Leading Change for the 21st Century

While much emphasis has been paid to the design and use of the classrooms of schools, the immediate surroundings of school buildings such as play area and outdoor environment has received scant attention. School is perhaps the first public building with which children identify and towards which they feel a sense of possession. This feeling has a positive impact in creating caring and responsible attitudes towards the environment (Adams 1992). Schools are designed generally focusing the classrooms guided by the idea “learning occurs only in classroom”. However research completed by neuro-scientists is proving the importance of school design on the learning experience (Eberherd, 2009).
The focus of this qualitative research is to examine the affordance of emotional and social developmental value of play in a government primary school. The researcher has tried to present a perspective on the relationship between learning and play in a goal-directed practice. This issue is important because of the recent impetus for a more academic focus in classrooms, and questions about the developmental benefits of play.
The researcher conducted independent observations, classroom discussions, analysis survey and school walkabout during recess and after official school hours, in the school he teaches to illustrate and discuss the amount of time and space that is accorded to pupils in a typical government primary school for play and learning. This research hopes to impact and contribute to design planning of educational institutions and educational architecture within policy constraints.
Findings of this research, therefore, may add new perspective to philosophies of policy makers, education researchers and architects. Children of school age spend a considerable part of their lives (around six hours a day and over one thousand hours a year) at school and they are constantly interacting with the physical environment of their schools (Ghaziani, 2010). A 2006 Canadian study, for instance, found that students who interact on school grounds with diverse natural settings were more physically active, more creative, more aware of nutrition, and more cooperative with each other (Beuttell, 2008).

In the World Economic Forum 2017, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies of Singapore, describes how reshaping education and to reverse the trend of over academisation would be viewed as an importance in the future of Singapore. He considers a flexible blend of academic and practical education that is relevant to opportunities for employment or entrepreneurship in the market. The Singapore’s SkillsFuture movement was highlighted in the Forum as seen in a video entitled ‘how can leaders ensure technological change is human-centred’. Implementing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) resources in education is both technical and a learning design process for ICT leaders. The purpose of ICT in education is to transform the traditional practices and increase support for learning (Hew & Brush, 2007). There are several advantages of implementing ICT, according to OECD (2016) “diffusion and use of digital technologies increases, the cost of data collection, storage and processing continues to decline dramatically and computing power increases, governments, business and individuals are increasingly migrating their social and economic activities to the Internet.” However, there is little research to support how Adult Education Centres’, especially Skills based training may capitalise on this rising trend. Therefore, this paper recommends practices and support for learning to adopt by the Adult Education Centres involved in Singapore National SkillsFuture movement, to empower adult educators with the best practices in which ICT can be implemented in skills based training programmes so that interconnected process such as field knowledge, pedagogy and ICT can be used correctly (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The methods discussed in this research paper includes; Barriers of Implementation, Meaningful Technology Integration, Technology Adaption Checklist and Activity System to establish ICT Instructional Leadership in Skills Training.