Robert Martellacci, Vice President of C21 Canada, interviews Ann Sherman, Dean of Education at University of New Brunswick.
Changing Perspectives
This guest post was written by William Kierstead. His career has spanned 27 years in public education in the province of New Brunswick. He has been a classroom teacher, a high school administrator, a District Supervisor and Learning Specialist, and the Director of the 21st Century Research Office for the New Brunswick Department of Education. Most recently he has rekindled an old flame as he assumed the role of Principal at James M. Hill Memorial High School in Miramichi, New Brunswick. Go Tommies! William is married with two daughters and lives in Rexton, New Brunswick.
In the past few years I have undergone several shifts in my career, each one moving me further from the classroom. Viewing education from a long lens gives a very different perspective on education and learning. From a thousand miles out, I was able to see the bright spots of innovation that were occurring all around me. All across the province teachers were engaging students in project based learning, technology rich curricula, truly authentic experiences and assessment strategies, stretch learning, community based projects and an appreciation for the world and our place in it.
From my vantage point, it was obvious that there were many teachers out there who were already engaging students in the kind of experiences that had come to be known as “21st Century.” The ripples created by these teachers were having a tangible impression on policy makers and stakeholders as the impact of global economies on our workforce and the reality of the technology age created a new set of expectations for public education. In many ways, I believed that the 21st Century movement was well in place before policy and official dogma caught up to it, that it already existed in pockets.
Our job as I saw it was to find those pockets of innovators, nurture them, and use them to create fertile ground for others to follow suit. However, I was also of the opinion that this shift in educational paradigms was going to happen regardless of our intervention. The train had left the station; the toothpaste was out of the tube. No matter how you looked at it, 21st Century learning was here to stay, driven by risk takers and innovative educators. The gaps in best practice would get smaller. Policy and conventional wisdom would always be in catch-up mode.
Recently I was afforded the opportunity to return to an administrative position at a high school and to work directly with teachers and students. I embraced this next phase of my career without hesitation. This move has ultimately given me a fresh perspective on the state of 21st Century Learning in Canada – “nose to nose” as opposed to “from a thousand feet out.” Because my previous view was so distant, I may have been premature in my assessment of the state of 21st Century learning in my province. At ground level, the view was somewhat different.
I have been in this role for a semester now and I see evidence of 21st Century educational practice literally everywhere I look in my school. The gaps that were obvious from orbit seem much smaller and less well defined on the ground. Indeed most 21st Century practice that I encounter on a daily basis is seamless and not necessarily overt. Educators aren’t nearly as preoccupied with the 21st Century Learning moniker as they are with creating world-class experiences for their students. Sure there are examples that stand out more than others. There are even examples of practice visible from space. I am convinced however that public education is much further down the road than previously believed. The ground is more fertile than ever before.
My view on policy hasn’t changed a great deal. Society no longer needs convincing that the purpose of education is changing rapidly. Likewise it needs no convincing that education itself must match pace with that change. Policy is not likely to get in front of the 21st Century movement. At best it will keep up. That isn’t to suggest that policy is a waste of time. In a perfect world, policy is needed urgently to encourage and reward innovation. It must cultivate those regions of excellence and create the expectation that the gaps in practice will be filled in to promote a seamless 21st Century landscape across education.
Economic and social factors in the world are conspiring to change the purpose and face of education at a pace that matches that of technological change. The role of C21 Canada, as I see it, is to provide an overarching vision and to exert pressure on the powers that oversee public education in Canada. In the absence of a national authority for education, C21 Canada is destined to provide insight, resources, research and a means for collaboration between educators from all corners of the country. C21 Canada stands poised to provide guidance to jurisdictions across this country so that the inertia remaining in the system can be overcome.
As an administrator and change agent I am excited to play a part in the upcoming symposium. The future demands that we define the next evolution of public education in Canada.
A Guide for Facilitating 21st Century Learning
Brock University professor and C21 Canada supporter Dr. Camille Rutherford contributes this guest post. Check out her blog for insights on leadership, teacher education and technology.
Students do not become 21st century learners on their own. They need learning opportunities that challenge them to utilize 21st century fluencies and integrate the five dimensions of 21st century learning. These dimensions include:
- Collaboration
- Knowledge-building
- The use of ICT for learning
- Self-regulation
- Real-world problem-solving and innovation
The following is a set of guidelines developed by the Innovative Teaching and Learning Research program to help educators understand how they can create learning opportunities that will facilitate the development of 21st century skills. In addition to a brief description of each of the five dimensions of 21st century learning, the guidelines include a scale/rubric which educators can use to determine the degree to which each dimension is present during a specific learning opportunity.
