What should students learn in the 21st century?
By Charles FadelFounder & chairman, Center for Curriculum Redesign Vice-chair of the Education committee of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)Visiting scholar, Harvard GSE, MIT ESG/IAP and Wharton/Penn CLO It has become clear that teaching skills requires answering “What should students learn in the 21st century?” on a deep and broad basis. Teachers need to have the time and flexibility to develop knowledge, skills, and character, while also considering the meta-layer/fourth dimension that includes learning how to learn, interdisciplinarity, and personalisation. Adapting to 21st century needs means revisiting each dimension and how they interact: Knowledge - relevance required: Students’ lack of motivation, and often disengagement, reflects the inability of education systems to connect content to real-world experience.
Restorative Classroom Circles - home
Whole-School Project Builds Pride
In rural Howe, Oklahoma, home to about 700 people, the school has long been the heart of the community. Students from pre-K through high school all congregate on the same campus. Now, thanks to the creative efforts of high school students and their teachers, the campus will be getting a facelift that should make local pride shine even brighter. Project Lion Pride was a schoolwide immersion in project-based learning that engaged every student and teacher at Howe High during 10 weeks this spring. Although most students were new to PBL, they stepped up to the challenge of answering this highly relevant driving question: How can we make our school better? On the line was an offer of $1,000 to implement the top idea presented to a panel of judges. Behind the scenes, the entire staff of 13 teachers invested months of preparation to make the project a success. Howe Public Schools is already a 1:1 laptop district that integrates technology effectively. #1. #2. #3. #4. #5.
20 Must-See Facts About The 21st Century Classroom
The Current State Of Technology In K-12 7.62K Views 0 Likes What is the next device most students will soon purchase? How many schools have a digital strategy? Find out in the current state of technology in K-12.
Project Based Learning Resources
(image from education-world.com) Project Based Learning (PBL) is a great way to teach students content, 21st century skills, and engage them in something fun and educational. I spoke more about PBL in an earlier blog ( and we had some great reader comments (Tech&Learning, May 2009, page 14). First of all, PBL can be used in any classroom, in any subject, at any grade level. PBL does take planning. For instance, I teach physics and developed a project for my classes on structures and stress and strain. Another example of PBL is having the students research a topic and present it to the rest of the class through a multimedia presentation, website, or poster. Start small. Another idea for projects is to look at your school or community and see what they need. An idea I got from my wife (a Biology Education student) is to have students create a lesson for other students about a topic. Some web resources to get you started:
Introducing the Inquiry Hub
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The Digital Education Revolution, Cont'd: Meet TED-Ed's New Online Learning Platform - Megan Garber - Technology
TED's new tool lets teachers create customized lessons that revolve around web video. The iconic image of high school education, forged for most of us through personal experience and viewings of Dead Poets Society, is this: a teacher, standing in front of his or her class, lecturing. There are exceptions, definitely: the class discussion, the interactive lab experiment, the game, the field trip. For the most part, though, despite years of education reform, we tend of think of education as a highly vertical experience, one of active teachers and passive students, one in which knowledge radiates out from a single speaker to a roomful of silent listeners. That model is changing, though, and quickly. Today, it's going a step further: TED-Ed is launching a suite of tools that allow teachers to design their own web-assisted curricula, complete with videos, comprehension-testing questions, and conversational tools. That's big. Video, unsurprisingly, is an important component of that toolbox.
10 Teaching Practices Every 21st Century Teacher should Do
Teaching is not only a job but is a way of life.It is a sublime task one can ever be entrusted with. Teachers educate generations of learners and in their hands lays the faith of any nation. A well developed country is a country whose citizens are well educated and this is done only by effective teaching strategies. Teachers have also their peaks and valleys, happy moments and sad times. Leading a successful teaching job requires a high sense of adaptability, for what used to be a successful teacher in the 20th century is now an outdated teacher in the 21st century. One of the pivotal facts we should keep in mind is that we teach in a different milieu, a digitally focused environment where technology has the lion's share. Are digital skills the only key elements needed for us to be labelled effective teachers ? 1- Maintain good communication skills 2- Getting students engagement There is nothing as challenging as getting students engagement and holding their attention. 3- Use Humour
www.inquiryhub.org
7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook
Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Afterward, students had to write informative – but entertaining! – articles about their organism." Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
Learning Circles Teacher Guide
The Learning Circle Teacher Guide provides a structural approach to promoting cross-classroom collaboration with telecommunications. The first chapter is a condensed version of the whole guide. If you want to understand this model of online teaching and learning, this first chapter is a good place to begin. Learning Circle Introduction The Learning Circle Teacher's Guide is organized around the six phases of Circle interaction: The description of each Learning Circle phase has a similar structure. The narrative of Learning Circles interaction can be read--from beginning to end--by following the links at the book of the each narrative. Learning Circle Phase Structure In describing Learning Circles interaction, there are frequent links to different Learning Circles themes. Learning Circle Themes Computer Chronicles Places and Perspectives Society's Problems Mind Works Energy and the Environment Global Issues To Begin at the beginning
