Group items tagged

Even if you have a 21st Century classroom (flexible and adaptable); even if you are a 21st century teacher ; (an adaptor, a communicator, a leader and a learner, a visionary and a model, a collaborator and risk taker) even if your curriculum reflects the new paradigm and you have the facilities and resources that could enable 21st century learning - you will only be a 21st century teacher if how you teach changes as well. Your pedagogy must also change.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has developed a unified, collective vision for 21st century learning that can be used to strengthen American education. The key elements of 21st century learning are represented in the graphic and descriptions below. The graphic represents both 21st century skills student outcomes (as represented by the arches of the rainbow) and 21st century skills support systems (as represented by the pools at the botto

21st Century Learning: Making Technology Relevant in Today's Classrooms by Fred Podolski "21st Century Learning" is currently the hottest catchphrase in education, but what it means has yet to be fully determined. Technology is a part of students' everyday lives, and substantial advances in technology have profoundly affected the way they learn. As a result, educators are working hard to meet the ever-evolving needs of 21st century learners. Translating the ongoing technological revolution into a learning experience is a fundamental part of that challenge

"What are the kind of things a 21st century teacher needs to know and be able to do? What about 21st century students? What education technology works, and what is a waste of time? What would a checklist for 21st century teaching look like? Does "21st century teaching" even make sense to use as a phrase anymore? If not, do we just say "teaching"? Does that fit our needs to innovate our collective profession to meet a modern circumstance? These are among the questions today's teachers have to face daily-in the classroom, mass media, professional development, and more. These conversations can get complex, opinionated, stuffed with rhetoric, and downright overwhelming at times. In response, Sylvia Duckworth has made consistent contributions to this conversation by creating colorful illustrations that communicate many of these ideas in easy-to-skim, easy-on-the-eyes, tempting to pin and share graphics."

"Today I want to share with you this awesome read I came across in Global Citizen Education. The article is entitled " 21st Century Fluencies" and is basically based on Crockett et al.'s book Literacy is Not Enough. The main argument in this paper is that 21st century fluencies are process skills that students need in order to thrive in a rapidly changing world. These process skills include things such critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and innovation to mention but a few. "The 21st century fluencies", as the authors of this work state, "are not about hardware, they are about headware and heartware"."

"Like thinking, reading in the 21st century is different than in centuries past, endlessly linked in an increasingly visible web of physical and digital media forms. So in this context of media abundance, what does the modern, 21st century look like? How can we appeal to their interests?"

"Bloom's Taxonomy can be a powerful tool to transform teaching and learning. By design, it focuses attention away from content and instruction, and instead emphasizes the "cognitive events" in the mind of a child. And this is no small change. For decades, education reform has been focused on curriculum, assessment, instruction, and more recently standards, and data, with these efforts only bleeding over into how students think briefly, and by chance. This means that the focus of finite teacher and school resources are not on promoting thinking and understanding, but rather what kinds of things students are going to be thinking about and how they'll prove they understand them. This stands in contrast to the characteristics of the early 21st century, which include persistent connectivity, dynamic media forms, information-rich (digital and non-digital) environments, and an emphasis on visibility for pretty much everything. What does this mean for how you use Bloom's Taxonomy in your classroom? What kinds of adjustments should you make-if any-in light of these shifts in the 21st century?"

"For better or worse, computing is pervasive, changing how and where people work, collaborate, communicate, shop, eat, travel, learn and quite simply, live. From the arts to sciences and politics, no field has been untouched. The last decade has also seen the rise of disciplines generically described as "computational X," where "X" stands for any one of a large range of fields from physics to journalism. Here's what Google autocomplete shows when you type "computational." (You can try it for yourself!) But the big question is: Does current K-12 education equip every student with the requisite skills to become innovators and problem-solvers, or even informed citizens, to succeed in this world with pervasive computing? Since the turn of this century, the "4C's of 21st century" skills-critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication-have seen growing recognition as essential ingredients of school curricula. This shift has prompted an uptake in pedagogies and frameworks such as project-based learning, inquiry learning, and deeper learning across all levels of K-12 that emphasize higher order thinking over rote learning. I argue that we need computational thinking (CT) to be another core skill-or the "5th C" of 21st century skills-that is taught to all students."

"While I was revisiting the topic of the 21st century pedagogy which I have covered in several posts here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, I come across this awesome graph created by our colleague Andrew Churches. I couldn't find better and more comprehensive graphic than the one below. Andrew did a fantastic work in capturing most of the concepts that make 21st century pedagogy. "

"Overall the diagram offers a nice framework for the concept not of 21st century learning, but 21st century pedagogy by focusing on several core components of modern learning: metacognition (reflection), critical thinking, technology, and problem and project-based learning."

"Here is a wonderful little visual I came across through Edudemic which outlines the 8 skills students need in order to live up to the expectations of the future job market. These skills which are highlighted in the recent report "The Learning Curve"  by Pearson are a big departure from the conventional literacy skills : Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.That being said, the report also underscored the fact that for kids (in developing countries) to get a grasp of the 21st century skills, they need to first master the basic literacy skills. Developing countries must teach basic skills more effectively before they start to consider the wider skills agenda. There is little point in investing in pedagogies and technologies to foster 21st century skills, when the basics of numeracy and literacy aren't in place."

From Wes: These are my notes from Joseph Morelock's presentation, "Student as Prosumer: Content and Mobile Devices in 21st-Century Learning Environments" at the 21st Century Learning @ the West Lake Expo held Oct 31 - Nov 3, 2009 at Xi Hu, China, also known as West Lake. West Lake is in the center of Hangzhou, China, which is about an hour by bus southwest of Shanghai. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

21st Century Fluency Project An innovative resource designed to cultivate 21st century fluencies, while fostering engagement and adventure in the learning experience.

"Many have attempted to identify the skills important for a learner today in this era of the 21st century (I know it is an overused phrase). I have an affinity towards the skills identified by Tony Wagner: Critical thinking and problem-solving"

"21st century skills is a term that's been bandied about for over a decade now. Loosely, it refers to the creative and technology-based skills students are increasingly required to demonstrate to use information in the real world. While there's plenty of tools, leadership, strategies, and even rhetoric surrounding this discussion, what's there's less of is data."

"That's the question that was posed to me this week by the faculty at a wonderful school on Manhattan's upper east side in preparation for some upcoming PD work. I think it's an outstanding question that's worth reflecting on in-depth as we all start to think about what our goals and direction are for the next school year. What does 21st century learning look like? is an essential question and overarching topic that I hope to come back to again and again as I think about what works in real classrooms. "