Teaching In 21st Century

INTRODUCTION

What does it mean to be a 21st century school teacher? This is the main question that will be answered in these pages. The reason of choosing this subject is its actuality and importance.

How we live, work, play and learn has been dramatically transformed by technology over the past 20 years. We need different skills today than we did in the 20th century, and educational institutions have a critical role to play in developing those skills. But by and large, primary and secondary schools have not kept pace with the changing skill sets that students need to succeed.

Teaching is an art, a skill and a challenge that can sometimes be more difficult than aiming in archery. Preparing teachers today requires critical examination of what it means to teach and learn in increasingly networked, technology-rich classrooms.

We live in a high-speed, wired world, where digital technology is interwoven into the fabric of our lives and our society. It is part of our homes, our businesses and our schools. Tapscott (1999) asserts that we need to look at youth in relation to how best to use technology in education. He refers to youth as the Net Generation or N-Geners. Our young people are the first generation “to grow up surrounded by digital media…Today’s kids are so bathed in bits that they think technology is part of the natural landscape” (p. 7).

Prensky (2001) refers to students as Digital Natives for they are “all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (p. 1). People who entered and adopted this networked, digital world and were not born into it are but Digital Immigrants (Prensky, 2001). Educators and teacher educators, who do not find technology as commonplace, are being challenged to think differently about teaching and learning with technology.

Preparing teachers for the 21st century requires a close look at what it means to teach and learn in increasingly networked, technology-rich, digital classrooms. Teacher preparation programs need to create intentional learning environments, where pre-service teachers can explore issues that are relevant and develop pedagogies that are effective for a knowledge era. They need to develop new images and expertise to design and facilitate meaningful learning with technology.

Learning with technology is the 21st century’s trend, and distinct from learning about technology has the capacity to transform learning environments in ways that are difficult for most educators to imagine. Coupled with the struggle some adults have in using basic computer functions such as email, search engines, and presentation software is the much larger issue that the children in today’s schools have never known anything other than a digital world. For the first time in human history, the young are more confident and more fluent with the dominant technologies of the times than the adults charged to teach them. Prensky (2003) notes that: there are important, never-before seen differences between the generation that grew up with digital technologies (Digital Natives) and the generation that grew up before these technologies .The new abilities, skills, and preferences of the Digital Natives are to a large extent misunderstood and ignored by the previous generation of educators.

The objectives of this study are to:

• identify and describe emerging, innovative pedagogical practices

• situate these emerging practices within the context of the research literature;

• identify factors that contribute to the successful and sustained use of innovative technology-based pedagogical practices within teacher education;

CHAPTER 1 – THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION

With the gradual rise of more complex civilizations in the river valleys of Egypt and Babylonia, knowledge became too complicated to transmit directly from person to person and from generation to generation. To be able to function in complex societies, man needed some way of accumulating, recording, and preserving his cultural heritage. So with the rise of trade, government, and formal religion came the invention of writing, by about 3100 BC.

Because firsthand experience in everyday living could not teach such skills as writing and reading, a place devoted exclusively to learning–the school–appeared. And with the school appeared a group of adults specially designated as teachers–the scribes of the court and the priests of the temple. The children were either in the vast majority who continued to learn exclusively by an informal apprenticeship or the tiny minority who received formal schooling.

The method of learning was memorization, and the motivation was the fear of harsh physical discipline. On an ancient Egyptian clay tablet discovered by archaeologists, a child had written: "Thou didst beat me and knowledge entered my head."

Of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, the Jews were the most insistent that all children-regardless of class–be educated. In the 1st century AD, the historian Flavius Josephus wrote: "We take most pains of all with the instruction of the children and esteem the observance of the laws and the piety corresponding with them the most important affair of our whole life." The Jews established elementary schools where boys from about 6 to 13 years of age probably learned rudimentary mathematics and certainly learned reading and writing. The main concern was the study of the first five books of the Old Testament–the Pentateuch–and the precepts of the oral tradition that had grown up around them. At age 13, brighter boys could continue their studies as disciples of a rabbi, the "master" or "teacher." So vital was the concept of instruction for the Jews that the synagogues existed at least as much for education as for worship.

Ancient Greece

The Greek gods were much more down-to-earth and much less awesome than the remote gods of the East. Because they were endowed with human qualities and often represented aspects of the physical world–such as the sun, the moon, and the sea–they were closer to man and to the world he lived in. The Greeks, therefore, could find spiritual satisfaction in the ordinary, everyday world. They could develop a secular life free from the domination of a priesthood that exacted homage to gods remote from everyday life. The goal of education in the Greek city-states was to prepare the child for adult activities as a citizen. The nature of the city-states varied greatly, and this was also true of the education they considered appropriate. The goal of education in Sparta, an authoritarian, military city-state, was to produce soldier-citizens. On the other hand, the goal of education in Athens, a democratic city-state, was to produce citizens trained in the arts of both peace and war.

Sparta

The boys of Sparta were obliged to leave home at the age of 7 to join sternly disciplined groups under the supervision of a hierarchy of officers. From age 7 to 18, they underwent an increasingly severe course of training. They walked barefoot, slept on hard beds, and worked at gymnastics and other physical activities such as running, jumping, javelin and discus throwing, swimming, and hunting. They were subjected to strict discipline and harsh physical punishment; indeed, they were taught to take pride in the amount of pain they could endure.

At 18, Spartan boys became military cadets and learned the arts of war. At 20, they joined the state militia–a standing reserve force available for duty in time of emergency–in which they served until they were 60 years old.

The typical Spartan may or may not have been able to read. But reading, writing, literature, and the arts were considered unsuitable for the soldier-citizen and were therefore not part of his education. Music and dancing were a part of that education, but only because they served military ends.

Unlike the other Greek city-states, Sparta provided training for girls that went beyond the domestic arts. The girls were not forced to leave home, but otherwise their training was similar to that of the boys. They too learned to run, jump, throw the javelin and discus, and wrestle. The Athenians apparently made sport of the physique prized in Spartan women, for in a comedy by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes a character says to a Spartan girl: How lovely thou art, how blooming thy skin, how rounded thy flesh! What a prize! Thou mightest strangle a bull.

Athens

In Athens the ideal citizen was a person educated in the arts of both peace and war, and this made both schools and exercise fields necessary. Other than requiring two years of military training that began at age 18, the state left parents to educate their sons as they saw fit. The schools were private, but the tuition was low enough so that even the poorest citizens could afford to send their children for at least a few years.

Boys attended elementary school from the time they were about age 6 or 7 until they were 13 or 14. Part of their training was gymnastics. The younger boys learned to move gracefully, do calisthenics, and play ball and other games. The older boys learned running, jumping, boxing, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing. The boys also learned to play the lyre and sing, to count, and to read and write. But it was literature that was at the heart of their schooling. The national epic poems of the Greeks–Homer's 'Odyssey' and 'Iliad'–were a vital part of the life of the Athenian people. As soon as their pupils could write, the teachers dictated passages from Homer for them to take down, memorize, and later act out. Teachers and pupils also discussed the feats of the Greek heroes described by Homer. The education of mind, body, and aesthetic sense was, according to Plato, so that the boys "may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm."

At 13 or 14, the formal education of the poorer boys probably ended and was followed by apprenticeship at a trade. The wealthier boys continued their education under the tutelage of philosopher-teachers. Until about 390 BC there were no permanent schools and no formal courses for such higher education. Socrates, for example, wandered around Athens, stopping here or there to hold discussions with the people about all sorts of things pertaining to the conduct of man's life. But gradually, as groups of students attached themselves to one teacher or another, permanent schools were established. It was in such schools that Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle taught.

The boys who attended these schools fell into more or less two groups. Those who wanted learning for its own sake studied with philosophers like Plato who taught such subjects as geometry, astronomy, harmonics (the mathematical theory of music), and arithmetic. Those who wanted training for public life studied with philosophers like Isocrates who taught primarily oratory and rhetoric. In democratic Athens such training was appropriate and necessary because power rested with the men who had the ability to persuade their fellow senators to act. Most Athenian girls had a primarily domestic education. The most highly educated women were the hetaerae, or courtesans, who attended special schools where they learned to be interesting companions for the men who could afford to maintain them.

Ancient Rome

The military conquest of Greece by Rome in 146 BC resulted in the cultural conquest of Rome by Greece. As the Roman poet Horace said, "Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror and brought the arts to Latium." Actually, Greek influence on Roman education had begun about a century before the conquest. Originally, most if not all of the Roman boy's education took place at home. If the father himself were educated, the boy would learn to read and would learn Roman law, history, and customs. The father also saw to his son's physicRome in 146 BC resulted in the cultural conquest of Rome by Greece. As the Roman poet Horace said, "Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror and brought the arts to Latium." Actually, Greek influence on Roman education had begun about a century before the conquest. Originally, most if not all of the Roman boy's education took place at home. If the father himself were educated, the boy would learn to read and would learn Roman law, history, and customs. The father also saw to his son's physical training. When the boy was older, he sometimes prepared himself for public life by a kind of apprenticeship to one of the orators of the time. He thus learned the arts of oratory firsthand by listening to the debates in the Senate and in the public forum. The element introduced into Roman education by the Greeks was book learning.

When they were 6 or 7 years old, boys (and sometimes girls) of all classes could be sent by their parents to the ludus publicus, the elementary school, where they studied reading, writing, and counting. At age 12 or 13, the boys of the upper classes attended a "grammar" school where they learned Latin or Greek or both and studied grammar and literature. Grammar consisted of the study of declensions and conjugations and the analysis of verbal forms. Both Greek and Latin literature were studied. The teacher would read the work and then lecture on it, while the students took notes that they later memorized. At age 16, the boys who wanted training for public service went on to study public speaking at the rhetoric schools.

The graded arrangement of schools established in Rome by the middle of the 1st century BC ultimately spread throughout the Roman Empire. It continued until the fall of the empire in the 5th century AD.

Although deeply influenced by Greek education, Roman education was nonetheless quite different. For most Greeks, the end of education was to produce a good citizen, and a good citizen meant a well-rounded individual. The goal of Roman education was the same, but for the Romans a good citizen meant an effective speaker. The result was that they disregarded such nonutilitarian Greek studies as science, philosophy, music, dancing, and gymnastics, basing their education instead on literature and oratory. Even their study of literature, with its overemphasis on the technicalities of grammar and its underemphasis on content, had the purpose of producing good orators.

