The document discusses the need for education reform to prepare students for the 21st century. It notes that the world is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and that skills like creativity, collaboration and problem solving are needed more than specific job skills. New knowledge domains like robotics and skills like design thinking should be taught. The document presents a framework with four dimensions of learning: knowledge, skills, character, and meta-learning. It argues this framework can guide a redesign of education to ensure students develop versatility for an unpredictable future.

1. Charles Fadel
March 22, 2016
Charles@curriculumredesign.org
Four-Dimensional Education
Knowledge | Skills | Character | Meta-Learning
Twitter: @CurrRedesign #4DEdu

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Volatile
Uncertain
Complex
Ambiguous
Our New World

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Climate change Personal privacy
Financial instability Political partisanship
The road ahead is challenging…
Inequities
Technological disruptions
Religious intolerance

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The Goals of Education: Maslow’s Pyramid
Employability

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Source: Video extract from “Occupy Wall Street”
The stakes have never been higher

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Disconnect between employers and educators

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Accelerating Change Demands Different Skills
e.g. consultants
e.g. engineers
e.g. paperwork
e.g. assembly
work
e.g. plumbing
Source: David Autor, MIT

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The Impact of Technology

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Growing Concern

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Algorithmic Composition of Music

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Google Autonomous Vehicle
> 1 Million miles,
14 minor accidents,
all human-induced

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Algorithmic Trading – Flash Crash
>60% of volume is now “high-speed trading”

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WikiBots
42% of Wikipedia is
edited by 12 bots !

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https://x.ai/about/

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Computers can sketch too !
 Seven artists generated about 8,000 pen
strokes
 Disney's software analyzed how greatly
artists exaggerated the distance between
facial features.

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Human workers, managed by an algorithm
“The latest trend in crowdsourcing is organizing foreign
workers on a mass scale to do routine tasks that
computers aren’t yet good at, assigned by an algorithm”

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More to come… Robotics

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Robot Serves Up 360 Hamburgers Per Hour
 Pays for itself in a year.
 No cashiers or servers.

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Robots learning from each other
 Knowledge shared worldwide in online database.
 Computing tasks carried out in the Cloud

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And more, including flying

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More to come – Augmented Reality

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More to come… Virtual Reality

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More to come… 3-D Printing

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More to come… Internet of Things

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More to come – Quantified Self

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More to come… Brain-enhancers

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More to come… Bioengineering
Gene Sequencing (PCR)
Gene Editing (CRISPR)
Proteomics
Synthetic Biology
STEM cells
Cloning
Etc.
Profound consequences
 Ethics, Wisdom !

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More to come… Nanomaterials

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“The future is already here –
it's just not very evenly distributed.”
Science-Fiction author William Gibson

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Displacement due to Technology
Ox  Harvester
Horse  Automobile
Lab Mice  Assays (not soon enough…)
Humans:
Scribes  printing press
Washers  washing machine
Cashiers/Attendants  bar code scanner
Healthcare/Finance/Services/Jeopardy champions  Watson
etc

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Watson goes to medical school
 Collect and assess patient data
 Construct “inference paths” toward a probable diagnosis

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More True by the Day
“We are currently preparing students for jobs and
technologies that don’t yet exist… to solve problems
that we don’t even know are problems yet.”
Richard Riley
Former U.S. Secretary of Education

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The Race between Technology and Education
Inspired by “The race between
technology and education”
Pr. Goldin & Katz (Harvard)
Industrial Revolution
Social pain
Social pain
Prosperity
Technology
Education
Digital Revolution

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Making Education Relevant
More
>
© Center for Curriculum Redesign

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What
should students
learn for the
21st century?

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“Please, may I ask where you’re going with all this?”
Students beg for Relevance
Source: New Yorker

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with key global players
International
Organizations
International
Organizations
International
Organizations
Jurisdictions
International
Organizations
Academia
International
Organizations
Foundations
& Non-Profits
International
Organizations
Corporations

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VUCA world  Versatility as key strategy

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From T-shaped to m-shaped
mT
Broad Knowledge
Single  Multiple
Deep Expertise
STEM AND Humanities/Arts
Knowledge AND Skills/Character/Meta-Learning
Source: Jim
Spohrer, IBM

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Reassess Knowledge for Relevance and Versatility

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Introduce Modern Knowledge
and Harness Interdisciplinarity
Robotics
Entrepreneurship
Wellness
and more…

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Embed Cross Cutting Themes
Global Literacy
Information Literacy
Environmental Literacy
Digital Literacy
Systems Thinking
Design Thinking
Photo: Radek Szuban

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Learn skills
Creativity
Critical Thinking
Communication
Collaboration

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Build Character
Mindfulness
Curiosity
Courage
Resilience
Ethics
Leadership

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21st Century Education Framework

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“Clear and actionable, first-of-
its-kind organizing framework of
competencies needed”
Andreas Schleicher,
OECD
“Educators worldwide [need] to
rapidly operationalize these
dimensions”
Todd Rose,
Harvard University

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We agree

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“What should students learn for the 21st century?”
Thank You !
Contact: Charles@curriculumredesign.org