What is 21st Century Education?
“School”,
“Teacher”, “Learner” and “Curriculum” for the 21st
Century
How should education be structured
to meet the needs of students in this 21st century
world? How do we now define “School”, “Teacher” “Learner” and
"Curriculum"?
Schools in the 21st
century will be laced with a project-based curriculum for life
aimed at engaging students in addressing real-world problems,
issues important to humanity, and questions that matter.
This is a dramatic departure from
the factory-model education of the past. It is abandonment,
finally, of textbook-driven, teacher-centered, paper and pencil
schooling. It means a new way of understanding the concept of
“knowledge”, a new definition of the “educated person”. A new
way of designing and delivering the curriculum is required
We offer the following new
definitions for “School”, “Teacher” and “Learner” appropriate
for the 21st century:
Schools will go from
‘buildings’ to 'nerve centers', with walls that are porous and
transparent, connecting teachers, students and the community to
the wealth of knowledge that exists in the world.”
Teacher - From primary role
as a dispenser of information to orchestra of learning and
helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge
into wisdom.
The 21st century will
require knowledge generation, not just information delivery, and
schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry”.
Learner - In the past a
learner was a young person who went to school, spent a specified
amount of time in certain courses, received passing grades and
graduated. Today we must see learners in a new context:
First –
we must maintain student interest by helping them see how what
they are learning prepares them for life in the real world.
Second –
we must instill curiosity, which is fundamental to lifelong
learning.
Third – we must be flexible in how we teach.
Fourth –
we must excite learners to become even more resourceful so that
they will continue to learn outside the formal school day.”
What is 21st century curriculum?
Twenty-first century curriculum has
certain critical attributes. It is interdisciplinary,
project-based, and research-driven. It is connected to the
community – local, state, national and global. Sometimes
students are collaborating with people around the world in
various projects. The curriculum incorporates higher order
thinking skills, multiple intelligence, technology and
multimedia, the multiple literacy of the 21st
century, and authentic assessments. Service learning is an
important component.
The classroom is expanded to include
the greater community. Students are self-directed, and work
both independently and interdependently. The curriculum and
instruction are designed to challenge all students, and provides
for differentiation.
The curriculum is not
textbook-driven or fragmented, but is thematic, project-based
and integrated. Skills and content are not taught as an end in
themselves, but students learn them through their research and
application in their projects. Textbooks, if they have them,
are just one of many resources.
Knowledge is not memorization of
facts and figures, but is constructed through research and
application, and connected to previous knowledge, personal
experience, interests, talents and passions. The skills and
content become relevant and needed as students require this
information to complete their projects. The content and basic
skills are applied within the context of the curriculum, and are
not ends in themselves.
Assessment moves from regurgitation
of memorized facts and disconnected processes to demonstration
of understanding through application in a variety of contexts.
Real-world audiences are an important part of the assessment
process, as is self-assessment.
Media literacy skills
are honed as students address real-world issues, from the
environment to poverty. Students use the technological and
multimedia tools now available to them to design and produce web
sites, television shows, radio shows, public service
announcements, mini-documentaries, how-to DVDs, oral histories,
and even films.
Students at the Automotive High
School in New York City create how-to DVDs on how to complete
various automotive repairs. A student from California created a
film on sweatshops that made an international impact.
Students find their voices as they
create projects using multimedia and deliver these products to
real-world audiences, realizing that they can make a difference
and change the world. They learn what it is to be a
contributing citizen, and carry these citizenship skills forward
throughout their lives.
As a result, standardized test
scores are higher. This is because students have acquired the
skills and content in a meaningful, connected way and the
understanding is there. They actually KNOW the content on a
much higher level of understanding, and they have developed
their basic skills by constant application throughout the
duration of the unit.
The Global Classroom
Every
day students from countries all over the world collaborate on
important projects. The web site,
ePals, is a
site where teachers and students can go to join or start a
collaborative project with anyone in the world. According to
ePals, Inc., “Our Global Community™ is the largest online
community of K-12 learners, enabling more than 325,000 educators
and 126,000 classrooms in over 200 countries and territories to
safely connect, exchange ideas, and learn together. Award
winning School Blog™ and School Mail™ products are widely used and
trusted by schools around the world.”
