C21 Canada

by

C21 Canada CIO K12 Leadership Alliance

C21 Canada Announces Launch of the C21 CIO Alliance News Release_Feb22_20

Whitehorse, Yukon: Monday, February 24, 2020 — C21 Canada, a leading not-forprofit organization promoting the accelerated change in teaching and learning practices across Canada announces the launch of the C21 CIO K – 12 Leadership Alliance at the CEO Academy Winter meetings.

“The CIO role continues to evolve at an accelerated pace given the technological revolution and complex delivery systems required across Canadian schools. C21 Canada is excited to play a leadership role in the country’s digital transformation in education. We offer a national lens, research and professional learning network to facilitate alignment with stakeholders and a deeper understanding of pedagogical needs in support of student success,” says Robert Martellacci, CEO and Co-founder, C21 Canada.

The mission of the C21 Canada CIO K-12 Leadership Alliance in concert with the C21 CEO Academy, is to provide a national forum and voice for Canada’s most progressive thinking K-12 CIO’s to focus on transforming, influencing and accelerating and leading 21st century innovation across all school systems.

“I am deeply honoured to be nominated for the “C21 Canada CIO K-12 Leadership Alliance”. Taking the lead to create a national forum for Canada’s most progressive thinking K-12 CIO’s to focus on transforming, influencing, accelerating and leading 21st century is quite a honour,“ say Dr. Mario Chaisson, Director of Research, Innovations and Change Management, District scolaire francophone Sud and founding Chair.

Founding members include: Dr. Mario Chaisson, Director of Research, Innovations and Change Management, District scolaire francophone Sud Peter Singh, Executive Officer

– IT Services at Toronto District School Board and Stephen Whiffin, Director of Instruction and CIO at School District #43. David Robert, President, C21 Canada, Karen Yamada, Chief Learning Officer & CFO, C21 Canada and Robert Martellacci, CEO, C21 Canada. 

About C21 Canada

C21 Canada is a national, not for profit organization that advocates for 21st Century models of learning in education. Their belief is that 21st century models of learning must be adopted in public education on an urgent basis to position Canadians for economic, social and personal success in the high skills, knowledge and innovation-based economy.

For more information contact:

Robert Martellacci, CEO & Co-Founder

Mobile: 416-569-2106

robert.martellacci@c21canada.org

www.c21canada.org.

by

C21 Canada’s Shifting Minds – A Canadian Context for Global Competencies

C21 Canada’s Shifting Minds – A Canadian Context for Global Competencies

C21 Canada’s was pleased to partner in the recent International Symposium on Global Competencies, hosted by CoSN, in the company of leading educators, researchers and policy-makers from around the world. 1.  It was a day of confirmation for the advocacy and influence of C21 Canada’s Shifting Minds: A 21st Century Vision of Public Education for Canada.   The 7Cs proposed in 2013 provide a comprehensive foundation for the current world-view of global competencies highlighted by the symposium’s celebrated leaders. 2. 

C21 Canada’s 7Cs: 

  1. Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
  2. Critical Thinking – denotes visual, spatial, computational, and temporal
  3. Collaboration – beyond group work
  4. Communication – multi-media, muti-modal
  5. Character – Self-Regulation and Social Emotional Learning competencies
  6. Culture and Ethical Citizenship – Equity and Inclusion, Global perspectives
  7. Computer and Digital Technologies

C21 Canada’s 7Cs celebrate Canadian culture and learning priorities.  They far surpass a list of digital skills in complexity, inclusivity and empathy.  A developmental continuum of 7Cs serves as a yardstick for global competency at school, work or play. 
Leading System Culture – A Co-Requisite for Global Competency

Despite growing shared perspectives and inspiring innovations in learning and technology, leaders consistently lamented the need to overcome common obstacles  to progress created by system culture misalignment.  C21 Canada in its work with school district leaders embarking on 21st Century Learning and Innovation, uncovered 6 common system drivers required to align school and district culture to clear the way and enable grassroots progress in learning and innovation. 3. 

C21 Canada’s 6 System Drivers: 

Through professional network engagement, the CEO Academy determined a continuum of system criteria required to establish coherent innovative systems.  Key drivers include: Pedagogy, Assessment, Curriculum, Learning Environments, Governance and Stakeholder Engagement.

Shifting Minds: Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada 4. highlights the crucial role that leaders play in driving curiosity, change and innovation throughout school systems and schools.  A developmental continuum offers scaffolding for leaders to begin, engage and sustain evolving learning cultures. 

Spiral Playbook:  A New Metric for Connecting the Dots

The “shiny new tools” of the 21st Century, like 3D printers, coding, maker spaces, personalized learning, blended learning, BYOD, require vastly different learner/teacher inquiry and engagement.  The intentional use of research-based tools is required to generate critical feedback and accurate evidence of learning in continuous collaborative environments.   

