Another curricular challenge is that we don't yet know how to
teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know
how to teach long division. The plan of 21st century skills proponents seems to
be to give students more experiences that will presumably develop these
skills—for example, having them work in groups. But experience is not the same
thing as practice. Experience means only that you use a skill; practice means
that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating
strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone
more skilled than you are.