21st Century Learning and Teaching
What is 21st Century Learning?
I couldn't find concrete definitions of what 21st Century Learning and Teaching mean, so I collected information from various sources:
Education Week: How Do You Define 21st-Century Learning? One Question. Eleven Answers. October 11, 2010 <-- well worth reading all of the responses: The term "21st-century skills" is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today's world. In a broader sense, however, the idea of what learning in the 21st century should look like is open to interpretation—and controversy. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills: Every child in the U.S. needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders. This can be accomplished by fusing the three Rs and four Cs. There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces. To successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by fusing the three Rs and four Cs:
Tony Wagner, from the Introduction to The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do About It: However, in the 21st century, mastery of the basic skills of reading, writing, and math is no longer enough. Increasingly, almost any job that pays more than minimum wage today—both blue and white collar—requires employees who know how to solve a range of intellectual and technical problems, as we will learn in Chapter 1. In addition, we face an exponential increase of readily available information, new technologies that are constantly changing, and more complex societal challenges such as global warming. Thus, work, learning, and citizenship in the 21st century demand that we all know how to think—to reason, analyze, weigh evidence, problem solve. These are no longer skills that only the elites in a society must master; they are essential survival skills for all of us. |
What does 21st Century Learning mean in the library?
The American Association of School Librarians and the American Library Association came up with the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in 2007. (Please download a copy to read the full details of the standards.)
It lists the common beliefs as:
In addition ... Learners use skills, resources, and tools to:
More information on: |