As we have seen from our own
experiences, from the media, from university research, and as it
was demonstrated in the
Did You Know?
video, technologies, especially the Internet, have resulted in a
globalized society. The world is now “flat”. Our world has
been transformed, and will continue to change at ever-increasing
rates.
In order for our students to be
prepared to navigate this 21st century world, they
must become literate in 21st century literacy,
including multicultural, media, information, emotional,
ecological, financial and cyber literacy. Collaborating with
students from around the world in meaningful, real-life projects
is a necessary tool for developing these literacy. Students
can learn that through collaboration, not competition, they can
work together to make the world a better place. Students will
use technologies, including the Internet, and global
collaboration to solve critical issues.
Greening the
Curriculum and the Classroom - "Green Education"
Our planet and its citizen residents
are facing a growing number of issues related to the
environment. Education is the key. From environmental
awareness to producing scientists, politicians, international
relations experts, media producers, and others, our schools will
assist students in finding the answers to our environmental
problems.
Students will be motivated as they
achieve higher levels of learning in all content areas from
science and math to cultural studies and nutrition and other
areas when they are involved in projects such as
The Edible Schoolyard,
The Globe Program,
Jason Projects, the
Global Johnny Appleseed Project and many more global
classroom projects focused on the environment. From renewable
fuels, to designing “green” buildings (including “green”
schools), gardening, nutrition, environmental law, and more, we
can teach “green”. Also see our new project
introduced in 2010 -
Food and Culture,
a Global, Collaborative Classrooms Project.
What
does all this mean for how we design and build schools?
From "greening" the
district to designing facilities that support 21st century
learning, the factory model of schools and classrooms is no
longer appropriate.
As we move forward in the process of
creating a world-class, 21st century educational
system, the building of new schools and the remodeling of
present school facilities will be addressed. 21st
Century Schools, LLC, can assist you in utilizing the latest
research and technologies to create environmentally friendly,
energy efficient, “green” schools. In fact, it is not uncommon
for students to apply their knowledge of research, mathematics,
science, technologies, and engineering to design real
buildings! This is just one example of a relevant, rigorous, 21st
century, real-life curriculum project. And think of how good
this will look in the students’ portfolios, and the knowledge
that they will have created and contributed to the world.
There is much more to consider.
There is no “one size fits all”, or “one style fits all”
blueprint. Each school should be designed with the students and
the goals of the school and community in mind. However, there
are some basic things you should consider.
You will want to stay away from the
traditional, what I call egg carton, design which has students
isolated in small classrooms. Those school facilities were
designed for the emerging industrial age of the 19th century,
and were based on a factory model and scientific management
system. There are many excellent examples of new schools being
designed and built which support the kind of curriculum and
instruction briefly described above.
First of all, the design takes into
account the kind of spaces needed by students and teachers as
they conduct their investigations and implement their projects.
Spaces will be needed for large groups, small groups and for
independent work. There should be plenty of wall space and
other areas for displaying student work. This includes a place
where the parents and community can gather to watch student
performances as well as a place where they can meet for
discussions.
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What about Technology Resources?
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First of all, technologies are not
an end in themselves; technologies are tools students use to
create knowledge and to create personal and social change.
There should be full access to
technology. If students do not have computers or access to the
Internet at home, together we will find a way to provide them.
If we can, we will obtain laptops for every student and
teacher. Buildings will need to be wired in such a way that
students can access their files, as well as the Internet, from
anywhere in the school. Various labs and learning centers
should be set up around the campus. Art, music, theater,
television, radio and film studios can be created with
relatively small expenditures. All classrooms should have
televisions to watch broadcasts created by their school as well
as by other schools in the district.
As an example, I recently visited a
small school district in western Arkansas that had a technology
lab that would be the envy of many universities and
corporations. It had half a million dollars worth of equipment
and software, absolutely state-of-the-art, and the school did
not have to invest any money at all. They were only required to
create a space to set up the lab and provide one full-time
teacher.
Students use this lab to do
everything from architectural design to film making to creating
virtual reality programs on various topics. For example, a
group of them had made a field trip to NASA in Houston. They
filmed what they saw, and when they returned they created a
virtual reality program for the other students in the district
to use to “visit NASA”!
Source: http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/what_is_21st_century_education.htm
