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What should students learn in the 21st century? At first glance, this question divides into two: what should students know, and what should they be able to do? But there's more at issue than knowledge and skills.

For the innovation economy, dispositions come into play: readiness to collaborate, attention to multiple perspectives, initiative, persistence, and curiosity. While the content of any learning experience is important, the particular content is irrelevant. What really matters is how students react to it, shape it, or apply it. The purpose of learning in this century is not simply to recite inert knowledge, but, rather, to transform it.1 It is time to change the subject.

Expanding the "Big Four" Why not study anthropology, zoology, or environmental science? Why not integrate art with calculus, or chemistry with history? Why not pick up skills and understandings in all of these areas by uncovering and addressing real problems and sharing findings with authentic audiences? Why not invent a useful product that uses electricity, or devise solutions to community problems, all the while engaging in systematic observation, collaborative design, and public exhibitions of learning?

As teachers we understandably believe that it is the ‘teaching’ that causes learning. But this is too egocentric a formulation. As I said in my previous post, the learner’s attempts to learn causes all learning.

From this viewpoint, the teacher is merely one resource for learning, no different from a book, a peer, an experience, or an experimental result.

It is the learner who decides to try to learn (or not) from what happens.

The CEFR

was developed to promote language learning, to facilitate educational and occupational mobility, and to support plurilingualism and multiculturalism.

The CEFR is organized into six reference levels

when a student asked Nieto if he could bring his iPod to class, Nieto agreed, and neither teacher nor student has looked back since.

said mobile devices are particularly useful because of the many learning applications and basic language tools, such as spell check and grammar check, which increase the speed of learning. Rather than view the mobile applications as learning shortcuts tantamount to cheating, Nieto sees them as motivational tools that increase his students’ interest in reading and writing by giving them instant feedback. It’s a perspective most of his students seem to share.

as motivational tools that increase his students’ interest in reading and writing by giving them instant feedback.

Students have often more seamlessly integrated technology into their lives than their teachers and didn’t even need to take a class on it.

Some teachers assume that clicking on a SmartBoard or having students type their papers mean that they are “integrating” tech.

There seems to be no urgency when it comes to actual technology integration into the classroom, but more of an urgency on how to buy the flashiest gadgets and then offer limited training or support.

Briefly, Education 1.0, 2.0. and 3.0 is explained as: Education 1.0 can be likened to Web 1.0 where there is a one-way dissemination of knowledge from teacher to student.  It is a type of essentialist, behaviorist education based on the three Rs – receiving by listening to the teacher; responding by taking notes, studying text, and doing worksheets; and regurgitating by taking standardized tests which in reality is all students taking the same test. Learners are seen as receptacles of that knowledge and as receptacles, they have no unique characteristics.  All are viewed as the same.  It is a standardized/one-size-fits-all education. Similar to Web 2.0, Education 2.0 includes more interaction between the teacher and student; student to student; and student to content/expert.  Education 2.0, like Web 2.0, permits interactivity between the content and users, and between users themselves.  Education 2.0 has progressive roots where the human element is important to learning.  The teacher-to-student and student-to-student relationships are considered as part of the learning process.  It focuses on the three Cs – communicating, contributing, and collaborating. Education 3.0 is based on the belief that content is freely and readily available as is characteristic of Web 3.0. It is self-directed, interest-based learning where problem-solving, innovation and creativity drive education. Education 3.0 is also about the three Cs but a different set – connectors, creators, constructivists.  These are qualitatively different than the three Cs of Education 2.0.  Now they are nouns which translates into the art of being a self-directed learner rather than doing learning as facilitated by the educator. Education 3.0: Altering Round Peg in Round Hole Education

Flipped Classroom: The "In-Class" Version

An In-Class Flip works like this. Just like with a traditional flip, the teacher pre-records direct instruction, say, in a video lecture. But instead of having students view the content at home, that video becomes a station in class that small groups rotate through.

As with a traditional flip, the direct instruction runs on its own, which frees the teacher for more one-on-one time with students.