When the Roman Republic became an empire, in 31 BC, the school studies lost even their practical value. For then it was not the orator in the Senate but the emperor who had the power.

Because of the emphasis on the technical study of language and literature and because the language and literature studied represented the culture of a foreign people, Roman education was remote from the real world and the interests of the schoolboys. Vigorous discipline was therefore necessary to motivate them to study. And the Roman boys were not the last to suffer in this situation. When the empire fell, the education that was originally intended to train orators for the Roman Senate became the model for European education and dominated it until the 20th century.

The Romans also left the legacy of their language. For nearly a thousand years after the fall of the empire, Latin continued to be the language spoken in commerce, public service, education, and the Roman Catholic church. Most books written in Europe until about the year 1200 were written in Latin.

The Middle Ages

The invading Germanic tribes that moved into the civilized world of the West and all but destroyed ancient culture provided virtually no formal education for their young. In the early Middle Ages the elaborate Roman school system had disappeared. Mankind in 5th-century Europe might well have reverted almost to the level of primitive education had it not been for the medieval church, which preserved what little Western learning had survived the collapse of the Roman Empire. In the drafty, inhospitable corridors of church schools, the lamp of learning continued to burn low, though it flickered badly.

Cathedral, monastic, and palace schools were operated by the clergy in parts of Western Europe. Most students were future or present members of the clergy, though a few lay students were trained to be clerks. Unlike the Greek and Roman schools, which sought to prepare men for this life, the church schools sought to prepare men for life beyond the grave through the contemplation of God during their life on Earth. The schools taught students to read Latin so that they could copy and thereby preserve and perpetuate the writings of the Church Fathers. Students learned the rudiments of mathematics so that they could calculate the dates of religious festivals, and they practiced singing so that they could take part in church services.

Unlike the Greeks, who considered physical health a part of education, the church considered the human body a part of the profane world and therefore something to be ignored or harshly disciplined. The students attended schools that were dreary and cold, and physical activity was severely repressed.

Schools were un-graded – a 6-year-old and a 16-year-old (or an adult for that matter) sometimes sharing the same bench. Medieval education can be understood better if one realizes that for thousands of years childhood as it is known today literally did not exist. No psychological distinction was made between child and adult. The medieval school was not really intended for children. Rather, it was a kind of vocational school for clerks and clergymen. A 7-year-old in the Middle Ages became an integral part of the adult world, absorbing adult knowledge and doing a man's work as best he could during what today would be the middle years of elementary education. It was not until the 18th century that childhood was recognized; not until the 20th that it began to be understood.

The 12th and 13th centuries, toward the end of the Middle Ages, saw the rise of the universities. The university curriculum in about 1200 consisted of what were then called the seven liberal arts. These were grouped into two divisions. The first was the preparatory trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The second, more advanced division was the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

Like the Romans, the scholars of the Middle Ages took over the content of Greek education and adapted it to their own culture. The traditional subjects were clouded with religious assumptions. Astronomy, for example, was permeated by astrology, and arithmetic was full of mystical meaning: There are 22 sextarii in a bushel because God in the beginning made 22 works; there are 22 generations from Adam to Jacob; and 22 books of the Old Testament as far as Esther and 22 letters of the alphabet out of which the divine law is composed.

For the Middle Ages knowledge was an authoritative body of revealed truth. It was not for the scholar to observe nature and to test, question, and discover truth for himself but to interpret and expound accepted doctrines. Thus the medieval scholar might debate about how many angels could stand on the head of a pin, but he did not question the existence of angels.

To the credit of medieval education, by the 12th century the education of women was no longer ignored, though only a small percentage of girls actually attended schools. Most convents educated women, as is shown by the famous letters of the French nun Heloise, who received a classical education at the nunnery of Argenteuil before becoming its abbess. Early in the 12th century, girls from noble families were enrolled at Notre Dame de Paris in the classes of the French theologian and philosopher Peter Abelard.

Medieval education had its problems. There were many dropouts; the influence of the church sometimes drugged rather than enlivened the mind; and scholars were often expected to accept the unreasoned and the unproved. Materials were few and poor. Many university libraries had fewer than a hundred volumes. Because books were so scarce, lessons had to be dictated and then memorized. Nevertheless, medieval schooling ended the long era of barbarism, launched the careers of able men, and sharpened the minds and tongues of the thoughtful and ambitious students.

For youngsters of the aristocracy in the Middle Ages of the 13th century, there was chivalric education. This was a kind of secondary education that young men received while living in the homes of nobles or at court. It included some poetry, national history, heraldry, manners and customs, physical training, dancing, a little music, and battle skills. Chivalric, secular education was governed by a code rather than a curriculum. Boys of the lower classes could learn a trade through apprenticeship in a craftsman's shop.

The Renaissance

The essence of the Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 14th century and spread to northern European countries in the 15th and 16th centuries, was a revolt against the narrowness and otherworldliness of the Middle Ages. For inspiration the early Renaissance humanists turned to the ideals expressed in the literature of ancient Greece. Like the Greeks, they wanted education to develop man's intellectual, spiritual, and physical powers for the enrichment of life.

The actual content of the humanists' "liberal education" was not much different from that of medieval education. To the seven liberal arts, the humanists added history and physical games and exercises. Humanist education was primarily enlivened by the addition of Greek to the curriculum and an emphasis on the content of Greek and Roman literature. After nearly a thousand years grammar at last was studied not as an end in itself but because it gave access to the vital content of literature. In keeping with their renewed interest in and respect for nature, the humanists also gradually purged astronomy of many of the distortions of astrology. Along with the changed attitudes toward the goals and the content of education, in a few innovative schools, came the first signs of a change in attitude toward educational methods. Rather than bitter medicine to be forced down the students' throats, education was to be exciting, pleasant, and fun.

The school that most closely embodied these early Renaissance ideals was founded in Mantua, Italy, in 1423 by Vittorino da Feltre. Even the name of his school, Casa Giocosa (Happy House), broke with the medieval tradition of cheerless institutions in which grammar–along with Holy Writ–was flogged into the learner's memory.

The school served children from age six to youths in their mid-twenties. The pupils studied history, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, but the basis of the curriculum was the study of Greek and Roman literature. Physical development was encouraged through exercise and games.

The humanist ideal did not affect the lower classes, who remained as ignorant as they had been in the Middle Ages. Its impact was appreciable, however, on the secondary education that was provided for the upper classes. This is not to say that there was a proliferation of Happy Houses. Unlike Vittorino's school, the other Latin grammar schools that introduced Greek and Roman literature into the curriculum soon shifted the emphasis–as the Romans had done–from the study of the content of the literature to the form of the language. The physical development so important to the early humanist ideal of the well-rounded man found no place in the curriculum. Instead of the joy of learning, there was harsh, repressive discipline.

The Reformation

The degeneration in practice of the early humanists' educational goals and methods continued during the 16th-century Reformation and its aftermath. The religious conflict that dominated men's thoughts also dominated the "humanistic" curriculum of the Protestant secondary schools. The Protestants' need to defend their new religion resulted in the further sacrifice of "pagan" content and more emphasis on drill in the mechanics of the Greek and Latin languages. In actual practice, then, the humanistic ideal deteriorated into the narrowness and otherworldliness that the original humanists had opposed.

The Protestants emphasized the need for universal education and established elementary vernacular schools in Germany where the children of the poor could learn reading, writing, and religion. This innovation was to have far-reaching effects on education in the Western world.

17th- and 18th-Century Europe

The vast majority of schools remained in a state of stagnation during the 17th and 18th centuries. By and large, the teachers were incompetent and the discipline cruel. The learning methods were drill and memorization of words, sentences, and facts that the children often did not understand. Most members of the lower classes got no schooling whatsoever, and what some did get was at the hands of teachers who often were themselves barely educated.

In the secondary Latin grammar schools and the universities the linguistic narrowness and otherworldliness of classical studies persisted. By the 17th century the study of Latin removed students even farther from real life than it had in the 16th, because Latin had ceased to be the language of commerce or the exclusive language of religion. In the 17th century it also slowly ceased to be even the exclusive language of scholarly discourse. Yet most humanist schools made no provision for studying the vernacular and clung to Latin because it was thought to "train" the mind. The scientific movement–with its skeptical, inquiring spirit–that began to permeate the Western world in the 17th century was successfully barred from both the Catholic and Protestant schools, which continued to emphasize classical linguistic studies.

Although the general state of education was retrogressive, there were some advanced educators and philosophers. Their ideas about learning pointed toward the educational revolution of the 20th century.

The 17th century

One of the educational pioneers of great stature was John (Johann) Amos Comenius (1592-1670). Effective education, Comenius insisted, must take into account the nature of the child. His own observations of children led him to the conclusion that they were not miniature adults. He characterized the schools, which treated them as if they were, as "the slaughterhouses of minds" and "places where minds are fed on words." Comenius believed that understanding comes "not in the mere learning the names of things, but in the actual perception of the things themselves." Education should begin, therefore, with the child's observation of actual objects or, if not the objects themselves, models or pictures of them. The practical result of this theory was Comenius' 'Orbis Pictus' (The World in Pictures), the first–and for a long time the only–textbook in the Western world that had illustrations for children to look at. Although the ideas on which it was based were at first ridiculed, Comenius' book was widely used by children for about 200 years.

In the 17th century philosophers, too, were beginning to develop theories of learning that reflected the new scientific reliance on firsthand observation. One of the men whose theories had the greatest impact on education was the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). According to Locke (who did not originate the idea but gave impetus to it), the mind at birth is a blank tablet (tabula rasa). That is, it has no innate, God-given knowledge. But it does have a number of powers or faculties, such as perceiving, discriminating, comparing, thinking, and recalling. Locke believed that knowledge comes when these faculties are exercised upon the raw material of sense impressions received from objects in the external world. Once the mind has passively received such sense impressions, its faculties go to work–discriminating among and comparing them, sifting and sorting them until they take shape as "knowledge."

One aspect of Locke's theory–the notion that the mind is made up of "faculties"–was interpreted to mean that the function of schooling was to "train" the various mental faculties. Latin and mathematics, for example, were thought to be especially good for strengthening reason and memory. This idea clung to educational practice well into the 20th century–long after "faculty" psychology had been proved invalid.

