21st century learning, or the “21st Century Skills” movement as it is commonly known1, refers to a growing global movement to redefine the goals of education, to transform how learning is practiced each day, and to expand the range of measures in student achievement, all in order to meet the new demands of the 21st Century.
The movement’s driving question is, “What do students need to learn to help them succeed in our times ? personal, societal, and economical success.”
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In today’s classroom, the students have diverse backgrounds, a variety of achievement levels, and different learning styles which will all affect their ability to acquire knowledge. Teachers need to move away from the traditional methods of teaching and bring into the classroom new and innovating approaches to teach the content and lifelong skills. It is important to utilize a variety of techniques for the children to build their own understanding through real world applications and interactions with their peers in group activities. “To be productive contributors to society in our 21st century, you need to be able to quickly learn the core content of a field of knowledge while also mastering a broad portfolio of essentials in learning, innovation, technology, and careers skills needed for work and life” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p16). Teachers need to prepare students for the jobs that have not yet been created, for the new products that have not yet been invented, and for the new skills to build towards creativity and innovation.
Though there are timeless skills and knowledge important for success in any age (language literacy, problem solving and initiative for example), what was needed to be a skilled person in 19th century agrarian society (including brawn power and using horse power) differs dramatically from the expertise needed to be a well-educated and capable 21st century citizen (including brain power and using “hertz power” - computing and digital tools).
Arising from a number of efforts across the globe to define the essential knowledge, skills and dispositions needed for our increasingly information driven and technologically powered societies2, 21st century learning proponents advocate an expanded set of educational goals, as in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) learning framework3: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is “a national organization that advocates for the integration of skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and communication into the teaching of core academic subjects such as English, reading or language arts, world languages, arts, mathematics, economics, science, geography, history, government, and civics” (2009, p.9). P21 Leadership States: The following states build on educational plans and projects to improve and align education to 21st Century skills. Arizona Alabama Arkansas Alaska Hawaii Illinois Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Nebraska Nevada New Jersey North Carolina North Dakota Ohio South Dakota Texas West Virginia Wisconsin
In this model, the “rainbow” above represents the goals, standards, or intended outcomes of learning for 21st century students, and the “pools” below indicate the learning support systems that enable the goals to be met.
Framework for 21st Century Learning The Framework for 21st Century Learning consists of core subjects and themes that revolve around three core skills: life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, and information media, and technology skills. These are the skills that students need in order to be successful in the 21st century. The core subjects include: English, Reading, Language Arts, World Languages, Arts, Mathematics, Economics, Science, Geography, History, and Government and Civics. In addition to the core subjects, schools must integrate the 21st century interdisciplinary themes in the daily instructional activities. The themes consist of global awareness, financial, economic, business, entrepreneurial literacy, civil literacy, health literacy, and environmental literacy. The “pools” underneath the rainbow represents the paradigmatic “shift towards supporting 21st century learning, understanding, and skills performance” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.120). The “pools” consist of standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and learning environment.
The learning goals include traditional core subject knowledge areas (in green), such as social studies, math, science, language, etc.; interdisciplinary and contemporary thematic expertise (also in green), such as environmental, health, financial and civic literacy; and three sets of essential skills (in gold, purple and red), applied to the learning of content knowledge:
The learning support systems represented by the pools below the rainbow, are the typical services and operations of an educational system: learning standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development of teachers and leaders, and the learning environment for students.
The first category of 21st century skills focuses on learning and innovation skills. This includes, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration, and creativity and innovation applied imagination and invention. Teachers must create meaningful and authentic assessment and activities that promotes higher order thinking skills. Students must gain the knowledge “to ask and answer important questions, to critically review what others say about a subject, to pose and solve problems to communicate and work with others in learning, and to create new knowledge and innovation that help build a better world” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.49). “Creating, applying, remembering, analyzing, understanding, and evaluating can all be used together in rich, well-designed learning activities and projects to improve the effectiveness and longevity of learning results” (51). Similarly, teachers must intertwine lifelong skills and content within the design of the units, activities, and lesson plans that are taught within the classroom.
The second category consists of digital literacy skills. This includes information literacy, media literacy and ICT (information and communication technologies) literacy. With today’s and tomorrow’s digital tools, our net generation students will have unprecedented power to amplify their ability to think, learn, communicate, collaborate, and create” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.64). Teachers need to also, incorporate technology into the classroom. Technology is used to supplement traditional resources in the classroom and engages the students. By including technology into the daily classroom activities it “not only motivates learning, it builds self-esteem, can provide immediate feedback, can provide learning beyond drill and practice and it can address various learning styles as well as help build learner strategies” (Mansoor, 1999, p.6). The computers can also be used to reinforce key concepts and integrate interactive games into the lessons. Using technology will strengthen students’ skills and abilities to acquire information in which it will provide an array of information that goes beyond the traditional textbook and class notes.
The third category focuses on career and life skills. This includes flexibility, adaptability, initiative, self direction, communication, social and cross-cultural interaction, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. “The ability to work effectively and creatively with team members and classmates regardless of differences in culture and style is an essential 21st century life skill” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.80). Likewise, teachers need to prepare the students for a world beyond the classroom in order for them to become successful in all aspects of their lives. Also, leadership and responsibility “provides lots of opportunities to take responsibility and exercise leadership-skills important to future employers” (85). Teaching students responsibilities will strengthen their work ethic when they have a job or career. They will be prepared and be confident when they are seeking for job opportunities. It will continue to help them succeed in the job market and learn even more skills.