Are you optimistic? Viewing the world as damaged or the future as bleak shuts down the brain by transmitting fear. Maintaining an optimistic attitude is an expression of love, inspiring curiosity and hope, and fostering emotional and physical health. Optimism is essential to teaching: Without hope, the reason to learn disappears. Are you open? The world is being refreshed and powered by divergent thinking. Outcomes are unclear, even dangerous. But faith in the flexible thinking of the human mind can support young people as they sort out their new world and have the freedom to discover solutions not yet visible. An open attitude activates the frontal lobes, the place of flow and creativity. Are you appreciative? Deep appreciation gives permission for failure, rather than penalizing for the “wrong” answer. It honors the stops and starts of human development. It conveys the ultimate message of a communal world: We are in this together. Are you flexible? In inquiry, the journey matters as much as the destination. Constant reflection is a necessity to improving thinking and doing. Metacognition encourages wisdom, the ultimate goal of any worthy education system. Flexibility tells the brain and heart to keep working, keep going—you’re getting there. Are you purposeful? Purpose binds teacher and student into the high-minded pursuit of solutions that matter. It is the reason that “authentic” education works and inauthentic education struggles. It tightens the connection between the learner and the teacher in ways that spur the natural creative impulse to change and improve the world.

Video Playlist: A Project-Based Learning Toolkit Keep watching the player below to see the rest of the playlist, or view it on YouTube.

Project-Based Learning: Explained. (03:50) First, let's get the basics out of the way. This video is a great tool for when you just need to describe PBL in four minutes. Created by the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) -- a one-stop resource for PBL tools.

mary and secondary school pupils in

Teaching programming skills to children is seen as a long-term solution to the “skills gap” between the number of technology jobs and the people qualified to fill them

Our new curriculum teaches children computer science, information technology and digital literacy: teaching them how to code,and how to create their own programs; not just how to work a computer, but how a computer works and how to make it work for you.”

Fixed mindset people dread failure, feeling that it reflects badly upon themselves as individuals, while growth mindset people instead embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and improve their abilities.

We have to really send the right messages, that taking on a challenging task is what I admire.

But, you might say, it’s the internet. We’ve come to associate the internet as low-engagement, a drive-by experience. We take for granted that the internet offers us things that are slightly flaky, or easy. So we’re not surprised when the drop out rate is so high. Easy in, easy out.But it doesn’t have to be this way.The course was as well-designed as a real-world lecture and the teacher was qualified and engaging, but it’s not a surprise that the dropout rate was so high: As soon as education gets difficult (and useful education always gets difficult) it’s social pressure, peer pressure and our own need to fit in and achieve that often keeps us going. The typical online course provides precious little of any of these elements.

Lectures are at the heart of the last century of higher learning. A proven scholar orates in front of a class of selected students.Tests are the way institutions enforce compliance. They’re the stick.And accreditation is the carrot. Put up with the lectures and the tests and we’ll give you the certificate, the scarce piece of paper that is (supposed to be) worth far more than the effort you went through to get certified.

We’ve seen that when knowledge jobs meet the internet, they change. And now we’re seeing that online education is having trouble acting like a job as well.

Finally, technology is embedded into the structure of all we do. It’s part of how we research, how we capture information, and how we display our learning. It’s never an accessory tacked on at the end.

My students started by creating a Flickr feed, Facebook page, a YouTube account, a Tumblr blog, and a Twitter account. They decided that visual representations of their knowledge would be the most powerful. So some of my students created photographs depicting images that they felt best represented modern trafficking. These photos were then edited in Picnik, and posted to our blog.

A few years ago I tried to teach this idea to a grade 12 class when we were studying essay writing. They didn’t get it. But in the context we were using, after comparing social media content, it made perfect sense to my grade 11 students.

How can colleges charge $50,000 a year if my kid can learn it all free from massive open online courses?

Sandel had just lectured in Seoul in an outdoor amphitheater to 14,000 people, with audience participation.

ecause increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know. And therefore it will not pay for a C+ in chemistry, just because your state college considers that a passing grade and was willing to give you a diploma that says so. We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be less interest in how you acquired the competency — in an online course, at a four-year-college or in a company-administered class — and more demand to prove that you mastered the competency.