New Learning: Educational change for future skills

The Education Revolution Focus on Learning Concepts

New Learning turns education on its head and focuses on learning instead of teaching. Experts say that it's high time, and explain what New Learning entails.

How can a future-proof education system, and thus the working world, of tomorrow develop? Not at all if things carry on as before, say experts from academia and practice and demand a changed school and education structure. The term New Learning brings together different ways to approach education in a new way. The basic idea of them is always equally good: learning is based on the needs and interests of the learners in adult basic and further training just as much as in children's lessons.

Several children play an interactive game with wooden objects in a bright room.

Due to the current traditional organisation of learning, society is losing too many talented people, this is something on which the pioneers of New Learning agree. An overview can be found in Burow (2022): # Schule der Zukunft [School of the Future].

A black and white photo of a classroom focussing on a boy eagerly raising his hand

“In the last 200 years, schools have been geared towards teaching. But today, it’s much less a matter of teaching and more about learning. And too much teaching, especially if it follows the pattern of ‘old schooling’, can even prevent learning,” says Olaf-Axel Burow, Professor emeritus for general education in Kassel. As we all know, the principle of ‘old schooling’ is as follows: Everyone should learn the same material at the same time, at the same speed and with the same methods because they are biologically the same age. Even though this doesn’t make much sense in view of different starting circumstances and learning styles, children and young people still often sit in what is known as ‘corridor schools’, built following the model of military barracks: in enclosed classrooms, on unmoving furniture, eyes to the front looking at the teacher. And they are supposed to learn something ‘useful’ in this way. Only, what is considered to be useful has been set in stone for decades.

A child puts a model together to learn through play.

“By contrast, New Learning asks what educational and spatial conditions are needed, what mix of digital and analogue, so that schools can recognise individual inclinations and talents to encourage them personally at their personal learning stage,” says education expert Burow. Everyone can answer for themselves how much potential can otherwise be left behind: What enthused me in my schooldays? Did a teacher encourage me specifically and continuously over years? No? Exactly. “But if I discover my own thing for myself and can work on it at my own speed on my own initiative, I learn easily and quickly. That is exactly the point in New Learning,” says Burow. And from the start, it prepares the children for their future in a society in which no one will have stopped learning any more.

Developing Skills Instead of Reproducing Knowledge

Being able to inform yourself quickly in the event of problems, recognising connections, dealing with unplannable changes creatively - these are the skills that will be key in the future. Because even if schools have the truly difficult task of preparing people for jobs that don’t even exist yet, one thing is completely clear: the world is turning faster, technology cycles are getting shorter, the half-life period of knowledge is falling. The consequence is called lifelong learning – which is why industry is also increasingly focusing on education and further training.

Studies show that lifelong learning is the most effective means for companies to deal with the digital transformation tasks ahead. The plan is to strengthen themselves from within against the change from outside. However, that can be done only if the employees internalise learning as part of the job. This, in turn, requires that, firstly, they have not lost their love of learning in the physics classroom at school. Secondly, further training should not be experienced as a time-consuming compulsory event. This is where the definition of New Learning comes in, as it was derived as a spin-off of the New Work concept of Frithjof Bergmann in the 1970s and 80s. His philosophy: in learning, spontaneousness, responsibility, and the feeling of social affiliation result in motivation and the development of one’s own potentials. Which, incidentally, has long been scientifically confirmed by the flow concept of Csikszentmilhalyis and the self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan. How these findings should be implemented is a key challenge for companies that want to be future-proof. It was not without reason that the better integration and personalisation of learning in the company was identified as the most important HR trend in a 2019 study conducted by the Deloitte consultancy.

Several people in a meeting room with laptops, listening to a woman explaining something on a whiteboard

Black and white image of a classroom with group tables at which children are working.

What's New about New Learning?

It is well known that good ideas are born more than once, and this is certainly the case for New Learning. Because a lot of what is being discussed in personnel departments and educational institutions as New Learning, is old hat as far as educationalists are concerned. As early as the start of the 20th century, Maria Montessori issued her famous formula: “Help me to do it myself”. Even back then, her specially developed wooden learning materials, which she had manufactured and distributed by VS in Germany, were supposed to encourage independent learning by shaping a “prepared environment”. But we don’t have to look back as far as the progressive education of turn of the century. Buzzwords in the current discussion, such as “responsibility” or “skills orientation” have been included in current school curricula for decades. What is new about New Learning, therefore, is the consolidating awareness among all players that they finally have to implement what scientific findings and curricula have long been demanding.

A pupil interacts with a tablet to learn content digitally.