The Spiral of Playbook: Leading Inquiring Mindsets for School Systems and Schools points the way forward with an evidence-based model of professional inquiry that transforms how educators learn and lead across school networks.  This dynamic and recursive model helps teachers and students to re-focus and re-structure their action to capture relevant evidence. A disciplined approach guides leaders to connect stakeholders horizontally and vertically across systems to converge a steady focus on student learning in a world of technological change.

FOOTNOTES:

  1. Partners included UNESCO, Partnership for 21st Century Learning , the Global Education Conference Network with perspectives shared by presenters from Singapore, Bangladesh, Qatar, Denmark, UK
  2. In 2012, C21 Canada conducted research to seek out definitions of 21st Century Learning competencies across three areas:
  3. an international scan of countries with national curriculum frameworks defining 21st Century Learning and Innovation,
  4. a national scan of Canadian curricula and their articulation of 21st Century Learning and Innovation
  • leading research on 21st Century Learning and Innovation.
  1. The CEO Academy is a professional inquiry network of CEOs/school superintendents that represents more than a million students in over 2000 schools in school districts across 10 provinces and the Northwest Territories. Leadership perspectives and needs of this network drive C21 Canada’s product development.   
  2. Shifting Minds: Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada, May 2015, www.C21Canada.org
  3. The Spiral Playbook Leading an Inquiring Mindset for School Systems and Schools, January 2017, www.C21Canada.org/Playbook

by

Featured C21 podcast with global education thought leader, futurist and inventor Charles Fadel on his new book Four-Dimensional Education

Charles Fadel is a global education thought leader and expert, futurist and inventor; founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign; visiting scholar at Harvard GSE; Chair of the education committee at BIAC/OECD; co-author of best-selling “21st Century Skills” and recently published “Four-Dimensional Education”; founder and president of the Fondation Helvetica Educatio (Geneva, Switzerland); senior fellow, human capital at The Conference Board; senior fellow at P21.org. He has worked with education systems and institutions in more than thirty countries. He was formerly Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems, visiting scholar at MIT ESG and UPenn CLO, and angel investor with Beacon Angels. He holds a BSEE, an MBA, and five patents.

Full Bio at: http://curriculumredesign.org/about/team/#charles

by

Denise Andre, Director of Education, Ottawa Catholic SB Joins C21 CEO Academy Board

The C21 Canada Secretariat is pleased to announce Denise Andre’s selection to the CEO Academy Board.

ocsb-denise-andre

Denise Andre is the Director of Education and Secretary Treasurer of the Ottawa Catholic School Board. She has been with the Ottawa Catholic School Board for over 35 years serving as a teacher, department head, vice-principal, principal, superintendent, and deputy (associate) director.Denise holds a Masters of Education and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ottawa and a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University. Denise spent her early days in Cornwall, and has been married for over 30 years.

by

What Comes First? Blog by Chris Kennedy Superintendent West Vancouver School District and C21 CEO Academy Member following recent C21 Academy board meetings at the University of Calgary

IMG_3759C21 CEO Academy Members gathered recently for meetings at the University of Calgary.

shift

 

Clearly you can’t change one part of the education system in isolation.  This is one of the great challenges we face in British Columbia – we have new curriculum, but does the assessment still match?  We have been given greater permission from the provincial government to think differently, but have we fully engaged our community in what the “different” would look like?

While it is true one cannot do everything at once, we all need entry points for transformation. First with school and district leaders in our district, and then with Superintendents from across Canada I have recently worked through trying to rank and prioritize these six system drivers:  Shifting Curriculum, Shifting Pedagogies, Shifting Learning Environments, Shifting Assessment, Shifting Governance, Shifting Citizen and Stakeholder Engagement. (click on the graphic below to enlarge)

www.c21canada.org wp content uploads 2015 05 C21 ShiftingMinds 3.pdf

The six items come from Shifting Minds 3.0 – Redefining the Learning Landscape in Canada. I have previously written (Here) about the power and importance of having a national conversation around transformation in education.

I realize it is a bit of a false discussion – you can’t do any of these separate from each other.  In part from being influenced by my local and national colleagues, if we started with one – I would start with pedagogies.

At its core, learning is about the relationship between the teacher and students.  We can have the best curriculum, policies or assessment, but first we need the practices.  As our pedagogies change, our assessment will follow.  And new pedagogies and new assessment will beg for new curriculum and these changes force both shifts in policy and engagement.  And finally our learning environments should reflect our practice so as the practices change the learning environments will follow.

What do you think – if you could start with only one – which one would you select?

Our group of Superintendents from across the country is committed to our own learning starting with shifting pedagogies – it will be interesting to see what we can learn from each others successes and challenges from across the country.

Profile

C21 Canada and its members provide collaborative vision and support to help Canadian education organizations enhance learning in the foundation areas of literacy, numeracy and science while infusing 21st Century skills (creative problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, personal development, global citizenship and digital competency) into content, and instructional and assessment practices.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Stay Connected