This document discusses 21st century learning and provides examples of how it can be implemented at different grade levels. It also outlines a framework for 21st century skills that includes learning and innovation skills, life and career skills, and information/technology skills. Additionally, it discusses how 21st century learning can be supported through project-based learning, real-world curriculum, modern learning environments, professional development, and new approaches to standards and assessment.

1. 21st Century Learning

2. 21st Century Learning: Examples
• Elementary: Students from an elementary school in Maryland collaborate with a school in
Mexico to study the migration pattern of the monarch butterfly from Mexico to the United
States and back. Students from participating schools collect local scientific data and share
their data by entering them into an online database. There are also interactive activities
supported by the project website that help students hone their information and
communication technology skills. Journey North can be aligned with science, math,
geography, and language arts standards. (ICT / Global Awareness)
• Middle School: At least twice a year, students undertake four- to twelve-week
interdisciplinary projects. Besides incorporating such subjects as art, science, and language
arts, the projects include well-considered use of computer technology, which has been
enhanced by the decision of the state to provide all Maine seventh and eighth graders with
iBook laptop computers. (Expeditionary Learning Schools)
• High School: Students need to use their knowledge of math to create a financial proposal,
and build an architectural model for the construction of a futuristic school building.
Students work in teams to problem solve around a given land-use design challenge. As part
of the process, professional architects from the community advise students as they develop
their designs, and ultimately act as judges for students’ culminating presentations of their
proposals. (Critical Thinking / Math and Science)
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21 http://www.edutopia.org/expeditionary-learning-maine-video

3. Framework for 21st Century Learning
• A “framework” of outcomes used to align facilities,
professional development, curriculum and pedagogy,
and standards and assessment to support 21st century
learning outcomes. The student outcomes are skills
and habits of mind (not test scores).
• Created in 2002. Seven states have now “adopted” the
framework, along with individual districts and
schools.
• Formulated by a business-government-non-profit
partnership including the Department of Education,
dozens of high-tech firms, and the N.E.A.

4. Why: Workplace Readiness
• Demographics – 40% of the workforce will retire or
significantly reduce work between now and 2015.
Severe shortage of workers who are “skilled.”
• Technology is changing at an unprecedented rate.
• “The objective is creating the capacity for
innovation.” We need thinkers and doers to
maintain our quality of life, and prepare students for
the jobs that exist.

5. Source: Levy F. and R.J. Murnane (2004) The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Labor Market. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press

6. Framework for 21st Century Learning: Alignment

7. Framework for 21st Century Learning
Outcome: Learning and Innovation Skills
Creativity and Innovation includes:
• Developing, implementing and communicating new ideas to others.
• Being open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving includes:
• Understanding the interconnections among systems.
• Identifying and asking significant questions that clarify various points
of view and lead to better solutions.
Communication and Collaboration includes:
• Demonstrating ability to work effectively with diverse teams.
• Assuming shared responsibility for collaborative work.

8. Framework for 21st Century Learning
Outcome: Life and Career Skills
• Flexibility & Adaptability
• Initiative & Self-Direction
• Social & Cross-Cultural Skills
• Productivity & Accountability
• Leadership & Responsibility

9. Framework for 21st Century Learning Outcome:
Information, Media and Technology Skills
Information Literacy includes:
• Accessing information efficiently and effectively, evaluating
information critically and competently and using information
accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand.
Media Literacy includes:
• Understanding how media messages are constructed, for what
purposes and using which tools, characteristics and conventions.
ICT Literacy includes:
• Using digital technology, communication tools and/or networks
appropriately to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create
information in order to function in a knowledge economy.
• Using technology as a tool to research, organize, evaluate and
communicate information, and the possession of a fundamental
understanding of the ethical/legal issues surrounding the access and
use of information.

10. 21st Century Learning: Curriculum
A 21st century curriculum blends thinking and
innovation skills; information, media, and ICT
literacy; and life and career skills in context of
core academic subjects and across
interdisciplinary themes, and employs methods of
21st century instruction that integrate
innovative and research-proven teaching
strategies, modern learning technologies, and real
world resources and contexts.