Similar to Bloom’s Taxonomy, educators should seek to create learning opportunities that challenge their students to demonstrate the highest level on each scale. While educators may strive towards the highest levels of each dimension, it is important to note that these scales/rubrics should be applied to a sequence of lessons or unit plan and not individual lessons. Even though an individual lesson could focus on a single dimension, it is not possible to achieve the highest level on all of the scales/rubric within a single classroom lesson.
For the full description of the Innovative Teaching and Learning Research: Learning Activity Rubrics and Sample Student Work Rubrics please visit: http://www.itlresearch.com/home.
Collaboration
To challenge students to the highest level of collaboration, students need to have shared responsibility for their work, and participate in learning activities that requires students to make substantive decisions together. These features help students learn the important collaboration skills of negotiation, agreement on what must be done, distribution of tasks, listening to the ideas of others, and integration of ideas into a coherent whole.
1 = Students are NOT required to work together in pairs or groups.
2 = Students DO work together: BUT they DO NOT have shared responsibility.
3 = Students DO have shared responsibility; BUT they ARE NOT required to make substantive decisions together.
4 = Students DO have shared responsibility AND they DO make substantive decisions together about the content, process, or product of their work.
Knowledge Building
Knowledge building happens when students do more than reproduce what
they have learned: they go beyond knowledge reproduction to generate ideas
and understandings that are new to them. Activities that require knowledge building ask students to interpret, analyse, synthesize, or evaluateinformation or ideas.
1 = The learning activity DOES NOT REQUIRE students to build knowledge.
Students can complete the activity by reproducing information or by
using familiar procedures.
2 = The learning activity DOES REQUIRE students to build knowledge by
interpreting, analysing, synthesizing, or evaluating information or
ideas; BUT the activity’s main requirement IS NOT knowledge building.
3 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS knowledge building; BUT the learning activity DOES NOT have learning goals in more than one subject.
4 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS knowledge building; AND the knowledge building IS interdisciplinary. The activity DOES have learning goals in more than one subject.
Use of ICT for Learning
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is becoming increasingly
common in the classroom, but ICT is often used to support practice on basic skills rather than to build knowledge. This dimension examines how students use ICT—whether or not the use of ICT helps students build knowledge, and whether or not students could build the same knowledge without using ICT.
1 = Students do not have the opportunity to use ICT for this learning activity.
2 = Students use ICT to learn or practice basic skills or reproduce information; BUT they are not building knowledge.
3 = Students use ICT to support knowledge building; BUT they could build the same knowledge without using ICT.
4 = Students use ICT to support knowledge building; AND the ICT is required for building this knowledge.
Self-Regulation
In 21st century workplaces, people are expected to work with minimal supervision, which requires them to plan their own work and monitor its quality. Learning activities that give students the opportunity to acquire self-regulation skills last for a week or more and require students to monitor their progress. Teachers can foster self-regulation skills by giving students working in groups responsibility for deciding who will do what and on what schedule.
1 = The learning activity can be completed in less than a week.
2 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more; BUT students ARE NOT given the assessment criteria before they submit their work and; DO NOT have the opportunity to plan their own work.
3 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more AND students ARE given the assessment criteria before they submit their work OR DO have the opportunity to plan their own work.
4 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more AND students ARE given the assessment criteria before they
submit their work AND DO have the opportunity to plan their own work.
Real Problem Solving and Innovation
In traditional schooling, students’ academic activities are often separate from what they see and do in the world outside school. True problem solving requires students to work on solving real problems, and challenges them to complete tasks for which they do NOT already know a response or solution. For the result of this problem solving to be considered innovative it must require students to implement their ideas, designs or solutions for audiences outside the classroom.
1 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS NOT problem-solving.
Students use a previously learned answer or procedure for most of
the work.
2 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving; BUT the problem IS NOT a real-world problem.
3 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving AND the problem IS a real-world problem; BUT students DO NOT innovate. They are NOT required to implement their ideas in the real world.
4 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving AND the problem IS a real-world problem AND students DO innovate. They ARE required to implement their ideas in the real world.
Here are some learning activities to review and determine where they would rank on the five dimensions:
Consider ways to revise these learning activities so that students would be challenged to demonstrate the highest level of each dimension.
