(District Framework for 21st Century Learning)
This is a good place to start ... take a look at their framework and the implementation and teacher direction. A good general framework to SDL ... just missing one thing: Catholic Graduate Expectations. Below are a few documents from BPS and various authors - read and please don't be overwhelmed. With this new direction in 21st Century learning, the process will need to follow the understanding - the mind is willing, but the body is slow to respond.
As a member of the TCDSB family, I know this website will resonate with you - it did with me and continues to guide me forward ... check out everything below - you'll see what I mean soon enough.
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Bernie Trilling & Charles Fadel
Creators and Contributors
“The lack of attention to developing creativity and innovation skills is partly based on a number of common
misconceptions – creativity is only for geniuses, or only for the young, or can’t be learned or measured. In fact, creativity is based on something that virtually everyone is born with: imagination.” (pg. 57)
“Creativity and imagination can be nurtured by learning environments that foster questioning, patience, openness to fresh ideas, high levels of trust, and learning from mistakes and failures.” (pg. 57)
“Collaborating with others to further develop and refine creative ideas becomes applied creativity and leads to real-world innovations, a prize skill in our 21st Century innovation-driven economy.” (pg. 58)
Trilling, Bernie & Fadel Charles
21st Century Skills: Learning For Life in Our Times (2009)
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Tony Wagner
Motivated, Connected, Self-Directed
“Whether at school or in the workplace, young people hunger for a more creative and interactive relationship with the world. . . . They have to be interactive producers, not isolated consumers.” (pg. 187)
“The overwhelming majority of students today want learning to be active, not passive. They want to be challenged to think and to solve problems that do not have easy solutions. They want to know why they are being asked to learn something.” (pg. 199)
“In order for young people to respect learning and school, we need to think more carefully about what we are asking them to learn – to ensure that schoolwork is not busy-work or make-up work but real, adult work that requires both analysis and creativity.” (pg. 189)
Wagner, Tony (2008)
The Global Achievement Gap
New York: Basic Books
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Peter Cookson Jr.
Critical Thinkers, Questioners,
and Problem Solvers
“Every day we are exposed to huge amounts of information, disinformation, and just plain nonsense. The ability to distinguish fact from factoid, reality from fiction, and truth from lies is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" in a world flooded with so much propaganda and spin.”
“We can overcome our ignorance not with wishful thinking, but with testable hypotheses using observable data. Thinking empirically is a form of social responsibility. The methods of science offer us a way of thinking that is a strong framework for a healthy and viable approach to problem solving and living together peacefully.”
“There has never been a time in human history when the opportunity to create universally accessible knowledge has been more of a reality.”
Cookson, Peter. (2009)
Teaching for the 21st Century: What Would Socrates Say
Educational Leadership, 67(1), 8-14.
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Bernie Trilling & Charles Fadel
Communicators and Collaborators
“While education has always been concerned with the basics of good communicating . . . digital tools and the demands of our times call for a much wider and deeper personal portfolio of communication . . .” (pg. 54)
“These skills can be learned through a wide variety of methods, but they are best learned socially-by directly communicating and collaborating with others." (pg. 56)
Trilling, Bernie & Fadel Charles
21st Century Skills: Learning For Life in Our Times (2009)
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Yong Zhao
Global Citizens of Character
“The idea of a local community has already become something of the past. Today we all live in a globally
interconnected & interdependent community.” (pg. 110)
“In reality, it (a sense of global citizenship) is not only a good thing, but also a necessary and urgent thing to do simply because our well-being is connected to that of people in other countries. We can no longer sustain our prosperity in isolation from others.” (pg. 113)
“The ability to interact effectively with people who speak different languages, believe in different religions,
and hold different values has become essential for all workers. We call this set of skills and knowledge
‘global competence’.” (pg. 112)
Zhao, Yong. (2009)
Catching Up or Leading the Way:
American Education in the Age of Globalization
Alexandria: ASCD
21st Century Teaching and Learning
Research Talk – Alan November
Knowledgeable and Skilled
“I have learned about two ways to think about technology; one is called automating, the other is called informating. . . . Most of the investment in education is automating. . . . bolt(ing) technology on top of what you’re already doing. . . . but we don’t improve learning. . . . You get very different results when you informate. The real revolution is information and communication, not technology.”
“Let go of the word technology. If you focus on it, then you’ll just do what you’re already doing. The trick in planning as we move forward is to think about information systems, whole systems of the flow of information and communication.”
“Informatting. . . . (is) a whole new business.”
November, Alan. (2009). Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from:
http://novemberlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/creating-a-new-culture-of-teaching-and-learning.pdf