The more significant aspect of the theory, in terms of educational reform, was the insistence upon firsthand experience with its implicit protest against the mere book learning of the Middle Ages and the humanists. If the raw material of knowledge comes from the impressions made upon the mind by natural objects, then education cannot function without objects. Eventually, the effect of this part of the theory was reflected in the introduction into the schools of pictures, models, field trips, and other manifestations of education's increased respect for firsthand observation. By the mid-19th century it had become fashionable to introduce into schools objects that provided firsthand sense impressions and that filled out, supplemented, and gave interest to abstract book learning. The materials and the methods of traditional book learning were not radically revised, however, for another 75 years.

The 18th century

It was the delayed shock waves of the ideas of an 18th-century Frenchman that were to crack the foundations of education in the 20th century and cause their virtual upheaval in the United States. The man was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78). The child, as Rousseau saw him, unfolds or develops–intellectually, physically, and emotionally–much like a plant.

He believed, moreover, that the child is innately good but that all social institutions, including schools, are evil, distorting the child into their own image. He doubted, therefore, that there should be formal schools at all. Whether there were or not, however, he believed that the aim of education should be the natural development of the learner.

Rousseau's observations and their educational ramifications were a complete reversal of the educational theories and practices of the 1700s. The prevailing theory was that the child differs from the adult in the quantity of his mind. The child, presumably, is born with the same, but weaker, mental faculties as the adult. To bring his faculties up to an adult level, education must cultivate them through exercise–that is, through drill and memorization. Rousseau, however, believed that the child differs from the adult in the quality of his mind, which successively unfolds in different stages of growth. "We are always looking for the man in the child," he said, "without thinking what he is before he becomes a man." "Children," observed Rousseau, "are always in motion: a sedentary life is injurious." From age 2 to 12, therefore, Rousseau envisioned the cultivation of the body and the senses, not the intellect. When the youngster's intellect begins to develop, at about 12 to 15, he can begin the study of such things as science and geography.

The study, however, should begin not with an organized body of abstract knowledge but with the things that interest the child in the world around him. He must learn not by memorizing but by firsthand experience. "He is not to learn science: he is to find it out for himself," Rousseau said. Only when he is 15 should book learning begin. So much for the entire Latin school if one accepted Rousseau. Rousseau also attacked the teaching methods of his time. The theory of mental faculties recognized no innate differences among children. It was thought that children are born with the same faculties, and that the differences among them depend on their education–that is, on the amount of "exercise" their faculties receive. For Rousseau such exercise stunts "the true gifts of nature".

Since Rousseau believed that the child is innately good and that the aim of education should be his natural development, there was little for the teacher to do except stand aside and watch. Rousseau's overemphasis of the individuality and freedom of the child and his underemphasis of the needs of the child as a social being represent a reaction against the repressive educational practices of the time. Those who were influenced by Rousseau tried to create schools that would provide a controlled environment in which natural growth could take place and at the same time be guided by society in the person of the teacher.

Ironically, shortly after Rousseau's death Prussia became the first modern state to create a centrally controlled school system. For more than a century it operated on principles almost diametrically opposed to those of Rousseau.

Colonial America

While the schools that the colonists established in the 17th century in the New England, Southern, and Middle colonies differed from one another, each reflected a concept of schooling that had been left behind in Europe. Most poor children learned through apprenticeship and had no formal schooling at all. Those who did go to elementary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Learning consisted of memorizing, which was stimulated by whipping. The secondary school, attended by the wealthier children, was, as in most of Europe, the Latin grammar school. The teachers were no better prepared, and perhaps less so, than the teachers in Europe.

Harvard College, which traces its history to 1636, had as its primary purpose the training of Latin school graduates for the ministry. Like most of the colleges in Europe, its curriculum was humanist.

Most of the books used in the elementary and secondary schools were also used in Europe: Bibles, psalters, Latin and Greek texts, Comenius' 'Orbis Pictus', and the hornbook, which was widely used in England at the end of the 16th century. Not really a book at all, the hornbook was a paddle-shaped board. A piece of parchment (and, later, paper) with the lesson written on it was attached to the board and covered with a transparent sheet of horn to keep it clean.

The first "basic textbook"–'The New England Primer' – was America's own contribution to education. Used from 1690 until the beginning of the 19th century, its purpose was to teach both religion and reading. The child learning the letter a, for example, also learned that "In Adam's fall, We sinned all."

As in Europe, then, the schools in the colonies were strongly influenced by religion. This was particularly true of the schools in the New England area, which had been settled by Puritans and other English religious dissenters. Like the Protestants of the Reformation, who established vernacular elementary schools in Germany in the 16th century, the Puritans sought to make education universal. They took the first steps toward government-supported universal education in the colonies. In 1642 Puritan Massachusetts passed a law requiring that every child be taught to read. And in 1647 it passed the "Old Deluder Satan Act," so named because its purpose was to defeat Satan's attempts to keep men, through an inability to read, from the knowledge of the Scriptures. The law required every town of 50 or more families to establish an elementary school and every town of 100 or more families to maintain a grammar school as well.

Puritan or not, virtually all of the colonial schools had clear-cut moral purposes. Skills and knowledge were considered important to the degree that they served religious ends and, of course, "trained" the mind.

18th-Century United States

As the spirit of science, commercialism, secularism, and individualism quickened in the Western world, education in the colonies was called upon to satisfy the practical needs of seamen, merchants, artisans, and frontiersmen. The effect of these new developments on the curriculum in American schools was more immediate and widespread than its effect in European schools. Practical content was soon competing vigorously with religious concerns. The academy that Benjamin Franklin helped found in 1751 was the first of a growing number of secondary schools that sprang up in competition with the Latin schools. Franklin's academy continued to offer the humanist-religious curriculum, but it also brought education closer to the needs of everyday life by teaching such courses as history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra, surveying, modern languages, navigation, and astronomy. By the mid-19th century this new diversification in the curriculum characterized virtually all American secondary education.

After the Revolutionary War new textbooks–mostly American histories and geographies–began to appear. Often they were written with a strong nationalistic flavor. Also, beginning in 1783 'The New England Primer' began to share its supremacy with what was to become an even more popular schoolbook, Noah Webster's 'American Spelling Book'. This work standardized American spelling and emancipated it from English spelling. It also exposed American schoolchildren to more than a century of grueling drill. The speller was used until the end of the 19th century, but the stress on spelling accuracy and the spelling-bee craze continued to grip the schools into the early years of the 20th century.

19th-Century Europe

In the 19th century the spirit of nationalism grew strong in Europe and, with it, the belief in the power of education to shape the future of nations as well as individuals. Other European countries followed Prussia's example and eventually established national school systems. France had one by the 1880s, and by the 1890s the primary schools in England were free and compulsory.

The attitude toward women, too, was slowly changing. By the last half of the 19th century both France and Germany had established secondary schools for women. Only the most liberal educators, however, entertained the notion of coeducation.

By and large, European elementary schools in the 19th century were much like those of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. They were attended by children of the lower classes until, at the latest, age 10 or 11, when schooling terminated for all but a few of the "brightest" among them. The usual subjects were reading, writing, religion, and, if the teacher had mastered it himself, arithmetic. The teacher was often poorly informed; frequently, he taught because he was unable to get any other kind of work. School might still be held in apprentice shops, industrial plants, living rooms, kitchens, or outdoor areas, though regular classrooms were becoming the rule. If the teacher could maintain order at all, it was by bullying, beating, and ridiculing the children. Perhaps the best description of the children who attended such schools is by the English novelist Charles Dickens: Pale and haggard faced, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old men. . . . There was childhood with the light of its eyes quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining.

It is no wonder then that Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's (1746-1827) school at Yverdon, Switzerland, created international attention and attracted thousands of European and American visitors. What they saw was a school for children–for real children, not miniature adults. They saw physically active children–running, jumping, and playing. They saw small children learning the names of numbers by counting real objects and preparing to learn reading by playing with letter blocks. They saw older children engaged in object lessons–progressing in their study of geography from observing the area around the school, to measuring it, making their own relief maps of it, and finally seeing a professionally executed map of it.

This was the school and these were the methods developed by Pestalozzi in accordance with his belief that the goal of education should be the natural development of the individual child, and that educators should focus on the development of the child rather than on memorization of subject matter that he was unable to understand. Pestalozzi's school also mirrored the idea that learning begins with firsthand observation of an object and moves gradually toward the remote and abstract realm of words and ideas. The teacher's job was to guide–not distort–the natural growth of the child by selecting his experiences and then directing those experiences toward the realm of ideas.

The German educator Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel (1782-1852) is the father of the Kleinkinderbeschaftig-ungsanstalt (institution where small children are occupied). The name, too long even for the Germans, quickly shrank to Kindergarten (garden for children). Froebel wanted his school to be a garden where children unfolded as naturally as flowers. Like Pestalozzi, with whom he had studied, he felt that natural development took place through self-activity, activity springing from and sustained by the interests of the child himself. The kindergarten provided the free environment in which such self-activity could take place. It also provided the materials for self-activity. For example, blocks in different shapes and sizes led the child to observe, compare and contrast, measure, and count. Materials for handwork–such as drawing, coloring, modeling, and sewing–helped develop motor coordination and encourage self-expression.

For another of Pestalozzi's admirers, the German philosopher and psychologist Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), education was neither the training of faculties that exist ready-made in the mind nor a natural unfolding from within. Education was instruction–literally a building into the mind from the outside. The building blocks were the materials of instruction–the subject matter. The builder was the teacher. The job of the teacher was to form the child's mind by building into it the knowledge of man's cultural heritage through the teaching of such subjects as literature, history, science, and mathematics. Since the individual mind was presumably formed by building into it the products of the collective mind, methods of instruction were concerned wholly with how this was to be done. Herbart's interest lay in determining how knowledge could be presented so that it would be understood and therefore retained. He insisted that education must be based on psychological knowledge of the child so that he could be instructed effectively.