The coronavirus pandemic helped here as a sort of accelerant. It not only revealed difficulties, but also made digital learning at schools, universities and in companies necessary and therefore something that could be experienced. This was the opportunity said leading educational researchers and in the 2020 “Hagen Manifesto” they argued for New Learning in the sense of a fundamentally new understanding of learning for schools, universities, and adult education. They demanded digital equipment for everyone, in-service further training for teachers and the radical change of perspective from teachers to learners.

Portrait of the education reformer Maria Montessori in black and white.

"Help me to do it myself."
Maria Montessori

What Does New Learning Look Like in Practice?

Doing this requires teachers to radically rethink or maybe just to remember why they chose the profession in the first place: in other words, as educationalist encouraging adolescents by supporting individual learning processes instead of just allowing knowledge to be reproduced. No wonder that it is far more satisfying.

“Practice shows that children and young people activate unbelievable energy and reveal a wholeheartedness when they connect internally with what they are doing, working on tasks that make sense and that they may even set for themselves,” says Josef Watschinger, who has been developing and supporting New Learning in South Tyrol in a network of schools and kindergartens in the Puster Valley for more than two decades.

A girl is studying while lying in the tent Leaf by VS.

For lay people, the programme of self-directed learning sounds a little as though everyone can do what they like in lessons. But even a new learning culture naturally contains introductions to topics, guided training courses and systematically building on basic school skills. Work assignments are clearly worded by the teacher in concentrated input phases. But then children increasingly develop the skill to decide for themselves: Where and how can I do this work assignment at what speed and what should I focus on? At a standing table, in a group or alone on the floor? Moving, using a model, with a laptop, books or in discussion? This is how they allow their own learning style to develop and learn self-organisation. After all, during an apprenticeship, at university or at work, the ‘man marking’ is gone and there’s no longer someone saying: “Get your book out”.

Farewell to the Classroom

School has to be rethought to make New Learning possible: as a sort of workshop that is flexible in many areas and also uses external learning locations. The Alemannenschule Wutöschingen is one example of what it could look like. Alongside the “learning workshop”, in which up to 250 pupils work at their own speed for a third of the time, there are input rooms, coaching areas, work islands for retreat and large common areas for working in mixed-age project teams. The mobile furnishings invite the children to set the scene within a recognisable basic order for their learning environment where they feel most at home at that moment. They can also deliberately change the room to press the “reset” button. Because how is someone supposed to get an F in maths and 5 minutes later be able to pain creative pictures in art at the same desk?

“Pupils intuitively understand the language of the rooms, know immediately whether they are having demands made of them or are merely objects that have to be spoken to and disciplined,” says Watschinger, who has advanced learning and school room development across Europe. It’s not much different for adults. After all, rooms are always an expression of how learning is understood.

Several children play and craft in the Shift+ elements by VS.

Creating New Thinking Spaces for New Learning

Sensible room planning does not therefore begin with the room. It begins with a blank sheet of paper and the most important question of all: How do we want, how will we have to work as a school in future? “The real change starts in the mind. That's why the first step is having to create new thinking spaces to then develop the framework by means of the educational demands, that then translate the assignment of school into rooms,” says Karin Doberer, CEO of LernLandSchaft, which advises schools, education providers and local authorities across Europe in matters relating to newbuilds, conversions and renovations. This can be a fantastic opportunity to disrupt outmoded thinking patterns: away from thinking in terms of classes and lone warriors among colleagues towards multi-professional teams and learning communities.

Two children sit together at the table on PantoSwing students' chairs by VS and draw pictures.

In fact, the change with respect to rooms has less to do with square metres than many think. New Learning also works in old buildings provided that the rooms are actually designed. “A snuggly sofa in the corner is just cosmetic. What is needed is a learning environment appropriate for learning styles, from primary school to vocational school, where educational science, architecture and interior design are combined meaningfully. Society loses too many talented people, children as well as adults, just because we are not serving their learning style,” says Doberer, who moderates the planning dialogue between education providers, architects, and local authorities as a process coach. According to her estimate, around ten percent of schools offer a learning environment that supports New Learning.

Not much, especially since learning time is always also living time. Wouldn't it make more sense to spend this time in an environment that promotes well-being as well as learning and teaching equally, instead of wasting it in a learning environment that makes it difficult?

For further information and if you have any questions, please contact:

VS Vereinigte Spezialmöbelfabriken GmbH & Co. KG
Hochhäuser Straße 8
D-97941 Tauberbischofsheim

We will be happy to provide you with further materials and up-to-date information.

The press releases and images provided may be printed free of charge. Please send us a specimen copy.