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"Edutopia is pleased to premiere the first blog in a new series designed to showcase compelling examples of how students are developing 21st century skills through a deeper-level of learning. Through this blog series, we hope to increase awareness and encourage replication of successful models."

Thomas Friedman

The future. What do our students really need to know and be able to do to succeed in future education and careers?

* Lead High-Level, Text-Based Discussions * Focus on Process, Not Just Content * Create Assignments for Real Audiences and with Real Purpose * Teach Argument, Not Persuasion * Increase Text Complexit

Can traditional schools, with a course of study divided into discrete disciplines that rarely overlap, create an environment that is a hotbed for innovative thinking?

The Internet may well have its downsides, but it also has the potential to make us collectively smarter, according to open-science advocate Michael Nielsen. In Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Nielsen argues that networked digital tools, such as discussion boards and online marketplaces, can make it easier for scientists to pool their data, share methodologies, and find far-flung collaborators.

In some colleges professors realize that most students don't really learn well via lectures; they are using strategies involving active learning and problem-solving to ensure that students really learn and understand complex ideas.

The modern workplace and lifestyle demand that students balance cognitive, personal, and interpersonal abilities, but current education policy discussions have not defined those abilities well, according to a special report released this afternoon by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science in Washington. A "who's who" team of experts from the National Academies' division of behavioral and social sciences and education and its boards on testing and on science education collaborated for more than a year on the report, intended to define just what researchers, educators, and policymakers mean when they talk about "deeper learning" and "21st-century skills."

Teens are using online media to extend real world relationships, explore interests, express identities, and expand their independence .... Fewer youth use new media ... to acquire information or cultivate skills beyond what is available to them at school or in their local communities.