The psychology on which Herbart based his teaching methods was later proved incorrect. His systematized lesson plans, however, guiding the teacher in what he considered the proper manner and sequence of presenting subject matter to pupils, were a real innovation in education. By denying that the mind consists of inborn faculties that can be exercised on any kind of material, Herbart drew the attention of educators to the subject matter itself, to the content of the material. He took the emphasis off memorizing–at least in theory–and put it on understanding. He also transformed the image of the teacher. No longer an ignorant bully beating knowledge into children, the teacher became a person trained in effective methods of imparting knowledge. He controlled the learning situation through psychological insight, not physical force. The teacher inspired the child's "interest" in the material because he knew how to present it.

Before arriving at his own educational theory, Herbart had visited–and been impressed by–Pestalozzi's school in Switzerland. The teaching methods Herbart evolved represented an attempt to create in the German schools the same joy of learning that animated Pestalozzi's school. That is why he insisted on the need to study the child to determine his interests.

Herbart's educational goal was different from Pestalozzi's, however, and his teaching methods created a different kind of school. Herbart was working within the framework of a state-controlled school system. For him the goal of education was to create individuals who were part of the sociopolitical community. While Pestalozzi emphasized the individuality that makes men distinct from one another, Herbart emphasized their common cultural heritage. Herbart's school created an intellectual environment, conducive to the child's absorption of formulated, authoritative bodies of knowledge, while Pestalozzi's school created a physical environment, conducive to the child's physical activity and firsthand learning experiences. While "interest" resided in the physical activity that Pestalozzi's child engaged in and was to be encouraged for the sake of his natural development, "interest" for Herbart's child was stimulated by the teacher for the purpose of instruction. While Pestalozzi's teacher unobtrusively guided the natural development of the individual child's innate powers, Herbart's teacher built knowledge into the child's mind through a systematic method of instruction that was uniform for all pupils. Thus, the instruction in Europe and the United States that was influenced by Herbart's theories was teacher- and curriculum-centered; that influenced by Pestalozzi, child-centered.

The concern of some educators in the late 19th century for the welfare and development of the individual eventually began to encompass children previously considered ineducable. One of the first to become interested in educating the mentally retarded, who were then called "idiot children," was the Italian physician Maria Montessori (1870-1952). The techniques and materials she devised for educating mentally retarded children were so effective that many learned to read and write almost as well as normal children. While Italian educators wondered at the progress of her pupils, Montessori wondered at the lack of progress of the normal children who attended schools for the poor. She concluded that the educational techniques used in these schools stifled development, whereas those that she had developed encouraged it.

In the early 1900s Montessori was put in charge of the Case dei Bambini (Children's Houses), schools for 3- to 7-year-olds established in newly built tenement buildings in Rome. In these schools she emphasized freedom and individual development. Her idea of freedom, however, was a very special one. To be free, children must be as independent of other people as possible. So they learned to perform everyday, practical tasks, such as dressing themselves and keeping their schoolroom clean. They were also free to choose the materials they wanted to work with and the places where they wanted to work. To make them as independent of the teacher as possible, the children were given materials that allowed them to see and correct their own mistakes–such as variously shaped pegs to be fitted into matching holes.

Like Froebel, Montessori believed in the value of self-activity, sense training through the handling of physical objects, and the importance of the child's growth as an individual. For Montessori, however, growth was primarily cognitive rather than emotional. In her schoolroom, self-activity manifested itself mostly in contemplative self-absorption. In Froebel's schoolroom, it manifested itself mostly in the robust physical and social activity of songs and games.

Because the development of cognition was a more specific goal for Montessori than for Froebel, many of the physical objects she designed for the children led directly to such cognitive ends as reading and writing. If a child wanted to learn to write, for example, he could begin by literally getting the feel of the letters–running his hand over letters made of sandpaper. In this way, 4- and 5-year-olds learned to write, read, and count.

19th-Century United States

America came into its own educationally with the movement toward state-supported, secular free schools for all children, which began in the 1820s with the common (elementary) school. The movement gained impetus in 1837 when Massachusetts established a state board of education and appointed the lawyer and politician Horace Mann (1796-1859) as its secretary. One of Mann's many reforms was the improvement of the quality of teaching by the establishment of the first public normal (teacher-training) schools in the United States. State after state followed Massachusetts' example until by the end of the 19th century the common-school system was firmly established. It was the first rung of what was to develop into the American educational ladder.

After the common school had been accepted, people began to urge that higher education, too, be tax supported. As early as 1821 the Boston School Committee established the English Classical School (later the English High School), which was the first public secondary school in the United States. By the end of the century, such secondary schools had begun to outnumber the private academies.

The original purpose of the American high school was to allow all children to extend and enrich their common-school education. With the establishment of the land-grant colleges after 1862, the high school also became a preparation for college–the step by which students who had begun at the lowest rung of the educational ladder might reach the highest. In 1873, when the kindergarten became part of the St. Louis, Mo., school system, there was a hint that in time a lower rung might be added.

America's educational ladder was unique. Where public school systems existed in European countries such as France and Germany, they were dual systems. When a child of the lower and middle classes finished his elementary schooling, he could go on to a vocational or technical school. The upper-class child often did not attend the elementary school but was instead tutored until he was about 9 years old and could enter a secondary school, generally a Latin grammar school. The purpose of this school was to prepare him for the university, from which he might well emerge as one of the potential leaders of his country. Instead of two separate and distinct educational systems for separate and distinct classes, the United States provided one system open to everyone.

As in mid-19th-century Europe, women were slowly gaining educational ground in the United States. "Female academies" established by such pioneers as Emma Willard (1787-1870) and Catharine Beecher (1800-78) prepared the way for secondary education for women. In 1861 Vassar–the first real college for women–was founded. Even earlier–in 1833–Oberlin College was founded as a coeducational college, and in 1837 four women began to study there.

In the mid-19th century there was yet another change in education. The secondary-school curriculum that had been slowly expanding since the founding of the academies in the mid-18th century virtually exploded in the mid-19th.

A new society, complicated by the latest discoveries in the physical and biological sciences and the rise of industrialism and capitalism, called for more and newer kinds of knowledge. By 1861 as many as 73 subjects or branches thereof were being offered by the Massachusetts secondary schools. People still believed that the mind could be "trained," but they now thought that science could do a better job than could the classics. The result was a curriculum that was top-heavy with scientific instruction.

The mid-19th-century knowledge explosion also modestly affected some of the common schools, which expanded their curricula to include such courses as science and nature study. The content of instruction in the common school, beyond which few students went, consisted of the material in a relatively small number of books: assorted arithmetic, history, and geography texts, Webster's 'American Spelling Book', and two new books that appeared in 1836–the 'First' and 'Second' in the series of 'McGuffey's Eclectic Readers'. Whereas 'The New England Primer' admonished children against sin, the stories and poems in the readers pressed for the moral virtues. Countless children were required to memorize such admonitions as "Work while you work, play while you play. One thing each time, that is the way."

In the early days the common schools, like those in Europe, consisted of one room where one teacher taught pupils ranging in age from 6 to about 13–and sometimes older. The teacher instructed the children separately, not as a group. The good teacher had a strong right arm and an unshakable determination to cram information into his pupils.

Once the fight to provide free education for all children had been substantially won, educators turned their attention to the quality of that education. To find out more about learning and the learning process, American normal schools looked to Europe. In the 1860s they discovered–and for about 20 years were influenced by–Pestalozzi. The general effect on the common schools was to shift the emphasis from memorization of abstract facts to the firsthand observation of real objects.

Pestalozzi's diminishing influence roughly coincided with the rapid expansion of the cities. By the 1880s the United States was absorbing several million immigrants a year, a human flood that created new problems for the common school. The question confronting educators was how to impart the largest amount of information to the greatest number of children in the shortest possible time. The goal of educators and the means through which they attained it were reflected in the new schools they built and in the new teaching practices they adopted.

Expediency dictated, particularly in the cities, that the one-room common school be replaced by larger schools. To make it easier and faster for one teacher to instruct many students, there had to be as few differences between the children as possible. Since the most conspicuous difference was age, children were grouped on this basis, and each group had a separate room. To discourage physical activity that might disrupt discipline and interrupt the teaching process, to encourage close attention to and absorption of the teacher's words, and to increase eye contact, the seats were arranged in formal rows. For good measure, they frequently were bolted to the floor.

It is not surprising, at about this time, when the goal of education was to expedite the transfer of information to a large number of students, that the normal schools began to fall under the influence of Herbart. The essence of his influence probably lay not so much in his carefully evolved five-step lesson plan but in the basic idea of a lesson plan. Such a plan suggested the possibility of evolving a systematic method of instruction that was the same for all pupils. Perhaps Herbart's emphasis on the importance of motivating pupils to learn–whether through presentation of the material or, failing that, through rewards and punishments–also influenced the new teaching methods of the 1880s and 1890s.

The new methods, combined with the physical organization of the school, represented the antithesis of Pestalozzi's belief that the child's innate powers should be allowed to unfold naturally. Rather, the child must be lopped off or stretched to fit the procrustean curriculum bed. Subjects were graded according to difficulty, assigned to certain years, and taught by a rigid daily timetable. The amount of information that the child had absorbed through drill and memorization was determined by how much could be extracted from him by examinations. Reward or punishment came in the form of grades.

At the end of the 19th century the methods of presenting information had thus been streamlined. The curriculum had been enlarged and brought closer to the concerns of everyday life. Book learning had been supplemented somewhat by direct observation. And psychological flogging in the form of grades had perhaps diminished the amount of physical flogging. In one respect, however, the schools of the late 19th century were no different from those, say, of the Middle Ages: they were still based on what adults thought children were or should be, not what they really were.

CHAPTER 2 – TEACHING IN 21ST CENTURY

The new millennium was ushered in by a dramatic technological revolution. We now live in an increasingly diverse, globalized, and complex, media-saturated society. Teaching needs to make best use of all available technology. One hundred years ago this meant a desk and a chalkboard. Today it means palm-tops, the internet and the dazzling possibilities of digital media.

Quality Essentials of the 21st Century Teacher

Teaching is an art with perfection gained through the years of Experience and Education. The requirement of the Modern Day Classroom is not the old traditional Chalk and the Duster based but requires a new preface of Cheese and the Championship Culture. Over the years it has been rightly observed that the Quality of an educational environment is evaluated with the inspiring and motivating efforts for the staff, students and the collaborative parents at large.

