21 st Century Teaching for 21 st Century Students

2. 21st Century Teaching for 21st Century Students Brad Fountain Discovery Education

3. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler

4. “This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education… whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad, or speak a language other than English.” How to Build a Student for the 21st Century, TIME Magazine, December 18, 2006

5. Who are 21st Century Learners? • As large in number as Baby Boomers • Consumers- $150 billion annually • Digital Media Users – 6 ½ hrs daily (Exposed to 8 ½ hours) • Multi-taskers: online - phone - print • Hyper-Communicators -socially & civically • Gamers-interactive learning • Risk-Takers • Depersonalization • Pursuers of ongoing education • Futurists & Optimistic • IQ is up by 17 points between 1947-2001 with most gains post 1972

7. Are They REALLY That Different? • 21st Century Student’s Brain • Neuroplasticity • 50 hours to affect change • Video games • Hypertext Minds • Point to Point vs. Linear • Breadth vs. Depth • Environmental Impact • Thinking Patterns • ADD or Disengaged Marc Prensky – Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 2

8. What Are They Missing? • Critical Thinking • Reflection • Evaluation • Linear Processing • Personal Communication • Meaningful Persistence • Formal processes

9. Why 21st Century Skills? Workforce Survey: “Are They Really Ready to Work?” Released October 2, 2006, by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management groups.

10. Why 21st Century Skills? What skills are most important for job success when hiring a High School graduate?

11. Why 21st Century Skills? Of the High School Students that you recently hired, what were their deficiencies?

12. Why 21st Century Skills? What applied skills and basic knowledge are most important for those you will hire with a four-year college diploma?

13. Why 21st Century Skills? What skills and content areas will be growing in importance in the next five years?

14. So What Does this Mean for Teachers and Schools?

16. “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. By the time students become adults they have lost that capacity. And national education systems are where mistakes are the worst things you can make. The result is we are educating people out of their creative capacities.” - Sir Ken Robinson

17. New Definitions for Schools • 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 while creating a culture of inquiry” • Teachers will go from primary role as a dispenser of information to orchestrator of learning and helping students turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into wisdom. 21stCenturySchool.com

18. New Definition for Students • In the past a student 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.” 21stCenturySchool.com

19. Being Literate Today Means… • Finding the information • Processing different media • Decoding the information • Analyzing the information • Critically evaluating the information • Organizing it into personal digital libraries • Creating information in a variety of media • Teaching the information to find the user • Filtering the information gleaned

20. Inquiry Learning Dewey defines productive inquiry as that aspect of any activity where we are deliberately seeking what we need in order to do what we want to do. (Dewey, 1922 and Cook and Brown, 1999) In the net age we now have at our disposal tools and resources for engaging in productive inquiry – and learning – that we never had before. -John Seely Brown

21. 20th Century vs. 21st Century Learning

22. 20th Century vs. 21st Century Learning

23. Why change is needed… In the 20th century, the approach to education was to focus on ‘learning-about’ and to build stocks of knowledge and some cognitive skills in the student to be deployed later in appropriate situations. This approach to education worked well in a relatively stable, slowly changing world where students could expect to learn one set of skills and use them throughout their lives. Careers often lasted a lifetime. But the 21st century is quite different. The world is continuously changing at an increasing pace. Skills learned today are apt to be out-of-date all too soon. When technical jobs change, we can no longer expect to send a person back to school to be re-trained or to learn a new profession. By the time that happens, the domain of inquiry is likely to have morphed yet again. -John Seely Brown

24. Other Cultures • Korea • Little time reading newspapers or watching TV. Life moves at the speed of the net and being connected is the only way to remain current • Japan • Laptops are viewed as dinosauric technology. The cell phone provides the privacy and instant connectivity individuals crave

25. What will the future hold? Future Forces Affecting Education

26. Putting it into practice.

27. Where do I Start? Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0

28. Tools of the Trade • Online Collaborations • Blogs • Wikis • Google Docs/Spreadsheets • Skype • Flickr • RSS • Digital Storytelling • Photostory 3 • Movie Maker 2 • Adobe Premiere Elements/iMovie • Audacity • Freeplay Music

29. Tools of the Trade • Google Earth • Podcasts • Bubbleshare • Slideshare • Innertoob • NewsMap • Toondoo

30. What does it look like? • Cross-Curricular Projects on the Web • Johnny Appleseed Project • Journey North • Classroom Blogs • Mr. C’s Class Blog • The Secret Life of Bees • Classroom Podcasts • Room 208 • RadioWillowweb

31. What does it look like? • Google Earth • Grapes of Wrath Google Earth Littrip • Coral Reef Temperatures • Tree Coverage Percentage • Wikis • Vicki Davis • Tim Frederick • Technospud

32. How can I help my school? • Professional Development Needs Assessment • MILE Guide • How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century • Engauge • Visions 2020 • Building the Perfect School

33. Some good reads… • Blogs • 2 Cents Worth – David Warlick • Teach42 – Steve Dembo • The Strength of Weak Ties – David Jakes • Moving at the Speed of Creativity – Wes Fryer • Weblogg-ed – Will Richardson • Dangerously Irrelevant – Scott McLeod • Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom – Beth Knittle • Books • Tested – Linda Perlstein • Don’t Bother Me Mom—I’m Learning! – Marc Prensky • A Whole New Mind – Daniel Pink • The World is Flat – Thomas Friedman • What Video Games Have to Teach us About Literacy and Learning – James Paul Gee

34. What Will You Do to Make A Difference? Brad Fountain brad_fountain@discovery.com