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The 4th Industrial Revolution or

Industrial 4.0 (IR 4.0) is one of the


most popular discussed and
conversed topics in this developing
era of modernization. The vibe and
wave of IR 4.0 is so intense that a
paradigm shift is absolutely
inevitable, including the education
setting, making it the most popular
catch verb among leading
educationist in this era.

What does Education 4.0 mean? Do teachers or practitioners comprehend it fully or are
they just following the trend? In order to fully comprehend Education 4.0, it is very essential to be
aware of and get accustomed to the Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0.

Let’s go to few centuries back to get an overview on how the industrial revolutions changed
across time and the impact it had on the Education setting since the 18th century until today.
Industry 1.0 Industry 2.0 Industry 3.0 Industry 4.0

Today
1870

1969
1784

Mechanization Mass production, Computer and Cyber-physical


assembly line, automation system
Water and steam
electricity
power

Education 1.0 Education 2.0 Education 3.0 Education 4.0


1.0 1.0
 Teachers are  Includes more  Students become self  Virtual and
primary gatekeepers interaction between -determined learner augmented reality
of information teachers and  Use of technology and
 Students depend on students & between social networking as  Flexible
teachers for students learning platform assignments
information  Informal learning
 Use of class notes &  Use of blogs, experience  Blended learning
textbooks podcasts, Skype,  Share knowledge with
 Focus on shared wikis & peers  Massive Online
achievement test social networks  Teachers as coach & Open Courses
scores cheerleader (MOOC)
 Teacher as facilitator
of learning
I believe the brief review could give you an understanding of four industrial
revolutions along with the previous education settings. Now, this chapter will emphasize
on Education 4.0, the skills students need and how educators could cultivate these skills in
their classroom.

E
ducation 4.0 vitally utilizes tools and resources based on technology to propel
education in various non-traditional ways. This leads to students no longer
requiring to write down notes utilizing textbooks, pens and papers from
teachers in a traditional classroom environment.

As an alternative with
Education 4.0, learning can take
place anywhere at any time.
Interesting opportunities are
offered through the use of E-
learning tools in cultivating remote
and self-paced learning. Students
can remotely log on for their
classroom through video chat or
massive online open courses. All
they need to learn and participate in
their classes is just a laptop or a mobile phone with a stable internet connectivity.

The vital cause in why Education 4.0 was developed after the emergence of Industry
4.0 is the significant increase of communication tools and internet-based technology across
the industry. Education 4.0 was developed in response to the need of Industry Revolution
4.0 to produce trained and qualified professionals who are committed and prepared to work
in a digital-driven and highly globalized environment.
Education needs to be kept pace with the era it is molding students for, that is for them to
have a future that is financially sustainable and feasible. Education 4.0 is implemented to
ensure that the students are fit to survive the challenges faced in the Industrial Revolution
4.0.

Education 4.0 through the usage of technologies and tools ensures a teaching
experience same to the working experience by creating an equal and similar environment
for both. Students will be very skillful and productive in hands-on job in future. Thus,
Education 4.0 is a more practical and realistic approach towards learning. It leads to
students having better learning outcomes in aspect of their actual academic or professional
interests.

Education 4.0 is thus a more realistic and practical approach to learning. Education
4.0 leads to better learning outcomes for students in terms of their real academic or
professional interests, thereby educators are responsible to instill students with the essential
skills along Education 4.0. The skills are discussed in the section below.

Top 10 Skills Required


By the year 2020, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is projected to bring
futuristic advanced development in key areas such robotics, artificial intelligence and
machine learning, autonomous transport, advanced materials, biotechnology and
genomics. Due to rapid expansion and introduction of new fields which results in new
markets emerging, new set of skills will be required for employment. Advanced smart
robots are expected to take over jobs, and jobs that did not exist previously will be in
demand. It is estimated that about 5 million jobs will be non-existent in the year 2020
due to automation.

According to The Future Jobs, a recent article published from The World
Economic Forum in 2016, there are few skills required by students in 2020 to survive
in Industrial Revolution 4.0. The comparison shows some changes in relative
importance of several skills, and the emergence of new skills “cognitive flexibility”
and “emotional intelligence” find a mention in the list for 2020 but is not mentioned
at all in the 2015 list. By 2020, skills such as emotional intelligence and cognitive
flexibility are expected to be far more critical to industrial needs.