The following picture shows how OPEN BOX thinking is done to encapsulate the requirements of the Quality Teacher of the Century, above all the segments of route and learning:

Figure 1 – The Networked Teacher (Picture Credit – Alec Couros)

The 21st century education demands with change in the teaching learning with the witnessing of the importance of Students’ Activities as the ultimate learning methodology today. The students are empowered towards better learning, decision making and ultimately made to be disciplined through self disciplined modules and leadership skills. It is mandatory for all to have and imbibe the Leadership skills to make them a better and Total Quality Person in future.

The demand of the children and the parents mount every year, every session with the march of time but the supply is limited from the side of the teachers. The challenge is to be more explicit in their inclusion in core content, incorporating real world problems to bring them into focus for students and drawing on digital tools and resources that can support them.

The potential of 21st century skills lies in the exploration of how digital tools which largely include, cameras, presentation software, computing equipment apart from the online resources can support and enhance traditional subject skills and teaching practices.

As a matter of fact, the researchers quote the requirements as follows:

1) Being a learner first than a trainer or a teacher. The children demand “Tell us something new, it is given in the book”. So the learners need to be driving the seat of Knowledge. The new learner is transforming himself from a passive actor into an active, is becoming a conscious leader of his personal lifelong learning path.

2) A deep access to information, tools and experts in ways not possible before, but has to be in the heart and soul of the teachers with time and requirements.

3) What is also required is the ability to network and team up with other learners who have the same interests, independently of their age, location or experience.

4) There has to be an emergence of the technology dependent learner with change of time and modules as the requirements and the demands from the interested parties change with time on a very frequent basis. Both outside and inside traditional educational institutions a new breed of guides, coaches, facilitators and advisers is already emerging and creating new classless learning ecosystems. (Andrew Churches)

Figure 2 – The Characteristics of the 21st Century Educator

As obvious with the demands from the new century learners, the educators are student-centric, holistic and they are teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area. But highly effective teachers in today’s classrooms are more than this – much more.

Educators must be able to adapt software and hardware designed for a business model into tools to be used by a variety of age groups and abilities. Educators must also be able to adapt to a dynamic teaching experience. With time they need to be looking across the disciplines and through the curricula; they must see the potential in the emerging tools and web technologies, grasp these and manipulate them to serve their needs.

They need to be Educators too, must be collaborators with a preface of Sharing, Contributing, Adapting and Inventing. Above all, the educators must take risks and sometimes surrender themselves to the students' knowledge. They need to have a vision of what they would want to do and achieve in time to come. They need to identify the goals and facilitate the learning and above all use the strengths of the digital natives/ cyberspace to understand and navigate information. There has to be the need and feel of Learning and Adapting as the horizons and the landscapes change frequently.

The teacher must be anywhere and anytime. The new nomenclature of WWW i.e. the World Wide Web is now Wherever, Whatever and Whenever.

The 21st century teacher has to be fluent in tools and technologies that enable communication and collaboration. They go beyond learning just how to communicate and collaborate; they also know how to in addition of all academic requirements, need to be of the nature to facilitate, stimulate, control, moderate and manage through and with communication and collaboration effectively.

Above all, the 21st century educator also models tolerance, global awareness, and reflective practice, whether it is the quiet, personal inspection of their teaching and learning, or through the blogging, Twitting, Facebooking or what not. He must learn to adapt to change with time and tide.

One of the key points of Learning for the 21st Century, according to John Wilson, is that we are defining essential skills too narrowly. "As our nation focuses on the basics, it is noteworthy that government, educators, and private industry are unified in underlining that 21st century skills must be part of today's basics," he says.

The report states, "Literacy in the 21st century means more than basic reading, writing, and computing skills. As writer Alvin Toffler points out, 'The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”.

The 21st century classroom

Quality in Education is the quintessential for change and progress, giving pace to the DIGITAL preface of Quality and Community with networking playing a greater role at an accelerating pace. What is in demand and expectation as already in practice by the masses globally attribute towards it, being a helping hand for the teachers to create learning that motivates and engages students. It tends to engage students in learning that is natural and makes sense to them and in turn they experience success regularly. Students build learning skills using Web 2.0, applications, technology tools and research- based instructional strategies.

Having a teacher in the classroom is no longer a reason to believe that the classroom is where teaching and learning exists. Students are a few clicks away from being connected to people all around the world who are willing to teach and tutor. It may sound clichéd but the tests have revealed the advent of a new dawn in the field of education.

Google has allowed us to find every piece of information or fact we wish to explore. In fact, new reality is not only the piece of information or fact; it’s how to find it. Students don’t want to memorize names, dates, formulas, etc., that they can just look up in Google. The key is learning how to find the facts or information. It is no longer memorizing the “what”, but knowing where and how to find the “what.”

The 2009, Horizon Report rightly comments that “Increasingly, those who use technology in ways that expand their global connections are more likely to advance, while those who do not will find themselves on the sidelines.”

Data guides instruction so that it meets the individual students' specific needs. Also as a matter of fact this methodology focuses on the effective use of instructional technology. Knowing how a technology tool works is only the beginning. Teachers need to understand how to use those tools in a thoughtful and well-planned way that impacts learning and increases student achievement. These sessions show teachers creative and strategic ways to make that happen.

What is required as a requisite is the pace to learning and having a course of habits to upload the sense of enjoying the very flow of learning. Teachers must adhere to learn and live with technology. It is also needed to create an environment that raises a lot of questions from each of their students, and help them translate it into insight and understanding.

The digital divide that exists between digital learners and traditional teachers

(source: http://www.committedsardine.com/blog.cfm)

CHAPTER 3

FRAMEWORK OF TEACHING IN 21ST CENTURY

Figure 3 – 21st century student outcomes and support systems

3.1. 21st century student outcomes

The elements described in this section are the knowledge, skills and expertise students should master to succeed in work and life in the 21st century.

CORE SUBJECTS AND 21st CENTURY THEMES

Mastery of core subjects and 21st century themes is essential for all students in the 21st century. Core subjects include:

English, reading or language arts

World languages

Arts

Mathematics

Economics

Science

Geography

History

Government and Civics

In addition to these subjects, schools must include not only a focus on mastery of core subjects, but also promote understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects:

Global Awareness

Using 21st century skills to understand and address global issues

Learning from and working collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts

Understanding other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages

Financial, Economic, Business and Entrepreneurial Literacy

Knowing how to make appropriate personal economic choices

Understanding the role of the economy in society

Using entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options

Civic Literacy

Participating effectively in civic life through knowing how to stay informed and understanding governmental processes

Exercising the rights and obligations of citizenship at local, state, national and global levels

Understanding the local and global implications of civic decisions

Health Literacy

Obtaining, interpreting and understanding basic health information and services and using such information and services in ways that enhance health

Understanding preventive physical and mental health measures, including proper diet, nutrition, exercise, risk avoidance and stress reduction

Using available information to make appropriate health-related decisions

Establishing and monitoring personal and family health goals

Understanding national and international public health and safety issues

LEARNING AND INNOVATION SKILLS

Learning and innovation skills increasingly are being recognized as those that separate students who are prepared for a more and more complex life and work environments in the 21st century, and those who are not. A focus on creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration is essential to prepare students for the future.

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Think Creatively

Use a wide range of idea creation techniques (such as brainstorming)

Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts)

Elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate their own ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts

Work Creatively with Others

Develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others effectively

Be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; incorporate group input and feedback into the work

Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work and understand the real world limits to adopting new ideas

View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes

Implement Innovations

Act on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the field in which the innovation will occur

CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Reason Effectively

Use various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) as appropriate to the situation

Use Systems Thinking

Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems

Make Judgments and Decisions

Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs

Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view

Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments

Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis

Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes

Solve Problems

Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional and innovative ways

Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions

COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION

Communicate Clearly

Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts

Listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions

Use communication for a range of purposes (e.g. to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade)

Utilize multiple media and technologies, and know how to judge their effectiveness a priori as well as assess their impact

Communicate effectively in diverse environments (including multi-lingual)

Collaborate with Others

Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams

Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal

Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member

INFORMATION, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

People in the 21st century live in a technology and media-suffused environment, marked by various characteristics, including: 1) access to an abundance of information, 2) rapid changes in technology tools, and 3) the ability to collaborate and make individual contributions on an unprecedented scale. To be effective in the 21st century, citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology.

INFORMATION LITERACY

Access and Evaluate Information

Access information efficiently (time) and effectively (sources)

Evaluate information critically and competently

Use and Manage Information

Use information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand

Manage the flow of information from a wide variety of sources

Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information

MEDIA LITERACY

Analyze Media

Understand both how and why media messages are constructed, and for what purposes

Examine how individuals interpret messages differently, how values and points of view are included or excluded, and how media can influence beliefs and behaviors

Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of media

Create Media Products

Understand and utilize the most appropriate media creation tools, characteristics and conventions

Understand and effectively utilize the most appropriate expressions and interpretations in diverse, multi-cultural environments

ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) LITERACY

Apply Technology Effectively

Use technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and communicate information

Use digital technologies (computers, PDAs, media players, GPS, etc.), communication/networking tools and social networks appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information to successfully function in a knowledge economy

Apply a fundamental understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and use of information technologies

LIFE AND CAREER SKILLS

Today’s life and work environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. The ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous attention to developing adequate life and career skills.

FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY

Adapt to Change

Adapt to varied roles, jobs responsibilities, schedules and contexts

Work effectively in a climate of ambiguity and changing priorities

Be Flexible

Incorporate feedback effectively

Deal positively with praise, setbacks and criticism

Understand, negotiate and balance diverse views and beliefs to reach workable solutions, particularly in multi-cultural environments

INITIATIVE AND SELF-DIRECTION

Manage Goals and Time

Set goals with tangible and intangible success criteria

Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) goals

Utilize time and manage workload efficiently

Work Independently

Monitor, define, prioritize and complete tasks without direct oversight

Be Self-directed Learners

Go beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise

Demonstrate initiative to advance skill levels towards a professional level

Demonstrate commitment to learning as a lifelong process

Reflect critically on past experiences in order to inform future progress

SOCIAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL SKILLS

Interact Effectively with Others

Know when it is appropriate to listen and when to speak

Conduct themselves in a respectable, professional manner

Work Effectively in Diverse Teams

Respect cultural differences and work effectively with people from a range of social and cultural backgrounds

Respond open-mindedly to different ideas and values

Leverage social and cultural differences to create new ideas and increase both innovation and quality of work

PRODUCTIVITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Manage Projects

Set and meet goals, even in the face of obstacles and competing pressures

Prioritize, plan and manage work to achieve the intended result

Produce Results

Demonstrate additional attributes associated with producing high quality products including the abilities to:

Work positively and ethically

Manage time and projects effectively

Multi-task

Participate actively, as well as be reliable and punctual

Present oneself professionally and with proper etiquette

Collaborate and cooperate effectively with teams

Respect and appreciate team diversity

Be accountable for results

LEADERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITY

Guide and Lead Others

Use interpersonal and problem-solving skills to influence and guide others toward a goal

Leverage strengths of others to accomplish a common goal

Inspire others to reach their very best via example and selflessness

Demonstrate integrity and ethical behavior in using influence and power

Be Responsible to Others

Act responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind

3.2. 21st century support systems

The elements described below are the critical systems necessary to ensure student mastery of 21st century skills. 21st century standards, assessments, curriculum, instruction, professional development and learning environments must be aligned to produce a support system that produces 21st century outcomes for today’s students.

21st Century Standards

Focus on 21st century skills, content knowledge and expertise

Build understanding across and among core subjects as well as 21st century interdisciplinary themes

Emphasize deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge

Engage students with the real world data, tools and experts they will encounter in college, on the job, and in life; students learn best when actively engaged in solving meaningful problems

Allow for multiple measures of mastery

Assessment of 21st Century Skills

Supports a balance of assessments, including high-quality standardized testing along with effective formative and summative classroom assessments

Emphasizes useful feedback on student performance that is embedded into everyday learning

Requires a balance of technology-enhanced, formative and summative assessments that measure student mastery of 21st century skills

Enables development of portfolios of student work that demonstrate mastery of 21st century skills to educators and prospective employers

Enables a balanced portfolio of measures to assess the educational system’s effectiveness in reaching high levels of student competency in 21st century skills

21st Century Curriculum and Instruction

Teaches 21st century skills discretely in the context of core subjects and 21st century interdisciplinary themes

Focuses on providing opportunities for applying 21st century skills across content areas and for a competency-based approach to learning

Enables innovative learning methods that integrate the use of supportive technologies, inquiry- and problem-based approaches and higher order thinking skills

Encourages the integration of community resources beyond school walls

21st Century Professional Development

Highlights ways teachers can seize opportunities for integrating 21st century skills, tools and teaching strategies into their classroom practice — and help them identify what activities they can replace/de-emphasize

Balances direct instruction with project-oriented teaching methods

Illustrates how a deeper understanding of subject matter can actually enhance problem-solving, critical thinking, and other 21st century skills

Enables 21st century professional learning communities for teachers that model the kinds of classroom learning that best promotes 21st century skills for students

Cultivates teachers’ ability to identify students’ particular learning styles, intelligences, strengths and weaknesses

Helps teachers develop their abilities to use various strategies (such as formative assessments) to reach diverse students and create environments that support differentiated teaching and learning

Supports the continuous evaluation of students’ 21st century skills development

Encourages knowledge sharing among communities of practitioners, using face-to-face, virtual and blended communications

Uses a scalable and sustainable model of professional development

21st Century Learning Environments

Create learning practices, human support and physical environments that will support the teaching and learning of 21st century skill outcomes

Support professional learning communities that enable educators to collaborate, share best practices and integrate 21st century skills into classroom practice

Enable students to learn in relevant, real world 21st century contexts (e.g., through project-based or other applied work)

Allow equitable access to quality learning tools, technologies and resources

Provide 21st century architectural and interior designs for group, team and individual learning

Support expanded community and international involvement in learning, both face-to-face and online

3.3. Tools for learning

The term “learning environment” suggests place and space – a school, a classroom, a library. And indeed, much 21st century learning takes place in physical locations like these. But in today’s interconnected and technology-driven world, a learning environment can be virtual, online, remote; in other words, it doesn’t have to be a place at all. Perhaps a better way to think of 21st century learning environments is as the support systems that organize the condition in which humans learn best – systems that accommodate the unique learning needs of every learner and support the positive human relationships needed for effective learning. Learning environments are the structures, tools, and communities that inspire students and educators to attain the knowledge and skills the 21st century demands.

Experts say 21st century learning must take place in contexts that “promote interaction and a sense of community [that] enable formal and informal learning.” Thus, this subchapter will address the relationship of physical spaces and technological systems to learning, but more importantly, it will also consider how those resources support the positive human relationships that matter most to learning. And while technology, space, time, culture, and policy will be discussed separately, it is important to remember that their power is cumulative.

Real learning effectiveness occurs when these systems are artfully integrated into a seamless whole in which each system reinforces the others.

It is worth emphasizing, too, that these support systems are valuable not as ends, but as means to a greater goal – to helping children grow emotionally, socially, physically, and academically. Thus, 21st century learning environments address the multiple and interconnected learning needs of the whole child.

The age-old connection between strong minds and strong bodies has always made good sense, but we now have the educational research to back it up. For children to have sound and agile minds, they need to help in achieving sound and agile bodies. To educate the

whole child, though, schools must devote themselves to more than the mind-body connection alone. They must attend to the emotional and social learning needs of children, as well as to more traditional objectives of academic achievement and physical education.

While the roots of the whole child movement date back to the child-centered philosophies of John Dewey, current educational research and a new broader conception of student achievement add even greater significance and urgency to its appeal.

21st century learning environment as an aligned and synergistic system of systems that:

Creates learning practices, human support and physical environments that will support the teaching and learning of 21st century skill outcomes

Supports professional learning communities that enable educators to collaborate, share best practices, and integrate 21st century skills into classroom practice

Enables students to learn in relevant, real world 21st century contexts (e.g., through project-based or other applied work)

Allows equitable access to quality learning tools, technologies, and resources

Provides 21st century architectural and interior designs for group, team, and individual learning.

Supports expanded community and international involvement in learning, both face-to-face and online

Such an environment fosters learning tailored to the needs and wants of the individual. This sort of learning occurs anytime and anyplace, when and where the learner desires. It takes place in a context of relevance, “just in time,” rather than “just in case.” And such learning offers “just what I need” – that is, the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills through learning strategies that are personalized and adapted to the learner’s own learning styles and preferences.

STRUCTURES FOR LEARNING

What physical and temporal structures best support the teaching and learning of 21st century skills?

Smart, Agile Schools

School design is a critical issue in most school districts these days. According to the American Architectural Foundation, “Each day across the United States, more than 59 million students, teachers, and education employees spend considerable time in our nation’s 120,000 school buildings. Unfortunately, too many of these schools are aging, crowded, and in need of repair.” Further, the AAF observes, “…with school enrollments growing “at record levels through 2013, and spending on school construction, renovation, and maintenance expected to total nearly $30 billion annually, the need to transform our schools has never been more urgent.”

Facing similar demands a century ago, school districts in the U.S. built thousands of schools that intentionally mimicked the industrial forms that had so sweepingly transformed the workplace. As historians Tyack and Cuban point out, this factory approach to schooling has been remarkably durable over time: children enter school at the same age are sorted into age-based grade levels, exposed to standardized curricula and textbooks, assessed at fixed points, and expected to progress at the same rate as their peers. Even today, many school buildings can be hard to tell apart from the factories they were built to resemble. Of course, many schools have advanced well beyond this outdated model. Most classrooms today are undeniably more flexible, more colorful, and more engaging than their 20th century counterparts.

Students may no longer sit in rows of chairs bolted to the floor. Student work may be on display. Technology may be present, perhaps in the form of a whiteboard at the front of the room or a few computers in the back. In some schools, there may even be a laptop for every student. But such classrooms are just the beginning. Much more needs to be in place for 21st century learning to truly thrive.

Designs for Learning

Since no one can predict how educational technologies and teaching modalities will evolve, learning spaces must adapt to whatever changes the future may hold. To achieve this flexibility, architects are designing classrooms, or “learning studios,” with moveable furniture

and walls that can easily be reconfigured for different class sizes and subjects.

Inherent in these and other 21st century designs is the notion of buildings that flex to accommodate the human relationships that are critical to successful learning. As a leading school architect has noted, schools must “create an environment where the kids know each other and know their instructors, not just academically but as people.” School designs that convey friendliness, openness, and accessibility promote cooperation and interaction, and reduce the tensions that can lead to inattentiveness, acting up, and bullying.

What goes for kids, goes for adults, too. Educators need tools and spaces that enable collaborative planning and information sharing. Connecting with the Wider World Over a century ago John Dewey, the noted American philosopher and educator, observed that learning that endures is “got through life itself.” While the physical space of many 21st century learning environments may be small, the learning they engender extends out into the local community and the world at large. Students and community members may work together on service projects and internships. Learners may connect with their peers across the globe to share data on a common problem like climate change or wildlife preservation. Teachers and students may seek the advice of world-renowned experts to guide them in their inquiry-based projects. Technology obviously enables such connections, but physical structure, too, can play an important role in facilitating these essential 21st century learning experiences.

Sustainability and Re-use

For schools these days, as with any construction project, the watchword is sustainability. While going green may once have been felt to be a luxury, it is now seen as a common-sense strategy. School officials see value in investing in slightly higher construction expenses to realize lower operating costs over the lifespan of the building. To help educational authorities sort out their options, experts advise them to focus on green design elements – like air quality, temperature control, and lighting – that have a proven positive effect on learning, and pay for themselves through long-term resource efficiency.

Green schools also provide rich opportunities for students to explore sustainable planning and design, and learn about the impact that design and operations decisions have on the environment. Sustainable schools also serve as positive examples to students, educators, and community members, encouraging everyone to “think green” in all areas of their lives.

Re-conceiving the Library

Twenty-first century design is also influencing another traditional learning space – the school library. As more and more content moves into virtual form, many schools are wondering how the library should respond. Yet even as information becomes digital, kids still need space, says Julie Walker, the executive director of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). The library media center should be the nerve center of the school, a place where kids gather to get and create information, a place where they can get excited about learning and where they can escape from the pressures of the day.

