Introduction The world is changing rapidly, making it increasingly difficult to predict and manage it. The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example of how rapidly circumstances can change, leading to global lockdowns overnight. Another example that illustrates how quickly the world is changing is the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), which Schwab (2015) describes as a fusion of technologies that will blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. This fusion of technologies could disrupt every industry in every country. Teachers can be equipped to do this by preparing them in their pre-service education programmes to design lessons that foreground deep learning and deliberately infuse the development of competencies for a fast-changing world. At the Department of Childhood Education (DCE), we recognise the importance of preparing pre-service teachers to teach in and for a fast-changing world. To this end, we piloted a course on lesson design in 2020, which was subsequently refined and researched throughout the 2020 and 2021 academic years. This paper provides an overview of the course, beginning with the lesson design approach used to prepare pre-service teachers for teaching in a fast-changing world. Next, aspects of the course design that engage pre-service teachers in deliberate practice of the lesson design approach, are briefly unpacked. The lesson design approach The course uses a lesson design approach conceptualised by Professor Sarah Gravett, who workshopped the approach with a group of teacher educators and research collaborators in 2019, which led to the revision and refinement of the approach. During the workshop, the participants worked collaboratively to co-design a new lesson design template. The lesson design approach was captured in a guiding document prepared by Professor Gravett. The document was updated and refined in 2021 and again in 2022. In 2020, I worked with a colleague to design, teach and research the pilot course in which we guided final-year pre-service teachers in using the lesson design approach. The approach, different from what pre-service teachers had used in their previous years of study, draws on the Successful living in a fastchanging, unpredictable world requires specific skills/ competencies, widely referred to in the education literature as 21st-century skills/competencies for a changing world. Therefore, teachers must teach learners the skills necessary to prepare them to live and thrive in a fastchanging world. To do this, in addition to teaching fundamental concepts (knowledge), teachers must intentionally infuse the development of competencies for a fast-changing world in their everyday teaching. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 75
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjU1NDYx