Equally important to 21st century learning is the application of learning science research and principles to learning methods and the design of learning activities, projects, assessments and environments. Principles of effective learning important to 21st century education practitioners include4:
A particularly effective learning method that incorporates these principles are group learning projects driven by an engaging, real-world questions or problems. These inquiry- and design-based, collaborative learning projects5 are a powerful learning method especially suited for building the essential 21st century skills-and-knowledge listed in the rainbow model above.
Students in well-designed and managed learning projects often produce artifacts (reports, models, simulations, presentations, inventions, videos, etc.) that can be evaluated for both understanding of content knowledge and the proficiency level of a range of 21st century skills. Students’ collections of projects, often placed in structured electronic portfolios, can provide rich evidence for increasing competence and achievement over time.
Students should also be globally and culturally aware. Teachers must integrate this into lessons so that they can teach their students skills they will need for getting job or starting a career. In many schools, teachers teach their students a concept and test them, but they ask questions in another language. Usually the language is one that is very much used and is becoming more well known. A lot of business is done with Japan, and also a lot of Spanish speakers are coming to the United States so those would be language that could benefit the students.
One learning method that incorporates 21st century themes and skills is the project learning bicycle. “Students in well-designed and managed learning projects produce artifacts-reports, presentations, videos, podcasts, models, simulations, inventions, etc.—as part of their projects work” (Trilling, 2010, p.44). When carefully looked at the handle bars represent driving the project forward and the frame represents both the student and teacher cooperating together to create a meaningful project. The gears represent the tools used in the project. For instance, the students may have used computers, websites, digital media or other forms of technology in their project. The wheels represent a continuing process of defining, planning, reviewing, and doing. Overall, “the goal is a rich learning experience that blends knowledge understanding, and solid performance on many of the 21st century skills” (101). Thus, it gives the students the opportunity to express themselves and think outside of the box while demonstrating their talents.
An important new concept in education is that literacy is always changing, and with that you need to adapt to new methods of teaching. Instead of just teaching students how to read and write, you need to be sure they are literate in technology as well. Teaching students about technology should be part of the curriculum.
A factor that displays 21st century skills within a classroom is to use a variety of hands on activities on many different subjects.
Systematic integration 21st century skills and content benefits the students in the following areas: linguistically, socially, cognitively, and academically. Linguistically, students benefit by being able to learn lifelong skill in meaningful, authentic ways through challenging content. To further elaborate this point, "the content of each lesson must be taught simultaneously with the linguistic skills necessary for understanding it" (Cantoni-Harvey, 1987, p. 22; Snow et al, 1989, p.202). Additionally, the integration of content and skills benefits students socially. “Language is learned most effectively for communication in meaningful, purposeful social and academic contexts. In real life, people use language to talk about what they know and what they want to know more about, not to talk about language itself” (Snow et al, 1989, p.202). The students are able to communicate the content among their peers and be able to use it in their everyday lives. Also, the students benefit from the integration of 21st century skills and content cognitively by using reasoning and problem-solving skills to promote higher level thinking. “This will obtain to the extent that higher order thinking skills require more complex or elaborate language skills in more cognitively demanding tasks” (215). The use of higher order thinking will gain the students interest in the content when related to real life situations. This will enable them to think outside of the box and move up the latter in achieving higher levels of proficiency. Academically, most students’ will benefit from the integration of content and skills to survive in the world today. Students will gain a plethora of knowledge to understand and solve real-world situations using the 21st century skills.
Teachers may design a curriculum around a themed-based approach in order to incorporate 21st century skills into the content areas. This will allows students personal interest is brought into the classroom while focusing on higher order thinking skills. Themes that may be used for a unit are political issues within the community, pollution, recycling, or even broader topics. “The theme must be very interesting to students and must allow a wide variety of language skills to be practiced, always in the service of communicating about theme” (Oxford, 2001, p.4). By relating the content to real life situations the students will be engaged and motivated to learn and take action in their road to success. “By posing open-ended questions and posing intriguing problems engage children’s imaginations and help motivate them to explore, discover, create, and learn” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.94). By “applying skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity to the content knowledge-increases motivation and improves learning outcomes” (50). The students will have the opportunity to express their viewpoints and take action in their own learning. “It deeply engages students in their learning, goes beyond memorization to meaningful understanding, and results in large learning gains for students with a wide range of learning styles and backgrounds” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p.104).
Teachers must utilize a variety of methods for the children to build their own understanding through real world applications interactions with their peers in many cooperative group activities. “Life is a multimedia event, and the meanings that we secure from life are not simply contained in text; they yield their content through a wide variety of forms” (Eisner, 2002, p. 154). The students need to have a deep understanding for the real world in order to become successful individuals and be more technologically enhanced.
Students need to become more globally literate because many jobs are now more focused on those issues. Students need to know more about the world, think outside of the box, develop better people skills, and become smarter about selecting news sources. To do this it is important for teachers to keep up with the times and create a modern curriculum. One of the best ways to achieve global literacy is through communication, collaborative learning, research, and problem solving. Technology helps tremendously in these areas, so it is a great tool to use in the classroom. Not only that, but it will help the students to find more relevance in school as well.
As educators shift from the traditional school methods of the lecturing and note taking, there is a need not to use technology as a means of supplemental education, but truly integrated. Simply stated: using a computer to take notes instead of using paper is no different. However, using software as a means to collect and analyze data would be one way to integrate technology into educational practices. Achieving a new balance of learning practice that supports an expanded set of learning goals and a broader definition of student success is a significant challenge to often change-resistant educational systems around the world. The interlocking support systems of education - standards, assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development and learning environments - all have to shift together to provide a solid infrastructure for 21st century learning.
Schools, districts, provinces, and entire national education systems are successfully moving toward a 21st century learning model, motivated by the need for an educated workforce and citizenry capable of meeting the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century with some work and a lot of effort from the government.