11. 21st Century Curriculum: Core Subjects and Themes
•English, reading or
language arts
•World languages
•Arts
•Mathematics
•Economics
•Science
•Geography
•History
•Government and Civics
21st Century Additions:
•Global Awareness
•Financial, economic,
business and
entrepreneurial literacy
•Civic literacy
•Health Literacy

12. 21st Century Curriculum:
Project/Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
• PBL means that “students investigate rich and challenging
issues and topics, often in the context of real world
problems.” Students generate ideas and provide
explanations.
• PBL models may also include other aspects of 21st century
instruction such as the use of interdisciplinary content,
and cooperative learning groups.
• PBL increases students’ active engagement with content,
as well as their capacity for self-directed learning,
collaboration, and social interaction.
“To be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it
defines the ideal mental condition.” – John Dewey

13. 21st Century Curriculum: Real-World Relevance
Students should:
– Study an environmental problem, design a
solution and build a model.
– Write and perform a play about a current event.
“Relate the school to life, and all studies are of
necessity correlated.”
- John Dewey, 1899

14. 21st Century Learning Environments
A 21st century learning environment depends on a number
of aligned and interdependent elements to support 21st
century teaching and learning. Among these elements are
the following:
• facilities and design
• technology infrastructure
• scheduling
• school culture
• leadership
• professional learning communities
• community involvement

15. 21st Century Educational Facilities
21st century educational facilities should:
• Support the learning practices, collaborative
arrangements, technological capacities, and physical
spaces that enable teaching and learning to flourish.
• Encourage teachers and students to collaborate in a
knowledge-rich environment.
• Accommodate both the known and identifiable needs of
today, and the uncertain demands of the future.
• Provide an environment that will support and enhance
the learning process, encourage innovation and be a tool for
learning… They need to be conceived …as a resource to
support lifelong education and recreation for all.

16. 21st Century Professional Development:
A Phased Approach
1. Leadership Training for Administrators
2. In-Service Training for Teachers
3. ICT Literacy with tools and support
4. 24/7 access to 21st century tools
5. Pre-Service Training for ed. students
6. Add 21st C. standards for accreditation
7. Create 21st Century Teaching Academies

17. 21st Century Standards and Assessment
Assessment of 21st century skills should:
• Include a balance of high-quality standardized testing along with
effective classroom formative and summative assessments.
• Emphasize useful feedback on student performance that is
embedded into everyday learning.
• Require a balance of technology-enhanced, formative and
summative assessments that measure student mastery of 21st
century skills.
• Enable development of portfolios of student work that
demonstrate mastery of 21st century skills to educators and
prospective employers.
• Enable a balanced portfolio of measures to assess the educational
system’s effectiveness at reaching high levels of student
competency in 21st century skills.

19. 21st Century Assessment:
Sample Middle School Level Assessment
Performance Tasks place students in a real-world scenario.
In the following case, students have 90 minutes to advise the
mayor on crime reduction strategies and evaluate two
potential policies:
1. Invest in a drug treatment program or
2. Put more police on the streets.
Students are provided with a Document Library, which
includes different types of information sources, such as…

20. 21st Century Assessment:
Sample Middle School Level Assessment
Students are expected to evaluate evidence by:
1. Determining what information is or is not pertinent
2. Distinguishing between fact and opinion
3. Recognizing limitations in the evidence
4. Spotting deception and holes in the arguments of
others

21. 21st Century Assessment:
Sample Middle School Level Assessment
Students are assessed on the basis of their ability to analyze
and synthesize the evidence by:
1. Presenting his/her own analysis of the data
2. Breaking down the evidence into its component parts
3. Drawing connections between discrete sources of data
4. Attending to contradictory or inadequate information
http://www.cae.org/content/pro_collegiate.htm

22. Maine – Proposed New Assessment Standards

23. ASIAN TIGER MOSQUITO: Question 1 and
Document Library Contents 21st Century Assessment: Sample A.P. Level Assessment

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