The 21st century library media center must play multiple roles: carrying out its traditional role of bringing information resources to learners, of course, but also providing the tools and infrastructure that enable learners to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate resources in ways that demonstrate learning and create new knowledge. It must offer places for formal learning in which large groups can gather for presentations; places for social learning where teams can collaborate on projects; and places for individual learning where individuals can find a quiet space for reading, reflection, or relaxation. These centers must also connect kids and adults to the wider world beyond the school by providing the audio and video communications technologies that build bridges between people and places all over the globe. A 21st library is more than just a physical place, of course: it also has a virtual aspect. Many school libraries are creating portals that link their holdings to other appropriate sites and afford 24/7 access to information for their school community Some school media centers are borrowing an idea pioneered in higher education and transforming themselves into “learning commons” – hubs that support learners by providing library resources, IT tools and

support, tutoring, and other academic support services, all in one central location.

These new spaces show the promise of the 21st century school library – as a gateway to information resources and services, a design studio to spur creativity and collaboration, and a calm and orderly place to make sense of a data-flooded world.

TIME FOR LEARNING

Flexibility of design needs to extend to time as well. Twenty-first century learning cannot fully flower when embedded in a rigid 19th century calendar. More malleable units of time than the typical 50-minute class period are required for project-based work or interdisciplinary themes. Many schools are turning to block scheduling to create bigger, more adjustable time slots for student learning, and for teaching planning and professional development. But these are just the first steps in taking a 21st century approach to time. Schools must also move away from the antiquated notion of “seat time” – that is, measuring academic accomplishment by the amount of time spent on the topic, rather than a demonstration of what was learned. One marker whose time is up is the Carnegie unit, used by high schools calculate how much time students should spend on a given subject.

Eliminating time-based measures of academic achievement means that assessment practices must change, too. Establishing time during the day for collaboration and planning is another way to advance 21st century teaching practice. In earlier eras, teachers had little structured time during the day for interaction with other adults. Today, though, the challenges of preparing all students for success require the collaborative efforts of all the professionals in a school.

TOOLS FOR LEARNING

What technological infrastructures best support the teaching and learning of 21st century skills?

Students today need access to the digital tools and media-rich resources that will help them explore, understand, and express themselves in the world they will inherit tomorrow. Educators need access to tools and resources to share knowledge and practice with other professionals, interact with experts in their field, and connect with their students‟ families and communities. Administrators need access to these same tools and resources to manage the complexities of the educational enterprise – from student records and performance data, to personnel management and facilities operations. A robust infrastructure, designed for flexibility and growth, can facilitate these connections – and more. The essential goal of technology, as it is with all systems for learning, is to support people’s relationships to each other and their work.

As in planning any complex task, infrastructure design must be approached with one eye on today’s practical realities, and the other on tomorrow’s opportunities.

A 21st century learning environment blends physical and digital infrastructures to seamlessly support learning. Melding face-to-face with online learning is essential for schools today, but wise educators know achieving such a goal takes careful planning. All too often, school officials approach technology planning with trepidation. The choices can seem overwhelming, and mistakes can be costly. Perhaps the greatest challenge of educational technology is not finding time and money to obtain hardware or software, or even in anticipating future needs, but in finding ways to adequately support humans in using these tools. There is abundant evidence of the value of technology in promoting learning. But putting technology in place is just the starting point; like any tool, its effectiveness depends on the user’s skill in handling it, and on the conditions in which it is employed. Technology can only make a difference when students, teachers, and administrators are provided the necessary supports to effectively integrate it into their daily routines.

Finally, it bears repeating that technology planning must be approached systemically. Research shows that student learning gains are greatest when technology is fully integrated with “content, sound principles of learning, and high-quality teaching – all of which must be aligned with assessment and accountability.” In other words, educational technology is most effective when it functions as part of thoughtfully orchestrated system that includes effective curriculum and instruction, ongoing professional development, authentic assessments, and a culture that embraces the learning potential of all its members.

Technology has an additional synergistic benefit of supporting the other systems that make up a comprehensive 21st century learning environment.

Towards the end, what follows are some of the most notable ways that technology can enhance student learning and promote mastery of 21st century skills:

1. Promoting greater student achievement: According to a Cisco research review of seven major technology types, ranging from instructional TV to distance learning: “Overall, across all uses in all content areas, technology does provide a small, but significant, increase in learning when implemented with fidelity.”

To achieve positive results, educators are urged to seek out research-proven applications, and to pay close attention to aligning technology with leadership and staff development, teacher preparation, school culture, and curricular redesign.

2. Increasing student engagement: The Consortium for School Networking points out that “the allure of engrossing digital tools, entertaining experiences and social networking communities outside of school is making it increasingly difficult for educators to motivate and engage a large majority of students in academic learning with traditional pedagogy. Schools must create learning environments that are as engaging and relevant as the ones that students gravitate to outside of school.”

Research also shows that students are more engaged and more successful when they can connect what they are learning to situations they care about in their community and in the world. Technology provides access to real-world data, tools, and resources, and can help students link learning to life.

3. Assessing student performance: Many schools are recognizing the value of employing an assessment strategy that balances both summative and formative assessments. Technology can help with both types by providing educators with real time diagnostic information that deepens understanding of student learning gains and challenges. Student performance tracking systems can enhance instructional decision making by helping teachers pinpoint appropriate interventions. Such systems can result in significant improvement in student achievement, particularly in difficult subjects such as mathematics and English, while contributing to higher graduation and lower dropout rates.

4. Facilitating communication and collaboration: Communications technologies provide pathways for the connections among students, parents, and educators that are at the heart of all strong learning communities. School management information systems and class websites support the home-school connections that are essential to children’s academic success. E-learning and online professional development programs enable busy educators to learn anytime, anywhere, while fostering the exchange of ideas and best practice with peers. Online mentoring and coaching programs, too, afford educational professionals opportunities to learn from and with others in real time, and asynchronous exchanges across town and across the globe.

5. Maximizing administrative effectiveness: As the SIIA notes, infrastructure, data management, communication and systems diagnostic tools are critical to the success of any business enterprise. School systems are increasingly using technology to manage the complex array of tasks for which they are responsible – including management of personnel, food and transportation services, supplies and instructional materials, security, and, of course, student information.

6. Building student proficiencies in 21st Century skills: It is hard to find a 21st century skill that technology does not support. Applications that enhance thinking and innovation skills include access to the vast world of information on the Internet, electronic databases, simulations, educational games, design programs, tools for creative expression, and many, many more. Life and career skills are honed by students’ experiences with communication, presentation, and productivity technologies. And of course, information, communication, and media literacy – a vital 21st skill area – is founded on helping students make wise use of the many technologies that so shape modern life.

Students Supporting Technology Networks and devices need maintenance to stay robust and current. Individuals need training and ongoing support to maximize technology’s benefits. Yet, cash-strapped school systems are often unable to compete with the private sector for scarce technical support personnel. Creative school systems have turned this problem into a 21st century learning opportunity by establishing programs like MOUSE, that organize and train student-led squads to provide much of the technical support in their schools. Students learn valuable technical skills, while also honing other critical workforces skills like teamwork, project planning, and time management. Such programs have paid off in valuable corporate internships for their young participants, and even more importantly, in their enhanced self-confidence and capacity for leadership.

Guiding Principles for Technology Planning

Despite the fast pace which seems to be associated with everything technological, experts advise educators to slow down when making critical technology decisions. Leaders are encouraged to use those critical thinking skills: examine assumptions, gather data from many sources, envision alternative scenarios, then make an informed choice.

In these days of tight resources and high expectations, technology planning must be approached intelligently. Technology planners find it useful to adopt a baseline strategy. It makes sense to first equip all classroom teachers with the 21st century tools they need for instructional and professional effectiveness. At minimum, every educator should have a laptop with high-bandwidth connectivity to the Internet, access to standard productivity tools, and academic and administrative applications appropriate to local needs. Each classroom should also have projector or whiteboard for in-class display of the teacher’s laptop.

The school library media center should, at minimum, be able to support multiple simultaneous access to electronic resources as well as to a basic suite of tools for media production. As more resources become available, additional devices – such as laptops for students – can be deployed.

Schools in the 21st century do more than meet academic needs; they function like miniature cities, providing food, facilities, health services, security, transportation, and recreation services for their students. Likewise, technology must do more than support than instruction. Powerful enterprise management applications can knit together the many functions of a school, and help make a complex organization coherent and efficient.

Organizational efficiency and educational effectiveness also depend on a flexible telecommunications infrastructure or backbone, with sufficient bandwidth to handle anticipated telephony, Internet, and local area traffic, plus overage to allow for future growth and new applications. To provide guidance, a recent SETDA report, “High-Speed Broadband Access for all Kids,” describes desirable performance standards for both local and wide area networks.

A Local Area Network (LAN) for a school or school district needs to cover all physical areas, including classrooms, the library, cafeteria, administrative, counseling, and special services offices. Thus, the LAN should cover instructional, transportation, food service, nursing, and ground and facilities personnel, as well as provide virtual areas for distance learning and remote access for educational purposes.

At the school or district level, the LAN should be designed to support the following (in order of deployment priority):

1- Core network: routing and switching; network security; wireless access

2- Building controls: physical security (video monitoring)

3- Communications (audio, then video): telephony and its applications; videoconferencing; rich media on-demand;

The same SEDTA report calls on communities to provide 24/7 high-speed broadband access in order to create “rigorous, technology infused learning environments” for students. In addition, such access enhances other 21st century learning support systems. Administrators can conduct online assessments and retrieve data to facilitate decision making; teachers can tap into educational portals and curriculum resource sites; and all learners can benefit when school, public, and academic libraries share electronic resources. With high-speed broadband, educators, students, and families can fully experience media-rich educational resources and participate in anytime/anywhere learning communities. The report notes that broadband access is especially critical in overcoming the digital divide in rural and low socio-economic areas.

COMMUNITIES FOR LEARNING

What types of relationships and communities nurture 21st century learning, and how can we create and sustain them?

So far, we have considered how buildings, schedules, and technology all contribute to 21st century learning. Now we come to the most essential of element of all: the “people network.” This is the community of students, educators, parents, business and civic leaders, and policymakers that constitute the human resources of an educational system. The flexible spaces that enable productive learning and shared work/play opportunities, the creative uses of time that promote continuous learning, the extensible technologies that support collaboration among the school community and the outside world – all these systems are valuable only in so far as they effectively support the human connections on which learning depends.

