Rethinking Education for the Future: How Canadian International School (CIS) is Shaping Tomorrow's Learners
Embracing a Student-Centric Approach with Authentic Learning and Collaboration in a Multicultural Environment
As a parent, you want what is best for your child and want a school that prepares them for the future. However, schools today look nothing like they used to 10 years ago, so how will you know what to look for in a school that can address the changes in learning and in society? One thing is certain, schools and learning will continue to evolve to meet the needs of jobs and technology that have yet to be invented. So what will schools of the future look like to address these changing needs?
They will look like many schools of today, including Canadian International School (CIS), a top international school in Bangalore. Here we work towards bringing students to the center of learning. Our classes require that students inquire, collaborate, and communicate actively with each other. Students learn to advocate for their ideas and themselves, take risks in attempting to do new things, and learning and growing from one’s mistakes. In fact, our students and teachers embrace the mistakes they make as pathways to learning and growth. In short, our students become active agents in their own learning and understanding, not simply test takers.
CIS is a school where students can select areas of study where there are teachers to guide them through activities and topics of interest and prepare them for the future. Learning here isn’t solely judged by test scores, but on more authentic forms of performance that indicate a student’s true learning and understanding. CIS. Students develop portfolios and exhibitions to display their films, writing, art, and creations, in addition to more traditional forms of paper and pencil assessments.
This is a break away from the mould of traditional schooling systems, especially the ones we see in India that tend to focus more on classroom-based education. But it is one that is needed as our traditional means of teaching and learning no longer address and prepare students for the necessary skill sets to be successful and accomplished as they grow and take a role in shaping the world. Students should be given the liberty to explore, understand, and experience most of the things that they learn in the class, based on a student’s individual needs and help him/her grow into an educated, involved, and responsible adult.
Collaboration is already a focal point in the curriculum at CIS. Our students are from multicultural and multilingual backgrounds and we have teachers and students from over 40 different nationalities. Students are encouraged to interact, discuss, and debate on various topics. The Contextual Learning and Experiential Learning programs also help students get a first-hand experience about what they learn in the classroom.
Technology is also an integral part of our school – not just for technology’s sake, but as a true tool for learning, communicating and participating in the change around us. Apart from being India’s 1st Apple Distinguished School, we at CIS have adapted to the trends of the 21st century and have integrated our teaching and learning to be 1:1 iPad centric. We offer an international curriculum from Pre-Kindergarten till Grade 12 where our method of teaching is student-centric in an atmosphere that is conducive to active learning.
Learning is open ended, and we believe in developing our students’ adaptability to address global trends. So the schools of the future are the schools of today. They do not look like schools when we as parents were in school – based on rote learning, repeating facts, and finding single right answers. At CIS we focus on real skills like communication, developing creativity, researching and understanding valid information, collaboration, and developing grit and perseverance to see our ideas through. If you would like to see the direction of education, and what schools of the future are shaping up to be, we encourage you to come see what we do at Canadian International School (CIS) to shape the future together, today.