digital textbooks should negate written texts unavailability problem, problems of design, production, academia and language could be performed by  a “click”, and differentiation and free choices of learning sources are easily fulfilled. Hence, schooling failure will be highly minimized. 

I-  The shift from static semi- literate large group classroom meetings to a dynamic differentiating approach based on reading – writing skills, learning Indulgence, and civil ethics.

More of residential classrooms are generally overwhelmed  by confusion, shouting, students’ aimlessly  ins and outs, and other multi-disciplinary problems. These unhealthy settings are leading to no or trivial learning. What is urgently needed by students in both blended and online situations is better literate intentions to reading and writing skills, schooling Indulgence, and civil ethics. Brief training of students on these operational learning qualities coupled with ICTs basic skills will help immensely realizing this demand.

Reading and writing literacy is a fundamental factor of individual success in on-ground and online schoolings, knowledge society, and human and professional communications (Neil Butcher and Associates 2011).

The ability of reading has become in the info-global age the first important mechanism to process new information, to learn new knowledge, skills, and habits. and as info-communication technologies are affecting greatly the changes in all human behavioral fields, including education, the need for reading has increased to ultimate necessity.

Moreover, same importance of reading is true for writing. Students without adequate writing skills to document learning  assignments clearly and persuasively  and communicate effectively  by emails and other online means, will face clearly achievement failure.

Ethics and civic behavior

Online navigation for learning, communication, or educational searching is invisible except of what is displayed on the computer screen. Ethics when lacking as behavioral norms on the internet, identities are widely stolen or forged, facts are falsified, personal data and sites are hacked or abused.

While the problem of ethics goes back to the negligent rearing of family and school, the viable solution for educators is “prevention education” of students focusing on ‘safe navigation online‘.

J- The shift in the organization of students for learning from rigid physical rows of large groups and whole class arrangements to blended and online interactive settings.

ICTs has made possible to revoke the concept and role of the conventional “teacher orator” or “didactic officer” in schooling coupled with calling off the “students military rows” technique for learning in the classroom as generally noticed in developing and underdeveloped environments.

In the realm of current blended and online learning, there is no place for large group static rows. Actually, these rigid classroom arrangements are being replaced in developed regions by connected classrooms, study carrels, student stations, small group round working tables, connected mobile and tablets, electronic bulletin boards, connected video circles, electronic chats and more others.

Re-Inventing the quality curricular content of schooling

Several implications of ICTs for reforming the school curricula and curricular content offered to students of blended and online learnings. These appear in the next four predictions.

A- The shift in school learning goals from graduating all students with same academic content to fulfill mostly occupational / administrative local needs of societal institutions, to multiple achieving goals by which curriculum content is sorted into three academic inductive quality levels. These are explained briefly as follows:

1. Curriculum Content for Literates who learn tentatively the basics: the Core (fundamentals / determinants) of subject knowledge.

2. Curriculum Content for Specialists who handle the:

· basics: the Core (fundamentals / determinants) of subject knowledge,

· commons or ordinary knowledge of the subject,

· minor knowledge which represents the complementary details in the subject.

3.  Curriculum Content for Pioneers who study the three content components of the text, plus extra related knowledge:

· basics: the Core (fundamentals / determinants) of subject knowledge,

· commons or ordinary knowledge of the subject,

· minor knowledge which represents the complementary details in the subject,

· extra related knowledge carefully selected from well known resources to fulfill individual students academic motivation and curiosity.

B- The shift from developing and presenting the curriculum to students as a macro “holy” schooling document, to Fundamental and Minor Knowledge, and hundreds of micro operational interactive units used basically by students for self-learning and formative achievement assessment.

However, other unit types such as intermediate transitional “Meso” and grand macro units will continue in curriculum making and instruction. Their main purposes are management of course instruction, and mid-term and final summative assessments of achievement.

