Agility in Education

To understand agile in education we should first understand what agility means? Agility is the ability to adapt to accommodate the changing environment. This adaption will happen by enabling the ability to think and understand quickly. This enablement is called as Agile Learning. Agile Learning process focuses on incremental learning by using the agile methodology. This is also referred as Agile based learning enablement wherein the principles of scrum and Kanban are adopted to the learning process.

Why should we adopt agile in education? It is inevitable for the society to enable the students to survive in this ever changing world.

In the words of Swami Vivekananda “Educate our people, so that they may be able to solve their own problems. Until that is done, all these ideal reforms will remain ideals only”.

In my view the agile learning process should focus on building the below three characteristics. The primary focus should be in developing Self –discipline followed by resilience and creativity. We should start with Self- discipline as the core driver as a strong foundation is must for any great architecture.

1.      SELF DISCIPLINE: This attribute is very critical as this defines the ability to do what one should be doing. Self-discipline will also prepare students to overcome our emotional mind by moving forward with physical action and this very critical to ensure that they stay focussed in this very disruptive environment. This has two fold benefit one being creating a healthy younger generation and focus on the right things. This will enable them to put off their immediate comfort or wishes in favour of long-term success and avoid the fascinations doe immediate gratification. This will enable them to decide what to do and when to do to achieve their goals.

 2.      RESILIENCE: This attribute focuses on two aspects one is how quickly we can bounce back from a difficult situation and how we can stay neutral and composed during the times of adversity. This is only possible with a well-developed support system like family and society. This is critical for any student as it will give them the strength to experiment and explore. This will help the students to create the fail fast and learn fast culture.

 3.      CREATIVITY: This attribute is no more good to have but a must to have attribute in all the phases of your life. This focuses on how we use our imagination to think something new that can deliver value in some form. This will enable the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. This is very critical for tomorrow’s world as today’s new is tomorrow’s history.

 There may many more attributes that we should focus on enabling the Students. In my opinion these are the 3 major characteristics that we should focus as this will enable them to solve their problems by themselves and will give them a greater confidence to face any difficulties in this ever changing world.