Hence, students, the future leaders need to equip themselves with these skills to
thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to think flexibly and to shift mindsets easily. It
allows us to adapt to unfamiliar and unexpected situations, by integrating different
perspectives and shifting between problem-solving strategies. When you teach students
strategies for shifting flexibly, you help them to see the value of different approaches
when solving problems, which helps them to succeed academically. When students
cannot think flexibly, they approach their schoolwork rigidly and often cling to one
method only, even when it’s clear that this method isn’t work for them.
When reading, students must shift their thinking depending on the specific goals of the
assignment, the structure of the text and the emphasis on comprehending the material.
For example, reading a science fiction (Sci-Fi) book is different from reading a science
textbook. When reading “A Photosynthesis Story”, students must shift between the
narrative structure and symbolic language. However, when reading “Encyclopedia of
Photosynthesis”, students must shift between the main ideas introduced by the topics
and the subtopics. Therefore, in order to understand what they are reading, students
must approach both language and contents flexibly.

Figure 3.1: Figure 3.2:


“A Photosynthesis Story”. “Encyclopedia of Photosynthesis”.

Cognitive flexibility also underlies students’ ability to write successfully. They must
take into account audience, purpose and perspective. For a scientific essay like
“Formation of Water”, students must be able to flexibly shift from main ideas to details
in order to develop a coherent thesis or argument. When writing creatively like “The
Adventures of Little Drop”, students must shift the ideas and details to develop an
imaginative storyline.
Note-taking is a skill that requires students to shirt between listening, reading and
writing. Students need to extract the main ideas and important details as they listen to
a lecture, read from a textbook or conduct an experiment, and translate these ideas into
presentation in the form of word and drawings. For example after conducting an
experiment, students are required to simultaneously listen and follow the experimental
procedures, identify and record important observations, and then translate the results
into their own words.

Keys Practice to Develop


Cognitive Flexibility
Encourage growth mindsets and
prevent fixed mindsets
• Develop a classroom culture which see difficulties as challenges that
they can overcome through flexible thinking. When students have a
growth mindset, they are willing to try new strategies, instead of
losing self-confidence when they experience difficulties.

Encourage the use of metacognitive


strategies
• Ask students to evaluate the approaches they use to solve problems
and to think about alternate strategies. Encourage them to share with
their classmates and to find alternate solutions.

Present multiple solutions to a problem

• Present students with multiple strategies for completing various tasks,


including problem solving, reading, writing and note-taking. Ask
students to select the strategy that works best for them and write down
or describe orally why that approach is the most effective.
CEO’s are hired for their intellect and business expertise – and fired for a lack of
emotional intelligence (Goleman, D., 2005). We always believe that intelligence
quotient or IQ is a surefire predictor of success. However, studies have found that
“smarts” can help you find the job, strong “emotional intelligence” help you keep it.

Being emotionally intelligent means you are conscious of your own feelings and able
to counterpoise emotion and reason. You also can recognise the feelings and emotions
in others and show empathy and compassion, which it plays a crucial role of all
relationships both business and personal. For us as teachers, it allows us to gauge a
student’s mood and carefully examine the classroom climate.

. 4 Signs of Emotionally Intelligent Students


1. They are interested in other people and their feelings or thoughts
When students ask “what are you thinking about”, it shows that they are interested
in understanding. Students who are emotionally intelligent want to know and
understand others and truly listen to their responses.

2. They know where they need improvement


Students with low EI make the world believe they know everything and can do
anything. When something goes wrong, they blame anywhere but on themselves.
If students have high EI, they always learn and therefore always grow.

3. They are aware of their own feelings


They know how they are feeling, what caused the feeling and how to process and
deal with the feeling by appropriate ways. Their feeling guides them towards
finding a solution rather than shut them down.

4. They avoid negative self-talk


When something does not go right, even the mistake is done by their own, they
do not berate and belittle themselves. Moreover, they can acknowledge what goes
wrong and explore their strategies for solving the problem, then go ahead and do
so.
Keys Practice to Develop
Emotional Intelligence
Whitaker (2018) suggests a few ways to develop students’ emotional intelligence:

Teach them to understand the vast variety of emotions


• Discuss all types of emotions with students. For example, Disney's/Pixar's
movie "Inside Out" is a good resource to introduce emotions.
• Let students watch their peers' reactions in classroom, look at their teachers and
parents handle difficult situation, then learn how others cope and handle their
emotions.

Work on strategies to control their emotions


• Having them brainstorm on ways they would react in different situations, then
allowing them to role play, it's a chance to practise their responses.

Teach them to feel empathy


• Encourage them to view life from another person's perspective. For example,
start by discussing the characters in a book and ask them to describe what the
character may be thinking.
• Let them alert on the news with world disasters and ask them to write an essay
on how they might feel to be the one going through those difficult times.

Teach them resiliency and to look at the big picture


• Students need to experience disagreement and conflict. They need to learn
conflict resolution and learn how to give and take in various situations.
• By understanding this, practise solutions through problem-solving within a
classroom, they will begin to view bigger picture and see the value of
accomplishing the group's goals.

