Learning

Researcher Phil Schlechty points to a new approach where systems view students as knowledge workers, volunteers, and customers for engaging work (Leading for Learning).

Student-centered learning

Successful education systems focus on individual learning styles.  They engage students in their digital world, recognizing that today’s learners live in a multi-modal, information-rich environment.   

Their pedagogy reflects the characteristics of today’s learners, who like to customize and collaborate, and who expect freedom, openness, entertainment, innovation, and speed. They provide guided digital access, high expectations, honest feedback, any time anywhere co-working, fun and creativity, and frequent checkpoints(Tapscott, Don, Grown Up Digital).

21st century curriculum

Education 3.0 systems select the best strategies for each teaching situation, engaging students and using problem-based, project-based, interdisciplinary, and collaborative learning. 

They also incorporate relevant themes such as the environment and global and local events. They make a wide range of speciality subjects available to engage learners –from art to Arabic, from economics to environmental studies—any subject requested by a student that can be accessed online even though it may not be available in school.

21st century skills

Research shows that 21st century skills--problem solving, innovation, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity--influence success and are as necessary in our global economy as strong content skills.  

Also important are life and career skills such as flexibility, initiative, productivity, and responsibility; social and cross-cultural skills; and the new basic skills – IT and information skills.

Education 3.0 systems integrate 21st century skills throughout the curriculum, recognizing that they cannot be learned in isolation from core content.

New assessments for learning

Education 3.0 systems use formative and summative assessments, as well as self- and peer-assessments, to improve learning and measure the impact of pedagogy and curriculum.

Although school systems may have been constrained to teach to the test in the past, it is hoped that  assessments such as PISA and NAEP will soon start driving curriculum and pedagogy toward a broader array of skills. These tests measure student products and performances, not memory and test taking skills alone.

A new international alliance of education researchers and academics, ATC21S, is also driving the issue forward.

Research

Rose, David H. and Meyer, Anne. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. Based on 15 years of research by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), this book expands beyond special needs students to personalizing learning for all students with a technology-supported curriculum.

Resource

Tapscott, Don. (2009). Grown Up Digital. This follow-up to Growing Up Digital  discusses findings from interviews and focus groups with 10,000 Generation Y’s (10-30 years old) and identifies the differences in this new generation.   

Videos

21st Century Skills: An Educator's Guide
Richard Halkett, Director of Strategy & Research, Cisco Global Education   
 
Example

Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose, California, is implementing an extensive program of collaboration and project-based learning.