21st Century Skills: An Educator's Guide

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21st Century Skills:

An Educator’s Guide

Richard Halkett

Director of Strategy & Research Cisco Global Education

March 17, 2009

This slide deck can be seen with the accompanying video on

GETideas.org

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A World of Change in Baseline QualificationsApproximated by percentage of persons with high school or equivalent qualifications in the age groups 55–64, 45–55, 45–44, and 25–34 years

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1. Excluding ISCED 3C short programmes 2. Year of reference 2004

3. Including some ISCED 3C short programmes 3. Year of reference 2003



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New Assessments on the Horizon

PISA (Program for International Student Assessment)

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress)

“I'm calling on our nation's governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity”

President Barack Obama, March 2009


The Three Benefits of Learning



LearningLearning

£$¥₨元

£$¥₨元

Economiccompetitiveness




LearningLearning

Social & environmental

wellbeing


wellbeing



LearningLearning

Lifelongpersonal

prosperity

Lifelongpersonal

prosperity



LearningLearning

£$¥₨元

£$¥₨元



Lifelongpersonal

prosperity

Lifelongpersonal

prosperity


wellbeing


wellbeing


The World Is Changing—Fast

GlobalizationGlobalization

SustainabilitySustainability

TechnologyTechnology Demographic change

Demographic change

Peace & securityPeace & security


How the Demand for Skills Has ChangedEconomy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (U.S.)

Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution.

40

45

50

55

60

65

1960 1970 1980 1990 2002

Non-Routine Interactive

Non-Routine Analytic

Routine Manual

Routine Cognitive

Non-Routine Manual

The Dilemma of SchoolsThe skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitize, automate, and outsource.


21st Century Learning

Education 2.0

Education 3.0

Education 1.0

Supported Through an Adapted Reform Agenda

High-quality Infrastructure &

Technology

Leadership, People & Culture

21st Century Skills

Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment

Achieved in Holistic Transformation

Education 3.0

Traditional Education Systems

Curriculum

Teachers

Accountability

Leadership


The Education 3.0 Framework

Leading Transformatio

n

Holistic Change

Pace and Urgency

Building Ownersh

ip

Routes to Scale

Sustainable

Delivered in

Partnership

Assessment for Learning

Flexible Learning Spaces

Integrated Ecosystem of Partners

‘Next Practice’ Pedagogy

Integrated Training —Technology and Pedagogy

Innovation Management

Ambitious, Collaborative,

Innovative Culture

21st Century Curriculum

High Standard of Educational

Technology

Data-Driven Accountability and Decisionmaking

Excellent Teachers, Principals and

System-Leaders

Technology Vision Led From the Top

Well-Governed and Managed System

Visionary Leadership

Student-Centred, Personalised

Learning

Infrastructure and

Technology

Policies, Procedures, and

Management

Leadership, People, and

Culture

Curriculum, Pedagogy, and

Assessment


Elements of a 21st Century Curriculum

Basic Skills

Core Subjects and Technical Skills

Disciplinary Knowledge

21st Century Skills

Ethics, History, and Citizenship

Specialized Subjects


21st Century Skills: Many Perspectives


1.The disciplined mind

2.The synthesizing mind

3.The creating mind

4.The respectful mind

5.The ethical mind

Howard Gardner


Six New “Senses”

1. Design

2. Story

3. Symphony

4. Empathy

5. Play

6. Meaning

Daniel Pink


Seven “Survival Skills”

1. Critical thinking and problem-solving

2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence

3. Agility and adaptability

4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism

5. Effective oral and written communication

6. Accessing and analyzing information

7. Curiosity and imagination

Tony Wagner


Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21)


The OECD

1. The great collaborators and orchestrators

2. The great synthesizers

3. The great explainers

4. The great versatilists

5. The great personalizers

6. The great localizers


The Debate

“The same ideas were iterated and reiterated by pedagogues across the twentieth century. Their call for 20th century skills sounds identical to the current effort to promote 21st century skills.”

Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education,

New York University

“The error at the heart of P21 is the idea that skills are all-purpose muscles that, once developed, can be applied to new and unforeseen domains of experience.”

E.D. Hirsch, Jr., former Professor of Education and Humanities,

University of Virginia


A False Dichotomy

Not knowledge OR skills—knowledge AND skills

Not LESS knowledge—MORE knowledge through skills/relevance

Not summative OR formative assessment—BETTER summative and MORE formative assessment

The world's great thinkers have always possessed these skills, BUT:

Never systematically taught to students

Neglected due to emphasis on knowledge


In Summation: 21st Century Skills

Many consistent themes

A critical debate

Support from the Obama administration

Demands interpretation on a local, regional and national level by professional educators


Five Working Groups Learning Environments &

Formative Assessment Dr. John Bransford

Assessment Methodology Dr. Mark Wilson

Technology Dr. Beno Csapo

Measurable 21st C Skills Dr. Senta Raizen

Country Deployment and Use Barry McGaw DirectorMelbourne Education Research Institute (MERI)Australia

Cisco-Intel-Microsoft Assessment Alliance


21st Century Skills in Action


New York City iSchool

Interdisciplinary, problem-based modules

Self-paced, individualized online coursework

College preparatory core experiences

Off-site field work

Integration of 21st century skills into all aspects of high school life Leadership

Collaboration

Interdisciplinary problem solving

Personal accountability/advocacy


Established by the UK Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce

Built on the RSA Opening Minds framework

Five categories of competence

Learning

Citizenship

Relating to people

Managing situations

Managing information

RSA Academy, UK


High Tech High, San Diego

Project-Based Learning

Integrated study project

Authentic audience and product

Student activities

Identification of life forms

Student written history

GIS mapmaking technology

Observations, reflections, commentary

100% of students graduate and attend college


What Does This Mean for School Systems?

Save time—use technology to extend learning beyond the classroom

Incorporate 21st century skills across subjects

Listen to student feedback on what works

Monitor NAEP assessment movement toward 21st century skills

Don’t teach to the test every day—be brave!


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