Unlike intelligence quotient (IQ), emotional intelligence can be raised to some


extent. Part of it is shaped by our innate, another part is environment and the other part
is our attitude. Developing our emotional intelligence allows us to avoid
misunderstandings and miscommunications. It serves us well in our relationships in the
workplace and in all areas of our life.
Education 4.0 emphasis on cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence skills which
can be trained to students since their primary education. The following examples show
how these skills are implemented in science teaching.

Example 1

In Science Year 3, students need to


understand the concept of density,
which objects that float on water is less
dense than water and objects that sink in
water is denser than water through
activity. After they carry out the
activity, teacher can ask them to alter
the activity by making the float objects
to sink in water and sink objects to float
on water. For example, tied the bottle
with some stones to make it sink or put
the stainless stell spoon on a paper boat
to make it float.

Cognitive flexibility
To solve the problem, there might be multiple strategies, thus
students are encouraged to present different ways to grow
their mindset.

Emotional intelligence
Students might experience disagreement and conflict when
trying different strategies with classmates. They need to learn
how to manage their negative emotions in order to achieve the
goal which is to solve the problem.
Example 2

In Science Year 4, students require to


understand that the roots of plants have
much greater response to water than
gravity. After they carry out the
experiment and find out that the roots of
green beans grow towards wet cotton
wool instead of growing downwards
(gravity), teacher can ask them to find
solution to make the roots of green
beans grow downwards without
changing the current situation. For
example, pour some water into the
beaker, thus the roots respond to more
water at the bottom of beaker.

Cognitive flexibility
Students need to shift their mindset to think about the
alternative ways to make the roots of green beans grow
downwards logically.

Emotional intelligence
Students might experience disagreement and conflict when
discussing the solutions with classmates. They need to learn
how to manage their negative emotions in order to achieve the
goal which is to solve the problem.
Example 3

In Science Year 5, students need to


generate ideas and create a strong and
stable structural model using recycle
materials. After they build the models
and provide reasoning on the selected
materials used, teacher can ask them to
reflect the strength, weakness and ways
of improvement of their models, teacher
also can give students ample time to
solve the weakness and improve their
structural models.

Cognitive flexibility
Students need to evaluate their own models and also other
models, and then provide different constructive ideas for
improvement.

Emotional intelligence
Students need to know that everything isn’t perfect, they
should listen to the ideas from peers, and also judge the
models critically.
Example 4

In Science Year 4, pupils need to know the development of technology in many


fields and generate ideas on advantages and disadvantages of technology.
Teacher can set up a scenario and let pupils to discuss and bring out constructive
ideas:

Many countries over the world try to reduce the mass production of
stationeries to save the environment and replace them by technology.
It is estimated that in 2050, all stationeries are replaced
by technology. New generation won’t
use stationeries anymore.

Do you agree with the action?


Give your opinion.

Cognitive flexibility
Students need to shift their thinking to think about the pros
and cons rationally, and also reflect on their own ideas.

Emotional intelligence
Students need to understand the feeling of people when
experiencing the situation and find the alternative ways that
can solve the problem.
Example 5

In Science Year 5, pupils need to understand the food relationship among living
things and the concepts of food chain, food web, main source, producer and
consumer. Teacher can create a problem and encourage pupils to think the ways
to solve it:

A man has to get a fox, a chicken


and a sack of corn across a river.
He has a rowboat and it can only
carry him and one other thing.

How does the man do it?

Cognitive flexibility
Students need to think flexibly about every step taken to
avoid negative impacts to each side and find the best solution
to solve the problem.

Emotional intelligence
By solving this kind of problem, students are trained to be
resilient and choose the solution objectively.
Example 6

In Science Year 6, pupils learn about the extinction threat of animals and plants
and ways to preserve and conserve animals and plants. Teacher can build a
situation as below to enable pupils ponder the action and find out the best
solution:

Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) in Sabah


decides to capture all the orangutans and conserve in rehabilitation centre.
No one left behind in
the Sabah’s forest.

Do you agree with the action?


Give your opinion.

Cognitive flexibility
Similar to Example 4, students need to shift their thinking to
think about the pros and cons rationally, and also reflect on
their own ideas.

Emotional intelligence
Students should feel empathy on orangutans, understand how
orangutans feel when the action is taken to them, thus
students can respond appropriately to the situation.
When setting up the scenarios, teacher should be objective and make sure that the
scenario is understandable by students of that level. Students’ discussion must involve
ideas of pros and cons. Teacher as a facilitator needs to be neutral and retort students
of both sides with questions that enable them to think rationally and critically.

Conclusion
In order to keep on track with Industry 4.0, teachers must be ready and well prepared
to train the students since elementary level. Even Malaysia is on the path of providing
the higher education system now to face the Education 4.0, however the in-demand
skills like cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence should be instilled to students
as early as possible.

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