John Dewey long ago conceived of schools as “miniature communities” that mirrored the social relations and activities of the larger society in which they were set. Yet, too often, schools have been silos of isolation – classrooms isolated from other classrooms, teachers isolated from other teachers, schools isolated from the outside world. Research shows, though, that positive and productive relationships within and outside an organization enable it to carry out its mission more effectively. When people are connected through technology and/or collaborative arrangements, their effect is multiplied, for communities “can accomplish goals that would be impossible through more isolated efforts.”

Research shows that an educational community imbued with a positive culture is more likely to foster innovation and excellence. But what is school culture? According to the Change Leadership Group at Harvard, it is the “invisible but powerful meanings and mindsets” that shape the learning environment even more than the four walls of the classroom. What kind of culture is most effective? The answer is „many.‟ There is no single culture that will fit all schools; each school must summon its own blend of teaching talents, instructional approaches, and effective leadership to meet the unique learning needs of its community. One common element, though, unites all effective school communities: a commitment on the part of every member to the learning of everyone, children and adults alike. Trust and respect also connote a commitment to the notion that every child deserves and wants to learn, and that every member of the school community is dedicated to every child’s success – their whole success – as measured in their academic, social, emotional, and physical well-being.

A 21st century learning environment both gives and gets support from families and the local community. As Michael Fullan, a leading expert on school leadership, notes, “the research is very clear about the benefits, indeed, the necessity of parental involvement.”

There is strong evidence, as well, that greater community and parental participation yields important educational advantages. The George Lucas Foundation cites numerous studies showing that strong home school connections result in the following outcomes:

Children do better in school when their parents are involved in their education

After-school learning opportunities promote student achievement

Community youth development programs spur academic performance

Schools that integrate community services reduce risk and promote resilience in children

Today’s 21st century learners view learning less as the imposition of rules and procedures from some outside source, and more as a self-directed process with increasingly greater levels of responsibility and commitment. Thus, accountability with within a 21st century educational system is understood to be an internally motivated and organizationally aligned sense of commitment to the student body, to the community, and to the education profession.

A key role for 21st century leaders, according to Eleanor Drago-Severson, is establishing a culture of shared leadership, collegial relationships, and support for constructive change and diversity. Such a climate encourages the professional growth of educators, which in turn enhances student achievement.

Successful school leaders are those who focus on student learning, provide support for professional communities, are “outward looking” (in seeking ideas and connections outside the school), and “demonstrate caring for the well-being and whole development of students and staff.”

Not surprisingly, when it comes to learning, adults benefit from many of the same supports that children do, including access to up-to-date technology, and well-designed space and time for reflection, collaboration, and decision-making. Adults, too, benefit from school cultures that promote shared goals and accountability, productive interaction, and reliable measures of effectiveness. In the 21st century, schools must be communities that maximize learning effectiveness.

Educational partnerships within the extended community are essential in creating links to the arenas that the today’s youth will occupy tomorrow – the domains of higher education institutions, the work place, various cultural spheres, and civic life. Schools and higher education already work together in the area of teacher preparation and professional development, but many more opportunities exist to conduct joint research and collaborate on projects in service to their shared community.

Local businesses and community groups are traditional sources of after-school internships and summer jobs, but they can also be important sources of expertise in areas such as media, the arts, science, and technology.

Schools are home to the talent that will drive the local economy, populate tomorrow’s workforce, and constitute the leadership of the future. Schools provide service opportunities that inspire and motivate local employees, and are highly visible venues for corporate social responsibility efforts. The greatest partnership benefit of all, though, may be the satisfaction of positively influencing the future. When businesses and civic groups come together with a shared vision for education, they create momentum that produces powerful outcomes for students, parents, schools, and the entire community.

CHAPTER 4

EDUCATION FOR EDUCATORS

The success of education in the 21st century calls upon educators to confront broad pressures now shaping children’s future.

• Global Competition in Education

• International Innovation

• Greater Demands in the Workplace

Rising qualifications levels and the automation of routine work is transforming all workplaces into highly skilled environments. Every student, whether he/she plans to attend 4-year college, trade school, or start an entry-level job, requires a wide range of skills, content knowledge, and practical experiences to succeed. The goal is to ensure that all students are qualified to succeed in work and life in this new global economy. The rapid pace of globalization, the shift from an industrial to an innovation economy and the explosion of networked communications, have all created the need to work and interact in new ways and to gain fluency in new tools and paradigms. All young people today need to be critical thinkers and good problem solvers no matter what life path they choose. They also will need to be creative, innovative, and show aptitude in evolving skill areas, such as information, media and technology skills. In addition, showing global awareness as well as knowledge in areas such as finance and civic literacy is increasingly necessary to navigate in today’s world.

If students are to be prepared for these future challenges, schools and districts must recognize that teachers need to expand their skill set and receive training and support to infuse those new skills into the classroom. Teachers not only have to teach traditional subjects in new ways that acknowledge our digital future, they also have to introduce topics that they may not be familiar with and have never taught before. Likewise, district and state administrators must recognize that teacher professional development should be a part of a comprehensive emphasis on 21st century skills, including updates to standards and assessments.

What is 21st century skills professional development?

Twenty-first century skills professional development prepares teachers and principals to integrate 21st century skills into their classrooms and schools. It should be a part of a comprehensive emphasis on these skills, including an alignment with standards, curriculum and assessments. Successful 21st century professional development programs share several common characteristics:

• Ensure educators understand the importance of 21st century skills and how to integrate them into daily instruction.

• Enable collaboration among all participants.

• Allow teachers and principals to construct their own learning communities.

• Tap the expertise within a school or school district through coaching, mentoring and team teaching.

• Support educators in their role of facilitators of learning.

• Use 21st century tools.

What are the best ways to deliver professional development that supports 21st century skills?

There are many ways in which educators can acquire 21st century skills training. Pre-service teachers should undertake programs of study that include 21st century skills instruction, especially in emerging fields, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is also recommended that teacher education institutions add 21st century skills competency to the accreditation criteria for teacher education programs.

For in-service teachers, “just-in-time” preparation that includes coaching and identification of new pedagogical tools and approaches to weave 21st century skills into content areas should be made available. Ideally, teaching academies, or other special initiatives, should exist so that teachers can develop and renew 21st century skills and pedagogy in structured programs.

What are the characteristics of good professional development programs that support 21st century skills?

Implementing a 21st century skills professional development program in a school is a serious undertaking that requires ample planning and forethought to ensure that both teachers and administrators fully understand the importance of this endeavor and are willing to put in the time to create what is in effect a sea change in their current practice. With that in mind, it is important to start with the following actions:

1) Complete a self-assessment to determine what resources and training the staff needs. The first step is for educators and administrators to assess where their school stands in implementing 21st century skills and to identify specific strategies for improvement.

This process initiates discussions with staff, administrators, technology directors, school board members, and community leaders about improving the school's plans for 21st century skills. And, early reflection and goal-setting will help stakeholders measure the progress of a school or district in defining, teaching, and assessing 21st century skills over time.

2) Develop a professional development strategy that uses a phased approach and focuses on 21st century skills.

This can be done at the school, district, or state level. A key feature of large-scale professional development initiatives is that they all take a phased, “pilot” approach to development, enabling them to try out and assess different goals, strategies, target audiences, partners and resources, and make key adjustments before moving to scale. In addition, it is important that educators undergo sufficient practice in familiarizing themselves with 21st century skills in order to master the pedagogical strategies needed to impart learning in these subject areas to their students. Only after they can masterfully model those areas will they be able to translate those skills to the classroom. It is also recommended that administrators gain an understanding of 21st century skills so that they can be effective role models and decision makers for integrating 21st century skills into every aspect of teaching, learning, and administration.

3) Organize a 21st century skills study group or leadership team at the school for interested teachers and staff members.

Involvement among all appropriate stakeholders will help ensure that a self-sustaining culture of collegiality, knowledge, and experience sharing is cultivated. Once these three actions have been accomplished, the school, district, or state should have a clear sense of the resources and training that the staff requires, as well as an action plan and timeline for rolling out the professional development program. For their part, teachers and staff should feel they have sufficient means to provide support to one another once the program gets underway. The next step is to select a program that best fits the school, district, or state’s needs.

What are the different levels of 21st century skills professional development?

Although teachers may be the best-known recipient of professional development, professional learning is an ongoing process and can occur at multiple levels of the educational system. For example, professional development in support of 21st century skills can target:

• State-level leaders

• District- and building-level leaders

• Classroom teachers

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS

As we move from teaching to learning-centred provision, the learner is more central to the higher education process, indeed to education as a whole (Winkley, 2000). The emphasis is shifting ‘from the activities of the teacher or trainer towards development of the student’ (Ball, 1996, p.2). This paper has looked at the models of the learner for the new century.

A growing number of business leaders, politicians, and educators are united around the idea that students need "21st century skills" to be successful today. It's exciting to believe that we live in times that are so revolutionary that they demand new and different abilities. But in fact, the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.

Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history, from the development of early tools, to agricultural advancements, to the invention of vaccines, to land and sea exploration. Such skills as information literacy and global awareness are not new, at least not among the elites in different societies. The need for mastery of different kinds of knowledge, ranging from facts to complex analysis? Not new either. In The Republic, Plato wrote about four distinct levels of intellect. Perhaps at the time, these were considered "3rd century BCE skills"? What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills.

What will it take to ensure that the idea of "21st century skills"—or more precisely, the effort to ensure that all students, rather than just a privileged few, have access to a rich education that intentionally helps them learn these skills—is successful in improving schools? That effort requires three primary components. First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained. Finally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks. For the 21st century skills effort to be effective, these three elements must be implemented in concert. Otherwise, the reform will be superficial and counter-productive.

Greater emphasis on skills also has important implications for teacher training. Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods—for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning—that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they're effective. Part of the 21st century skills movement's plan is also the call for greater collaboration among teachers. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.

The point of our argument is not to say that teaching students how to think, work together better, or use new information more rigorously is not a worthy and attainable goal. Rather, we seek to call attention to the magnitude of the challenge and to sound a note of caution amidst the sirens calling our political leaders once again to the rocky shoals of past education reform failures. Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress.

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