  Developing Micro blended and online learning achievement units

When segmenting learning assignments into finite intakes, micro learning achievement units are materialized. This technique in the era of digital information, self- learning approaches and student-centered paradigm, enables least ability students to achieve the required learning. Hence, it is seen highly effective in furthering the success of most students in achieving the materials without difficulty or seeking much help from teachers. These learning merits of the micro educational or behavioral units and the high percentages of successful learners, had motivated Fred Keller before fifty year ago to coin the term: ‘Good-bye, teacher’(Keller 1968).

Another source (Grovo HQ 2014) endorsed above notions by writing “Micro learning has consistently achieved higher rates of improvement in student performance, value, and achievement”. All of which can be accomplished by means of micro learning.

Grovo furthered some criteria for educators to develop micro learning units and apply them in blended learning materials, appear in the following:

·” Micro / compact learning and achievement units.

· Short in time and requirements of learning and achievement.

· Highly engaging.

· High achievement value.

· Easy achievement.

· Applicable to needs of all learners.

· Logical and meaningful sequence in learning and cognition“

Sorting the Text Content into Fundamental and Minor Knowledge

Each subject matter is composed of two types of facts or knowledge: fundamental and minor. While fundamentals are the “learning musts” for students to achieve, minors (as commons and complementary details) are subordinate knowledge that add enriching thoughts and meaning to fundamental content but never replacing it.

Considering the next proposed trio achievement grade options with C, B and A. (Paragraph c) the resource perspective teacher could assign the sorted content for students learning as follows (illustrative example, figure 2):

· grade C students: 50 – 100% of  the fundamental content (Grades C, C+)

· grade B students: 100 % of  the fundamental content + 70% of minor content. (Grades B, B+)

· grade A students: 100 % of  the fundamental content + 100% minor content + 50- 100% extra content from related sources (Grades A,A+)

However, when assigning extra knowledge from related resources to gifted students, the academic teacher counselor considers the following principles (Applied Educational Systems 2013):

· Be Relevant

· Be Choosy about the Tools You Use

· Battling Student Boredom and Absenteeism

· Be Willing to Give Students More Responsibility

· Keeping Students Engaged to promote Student Responsibility

· Provide Immediate Feedback and Ongoing Assessment

 C- The shift from mandatory learning of whole curriculum content to trio – achievement options with grades C, B and A.  

D- The shift from macro curriculum learning to hundreds of Micro blended and online learning achievement units

Three logical assumptions underlie above two reinventions in regard to learning of curriculum content. these are:

1. Different students have different academic aptitudes for learning. e.g. high, normal and low.

2. Different students have different academic and professional needs for learning any subject matter.

3. Different students have different learning pace. e.g. quick, normal and slow.

The current ICTs’ accelerating developments have reinforced the principle and practice of newly accredited student-centered approach in schooling. Further, personalized learning and better understanding of students by educators are being explored in Issues such as: student different natures, backgrounds, needs, cognitive abilities, aptitudes and learning paces, among others. These psych- educational principles coupled with ICTs abundant knowledge, tools and skills available for educational personnel, are enabling:

· Curriculum and instruction specialists to break down the macro curricular document into “meso” and micro (Mazzarol and Others 2005) learning and teaching units to be achieved without apparent difficulties by 90% of students with 90% A  and B grades. This task will mainly produce appropriate instructional units which will focus on required learning.

· Educational psychologists to counsel students on their preferred study goals, choices and achievement levels of each subject matter or textbook. This task will lead to individual students’ decisions in regard of:

 – achievement levels and contracts for studying courses (figure1).

– goals for studying each course. e.g. to be literate in curriculum topic, professional workers or pioneers in the subject (figure2).

– Assessment types, procedures, tools, exams, tentative time schedules and criteria for successful achievement. Diagnostic pre-learning, formative, and summative assessments are of main concern here. 

· Educational digital technologists to coordinate with curriculum and instruction specialists and educational psychologists, to determine the types of ICTs which suit each learning and instructional task. An ” implementation roadmap ” or “Technology Roadmap” (University of Cambridge n.d.; Wikimedia Foundation 2016) could be drawn here and copies are delivered to all schooling personnel concerned for individual students’ learning.